TorrentFreak Email Update |
- CRIA Watches Massive Music Piracy Crisis Devastate Unknown Band
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
- Saudi Airlines Shows Pirated Film to Passengers
- US Government’s ‘Pirate’ Domain Seizures Failed Miserably
| CRIA Watches Massive Music Piracy Crisis Devastate Unknown Band Posted: 04 Apr 2011 04:10 AM PDT
“There’s a Rock Band called One Soul Thrust. They have a debut album, which I like (bought it off iTunes). However the first I heard of the band was when there were complaints that the band had gone Platinum – because of illegal Torrent downloads!” Borean explained. Indeed, according to a press release from the band’s manager, Cameron Tilbury, the situation is very serious. “The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) states that, to achieve Platinum status, an album must achieve sales of 100,000 copies/downloads of an album. Sales…that's the key. A random polling of several torrent site's downloads—ILLEGAL downloads—has shown that 1ST, the debut cd by ONE SOUL THRUST has been downloaded over 100,000 times,” he wrote. Now, 100,000 downloads is a lot, especially for a band like One Soul Thrust who have just 176 Twitter followers and a single short, non-musical video on their YouTube channel which at the time of writing has 79 views. Incidentally, the video is quite nice, since they have actually taken the time out to thank a radio station for playing one of their songs. However, the band are less pleased that people are apparently sampling their music using newer methods, i.e BitTorrent. “We paid to create that album totally out of our own pockets. People think of illegal downloading not hurting anyone, but we're real people too- with real mortgages, real family to feed and real bills to pay,” said lead-vocalist Salem Jones. “By downloading our album from pirate sites, people have stolen from us, our families, everyone involved in the production of our album, and their families." At this point, since we couldn’t find any torrents on any site (Borean tried everywhere too), we have to admit we were beginning to wonder if this 100K download claim was some kind of publicity stunt. Furthermore, since Wayne Borean and Tilbury were starting to publicly tear each other apart (and getting pretty personal at times) it seemed sensible to get to the bottom of this, particularly since the band’s manager claimed that the all-powerful CRIA is supporting the band’s stance. Our initial discussions didn’t go particularly well. Despite explaining that we are a news site and what we were trying to find out, Cameron Tilbury initially refused to speak us. Instead he responded with a post on his site: “We have been accused of lying and we have been abused for our position. We have also had requests for our evidence from torrent sites which actually support illegal downloading–and even more offensively, publish charts of the top illegally downloaded music, movies, etc [That's us, TorrentFreak, apparently]. We will not comply with people who’s only agenda is to support piracy. We feel that there is no way to win an argument with those people.” Despite this hostility we pressed on, determined to get to the bottom of the story so we can report, since that’s what we do. In the end Tilbury provided the ‘evidence’ of the illegal downloading via some screenshots, one of which is shown below.  As many readers will now be aware, there is a huge problem. These results are completely fake and are generated from user input to draw traffic to site advertisers. You can type anything in the search boxes on some of these torrent sites (these apparently came from LimeTorrents) and anyone can appear to be pirated into oblivion, as the screenshot below shows.  We wrote back to Tilbury and explained our findings. We also asked him to comment on how he feels now that he realizes that people aren’t downloading the band’s music at all. He hasn’t responded to that question which is a real shame, because personally I think this is the most important part of the whole story. I’m absolutely confident that there was no attempt to mislead with the band’s ‘piracy problem’ press release and that the band and their manager sincerely believed that 100K people had downloaded their album without paying for it. However, it would be intriguing to know what happened, when emotions of supposedly being ripped off by 100,000 pirates were replaced by other, perhaps more confused feelings. In response to the initial crisis, lead-vocalist Salem Jones had said that while the piracy was unacceptable, the band were “flattered that people could love our music that much.” Does it now follow that band aren’t flattered? Dare I venture that they’re now quietly disappointed? Would it be better for 100K new fans to have sampled their music after all, rather than continuing with the relative obscurity they currently enjoy? I’m going to end this piece with an unusual request because, to be brutally honest, I feel sorry for this band. All good musicians want to be heard and One Soul Thrust have just ‘lost’ 100K fans overnight. From what i’ve seen they seem really nice guys (and girl) and are completely innocent in all of this and although their music isn’t my scene, it sounds fairly decent to me. At the time of writing they only have 176 Twitter followers, 324 on Facebook and their solitary video on YouTube has 79 views. Please give the CRIA and the Balanced Copyright For Canada Facebook page something interesting to talk about by adding, following, Tweeting and re-Tweeting the band right now. Get creative and feel free to post any links where you mention them on other sites (Reddit etc) in the comments. A ten-fold increase in a day or two shouldn’t be too hard. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent Posted: 04 Apr 2011 12:52 AM PDT
The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
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| Saudi Airlines Shows Pirated Film to Passengers Posted: 03 Apr 2011 02:08 PM PDT Piracy is the root of all evil, but every now and then it can be surprisingly convenient. Just ask Ubisoft, who are selling a pirate-sourced soundtrack of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood to their customers. Or Belarus' National State Television, who aired a pirated copy of The Hurt Locker on Oscar night. In both cases the parties involved had secured the rights to use the material, but out of convenience they chose to use the services of ‘pirates’ instead. However, there are also plenty of cases where pirated copies are used without permission. To sell iMacs or Macbooks for instance. Another example of these alternative uses of pirated media was spotted by a passenger of Saudi Airlines this week. The picture posted below this article was taken on a flight between Dubai and Riyadh last Monday by Twitter user @Alwagait. At first everything seems normal, but those who look closely will notice something interesting. On the film’s cover we can read the following text – “Killers 2010 BDRiP AC3 XViD-ILOVE” – which is a direct reference to a pirated copy of the film that can be found on numerous torrent sites. It is unclear whether any of the other films on board were also being provided from pirated sources. Although there is little doubt that we’re dealing with a pirated copy of Killers, this doesn’t mean that Saudi Airlines doesn’t have a license to show the film. Sometimes it’s just more convenient to deal with non-DRMed files than the copies that are provided through official channels. To quote Saudi Airlines’ company slogan: It’s the new era. Saudi Airlines’ Pirated Killers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| US Government’s ‘Pirate’ Domain Seizures Failed Miserably Posted: 03 Apr 2011 09:49 AM PDT
Under the flag of “Operation In Our Sites” the authorities shut down a dozen file-sharing and streaming sites, as well as close to 80 sites selling counterfeit goods. After two months of silence on the domain seizure front, the MPAA has now applauded the US authorities for their “successful” enforcement efforts. "Operation In Our Sites has not only put illegal sites out of business, but has raised public awareness about this specific form of crime on the Internet. Most importantly, these enforcement efforts have resulted in most of these entities ceasing their illegal activity," wrote the MPAA two days ago in a letter to the US Government. In more ways than one, the above statement from the movie studios is a gross twist of reality. For one, the public awareness that was raised mostly concerned the realization that the Government was willing to sacrifice a lot, including first amendment rights, to protect the interests of the entertainment industries. The seizures resulted in heavy critique from journalists, legal experts, senators and most prominently, the public. It is of course hardly a surprise that the MPAA is misrepresenting the truth in their favor, but adding that the domain seizures “resulted in most of these entities ceasing their illegal activity” goes too far. Let’s take a look at what really happened to the allegedly infringing file-sharing and streaming sites that had their domains seized, starting in reverse chronological order. It wasn’t hard for the affected sites to continue their operations. Since their servers had not been touched physically it was a simple matter to change a few settings to make the sites available to the public again under a new domain, something achieved in a few minutes. This is exactly what most of the streaming and file-sharing related sites have done. During the latest round of seizures under the “Operation In Our Sites” flag in February, a total of 10 domain names were targeted, belonging to 6 different sports streaming services. Despite the thousands of dollars in tax payer money that were spend on the enforcement effort, all of the sites were back up in no time under new domains. As of today, only one of the six is no longer accessible and that is the site of Bryan McCarthy, who was arrested by the feds last month. McCarthy initially continued his Channelsurfing.net website under a new domain at Channelsurf.eu. The day after his arrest this site was still up and running and it is believed that due to the circumstances he took it offline himself after he was bailed out. So, although all the sites noticed an initial dip in traffic due to the seizures, the actions of the US Government did little to actually stop the streaming services from operating. This was no different to the situation November last year when 82 domain names were seized. Although most of the targets were sites selling counterfeit goods, 4 file-sharing related domains were also seized, including Torrent-Finder.com. As mentioned previously, the operator of Torrent-Finder immediately announced he would fight the seizure in court and continued operating under the Torrent-Finder.info domain. Of the three other ‘piracy’ related sites that were seized, two – OnSmash and Rapgodfathers – came back on another domain, carrying on where they left off. Again, the seizures appear to have had little effect. If we look back at the first round of “Operation In Our Sites” seizures in June last year, a similar pattern emerges. Of the 8 movie streaming services that were targeted at least 3 have continued, and it wouldn’t be a big surprise if the smaller sites that didn’t return immediately started over under a new name. The above clearly illustrates that a domain seizure is not the ultimate anti-piracy tool the authorities and the MPAA claim it is. Most of the piracy related sites simply continued under new domains, undeterred. This raises the question whether the costs involved warrant the mediocre outcome. Aside from the tens of thousands of dollars in tax money being spent on the enforcement actions, the unconstitutionality of the seizures are also a cost that has to be factored in. And with the seizures failing to achieve the desired outcome, one has to question whether it’s all worth it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Late last week, TorrentFreak was contacted by a guy called Wayne Borean who alerted to us to a somewhat heated debate he’d been participating in on the ‘Balanced Copyright For Canada’ Facebook page.
This week there are two newcomers. Season of the Witch is the most downloaded movie of the week.
Over the past several months a series of domain name seizures by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made headlines across the Internet. | You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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