TorrentFreak Email Update |
| RIAA Promotes Illegal P2P Services, Expert Claims Posted: 09 Apr 2011 12:59 PM PDT
At TorrentFreak we have a policy of doing proper fact checking on everything we write, but occasionally we make a mistake. When this happens, we’re more than happy to make a correction, and today is one of those days. Regular TorrentFreak readers may remember the article on Moses Avalon, the well-respected music industry expert who predicted that TorrentFreak would have to shut down because of new legislation being mulled by the US Government. Although the proposed legislation is related to the streaming of copyrighted material, Avalon somehow believes that news sites like Wired, Slashdot and TorrentFreak would also be rendered illegal. At the time we wrote a rebuttal, claiming that Avalon’s musings were absurd, but the man himself disagreed. Moses, who claims to have worked with Bob Dylan, Madonna and Britney Spears, whose blog has 100,000 readers, and who makes regular TV appearances, stood behind his prediction. Aside from news sites, one of the ‘illegal’ services listed by Avalon was Grooveshark, the music streaming service that has a licensing deal with EMI among others. We assumed that this, and the fact that it has operated as a US company for years without being sued into oblivion, would not make it a prime target. This week, however, Google booted the Grooveshark app from the Android market over licensing concerns, following in the steps of Apple who made the same decision a few months ago. Avalon went bananas upon hearing the news and told his readership how wrong we were with his rant titled “TorrentFreak Face the Music: Grooveshark is Doomed.” Although the Grooveshark issue has nothing to do with the legislation Avalon referred to in the first instance, we are of course more than happy to admit that Grooveshark is indeed not “fully licensed” as we initially wrote. In fact, from now on we will become true followers of Moses’ gospel, even though that necessarily means the end of our existence. Like Mr. Avalon we now believe that everything that remotely relates to P2P, licensed or not, is doomed. This means that apart from TorrentFreak, Wired and Slashdot, the music subscription services iMesh and Bearshare will also, as predicted by Avalon, be shutdown in the near future. To some the inclusion of iMesh and Bearshare on Avalon’s list might seem odd because the two services are promoted by the RIAA, but considering their P2P stigma that appears to be irrelevant. We did of course ask Avalon why the RIAA would be promoting such illegal services, and thankfully he was willing to comment. “The RIAA can list whomever they want, as ‘approved’ but believe it or not they do not actually speak collectively for all the labels,” he told us. “If you believe the RIAA to be underhanded and unreasonable, then there is no which thing as ‘RIAA Approved’. If you believe they’re honorable and good for their word, then you are exposing a rather large gap in your site's position and philosophy,” Avalon’s musings continued. So there we have it. A leading music industry expert is claiming that the RIAA is for some odd reason promoting illegal music services, against the wishes of the major labels. Now that’s something we have to believe in, don’t we? We would like to thank Avalon for opening our eyes; TorrentFreak will never be the same again and hopefully that will permit us to stay online. In addition, we would also like to retract our earlier statement where we said that Mr. Avalon was a classic narcissist. That is, if he can please stop asking us to interview him for a feature article on TorrentFreak – the answer is ‘no’. |
| Arrr!! Pirate Hard Drive Offers Infinite Capacity Posted: 09 Apr 2011 05:05 AM PDT
Inevitably though, quality is sometimes a little lacking. A copy iPhone might look all good on the surface (until you use the OS), and a copied TAG watch might tell the correct time (twice a day at least), but sometimes buyers get a product that exceeds all expectations. Over in Russia a computer engineer located near the Chinese border had quite a surprise when a customer brought a 500GB hard drive in for repair.  According to the casing it was a very nice Samsung product, but somehow it had ceased functioning. Indeed, it hadn’t functioned properly since the beginning. The drive itself reported its full capacity and initially seemed to behave correctly when files were transferred to it. The owner had apparently copied a 1.5GB movie to the drive, but somehow only the last few minutes of the movie were being stored. Time to open up the case and have a little look inside.  What you’re looking at there is a couple of large metal nuts (presumably for some authentic ‘weighting’) which are together caressing a 128Mb flash drive. But here’s the clever bit. The drive cleverly sucks data in from the host computer until it’s full and then starts dumping data until all it’s left with is the last part of the file. All other files on the drive stay intact and the file size of the now incomplete file is reported correctly. File-sharers are apparently buying these drives in good faith and are getting ripped off and left with nowhere to put their stuff. If we can find out the name of the domain selling these devices we’ll send it over to ICE so they can have it seized…. |
Before explaining why the RIAA is promoting illegal P2P services, we have an apology to make.
When it comes to copying products, the Chinese can show even the most prolific counterfeiters a thing or two. From knock-off iPhones to the latest blockbuster movies, this East Asia behemoth will clone anything you like, quicker than almost anyone else and in larger quantities.| 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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