Piracy sites help Netflix to decide what shows to purchase

Netflix has begun its official rollout in the Netherlands. The company’s primary goal is to amass a substantial user base, similar to what it has in the United States. As a result, the Netflix team needs to assess what its viewers want to watch; and one such strategy is to monitor a show’s popularity on piracy sites.

According to TorrentFreak, Netflix understands that pirate sites are quite possibly their biggest competitor. After all, people have no need to subscribe to a streaming service when identical content is freely available on the web. But those looking for a legal alternative certainly appreciate the convenience Netflix provides.

“Netflix is so much easier than torrenting. You don’t have to deal with files, you don’t have to download them and move them around. You just click and watch,” explained Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

So when Netflix is shopping around for a new series to pick-up, they take a look at what’s popular on local BitTorrent networks. For example, Netflix recently bought the rights to Prison Break; a series which Kelly Merryman, VP of Content Acquisition, says is “exceptionally popular on piracy sites.”

Although pirate sites might initially be considered Netflix’s main rival, they’re also potentially keeping them afloat. Not only does illegal content create demand for better quality content, but it puts television networks in a difficult spot. Fully knowing that users can simply download their programs for free, it’s sometimes better for the cable company to strike a deal with an established streaming service, even if its profits are undercut by the middleman.

That being said, Netflix doesn’t exactly have an easy time trying to secure licensing rights, either. For instance, even though Game of Thrones is currently the most pirated TV show on the planet, HBO refuses to relinquish any of its rights to Netflix.

Either way you look at it, the impact that Netflix has had on the pirating industry is profound. After launching the service to Canada just three years ago, the nation’s BitTorrent traffic has dropped by an astounding 50%. It’ll be interesting to see if Netflix can recreate these results in the Netherlands and beyond.

Microsoft tightens Windows 8 activation policy to curb piracy

Piracy is a fact of life for Microsoft. Case in point: just two days after the company began distributing the finalized version of Windows 8 to partners around the globe, the code became publicly available across various file sharing sites. Microsoft declined to comment on the leak but, presumably, someone working at an OEM was responsible.

Previous products have leaked online as well, and while its very unlikely they’ll get rid of the problem altogether anytime soon, Microsoft is looking to close down a few of the loop holes that made life easier for pirates and rogue OEMs. In particular Microsoft is looking to change the way they deal with OEM activations for Windows 8.

OEM Activation (OA) allows PC manufacturers to ship systems with Windows preinstalled and already activated, so that customers don't need to take any additional steps to activate the OS when they first use a new computer. In the past, a single activation key was used by most OEMs to activate all of their shipped machines. However, going forward, manufacturers will be required to write a unique Windows product key into the BIOS of each new PC, based on each particular system’s hardware.

This key isn’t automatically generated by OEMs either. They will need to obtain it directly from Microsoft via electronic delivery and factories will be required to file production reports to Microsoft detailing their license compliance, thus making it harder to avoid paying licensing fees to Microsoft.

The new activation scheme hasn’t been officially confirmed by Microsoft -- details are based off a series of leaked slides obtained by The Register. According to the site, OA 3.0 will only apply to new PCs running Windows 8. Other versions, including Windows Server 2012, Windows 7 and earlier are not affected.

At this point it’s unclear what the move will mean for individuals buying OEM versions of the OS, or if the hardware based activation will somehow affect users manually upgrading their laptops’ storage or memory.

Microsoft has set a release date of October 26 for Windows 8. Upgrade pricing is set at $39.99 for those running legit copies of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Those that purchased a Windows 7 machine in the months leading up to Windows 8’s release, are eligible to upgrade for just $14.99.

TPB fines to be used to fight more piracy cases, not refund artists

After a lengthy legal battle, last February the founders of The Pirate Bay were ordered by the Swedish Supreme Court to pay $675,000 to music labels in order to compensate artists who lost out on royalties due to piracy. Except that might not be the case at all, according toTorrentFreak, who say the compensation will be used to line the pockets of theSwedish IFPI, an anti-piracy body that claims to represent the worldwide recording industry.

As a result of the original verdict being upheld at the defendants' last avenue of appeal, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström were ordered to serve their jail terms as well as pay an additional €50,000 to several music industry companies, including EMI Music, Sony Music and Universal Music, specifically for compensating artists and rightsholders for the losses they suffered.

However, it appears that the music companies have struggled to collect the money due. According to an unpublished document, believed to be from the legal department at IFPI, they have been unable to collect any assets because the convicted have nothing of value in the country.

“We have filed applications with Sweden’s Enforcement Agency to secure assets to satisfy these funds. So far very little has been recovered as the individuals have no traceable assets in Sweden and the Enforcement Agency has no powers to investigate outside Sweden. There seems little realistic prospect of recovering funds,” the document read.

While that is troubling enough, what comes next will be nothing short of disturbing for the rights holders expecting compensation. “There is an agreement that any recovered funds will be paid to IFPI Sweden and IFPI London for use in future anti-piracy activities,” IFPI writes.

“As far as I know, no money ever won in a lawsuit by IFPI or the RIAA has even gone to any actual artist,” Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay said upon hearing the news. This isn't the first time anti-piracy outfits have kept the money awarded either. The RIAA previously told TorrentFreakthat “any funds recouped are re-invested into our ongoing education and anti-piracy programs.”

Man fined $7,000 for sharing 'WordPress for Dummies' via BitTorrent

Robert Carpenter of Poughkeepsie, New York has been ordered to pay $7,000 in damages for sharing a copy of "WordPress All-in-One For Dummies" on BitTorrent. Carpenter was part of a mass filing by publisher John Wiley & Sons last October that included 27 John Does allegedly caught sharing "For Dummies" books via BiTorrent.

According to TorrentFreak, Wiley has since filed over a dozen mass suits with several hundred John Does accused of illegally sharing copies of works from the extensive For Dummies series.

"Defendants are contributing to a problem that threatens the profitability of Wiley. Although Wiley cannot determine at this time the precise amount of revenue that it has lost as a result of peer-to-peer file sharing of its copyrighted works though BitTorrent software, the amount of revenue that is lost is enormous," Wiley's attorney wrote during the initial filing last year.

It was noted that that one popular For Dummies book on Photoshop CS5 was pirated more than 74,000 times on the BitTorrent site Demonoid.me alone.

Although many people targeted by Wiley have settled out of court (for an undisclosed amount, but ~$3,000 is common), the publisher is applying additional pressure to those who won't pony up. Such is the case with Carpenter, who ignored Wiley's complaint, according to a court document obtained and uploaded by TorrentFreak.

Interestingly, the $7,000 penalty isn't just for copyright infringement, but $2,000 of it is specifically for counterfeiting Wiley's trademarks -- a first for a case of this nature, TorrentFreak believes.

PayPal freezes VPN provider's account, spooked by BitTorrent

TorGuard, a VPN service provider, was recently given the cold shoulder by PayPal for providing BitTorrent-related services. Upon discovery of TorGuard's relationship with BitTorrent, PayPal abruptly froze the company's account, preventing the virtual network provider from sending or receiving payments through PayPal's service.

TorGuard received this vaguely-written e-mail notifying the company that it had violated PayPal's terms of service agreement.

When we reviewed your account, we noticed that your activity violates some of the agreements you have with us. Because of this, we’ve limited your accounts and can no longer offer our services to you. You’ll still be able to log in to view your transaction history, but you won’t be able to send or receive money.

Source: torrentfreak.com, PayPal support

Concerned about the potential disruption and not knowing exactly what rules TorGuard was breaking, the company's owner called PayPal to resolve the issue. A PayPal business account representative informed him that PayPal does not allow the promotion of torrent trackers. The owner confronted the support representative and explained that TorGuard is a type of hosting service, not a tracker or a company that promotes trackers. The PayPal employee said the decision had already been made and there was nothing further which could be done.

PayPal's reluctance to work with TorGuard is likely due to the cloud of requests and lawsuits which surround BitTorrent-related services which leverage PayPal to monetize their operations. Copyright holders have worked with PayPal in the past in order to identify website operators who are suspected of violating intellectual property rights. Additionally, the company routinely shuts off funding to such operations entirely.

PayPal is well-known for suspending accounts which engage in questionable activity. However, sometimes, the online payment service drops accounts which aren't so questionable. Markus Persson, Minecraft's creator, knows this first hand as well as Regestry, a company who utilized PayPal to collect donations for purchasing children's toys to give away for charity. PayPal suspended Regestry's account because, effectively, charity is not a "worthy cause".

TorGuard's owner seems mostly undaunted by the setback, however. Although the exclusion of PayPal payments may not necessarily be a good thing, he said that the site still accepts credit cards, pre-paid cards, Google Checkout and various other services.

Steve Wozniak shares his thoughts on the MegaUpload case

Steve Wozniak visited New Zealand last month, stopping by MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom’s Auckland-area estate during the trip. When Dotcom was allowed back online last week, he tweeted a photoof the two during the visit and publically thanked him for his support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation but now is it Wozniak that is speaking out in favor of Dotcom.

In an email interview with CNET, Wozniak defends Dotcom, proclaiming that the charges levied against him are evidence of how poorly thought out the attempt to extradite him is. He feels that prosecutors are attempting to take advantage of loopholes in the system, further noting that it’s too bad for the US government that Dotcom lives in New Zealand “which is better on human rights.”

As part of the process, the New Zealand government in cooperation with the US government has seized Dotcom’s assets, preventing him from accessing funds to pay for legal services.

"How unfair that the United States will allow him living expenses out of his frozen assets but not give him any legal fees,” Wozniak said. “The side with access to the funds spends millions on lawyers hoping the other side goes bankrupt and gives in. Shame on the system that permits this one-sided advantage. Kim is well enough liked and respected that his legal team is working without up-front payment."

Furthermore, the Apple co-founder chimes in about the alleged pirated content being hosted on MegaUpload.

"I scratch my head wondering why the studios went after the guy doing more than can be imagined to remove the links the studios wanted removed," Wozniak noted in his email. "Heck, I use my iDisk (MobileMe) and dropbox to share files by sending links to friends. They might even be copyrighted materials. I might even send a song in an e-mail to my son, although if I think he'll keep it I will use the 'Buy gift' feature in iTunes. But there are so many legitimate uses to peer-to-peer file sharing and cloud storage."

CNET notes that Woz offered one final bit of advice to the entertainment industry. "When you can't stop something like a steamroller, get out of the way."

Source : techspot.com

Some facts about BitTorrent

Torrenting is perhaps one of the favorite ways for internet users to download copyrighted material for free. It involves downloading a .torrent file and loading it into a torrent program, which then finds users around the internet (thanks to "trackers") who have the necessary files stored on their computers. These "peers" then serve the files to the downloaders without a middle-man server, hence the term peer-to-peer networking.

While they can be used legitimately, torrents are largely used for piracy. As of the time of writing, popular torrent search engine IsoHunt has indexed 8.25 million torrents with a combined size of 13,635 TB (or 13.6 petabytes). With 33.58 million connected peers, this gives a rough average of 4 peers per torrent. This also means the average size of a torrent indexed on IsoHunt is 1.64 GB.

Note: When talking about torrent file sizes, we're not referring to the actual .torrent file size, which is usually a few kilobytes, but rather to the size of the files the torrent enables you do download from peers.

Here's where it starts to get interesting. Public torrent aggregator Torrentz is currently indexing a larger 11.70 million torrents (without duplicates) across 33 domains, which provides for a good statistical base.

GoDaddy accused of interfering with domain transfers

GoDaddy, the domain management and web hosting company suffered a rather bleak Christmas weekend after it became public news that the company was supporting SOPA. The company lost more than 37,000 domains in just a couple of days and that number has gone up further since then.

It all started when Republican congressman Lamar Smith released a full list of those supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) last week. While media firms such as Time Warner, CBS, NBC and the like are no surprise, GoDaddy's addition to the list was, and consequently a huge public backlash ensued.

If that wasn't bad enough, GoDaddy is now being accused of attempting to deliberately delay the transfer process of domains being moved from its service. Namecheap, who saw an opportunity in clearly stating they were anti-SOPA whilst offering discounts to those wanting to move their domains, has reported that GoDaddy is returning incomplete WhoIs information to them during the transfer process.They also made it clear they would manually transfer domains if they had to, in light of GoDaddy's actions.

As many customers have recently complained of transfer issues, we suspect that this competitor is thwarting efforts to transfer domains away from them. Specifically, GoDaddy appears to be returning incomplete WHOIS information to Namecheap, delaying the transfer process. This practice is against ICANN rules. We at Namecheap believe that this action speaks volumes about the impact that informed customers are having on GoDaddy’s business. It’s a shame that GoDaddy feels they have to block their (former) customers from voting with their dollars. We can only guess that at GoDaddy, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Rich Merdinger, Sr. Director of Product Development at GoDaddy responded to the blog post by saying the delay was a normal procedure designed to protect its clients from fraudulent activity.

Namecheap posted their accusations in a blog, but to the best our of knowledge, has yet to contact GoDaddy directly, which would be common practice for situations like this. Normally, the fellow registrar would make a request for us to remove the normal rate limiting block which is a standard practice used by GoDaddy, and many other registrars, to rate limit Whois queries to combat WhoIs abuse.

Because some registrars (and other data gathering, analyzing and reporting entities) have legitimate need for heavy port 43 access, we routinely grant requests for expanded access per an SOP we’ve had in place for many years. Should we make contact with Namecheap, and learn they need similar access, we would treat that request similarly.

As a side note, we have seen some nefarious activity this weekend which came from non-registrar sources. But, that is not unusual for a holiday weekend, nor would it cause legitimate requests to be rejected. Nevertheless, we have now proactively removed the rate limit for Namecheap, as a courtesy, but it is important to point out, there still may be back-end IP addresses affiliated with Namecheap of which we are unaware. For complete resolution, we should be talking to each other — an effort we are initiating since they have not done so themselves.

Namecheap responded with another statement saying they had tried to reach out and resolve the issue.

I understand that a number of publications have received a note from GoDaddy’s PR team saying that “to the best of [their] knowledge,” we hadn’t reached out. This is quite untrue as our upstream technicians had made attempts to reach out directly.

That said, it was known for almost a full 24 hours that we were blocked from having the transfers go through. In efforts to be fully transparent about the delays which were greatly upsetting to our customers, we posted this after reaching out to GoDaddy as we had no response.

We updated this post long before any publication came out with GoDaddy’s PR response to say that GoDaddy did confirm that they unblocked us. We wouldn’t have known that if there was no communication.

I can now confidently say that we’ve been able to process thousands of transfers since we were unblocked and should be up to speed by later tonight. We truly appreciate everyone’s patience and apologize for the delays that impacted our customers.

Meanwhile, domain registrar Hover contacted Neowin to say it hasn't experienced any issues with domain transfers, pointing at the possibility of eNom experiencing technical issues as a potential cause of the problems.

This would be a serious violation of [GoDaddy's] ICANN accreditation if it were the case. Namecheap is an eNom reseller and it may be possible that eNom is experiencing more general issues. I wonder if this is a more localized issue than Namecheaps might be aware of. We've seen a wild and consistent increase in transfer-in activity in the last week and its not showing any signs of slowing up. I'd be surprised if GoDaddy was taking punitive action, and of course, it almost goes without saying that not a day goes by when something in this business doesn't surprise me.

Despite at first suggesting their position would make no impact on its client portfolio, GoDaddy has since retracted its support of SOPA after bearing witness to a huge client exodus. Big household names such as Wikipedia confirming they are to move all their domains away from GoDaddy is not going to help the embattled firm rebuild its now tattered reputation as more people vote with their wallets and follow suit.

BitTorrent downloads linked to RIAA and DHS

The recent launch of www.youhavedownloaded.com has been attracting an ever-increasing audience as internet users scramble to see what publicly available data is stored against IP addresses they use. For those guilty of piracy the site offers a disturbing insight into the data held against their IPs, but it is now becoming known that many of those in favor of SOPA are not quite so squeaky clean either.

In an ironic turn of events, IP addresses assigned to the RIAA have been linked to content that has been illegally downloaded according toTorrentFreak. The site found that six of the anti-piracy organization's IP addresses had downloaded various files, including the first five seasons of the hit TV series Dexter, and music from artists Jay-Z and Kanye West, among other things.

"Those partial IP addresses are similar to block addresses assigned to RIAA. However, those addresses are used by a third party vendor to serve up our public Web site," a RIAA spokesperson told Cnet. They argued that the information was inaccurate and none of its staff had used those IPs to connect to the internet.

Even more bizarre is the fact they are using the "someone else did it" excuse despite their own lawyers refusing to accept that claim in the cases of tens of thousands of people previously prosecuted for piracy. Added to which, it is questionable whether an organization can reserve blocks of IP addresses then just hand them out to third parties. There could of course be genuine reasons for seeking pirated files, but it is also possible that employees have been downloading them as well.

The Department of Homeland Security, known for seizing domains relating to illegal downloading was also mentioned in the report, with over 900 unique IP addresses that when searched flagged up pirated content. The two organizations join Fox, Sony and Universal, as well as the office of the French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Despite a request for comment in light of the recent revelations the DHS has remained silent.

The one thing they all have in common is the desire to make piracy regulations tougher, with most supporting SOPA. The French President is particularly renowned for his tough stance on those that pirate copyrighted material online. It will be interesting to see if they launch investigations and treat those found to be downloading with the same level of aggression as the general public often is, or whether it will be brushed under the carpet in an endless maze of lawyer excuses as they push ever harder to implement SOPA into U.S. legislation.

GoDaddy loses over 37,000 domains due to SOPA stance

It's been a hell of a Christmas weekend for GoDaddy. The hosting and domain registrar company lost more than 37,000 domains in the past couple of days due to its shaky stance on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act. According to information reported by The Domains, over 15,000 domains were transferred off Thursday and another 21,054 on Friday, despite GoDaddy's attempt to control damage by withdrawing its support to SOPA.

The backlash against GoDaddy kicked off after the company appeared on an official list of companies supporting SOPA, a proposed bill that would allow the U.S. Department of Justice and copyright holders to block access to sites accused of infringing copyright, and stop payment processors and online advertising networks from doing business with them -- all without due process.

The idea of a domain registrar supporting DNS blocking legislation to serve the interests of overzealous copyright owners and media companies prompted Internet users to stage a widespread boycott, declaring December 29 "move your domain day." GoDaddy initially dismissed the move as having little impact on their business, but was later scrambling to let everyone know it no longer supports SOPA legislation.

In a recent statement, Warren Adelman, the company's newly appointed CEO said: "Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better. [...] It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."

Despite the reversal, the company is not taking an active stance against the bill either, which may have prompted many to carry on moving their business elsewhere. High profile customers threatening to move away from GoDaddy include Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales, and the CEO of the Cheezburger family of humor websites, Ben Huh. It's unclear if they carried on with their plans after GoDaddy's change of heart.

Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago, and have said the company would support DNS blocking as a way to strike at foreign websites that infringe U.S. copyrights. As of Friday, Jones has removed posts at GoDaddy.com describing the company's support of provisions in SOPA.

Witcher 2 devs suing pirates, claim to be sure who downloaded illegally

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was very well received last May, gathering mostly positive reviews with an aggregate critics' score of 90/100 according to our Product Finder. The game was made exclusively for the PC -- and unlike many others a console version is in the works for later release and not the other way around -- and since the launch of patch 1.1, The Witcher 2 was made DRM-free for all.

That certainly spells confidence on the platform, as developer CD Projekt is said to have sold over a million copies of the game thus far. That's not only thing they feel confident about however. The Polish developer is going after pirates of the game, claiming that only people who they are sure downloaded a copy of the game illegally are receiving a threat of legal action, not very different to the pay-up-or-else scheme used by other organizations that track torrent downloads.

“We’re addressing only 100% confirmed piracy causes that are 100% possible to prove,” said Michal Nowakowski, CD Projekt's VP of Business Development to PC Gamer. “We are not worried about tracking the wrong people. As this is the trade secret of the company working on this, I cannot share it. However, we investigated the subject before we decided on this move, and we aware of some past complications. The method used here is targeting only 100% confirmed piracy cases. No innocent person was targeted with the letter so far. At least we have not received any information as of now which would indicate something like that.”

Reports indicate that in the past few months several batches of notices have been sent in Germany asking for a settlement equivalent to 911,80 euros ($1190) as compensation for illegally obtaining a copy of the game.TorrentFreak estimates over a thousand of these letters have been sent in this country alone, while worldwide piracy for The Witcher 2 (measured in BitTorrent downloads) is around 2 million copies.

It's also known CD Projekt is relying on an unnamed third party to monitor downloads and target individuals based on that information, though once again the company is claiming 100% accuracy on who is receiving legal threats. Michal Nowakowski said to PC Gamer they haven't had to go to court yet on any of these cases and that the real settlement sum asked from pirates is lower than the figure circling around the web.