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| Pirate Party Launches Movie Download Sites As “Declaration of War” Posted: 29 Jul 2011 03:03 AM PDT In a deliberately provocative move the Czech Pirate Party has launched not one but two movie download portals. The sites, which offer links but don’t host any infringing material themselves, are being launched to protest the plight of a high school student facing a 5 million euro damages claim for linking to copyright works.
The 16-year-old from Liberec was accused by the Czech Anti-Piracy Union of posting links to infringing material on his website, acts which the Union claim have caused damages of more than 5 million euros. “By bullying young people, the Czech Anti-Piracy Union, with the help of the state, is attempting in vain to salvage the old business model which has ceased to function in the age of the Internet,” say the Czech Pirate Party. Although the party believes that under Czech law the acts of the teenager do not constitute an offense, the issue is yet to be tested properly in court. So, in true pirate style, the party has embarked upon a huge provocation to draw attention to both the teenager’s plight and the legal situation. Under the slogan “linking is not a crime” the Czech Pirate Party and project coordinator Zdenek Slezak have launched movie download site Tipnafilm.cz. The site has an attractive layout with movie covers, links to reviews on sites such as iMDb and embedded trailers. It also provides – crucially – links to where the movies can be downloaded, all sorted by quality and download portal.  The project, which is strictly non-commercial, is the second such venture by the Czech Pirates. Earlier this month they launched Piratskefilmy.cz, a site which carries 20,000 links to more than 5,800 movies. According to the party’s Vice-President Mikuláš Ferjencik, both acts are deliberately provocative. “Yes, we unequivocally declare open war on the Anti-Piracy Union. Bullying ordinary people from their side must stop. The Czech Anti-Piracy Union claimed a huge success when it caught the ‘greatest pirate in the country’. But that is absurd, in fact he was just a small fish. “For this student we have built and launched a similar site. The difference is that there are ten times more links on our site,” Ferjencik told TorrentFreak this morning. “We denounce that the police should be run by the propaganda of the Anti-Piracy Union and that it should harass anybody who puts a video on his/her web page or Facebook page,” said chairman of the Czech Pirates Ivan Bartoš. “We challenge the Anti-Piracy Union to stop bullying the under-aged and to aim its preposterous claims at the Pirate Party.” Mikuláš Ferjencik told us that he finds it interesting that thus far the Czech Anti-Piracy Union have not yet made a formal statement about the launch of either site, noting only that they “do not want to reveal [their] strategy going forward.” Source: Pirate Party Launches Movie Download Sites As “Declaration of War” |
| Fox Will Boost U.S. TV-Show Piracy Posted: 28 Jul 2011 01:51 PM PDT Starting in two weeks, Fox will no longer offer free access to its TV-shows the day after they air on television. For TV-fans the decision to limit the availability of these show is a step backward, and all the signs indicate that TV-show piracy will once again surge in the United States. But whether Fox will care much about this piracy increase remains to be seen.
Having a free, legal and on-demand option to catch up with missed TV-shows suddenly made BitTorrent a less urgent need. But in the years that followed Hulu and other TV-streaming sites didn’t turn out to be the holy grail for everyone. Although many consumers were delighted with the services, the TV bosses noticed that online ad revenue couldn’t compete with that of traditional TV. This is one of the main reasons why Fox will stop broadcasting its shows on Hulu and Fox.com the day after they air on TV. Starting August 15, the public will have to wait at least 8 days before Fox content will be streamed online, a delay that may motivate many people to once again turn to BitTorrent. When Hulu first launched, TorrentFreak researched whether it had any effect on the number of people from the U.S. who were downloading TV-shows. Our findings suggested that this could be indeed the case. Between October 2007 and October 2008 nearly all the shows we tracked saw a decrease in U.S. downloaders. One of the most pronounced decreases came from the Fox show Prison Break, where the percentage of U.S. downloaders went down 36%. The decrease was the sharpest in the first week, where the number of U.S. downloads of a single episode dropped by tens of thousands. Based on the above, it’s a safe guess to say that Fox’s decision to add a delay to the online broadcast will now cause a healthy bump in the number of U.S. downloads. But this is not a big surprise for Fox, it is a calculated business decision where piracy is merely seen as collateral damage. Although some people may turn to BitTorrent, Fox hopes that there will also be more TV-viewers because of this new delay. And since TV-advertising is much more lucrative than online ads, they may end up making more money because of it, at least in the short run. In the end, making money is much more important than pleasing consumers or decreasing piracy. |
When Hulu first launched in 2008 there was an immediate effect on the piracy rates in the United States. | 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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