Techdirt. Stories filed under "torrents"

Tech Still One Step Ahead: New Service Downloads Torrents Directly To Dropbox

Mike Masnick — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:59:00 PDT

Update: Well, that didn't take long. Dropbox has already blocked Boxopus.

Every time some sort of file sharing service is shut down or someone else is arrested, we hear the regular crew of supporters of the existing copyright regime declare victory. But, every time, people just shift to some other service and move on. None of it leads people to suddenly spend money again when they hadn't before. TorrentFreak recently had an article about a service calls Boxopus, which uses Dropbox's API to automatically download content from torrents to a Dropbox file. Think of it as torrenting in the cloud. From a user perspective, there are plenty of advantages, including the fact that the content is then available on all your synced devices. Of course, there's also the fact that for an end user, it's somewhat anonymous -- since Boxopus is the "downloader" rather than the user themselves. So if the content is infringing, it's more difficult to track them down (though, I would imagine not impossible, if someone got access to Boxopus' logs). Apparently, a number of services have already implemented this as a download option. Of course, this probably just means that Boxopus will soon be targeted as a "problem" even though it has plenty of non-infringing uses, and actually could be quite handy for all kinds of authorized activities in a more cloud-centric universe.

Either way, what strikes me about this is a simple fact: the technology always advances. It sees areas where people try to stop it, and figures out a way to route around it. Whether or not people like this, it exists, and tons of other, similar offerings will likely exist in short order. You can fight the tide -- as some seem to want to do -- or you can look at ways that you might take advantage of tools like this. Only one of those is a winning strategy.

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Network Analysis Reveals Apparent (And Legally Questionable) Attack On Torrent Networks

Leigh Beadon — Thu, 24 May 2012 03:09:00 PDT

Last week, we talked about a Microsoft-funded operation calling itself "Pirate Pay" and claiming to shut down torrents of pirated films by poisoning the P2P network with false data. At the time, former BitTorrent VP John Pettitt had commented that their system sounds ineffective and potentially illegal. Now, an anonymous reader points us to an analysis by Poland's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT Polska) looking at a recent surge of anomalous data on the uTP torrent protocol, which sounds somewhat similar to the description of Pirate Pay. The bulk of the analysis is highly technical, and they offer a few hypotheses for what might be causing the anomalies, the strongest of which is that it may well be a large-scale attempt at disruption:

Data collected from public trackers support this hypothesis. Without delving into details of torrent client reactions it’s plain to see that trackers register small amount of peers downloading analysed resources. It’s possible that it’s an effect of a process which we are currently unable to understand fully and which produce the anomaly. At least one interest group that would benefit from uTP poisoning is easy to point at: multimedia companies and their subcontractors. Conduction of this kind of campaign by these institutions wouldn’t be precedent. It’s also possible that generated traffic is used for BitTorrent network mapping and data gathering for later use in other projects.

Whether this uTP anomaly is directly related to Pirate Pay or not, CERT Polska reaches a similar conclusion about its legality:

Anomaly through it’s nature (large share in daily network traffic) produces visible disruption in IT systems and large amount of our false-positive high-level alerts is a good proof. In terms of Polish law, European Convention on Cybercrime and U.S. Codes (and probably many other sources of domestic law) legality of process producing the anomaly is questionable.

If it's true that the big anti-piracy players are attempting a full-scale network attack on piracy, it's actually kind of funny. Resorting to potentially illegal tactics to combat illegal behaviour doesn't do anything to make people respect copyright—it just galvanizes the idea that it's a battle for control. More importantly, the people working to preserve the network will always be more skilled and more numerous than those working to disrupt it, so the best this can do is give them a chance to hone their skills and shore up security.

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Indian ISPs Told To Block Access To Vimeo

Mike Masnick — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:26:00 PDT

A few months ago we wrote about Indian ISPs being told to block (entirely) access to Megaupload (when it still existed) and BTJunkie. It seemed like overkill to block entire sites, but it appears that such censorship is expanding. There are reports in India of ISP-level blocks, ordered by the government, of a ton of sites. Many of these are torrent search engines and cyberlockers... but they also include Vimeo, one of the most popular video sites for filmmakers. This seems like another case of massive overkill by a government that has no idea what it's doing. It's amazing just how many overkill censorship attempts we've seen lately all in the name of copyright holders.

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IFPI Convinces ISP To Just Hand Over Hard Drives Of Torrent Site

Mike Masnick — Tue, 3 May 2011 01:00:47 PDT

This is not the first time something like this has happened, but the IFPI somehow convinced Swedish hosting company Itstaden/ServerConnect to simply hand over the hard drives of one of its hosting customers, LimeTorrents. The IFPI apparently has been pressuring ServerConnect for moths, claiming that it could be liable for any infringement on LimeTorrents, but rather than filing a lawsuit, it simply said that ServerConnect should hand over the harddrives and it did. I'm curious how this is legal. It may depend on the specific contract ServerConnect has with its customers, but it seems that handing their hard drives over to a private party without any sort of court order almost certainly breaks the user agreement, if not local privacy laws.

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UK Court Dismisses Yet Another Bogus Criminal Lawsuit Against Torrent Tracker Admins

Mike Masnick — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:30:00 PST

Just about a year ago, a court in the UK found OiNK's operator, Alan Ellis, not guilty of criminal charges for running the community. Even though plenty of people had pointed out from the very beginning that it was crazy to charge Ellis with criminal charges for actions by people in the community, prosecutors still went through with it. What was even more amazing is that they continued to try to do the same thing to others as well. In the summer of 2009, we wrote about how UK police arrested the operator of the FileSoup community based entirely on claims by the entertainment industry, which showed a near total lack of understanding of the basic technology at play. It turns out that law enforcement pushed forward with the case, despite the fact that they did no investigating on their own and simply accepted the industry's claims as fact, despite numerous errors. Thankfully, the courts recognized all of this and noted that these criminal charges probably never should have been brought and dropped the case against two of the admins of the site. At what point do law enforcement folks realize that the entertainment industry is a biased party and that you can't just accept everything they say as fact?

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Google Finally Gets Involved In Torrent Search Engine Lawsuit... But Just To Reject 'Red Flag' DMCA Violations

Mike Masnick — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:07:48 PST

TorrentFreak is noting that Google has, perhaps for the first time, waded into any of the lawsuits concerning torrent search engines, filing an amicus brief in the ongoing IsoHunt appeal. In the past, other torrent search engines have been somewhat upset that Google has stayed quiet, noting that many of the arguments used against them could equally apply to Google. Google, of course, has stayed away because it goes to great lengths these days to avoid any appearance of "supporting piracy."

While TorrentFreak (and IsoHunt) seems surprised or disappointed by Google's actual amicus brief in the IsoHunt case, it's really not surprising. Google's participation here is entirely about the YouTube/Viacom lawsuit and appeal. What was really notable about the original IsoHunt ruling, was that it was the only real legal ruling that said that you could violate the DMCA even in absence of takedown notices. That is, it highlighted the idea of "red flag" awareness of infringement. This was the key issue in the YouTube/Viacom lawsuit. Google argues that as long as YouTube took down any content it received a takedown notice on, it was in compliance and protected by safe harbors. Viacom leaned heavily on the IsoHunt ruling, to claim that the DMCA doesn't just cover takedown notice responses, but also requires a response to "red flag" infringement.

However, Google knows that the IsoHunt ruling is basically the only legal precedent out there that reads the DMCA in this manner. So, from Google's perspective, dumping that reasoning is key. So its amicus brief still argues that IsoHunt is guilty of contributory infringement, a la the Grokster standard, but not because of red flag infringement. So, I don't find it that "unexpected" that Google got involved, or filed the brief that it did. It's focused entirely on its own lawsuit here, and hoping that the appeals court will take away the one serious case that Viacom has in its pocket for the YouTube appeal.

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If The MPAA Takes Down A Dozen Torrent Sites, And No One Notices, Did They Really Exist?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 12:51:00 PST

The Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has a history both of assuming it has much more authority than it really does and in announcing how it has shut down all sorts of "piracy" sites that no one seems to know exist. Lately, it's been teaming up with the MPAA on such things. The latest is the claim that BREIN and the MPAA have been able to shut down a dozen more "torrent sites." Except that no one seems to know what sites these were, and there's no indication that anyone actually used them. As TorrentFreak points out, when sites people actually use get taken down, people start emailing to tell them about it -- but no such emails came in with these shutdowns. Kind of makes you wonder just what BREIN and the MPAA are actually doing.

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Dutch Court Orders Pirate Bay To Delete Torrents

Mike Masnick — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:31:22 PDT

Earlier this year, a Dutch court issued a default judgment against The Pirate Bay, ordering it to delete certain torrents and block Dutch web surfers from reaching the site. The Pirate Bay's founders protested the ruling, noting that they had not been properly informed of the case in the first place, and that other items in the lawsuit were highly questionable -- including what appeared to be falsified documents submitted by BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy agency.

The court has now annulled the original default judgment, but the new ruling is basically the same thing. The founders were told to delete torrents and block Dutch surfers from at least part of the site. The court also rejected the claim that the founders do not still own the site, saying they presented no evidence that the site had actually been sold to another entity, or any evidence of who now owned the site. While I still think it's questionable to force the site to block results of what is really a search engine, there is a point about who owns the site. I recognize why The Pirate Bay has done what it's done, but it almost feels like they're trying to be too cute about the ownership issue.

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Mininova Told To Remove Infringing Material

Mike Masnick — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:04:00 PDT

Earlier this year, we noted that torrent search engine Mininova was being sued, with Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN asking the court to force Mininova to block certain content. It's difficult to see how or why this should be Mininova's responsibility. As a search engine, it has no way of knowing which content is authorized and which is infringing. Yet, a court has sided with BREIN and told Mininova it needs to remove all infringing torrents from its site. The court is giving the site 3 months to implement a filter system, or face a fine of 1,000 euros per infringing torrent. Of course, Mininova already takes down torrents when alerted to the fact that they're infringing. Demanding that the company pre-determine which torrents are considered "infringing" doesn't make much sense (especially since the torrents themselves are not the "infringing" content). This seems to be yet another ruling with a court finding that assisting with potential copyright infringement somehow needs to be stopped.

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Best-Selling Swedish Author Torrents Her Own Audio Book To Protest Pirate Bay Ruling

Mike Masnick — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:58:16 PDT

We've already seen that plenty of content creators use The Pirate Bay for legitimate distribution and promotion purposes, and now Dan writes in to alert us that a best-selling author in Sweden, Unni Drougge, is so annoyed by The Pirate Bay verdict, that she made an audiobook version of her best-selling recent novel and put up a torrent via The Pirate Bay, along with a "manifesto" in support of free file sharing. Apparently, this is getting her plenty of attention, as her book has jumped to the top of the audiobooks list (what were people saying, that the top downloaded lists never include authorized content?).

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Google Denies Similarities To The Pirate Bay

Mike Masnick — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:16:00 PDT

There's been a lot of talk recently from supporters of The Pirate Bay about how the ruling against the site is bad news for Google, because that site can be used just like The Pirate Bay -- and plenty of folks have set up custom searches via Google's tools that limit search results to Torrent files. A Google representative from Italy has finally spoken up about this, claiming (as did the entertainment industry at the trial) that Google is different because it actually honors takedown requests, unlike The Pirate Bay, who tends to ridicule takedown requests. It is, in fact, true, that this is a difference, though in real terms in means very little, since content taken down seems to reappear pretty quickly elsewhere. But if that's the only point of differentiation, it raises additional questions of why the law should state that a company in one industry needs to protect the business models of companies in another industry. From a technical perspective, what the two sites do is quite similar: point you to locations where you can find the content you want. Neither breaks copyright law specifically itself.

Some say that Google's willingness to take down links, compared to The Pirate Bay's decision to flaunt them, shows something about intent, and suggests The Pirate Bay team is guilty of some sort of contributory copyright infringement, in "inducing" or encouraging people to break copyright law, but it's quite troubling when someone can be blamed for a crime not for actually committing it, but for producing the technological tools that make the crime possible. What you're left with is a judgment call on intent, and that's particularly troubling when it comes to tools, where part of the interest for the toolmakers is in just enabling technology to do what it can. Suddenly enabling something that disrupts another's business model by creating a more economical and efficient system shouldn't be considered illegal. It's what we normally call progress.

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BitTorrent Site Mininova Makes It Easier To Sell Scarcities With Downloads

Mike Masnick — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:08:00 PDT

A bunch of folks have been sending in the news that popular BitTorrent site Mininova is now making it much easier to monetize your own BitTorrented music. Basically, it makes it easy to sell other things alongside the torrent. This is very much about using the free music to sell related scarcities, such as concert tickets, CDs or other promotional goods. Imagine taking the various tiered upsell solutions that are becoming popular and connecting them directly to your own torrent of the music? As the story notes, at least one indie record label, Beep! Beep!, has signed up and is releasing all of its music via this system -- and even offering those who download a 20% discount on products as a thank you for helping to seed the files:

"It's only fair not to pay for something you haven't heard yet. In our opinion torrents are an excellent way to present you with our music. That's why Beep! Beep! and Mininova have teamed up. We like the fact that you're taking the effort to get to know new music. In fact, we'd like to thank you for downloading and seeding our music by giving you a discount on our hardcopies."

But, of course, we'll probably still hear from people about how such torrent sites are destroying the recording industry... even as it helps enable exactly what's coming next.

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