TorrentFreak Email Update |
| New and Old RIAA CEOs Agree: “We’re Beating Piracy” Posted: 12 Aug 2011 01:22 AM PDT
“It’s a bittersweet moment for me. On the one hand, I’m thrilled about my new gig. I’ll be running the leading trade group for the automobile manufacturing industry. Like music, cars are pretty cool. I also truly believe that this sector, like music yet for different reasons, is central to our economy and way of life. “And I’m ready for a new adventure. A leadership challenge in such a significant industry was too compelling to resist.” As former politician Bainwol heads off to become CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers on September 1st, the same day will see him replaced at the RIAA by lawyer and current president of ten years standing, Cary Sherman. Separately, both say that 2011 will go down as an important year for the RIAA, a turning point in their decade-long fight against online piracy. “LimeWire is shut down and while some users are migrating to Frostwire and other illegal options, more are not,” continued Bainwol, a sentiment echoed and actually enhanced by Sherman in an interview with Am Law Daily. “We actually feel the shutdown of LimeWire has made a difference in the health of our marketplace. It’s really quite amazing,” said Sherman. “The shutdown of LimeWire occurred in October 2010 and digital sales improved for the first time in a very long time in November. And since then, we’ve had better digital sales over the prior year consistently.” Sherman says that while other possible explanations have been explored for this increase, he believes that most people are acknowledging that LimeWire’s closure made a bigger difference than anticipated. “More people than we expected, once they felt that LimeWire wasn’t going to serve their needs, went to the legitimate marketplace than to another illegal source,” Sherman added. In his farewell letter, Bainwol quoted some of the RIAA’s stats. “The number of Americans engaged in illegal music consumption fell from roughly 30 million in May of 2010 to about 24 million in May of this year, a noteworthy 20% reduction,” he said. ” The battle isn’t over, but finally, we have momentum and we are winning.” Even sales of digital albums are doing well – up by almost 20% – while the fall in physical sales is not as bad as expected at just 5%. “Net net, finally, we’re up 4%,” says Bainwol. Unsurprisingly, both Sherman and Bainwol believe that last month’s “Copyright Alerts” agreement with the United States’ leading ISPs will prove to be a turning point. “We have made profound progress, as a community, in the fight to make the Internet a place of order rather than chaos, where legitimate players work together to encourage legal activity and suppress illegal activity. The recent deal with the ISPs, negotiated so ably by Cary, Steve and Vicky, is perhaps the most vivid example,” says Bainwol. Sherman believes that cooperation between the content industries and ISPs, and the relationships between ISPs and their subscribers are built on economics. Hardcore pirates, he implies, represent the 5% of ISP subscribers eating up much of the available bandwidth and therefore potentially reducing the legitimate Internet experiences of the majority. ISPs, he says, will have to continue with massive infrastructure investment to support enormous growth in legitimate online streaming. That will only be hampered by additional illicit content uptake. “Do they really want huge amounts of illegal activity on top of that? They have an interest in making sure that the growth of the Internet is based on legitimate commerce,” says Sherman. Interestingly, while acknowledging that a hardcore will got to “amazing lengths” to get free music, Sherman belives that the majority of file-sharers are casual, and all they need is a gentle reminder that their behavior is not anonymous (read: a warning letter from their ISP) and they will begin to turn to legitimate sources. Going forward, both outgoing and incoming CEO’s praise the anti-piracy partnerships the RIAA is forging with payment processors such as PayPal and Mastercard. Sherman also hints at their future legal strategy. “We choose our litigation strategies very carefully to try and make the most of our budget,” he explains. “We basically look to where the law needs clarification, so that the rules of the road online are clear and protect creators.” One area that has never been tested in a US court is the legality of torrent sites, which may be why that with the LimeWire case out-of-the-way the RIAA has filed lawsuits to discover the identities of the individuals behind Bitsnoop.com, Limetorrents.com and Monova.org. So, as Bainwol leaves with Grokster, KaZaa and Limewire’s deaths under his belt, Sherman steps into his shoes. Already the similarities in their approaches and reasoning are marked. Meet the new boss….. Source: New and Old RIAA CEOs Agree: “We’re Beating Piracy”  |
| U.S. Anti-Piracy Police Kept Secret From The Public Posted: 11 Aug 2011 12:59 PM PDT
All parties agreed to warn copyright infringers that their behavior is unacceptable. After six warnings the ISP may then take a variety of repressive measures, which include slowing down the offender’s connection. The new system is a formalized version of the existing takedown system already operated by copyright holders, and was announced under the name ‘Copyright Alerts‘. When the agreement was made public in July, two questions immediately came to mind. The first one concerns where data on alleged infringers will be collected, by whom and how long it will be stored. Secondly, which company will be tasked with ‘spying’ on millions of BitTorrent users. During the last month TorrentFreak tried to get answers on these vital questions, but to our surprise it was impossible to get a response through the official channels. On multiple occasions we contacted the RIAA, A2IM, the Center for Copyright Information, the PR firm of Center for Copyright Information and participating ISPs, but none of these entities were willing to provide more information on the record. Only when we contacted people off the record we were able to find out more. Independently of each other, two sources involved in copyright enforcement informed us that DtecNet is the company that will be tracking unauthorized file-sharing under the new copyright alert system. So who are DtectNet and why is their alleged appointment being kept from the public? Looking at the history of DtecNet we find that the company originally stems from the anti-piracy lobby group Antipiratgruppen, which represents the music and movie industry in Denmark. And there are more direct ties to the entertainment industry. Kristian Lakkegaard, one of DtecNet's employees, used to work for the RIAA's global partner IFPI. Last year the Danish company was acquired by the US brand protection firm MarkMonitor, but continues to operate under its own name. As an established anti-piracy company, DtecNet already works closely with the RIAA and MPAA. In addition, they are responsible for collecting data on copyright infringers as part of the Irish three-strikes program. Although little is known about the accuracy of DtecNet’s tracking software, TorrentFreak has previously pointed out that the company knows very little about how BitTorrent works. A whitepaper published by DtecNet claimed that BitTorrent traffic had plummeted and was littered with painful errors and false assumptions. The report in question has since been retracted (copy here), indicating that in hindsight DtecNet wasn’t very happy with it either. DtecNet’s parent company MarkMonitor also made the headlines with a report that branded the file-hosting site RapidShare as the leading digital piracy site. RapidShare, a company that has gone to extreme lengths both in and outside of court to emphasize its legitimacy, was outraged and threatened to sue MarkMonitor for defamation. MarkMonitor at the time told TorrentFreak that their research was completely independent, but with revenues coming from both the RIAA and MPAA their objectivity has to be in doubt. So now we know that DtecNet will likely be the monitoring company used for the copyright alerts program, one of our questions has been answered. However, we still don’t know what will happen to the information DtecNet collects and where this will be stored. For the sake of transparency, we hope that the Center for Copyright Information will be more open about this in the future. In a final attempt to get DtecNet’s appointment officially confirmed TorrentFreak contacted Te Smith, Vice President of Communications at MarkMonitor, who would not confirm or deny our findings. “As a company, our policy is never to comment on whether someone (or some company, organization or group) is or isn't a client,” Te informed us. But with two sources pointing at DtecNet we are confident that they will be tracking U.S. file-sharers under the copyright alert program. Nevertheless, this secrecy does raise new questions that are perhaps just as interesting as the others we’ve asked previously. Why would DtecNet’s involvement be kept a secret from the public? Why isn’t there more openness about how the personal information of millions of alleged file-sharers is to be handled? What do the groups behind these copyright alerts have to hide? Source: U.S. Anti-Piracy Police Kept Secret From The Public  |
“It’s my time to say so long. I will miss you guys,” 
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