TorrentFreak Email Update |
- UN: Disconnecting File-Sharers Breaches Human Rights
- BitComet Adds Support for “Anonymous” Downloads
- ‘Torrent’ Becomes A Dirty Word As Site Admin Fined $29,000
| UN: Disconnecting File-Sharers Breaches Human Rights Posted: 03 Jun 2011 04:02 AM PDT According to a UN report published in May and set to be adopted today, tough provisions in the UK’s Digital Economy Act and and France’s ‘Hadopi’ legislation breach human rights. The Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression details concern for measures being put in place by various governments to punish online copyright infringement. In many cases those measures include the draconian step of denying citizens’ Internet access. “While blocking and filtering measures deny users access to specific content on the Internet, States have also taken measures to cut off access to the Internet entirely,” says the report. “The Special Rapporteur considers cutting off users from Internet access, regardless of The report highlights the legislation adopted by France and the UK, noting that the author of the report, Frank La Rue, is “alarmed” by proposals to severely punish Internet users if they violate intellectual property rights. “This also includes legislation based on the concept of ‘graduated response’, which imposes a series of penalties on copyright infringers that could lead to suspension of Internet service, such as the so-called "three-strikes-law" in France and the Digital Economy Act 2010 of the United Kingdom,” notes the report. In addition to calling on governments to maintain Internet access “during times of political unrest,” the report goes on to urge States to change copyright laws, not in favor of the music and movie industries as has been the recent trend, but in keeping with citizens’ rights. “In particular, the Special Rapporteur urges States to repeal or amend existing intellectual copyright laws which permit users to be disconnected from Internet access, and to refrain from adopting such laws,” the report adds. Whether or not the report will carry any influence with these so-far stubborn governments remains to be seen, but the Open Rights Group are keeping up the pressure on UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. ORG have written to Hunt asking for his reaction to the Special Rapporteur's report and his recommendation that the Digital Economy Act’s disconnection provisions should be repealed. Source: UN: Disconnecting File-Sharers Breaches Human Rights |
| BitComet Adds Support for “Anonymous” Downloads Posted: 02 Jun 2011 02:01 PM PDT
In April of this year BitComet was the first of all major BitTorrent clients to offer a stable 64-bit version. The 64-bit version allows for larger disk caches, something that may benefit heavy-duty downloaders. A few months before that, BitComet introduced another noteworthy feature called VIP-downloading, which enables users to download torrents that are accelerated by BitComet's servers. The service is basically a private connection to a high-speed seedbox which accelerates the downloading process of healthy swarms. Today, this VIP service is expanded with the option to download all torrents anonymously. Instead of only accelerating regular BitTorrent transfers through Bitcomet’s servers, the “anonymous” downloads will be handled by BitComet’s VIP servers exclusively, hiding the IP-address of the user. “If VIP members enable anonymous downloads our remote servers will initiate all peer and tracker communications and download the data on behalf of the VIP member, so the member’s actual IP address isn’t shared with any of the peers or trackers,” BitComet’s spokesperson told TorrentFreak “Our VIP servers are state of the art commercial servers on some of the worlds fastest connections. There are no imposed speed limits, the only account restrictions are on a flat-rate basis,” TorrentFreak was told. BitComet AnonThe catch, and yes there’s always one with anonymous downloading, is that the service comes at a cost. Aside from the free trial, BitComet offers plans with 10GB and 100GB limits for $4.99 and $19.99 respectively. Depending on one’s download behavior this could be a good deal, but heavy downloaders who are only interested in anonymity (and not acceleration) may be better off with an unlimited BitTorrent proxy or a VPN account. Starting today, anonymous downloads are supported by the latest Beta versions of BitComet. Thus far there’s plenty of interest for the VIP service. In fact, huge demand for the VIP free-trial accounts initially crippled BitComet’s servers which forced the developers to temporarily limit the offer to long-time BitComet users. We assume that the demand will only increase with the added anonymity feature. If no significant issues arise in the coming weeks, anonymous downloads will be added to the upcoming 1.28 release of BitComet. |
| ‘Torrent’ Becomes A Dirty Word As Site Admin Fined $29,000 Posted: 02 Jun 2011 06:38 AM PDT Following a complaint by the French rightsholder group SACEM, in June 2008 police arrested Blackistef, the administrator of two BitTorrent related sites; Torrentnews.net, a links forum and Torrent-public-center.com, a meta-search engine. “I spent a day like a thief, locked in their cells filled with shit and even showered on the walls,” said Blackistef at the time. “A hole in the ground for a toilet (which you can not flush) and a single concrete bench.” “There was an indescribable smell; the guys wrote their name on the walls with shit mixed with the remains of prison food. Even the SPCA [Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] cages are cleaner and more humane!” he continued. A year later in June 2009, Blackistef lost his case and was ordered by a court to pay SACEM 17,000 euros ($24,500) in damages plus costs. In addition Blackistef was given a four month suspended jail sentence. He immediately appealed the decision. The Court of Appeal heard the case last month and upheld the decision of the original court, handing down the jail sentence plus damages and costs totalling some 20,000 euros ($29,000). The Court rejected Blackistef’s defense that as a service provider or intermediary he should not be held responsible for material posted by users provided he complied with takedown requests. Instead the court took into account their belief that Blackistef had “knowledge of wrongful acts.” Blackistef has since listed a number of important points from the trial, notably that claims from SACEM that he was making money from advertising on the site were incorrect. The banner ads complained about by SACEM were actually member signatures and the site had no advertising income at all. But perhaps more worrying are the revelations from court papers just obtained by French news outlet Numerama. “The decision gives the impression of having been guided more by the desire to punish a state of mind, rather than by the strict application of the law or a rigorous analysis of the allegations,” editor Guillaume Champeau explains. The papers include a statement from the Court which declares that “..the names of these sites [when they include the word 'torrent'] encourage illegal activity. Torrent sites are accessed by users of the BitTorrent protocol which has a main, if not unique purpose, of enabling downloading of copyright protected works.” In a nutshell, having the word “torrent” in a domain name can be reason enough to presume bad intentions. In respect of meta-search engine Torrent-public-center.com, the Court said that since it searched other sites such as Mininova, The Pirate Bay and isoHunt, this search engine was one dedicated to “unlawful downloading”. Furthermore, Champeau notes that the Court was unable to establish from the evidence provided by SACEM that any unlawful downloads had occurred as a result of the sites’ existence. Instead the Court decided to be rather more general in stating that Blackistef “created Internet sites contributing to the underground economy” and his actions “contributed to the destabilization of the economy of artistic creation” and must therefore be punished. “The court clearly sided with SACEM with this ruling, ignoring all the defendant arguments,” Champeau told TorrentFreak. “It either did not fully understand the facts and misinterpreted the law that should have applied at least for the search engine part, or the court did it on purpose because it wanted the man sentenced so that it wouldn’t create a void other sites could enter into.” Nevertheless, Blackistef says he has no money left to continue fighting SACEM and has now accepted his fate. “The term ‘justice is for the rich’ is unfortunately not a myth,” he concludes. Source: ‘Torrent’ Becomes A Dirty Word As Site Admin Fined $29,000 |
Settled in China, the BitComet team has been steadily improving their BitTorrent client over the past several years. This work has resulted in some notable achievements in recent months.
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