ISPs Futile Attempt to Block The Pirate Bay

Despite court cases in the Netherlands and the U.K. forcing ISPs to place blocks on their systems to prevent customer access to The Pirate Bay, the blocks may ultimately prove futile, according to data seen by the BBC and others.

One major U.K. broadband provider said peer-to-peer traffic on its network returned to “just below normal” only a week after it was forced to block customers’ access.

But in the days following the court decision in late April, traffic had reached record levels as a result of the increased media coverage. This backs up earlier claims that The Pirate Bay had a 12 million views traffic boost on May 1, thanks to the “free advertising” by the media.

The ISP — speaking to the BBC anonymously — said that traffic dropped by more than 11% following the enforcement of the block, but with the rise of proxy sites and The Pirate Bay’s own server IP changes, traffic figures were “pretty much back to where they were before.”

The figures are not detailed, however. The data relates to volume rather than strict user figures, possibly suggesting that prolific file-sharers downloaded more than less-interested users were discouraged. Also, the data may not relate directly to The Pirate Bay, as peer-to-peer traffic could include legitimate downloads, such as the downloading of Linux distributions, so it is difficult to see whether The Pirate Bay has returned to usual levels of traffic.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands, where blocks were put in place following similar legal challenges, Dutch ISP XS4All said its customers’ traffic to The Pirate Bay went up rather than down. Two more ISPs, according to TorrentFreak, suggested the blocks imposed did not adversely affect peer-to-peer traffic.

Previous Post : Virgin Media First UK ISP  to Block The Pirate Bay

ISPs Have to Identify Alleged Pirates, EU Court Rules

A dispute over whether a Swedish ISP can be forced to hand over the details of one its subscribers to an anti-piracy group has just received its long-awaited ruling from the Europe’s highest court. A few moments ago the ECJ announced that there are no EU barriers which prevent the ISP handing over its customers’ private details to copyright holders.

Not long after Sweden’s controversial IPRED legislation became law in 2009, five book publishers handed a request for information to a local court.

The rightsholders, represented by anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, wanted to force local ISP ePhone to hand over the personal details of a subscriber who allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books on his server, 27 of which breached the publishers’ copyrights.

In June that year the court ordered ePhone to provide the information but the ISP felt it would be wrong to comply, and instead took their case to the Court of Appeal. The ruling of the lower court was overturned on appeal and the case was sent to the Sweden’s highest court.

In the event even the Supreme Court couldn’t decide and it in turn forwarded the case to the European Court of Justice. A few moments ago the ECJ released its decision, one that is sure to please rightsholders.

The ECJ decided that there are no EU barriers which stop ePhone being ordered to provide the information as requested by Antipiratbyrån and the book publishers. The Court said that Swedish law strikes an appropriate balance between the rights of copyright holders and citizens’ rights to privacy.

Having obtained the decision from the ECJ, the case will now head back to Sweden’s Supreme Court.

“We feel very satisfied with this judgment. It is extremely important that we have received this message,” said Kristina Ahlinder, president of the Publishers’ Association.

“The important next step is that the Supreme Court gives us the authority, that the evidence is sufficient and that we have the right to share this information. The illegal publication that has occurred from this IP address is comprehensive,” Ahlinder added

If Sweden’s Supreme Court indeed decides that ePhone must hand over the information, it is not clear if the publishers are even ready to continue with a civil case against the alleged infringer. But of course, other entities such as the music and movie industries have been watching closely too, since it clarifies their position going forward. IFPI, among others, are welcoming the ruling.

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of All Time

Every day millions of people use BitTorrent to download and share movies. But what are all these people downloading?

For nearly half a decade we have compiled weekly and yearly lists of the most popular downloads, and following on from Netflix’s publication of the most rented movies of all time, we today present the equivalent for BitTorrent downloads.

With an estimated 21 million downloads, Avatar is the most pirated movie of all time, followed by The Dark Knight and Transformers with about 19 million downloads each. Interestingly enough, none of the above films were present in Netflix’s list.

The BitTorrent and Netflix lists do show some overlap, as Inception and The Departed make an appearance in both.

Despite the massive piracy, the films below have not done too shabbily at the box-office. Avatar is the best grossing movie of all time and The Dark Knight is third, right before Star Trek.

The list below is based on statistics is gathered from public BitTorrent trackers, dating back to early 2006. As BitTorrent’s usage was only a fraction of what it is today in the years before, we expect the list below to cover all the most downloaded movies on BitTorrent.

rank	movie	± downloads	worldwide grosses
1	Avatar (2009)	21 million	$2,782,275,172
2	The Dark Knight (2008)	19 million	$1,001,921,825
3	Transformers (2007)	19 million	$709,709,780
4	Inception (2010)	18 million	$825,408,570
5	The Hangover (2009)	17 million	$467,483,912
6	Star Trek (2008)	16 million	$385,680,446
7	Kick-Ass (2010)	15 million	$96,188,903
8	The Departed (2006)	14 million	289,847,354
9	The Incredible Hulk (2008)	14 million	$263,427,551
10	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)	14 million	$963,420,425

For more up to date news on all things Torrent based visit torrentfreak.com

Mobile ISP To End BitTorrent Free-For-All

As posted on Torrent Freak : An Aussie ISP that neglected to charge its customers for data usage on BitTorrent and VOIP services is set to close the loophole.

According to a representative from mobile provider Vodafone, the issue affected its prepaid and regular customers who used mobile phones to access data directly or in a tethering setup.

Vodafone says it will fix the bug by July 8th but is concerned that customers who have been enjoying this free-for-all might get a nasty billing surprise when the ‘feature’ is disabled. To this end they are starting an SMS awareness campaign.

“The TXT messages and emails that have been sent out to customers are raising awareness and let everyone know the changes that are occurring within the data reporting system and to help stop avoid unnecessary bill shock,” a Vodafone representative explained.

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ISP Eircom Wrongfully Sent 300 Warning Letters To Innocent Subscribers

According to a report which has flown almost completely under the radar, last year an ISP sent out around 300 “first strike” warning letters wrongfully accusing innocent subscribers of Internet piracy. ISP Eircom implemented the scheme in partnership with the recording industry and is now being investigated by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner.

In February 2009, IRMA – representing EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner – reached an 11th hour out-of-court settlement with Irish ISP Eircom on the issue of illicit file-sharing. The deal would see Eircom introduce a graduated response system for dealing with errant subscribers.

“Eircom is proceeding with implementation of the protocol which could result in the suspension and ultimately disconnection of broadband service for those customers who deliberately and persistently infringe copyright,” the company said in a December 2010 statement, reiterating their commitment to the scheme.

But little did we know that the fears of “3 strikes” opponents had already come true.

From deep inside the “how the hell did the majority of the media miss this department”, it now becomes clear that by October 2010, Eircom had already sent out around 300 warning letters to completely innocent subscribers.

The company seems to have tried to play down the error saying that computer clocks were incorrectly adjusted to compensate for daylight saving time, some comfort to the unlucky letter recipients.

According to TJ McIntyre at digital rights site EDRI.org, as a result of this failure the Irish Data Protection Commissioner is now investigating the entire Eircom scheme.

“The significance of this case goes well beyond simple technical failings however, as the complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) has triggered a wider investigation of the legality of the entire three strikes system,” he writes.

The DPC is said to be not only investigating the complaint but also “whether the subject matter gives rise to any questions as to the proportionality of the graduated response system operated by Eircom and the music industry.”

McIntyre says that when the Eircom/IRMA deal was being agreed, the DPC expressed concerns with it, not least over the question of whether or not IP addresses are personal data. However, until someone raised a complaint, that issue was put on the back burner. The delivery of 300 false “first strike” warning letters appears to have met that criteria.

“The complaint in this case has now triggered that action, and it seems likely that the Commissioner will reach a decision reflecting his previous views that using IP addresses to cut off customers’ internet connections is disproportionate and does not constitute ‘fair use’ of personal information,” McIntyre explains.

“If so, the Commissioner has the power and indeed the duty to issue an enforcement notice which would prevent Eircom from using personal data for this purpose – an outcome which would derail the three strikes system unless Eircom successfully challenges that notice before the courts, or unless the music industry were to succeed in its campaign to secure legislation introducing three strikes into Irish law.”

The way this story has flown largely under the mainstream tech news radar will have been a relief to Eircom and IRMA. Something tells us that is about to change.

For the latest torrent news visit Torrent Freak

Top 10 Torrent Sites

1 – The Pirate Bay

2 – Torrentz

3 – IsoHunt

4 – Kickass Torrents

5 – btjunkie

6 – Demonoid.me

7 – ExtraTorrent . com

8 – TorrentDownloads . NET

9 – TorrentReactor

10  – Lime Torrents.com

Fast Pass TV Shuts Down After Arrest

The popular video streaming site “Fast Pass TV” shut down earlier this week following the arrest of one of the site’s alleged operators. The site itself didn’t host any copyrighted content but indexed videos hosted on third-party sites. The operator has been released on bail pending inquiries.

For quite a few years the Hollywood-funded Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) has been tipping-off the UK police on the activities of file-sharing websites and their operators.

This has resulted in the arrests of several site admins including those from TV-Links and BitTorrent site FileSoup.

A few days ago a FACT investigation led to another arrest. A 26-year old man was arrested Wednesday with police reportedly seizing £83,000 and computer equipment following a raid in Derry, Northern Ireland.

After being questioned the man was released on bail, a very similar situation to other FACT-assisted arrests we’ve seen over the years. Other than that, the police haven’t released any information on the site in question or the exact nature of any alleged offenses.

However, after some digging TorrentFreak can with near certainty conclude that the man in question is connected to the video streaming website “Fast Pass TV”. The site’s Twitter account – which was recently deleted – an associated email address and various other trails all point to a man (P. M.) in Derry, Northern Ireland.

Another source later confirmed that the man from Derry is indeed the operator of “Fast Pass TV.”

The website in question did not store any video material but merely linked to third party sites. “Fast Pass TV does not host, store, or distribute any of the videos listed on the site and only link to user submitted content that is freely available on the Internet,” it stated on the website.

Fastpasstv.eu went offline around the time of the arrest leaving 68,287 registered members and hundreds of thousands of daily visitors in the dark. Without official confirmation from the authorities we can’t conclude that Fastpasstv.eu was the primary site FACT was after, but all signs point in that direction.

The arrest and the involvement of FACT are interesting, since the UK police have failed to convict any of the previously arrested operators of file-sharing or streaming sites. Most relevant to this case is the previous action against TV-Links.co.uk, a site which operated a service comparable to that offered by Fastpasstv.eu.

Legal action was taken against TV-Links.co.uk but eventually its operators won their lengthy trial. This set a precedent at least in the UK/European Union that under certain conditions these website owners do not do anything illegal. According to Section 17 of the European Commerce Directive, TV-Links was seen as a conduit of information and was afforded a complete defense in criminal proceedings for linking to other websites.

Whether the police are going to walk down the same path again, or whether the site operator was arrested for an unrelated crime is something the future will tell. However, it appears that Fastpasstv.eu has already made a comeback as fastpasstv.ms, where the recent seizures are also referenced. TorrentFreak could not verify the validity of the new site.

For more news have a look at torrentfreak The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

BitTorrent Sites Hacked By Secret Government Unit?

In the early hours of Saturday morning, panic set in on two large European BitTorrent trackers. ArenaBG and Zamunda, a pair of sites with a history of being targeted by the Bulgarian authorities, were reported down. According to several mainstream media reports, they had been taken offline by the country’s anti-mafia unit and/or hacked by a secret government department. Big news or crazy rumor?

The Computer Crime Department of Bulgaria’s organized crime unit made quite a lot of noise last year in taking down several sites connected to online file-sharing and warez piracy.

However, despite their sabre-rattling the country’s biggest BitTorrent sites, ArenaBG and Zamunda, have remained up. Threats by pirate-hunter-in-chief Yavor Kolev, who in July 2010 vowed to take them down, came to nothing.

Then in the early hours of Saturday morning, all hell broke loose. At 1am Zamunda went down, quickly followed by ArenaBG. A posting on the latter’s separate forum spelled doom.

“Once again the virtual society of free sharing of information is under threat,” began the announcement on ArenaBG on the back of the chaotic situation at both sites.

“The initiator of this work is a secret group called ‘Council for the Protection of Intellectual Property’. Formally, this organization seems like an inter-ministerial body, but its meetings are invited and attended mostly by representatives of the so-called ‘Rightholders’,” noted the lengthy posting. It concluded by confirming the site’s defiant intentions of bouncing back against any further attacks on its domain name or servers.

Little wonder then that this dramatic version of events was quickly reported by several news outlets in Bulgaria, some with the apparent confirmation that the government had hacked or DDoS’d the sites in question and taken them offline.

However, TorrentFreak has discovered that there may be a more simple explanation for the downtime at both sites.

According to a source close to Zamunda, late Friday night the site suffered what is being described as “a technical malfunction of a crucial piece of equipment”. The extended downtime that followed was due to the failure happening during the night.

“The problem has been taken care of and measures have been taken in order to improve [future] response to emergency situations of any sort that can lead to temporary server unavailability,” our source added.

So while this clears up the situation at Zamunda, how does one explain the problems at ArenaBG? As boring and simple as it sounds, it seems that when Zamunda went down Bulgarians needed an immediate replacement site so thousands of them flooded to the next logical choice – ArenaBG. The site simply couldn’t cope and went down under the load.

While there are reports today that Yavor Kolev of the Computer Crime Department has denied any involvement in the downtime, he also took the opportunity to warn the sites that since they continue to “break the law” they can expect attention in the future.

The panic in Bulgaria this weekend certainly shows that the country’s BitTorrent community exists on a knife edge. Only time will tell if their position becomes more or less secure in 2011 but if Kolev is to be believed, it might be the latter. The signs are, however, that neither site intends to go quietly.

For more of the latest BitTorrent news head over to TorrentFreak

TorrentFreak The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies 7th November

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	Rating / Trailer
1	(…)	Inception	9.1 / trailer
2	(…)	The Social Network (DVDscr)	8.4 / trailer
3	(…)	Scott Pilgrim vs the World	8.2 / trailer
4	(1)	Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (R5)	6.7 / trailer
5	(2)	Resident Evil: Afterlife (R5)	6.4 / trailer
6	(3)	Red (DVDscr)	7.6 / trailer
7	(…)	Eat Pray Love (R5)	5.0 / trailer
8	(8)	Knight and Day (R5)	6.6 / trailer
9	(…)	Lottery Ticket	2.6 / trailer
10	(4)	Jonah Hex	4.4 / trailer

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent 18/10/10

 

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Jonah Hex’ tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Machete’. ‘Resident Evil: Afterlife’ completes the top three.

For information and the latest news on all things torrent orientated take a look at torrentfreak.com

 

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	Rating / Trailer
1	(6)	Jonah Hex	4.4 / trailer
2	(2)	Machete (R5)	7.5 / trailer
3	(…)	Resident Evil: Afterlife (R5)	6.4 / trailer
4	(1)	Get Him To The Greek	6.9 / trailer
5	(5)	Robin Hood	7.0 / trailer
6	(4)	Knight and Day (R5)	6.6 / trailer
7	(back)	The Expendables (DVDscr)	7.4 / trailer
8	(…)	Reign of Assassins (R5)	6.4 / trailer
9	(7)	Iron Man 2	7.4 / trailer
10	(…)	Toy Story 3 (R5)	8.9 / trailer

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘The Wolfman’ tops the chart this week followed by ‘The Book of Eli’. ‘Kick-Ass’ completes the top three.

This week’s top three is exactly the same as last week, something that hasn’t happened since we started compiling these lists three years ago. The Wolfman is the most downloaded movie on BitTorrent this week.

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.

Week ending May 30, 2010

Ranking	last week	Movie	Rating / Trailer
1	(1)	The Wolfman	6.2 / trailer
2	(2)	The Book of Eli	7.0 / trailer
3	(3)	Kick-Ass (R5)	8.3 / trailer
4	(…)	When In Rome	5.1 / trailer
5	(4)	Alice In Wonderland	6.8 / trailer
6	(…)	Robin Hood (TS)	7.1 / trailer
7	(6)	Iron Man 2 (TS)	7.6 / trailer
8	(…)	Solomon Kane	6.4 / trailer
9	(5)	Unthinkable (DVDscr)	8.9 / trailer
10	(7)	Shutter Island (R5)	8.1 / trailer