TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Hollywood Force ISP To Use Child Abuse Filter Against File-Sharing Site
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
- Google Boots Transdroid Torrent Manager From Android Market
| Hollywood Force ISP To Use Child Abuse Filter Against File-Sharing Site Posted: 27 Jun 2011 03:40 AM PDT
The celebrations following the site’s demise were to be short-lived. Newzbin was quickly resurrected under new management as Newzbin2, and the MPA faced the prospect of taking on new legal action against the site’s new owners. Rather than tackle Newzbin2 head on, Hollywood tried a different approach. During September 2010, TorrentFreak learned that the MPA were developing plans to take leading UK ISP BT to court and by December we had solid proof that was indeed the case. The MPA went to court seeking an injunction against BT in order to force them to block Newzbin2. "In launching this case, the MPA is aiming to secure an order that will enable BT to block Internet access to the site, thus preventing the site from using the Internet to make money through infringement," the MPA informed us in a statement. This week the MPA are back at the High Court again, hoping it can get an injunction to force BT to block the site for its 5.6 million subscribers. According to an MPA spokesperson, BT was selected for two reasons. "BT was chosen because it's the largest [ISP] and already has the technology in place, through its Cleanfeed system, to block the site," she said. Developed by BT at an estimated cost of £500,000, Cleanfeed is a content blocking system that has been operational since 2004. In conjunction with information supplied by the Internet Watch Foundation, it is used by BT to block child pornography sites. Traffic destined for a blacklisted URL or IP address is intercepted by Cleanfeed. At this point BT impersonates the destination web server and returns an HTTP 404 status code, causing a subscriber’s web browser to show a site “not found” message. It is unclear how much development work has been done on the system since its inception, but early versions of Cleanfeed had a number of limitations. The product only worked on the standard port for regular browsing, port 80. It was also unable to block encrypted or proxied web traffic, unless the proxy itself was on the blacklist. Interestingly, according to comments made in 2004 by Mike Galvin, then Director of Internet Services for BT Retail, the company already had concerns that outsiders would attempt to widen the purpose of Cleanfeed. Another ISP, Wanadoo, was apparently approached by the BPI to use a system similar to Cleanfeed to block music piracy. In response, Galvin said that if the pressure to “extend the scope” of Cleanfeed became too great, BT would cancel the project. BT has made no recent public comment to that effect in connection with this current action by the MPA. “The MPA application to engage in censorship of the Internet for their own petty interests would, if granted, set a dangerous precedent in a Western democracy,” Newzbin told TorrentFreak in an earlier statement. “'Drive-by' litigation such as this will cut off access to substantial legitimate content and is entirely unwarranted & disproportionate." Newzbin have already taken steps to mitigate any site blocking measures by using the TOR anonymity system. "The MPA's lame attempt at censoring us in the UK won't be permitted to cut Brits off from us if it happens," concludes Newzbin’s Mr White. Source: Hollywood Force ISP To Use Child Abuse Filter Against File-Sharing Site | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent Posted: 27 Jun 2011 01:13 AM PDT
Sucker Punch is the most downloaded movie of the week for the second week in a row. 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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| Google Boots Transdroid Torrent Manager From Android Market Posted: 26 Jun 2011 01:29 PM PDT For many Android users Transdroid is the perfect remote access app for managing their BitTorrent clients on the go. The app allows users to start and stop torrents, search torrent files and even use the barcode scanner to find matching torrent files. Transdroid offered both a free and a paid version of the app, and judging from the 400,000 downloads people seemed to appreciate it. However, as of this week, Google decided that Transdroid is no longer eligible to be placed in the Android Market. “I have just received an e-mail from Google that Transdroid, both the free and donate version, have been pulled form the Android Market. This is due to apparent violations in the content policies of publishing in the Android Market,” Transdroid’s developer announced.
According to the developer content policy apps should not be infringing copyrights in any way. “Don't infringe on the intellectual property rights of others, including patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, and other proprietary rights. We will respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement,” the policy reads. Although Transdroid itself isn’t infringing any copyrights, the screenshots on the app’s website do feature some copyrighted downloads which Google may see as a violation of the Android developer policy. As we highlighted previously, this is not a particularly wise thing to do. Unlike Apple, Google is not banning everything BitTorrent related, but if developers showcase infringing uses they may see no other option that to take the app down. Even Cydia, the alternative market place for iPhone apps, is taking a harsh line on file-sharing software that ‘promote’ infringing uses. For Transdroid, however, things aren’t completely over yet. The developer has asked Google to explain what he should change so the site can be added to the Android Market again. In the meantime the app and the source code are available as a direct download through the Transdroid website. “Thanks to all Transdroid users for their support and enthusiasm. Let me be clear that I am happy to build a version for the Android Market that does satisfy their policies and can still help thousands of happy BitTorrent users around the world,” Transdroid’s developer says. Source: Google Boots Transdroid Torrent Manager From Android Market | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In March 2010, the MPA won a significant legal battle against Usenet indexing site Newzbin and in May the site collapsed under a mountain of debt.
This week there are two newcomers in our chart. 
Google’s notification wasn’t very clear on what the violations were, but considering the nature of the app it wouldn’t come as a surprise if they relate to copyright infringement. | 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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