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They have seen how MediaDefender has made huge profits out of the rabid desire of the music industry & hollywood to stop the perceived 'theft' of music and movies to illeagal downloads particulary torrents through technological techniques.

AT&T see themselves in excellent position to tap into this market through traffic monitoring and MediaDefender's recent stock crash after leaked emails reveal they were pwned by a bunch of high school kids http://torrentfreak.com/mediadefender-stock-plunges-due-to-leaked-emails-071222/ and http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/01/14/Media-Defenders-Profile?print=true couldn't have come at a better time

This a big and growing market and one of its major players just took a nosedive, the market share is up for grabs.

I can't see big music & hollywood coming to their senses about the whole thing anytime soon so the 'fight' will go on and the likes of AT&T will be there to profit and drive the market.

So if you've got no morals and an idea for a good algorithm or counter-pirate technique give AT&T a ring...

TWENTY, not 25. did you actually bother to research it? The reasoning was also NOT "that the people who created the stuff would be encouraged to create more" but that "the people who created in the 1950s are about to run out of royalties". That includes Cliff Rochard. Oh look, I did cover this in detail in the past too...

http://neuron2neuron.blogspot.com/2006/04/royalty-deadlines-told-to-move-it.html first and then http://torrentfreak.com/uk-conservatives-plan-to-extend-copyright/

Since then, Cliff Richard has trialed a pay-by-demand system for his last album, back in November. Please, do try and keep up

Ben Jones
http://torrentfreak.com/author/bjones/
http://neuron2neuron.blogspot.com/
http://www.piracyisnotacrime.com/

TWENTY, not 25. did you actually bother to research it? The reasoning was also NOT "that the people who created the stuff would be encouraged to create more" but that "the people who created in the 1950s are about to run out of royalties". That includes Cliff Rochard. Oh look, I did cover this in detail in the past too...

http://neuron2neuron.blogspot.com/2006/04/royalty-deadlines-told-to-move-it.html first and then http://torrentfreak.com/uk-conservatives-plan-to-extend-copyright/

Since then, Cliff Richard has trialed a pay-by-demand system for his last album, back in November. Please, do try and keep up

Ben Jones
http://torrentfreak.com/author/bjones/
http://neuron2neuron.blogspot.com/
http://www.piracyisnotacrime.com/

Check out this article that's recently appeared on Torrentfreak
It states that the number of 36.4% is incorrect and it's actually more like ~18%, it seems that someone got their sums wrong....

The 36.4% is the market share compared to other P2P clients. The actual number of PCs that have Limewire installed is 18% see: http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-gains-popularity-azureus-loses-ground-071216/

Personally, I never saw the problem with the piracy of TV shows: a large proportion of those who watch them, assuming they like them, will probably watch the original broadcast or the next episode when it's aired anyway. It's a different matter for large-scale, large-budget Hollywood films, but in instances like these, I think that this is a move in the right direction.

Are they going to fine charities for playing copyrighted music too loud? http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/197594908/ Someones got to stop these madmen and women!

Illegal Video Downloads Surpass Legal Alternatives 5 to 1

Like a certain Canadian ISP is doing now.

Incorrect. The Sandvine appliances that comcast uses do not need to inspect the packets to classify them as Bittorrent, they can do so by other methods e.g. pattern and timing analysis. Not many network protocols generate packets the way bittorrent does; it's a dead giveaway. As long as they can identify your usage as bittorrent, the RST trick still works. Of course, you could change set your client to open a very conservative number of connections, possibly thwarting traffic analysis, but then you'd be throttling yourself worse than comcast.

The only permanent solution to this hack is end-to-end encryption, ie. setting up a VPN for each torrent, or even between each peer, so the traffic is indistinguishable from corporate-style vpns, which Comcast would never dare block.

see http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/

http://torrentfreak.com/george-bush-vs-the-riaa/

We're already fed up with the handling of the war... and now BMG blows the whistle on the Bush administration's blatant violation of copyright law. I hope BMG takes care of this and faithfully executes their right, as copyright holder, to bring this man to justice!

As far as I know there is not any strong evidence that CRIA has done anything yet. The server is down, true, but I heard it's just a hard drive failure. Some demonoid people were complaining about the bad journalism reporting that the CRIA shut down demonoid, without anybody from demonoid saying this. Who is the source on this? Some nu.nl article? How do they know anything? Here is an IRC log where demonoid staff give the torrentfreak admin a hard time for reprinting the nu.nl story about the CRIA without having confirmed it in any way. To be fair, at this point in time, the torrentfreak article uses the word "allegedly." maybe they changed it.

Something came through the IRC Channel. This was posted on Digg so I can't vouch that it is 100%

Link to Source: http://diggdl.googlepages.com/demonoid

  http://torrentfreak.com/demonoid-shut-down-by-cria-070925/ we DO NOT know what actually happened. the CRIA is just a SPECULATION. the site is TEMPORAROLY OFFLINE

  Yes the tracker is down, they are going through heavy maintenance, please wait patiently for it to come back up.

  Jumba; that torrent freak article is completely false
  there is NO evidence

  and NO word from site staff, and i'm in contact with the TF dude right now

  we're still waiting for the name of a CRIA rep for confirmation.

If you'd read the actual post (and if the OP had too) you'll see they've not filed suit, they have filed criminal complaints with the SWedish Police. http://torrentfreak.com/piratebay-fires-a-broadside-of-complaints-to-police/this is a good article about it, that keeps a little more to the pertinant facts

just in

MediaDefender Anti-Piracy Tools Leaked

ATT you want to see what will make me pay $50 a month for my Internet from the cable company? Start filtering and I'll drop your crappy $20 DSL that day.

I hope you don't have this for a cable company.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/04/2014236
http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/

Over the past weeks more and more Comcast users started to notice that their BitTorrent transfers were cut off. Most users report a significant decrease in download speeds, and even worse, they are unable to seed their downloads. A nightmare for people who want to keep up a positive ratio at private trackers and for the speed of BitTorrent transfers in general.

there are more leaks!

MediaDefender Phone Call and Gnutella Tracking Database Leaked

I'm so glad I live in Canada.

bittorrent Inc. aquired utorrent some time ago. http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-inc-buys-%C2%B5 torrent/

You deal with circumventing the duty (being monitored) by running wine, cygwin, vmware and the like. That's not the point. There is a confinement rule, and the question is: is it fair? He claims costs (buy windows) and being punished to use windows. The cost argument isn't changed by running wine, cygwin or vmware. And he might not be interested in using a technique, which brings him straigt back to jail, if he is observed to circumvent the monitoring software. Those advices aren't helpful - they just show, that all you experts know vmware, wine and cygwin. Congratulation. So is here a skandal of unfairnes? Do you expect judges to be informed about linux, and that you can't simply run a monitoring software written for MS-Xme2kista on a linux system? How does a judge work? Someone suggests running a monitoring software, the judges agrees - amen. Btw.: slashdot doesn't report, but here http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-admin-monitored -by-us-government-forced-to-dump-linux/ you see, he was convicted for "uploading 'Star Wars: Episode III' onto the internet hours before the theatrical release". Not the common fair-use dvd-ripper, or sometimes-torrent-user. Of course I would prefer 5 months in jail with ubuntu instead of 5 months in the MS-jail. But I guess a equivalent Linux-monitoring-software would have been accepted by the judge.

here

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT -tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP

it's not mine so don't blame me. it's ugly, don't blame me. if it doesn't work, don't blame me. blame Canada.

Here's the link to the story http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-to-launch-y outube-competitor/

Are you sure it wasn't simply the case that they're out of money and/or nobody will distribute the documentary for them?

Or maybe they're just clever and realise they can get lots of free publicity on sites like /. by releasing the programme as a torrent. Don't think we'll ever know, but you're reading this article aren't you?

Unfortunately am in Canada and Bittorrent has been banned by the Internet Police over here, so we're not allowed to download files.

From the article:

From the summary:

Yeah, I know I'm selectively quoting from the summary (i.e. another line says "allows the end user to control torrent downloads remotely".I also understand that I'm splitting some hairs here, but there is nothing new on the cell phone. So do we consider it to be bringing capabilities to a phone every time a new web application is built or an old host app has a new web front end built for it? Nothing has changed on the phone. That's the *point* of building web-based apps - dodge the client.

And (also from the summary a "giant leap forward"? I don't think so. The utorrent web interface allows me to remote control my torrent downloads from any browser which can render the page, and has done so in public availability since sometime last year. I haven't tried to use it from my phone, but there's got to be a phone-based browser out there capable of doing so. Anyone?

I think it is neat that someone is doing this. Can we just take some of the hyperbole out of summaries? (I can hear the 'you must be new here' comments already).

From Sept 2006 the announcement on utorrent's web interface and remote control:
http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=14565

And a BitTorrent client for mobile devices, article dated mar 13th 2007:
http://torrentfreak.com/symtorrent-bittorrent-on-y our-mobile/

Nothing to see here ... nothing new, anyway.

I think that our Belgian friends could simply bypass this using protocol encryption for bitorrent. Since bittorrent can work on any port, portblocking filters are useless. Packet sniffers would have a tough time detecting encrypted traffic. The major bittorrent clients all support protocol encryption. For a guide on how to get it working with your client check out:
TorrentFreak's guide to protocol encrpytion

The complexity is much more difficult than that. Encrypted p2p, encrypted files, encrypted VOIP (Skype), SSH, and so on. And how can they tell a single large encrypted torrent from a dozen smaller encrypted torrents?
Simple, they degrade/block all encrypted traffic. A big ISP in Canada has already started doing this.
Rogers Fights BitTorrent by Throttling All Encrypted Transfers
Rogers Must Come Clean on Traffic Shaping

1. What exactly is your point? The Pirate Bay provides a service and makes money off of advertising. How does that conflict with their supposed "...'free music' rhetoric."? In addition, I have found no statements from the piratebay promoting or otherwise stating that they have a "...anti-establishment 'free music' rhetoric." One might say that is implied with the nature of the service they imply, but that argument is weak at best. Not only that, but it does not answer the original question. 2. AllOfMp3.com is being sued and they are not legally licensed to sell copy's of music. All true and valid. But I really don't see why that was put in the article. 3. Yeah, I like word play too. By selling the music one illegally that in and of it self makes them a criminal. By having more than one person there is now a gang or a group. If that gang or group attempts to work in an efficient matter they are organized. Therefore if Bob and Alice decide to sell pirated music and they organize themselves, they are now a "Organized criminal gang". Selling CD's is not used to laundering money. Rather laundering money could be used in the selling of pirated material. If you were not aware laundering money is best known as a process to conceal where the money came from. The purpose is so that the methods used to generate the money appear to be genuine. Usually this may involve setting up a company where one can make fake transactions. These fake transactions then amount to the sum of the money generated illegitimately. Now, one can pay taxes on the money and have it appear as though it were generated through legitimate transactions. These terrorist groups you speak of? Care to back that up with some hard evidence and not just he said she said hearsay? Further more, an "Organized criminal gang", or a "terrorist group" could sell t-shirts to generate money. That does not mean selling t-shirts is morally wrong. 4. Not necessarily true, not necessarily false. I can just as easily say I don't pirate independent labels just as easily as I can say you do. 5. Reduced revenues also means less money to spend on buying Zeppelins. Just because they can does not mean they will. 6. Actually, no. ISP's are already implementing traffic shaping to reduce network load caused by file sharing service such as Bittorrent. http://www.torrentfreak.com/canadian-isp-is-thrott ling-bittorrent-traffic/ Also, what's with the bit about ISP's advertising free legal music? 7. Realistically there are not many movements that create jobs. However the results of such movement often times can. Also, Id like know exactly why you think these "pontificating" people know so little about a "commercial world" 8. Id like to know more about Chinese demographics myself. Specifically Id like to know, just what the median income in income is? Wikipedia tells me it is about $8,000 US. Now after costs of living, how much is really left over to spend on CD's that cost $20 bucks a pop? 9. Well personally me and my ten best friends think there is nothing wrong with music piracy. So according to a study done by an American pro-piracy grou pmost people see nothing wrong with piracy. 10. Actually, peer to peer networks are hotbeds for finding new music. Ever heard of a group called Umphrey's McGee? Well I hadn't until I found a taping of one of their concerts on a Bittorent tracker.

"Except the MPAA can't summon police forces to take care of inside jobs... that would be civil infractions that wouldn't immediately carry criminal charges (maybe they can peg fraud or something, but IANAL)."

A few people have faced criminal charges as a result of leaking screeners. Here's one example.

It's a similar situation in the retail industry: employee theft and other "inside jobs" are a big part of the loss, yet retailers still attempt to stop shoplifting. In the movie industries, retail industries, and many other professions, walking and chewing gum at the same time is an important skill. Slashdotters have often suggested that the MPAA take care of screener leakage "first" rather than picking on unrelated pirates -- but why not do both at once?

Damn those lazy Pirates, stealing our opening paragraph for a Slashdot submission.

Hahaha, "John Sankus and his techno-gang ..."

Watch out for the techno-gang! At least he didn't use the word 'thugs' to legitimize their ridiculous waste of money on sort-of slowing down the completely victimless crime the 'gang' was committing. Would anybody cheer if they arrested Coca-Cola shareholders for competing with Pepsi? Because this is essentially major tax money going to 'protect' the rights of very very big business, and nothing else.

Do you think the FBI would start a case on somebody pirating Forest Blog ? Because that's what they should be doing. If it's about rights and freedom's being protected, make a point of protecting the little guy for once. Just once. After all, they're the ones paying your salaries. You think Microsoft is paying 50% of it's income to taxes?

---
Fight piracy, link to this site

Here you go.

The big deal is that it only affect music CDRs. Not all CDRs.

The only reason I can think to use music CDRs is if you're using a standalone CD recorder which will only take music CDRs (this is a common, though artificial limitation).

DRM is a necessity for sustaining artists wages, and the consumer has always had a choice, so don't blame others, if you're are not satisfied with a product or its price DON'T BUY IT, the industrie sets its prices by what people are prepared to pay, so it's your own fault at the end of the day.

Something I don't understand about the pro-drm crowd... OK, even accepting logic that "getting something for free that others pay for" = "stealing", where the hell does DRM come into this equation?

Accepting every argument that demonises file-sharing, p2p, Usenet binaries and other pirate goodness, DRM STILL

* increases the price of the media for regular, law abiding consumers
* restricts the ability of those same law abiding consumers from exercising legally protected fair use rights
* forces law abiding customers into hardware lockins and restricts their ability to choose media platforms
* makes data backup of legally purchased media more difficult/impossible
* decreases massively the chance you can still use your legally purchased media in 5/10/15 years time

and what does it do to thwart all the things that the pro-DRM camp complain about?

* Stops pirates from stealing media?

Seriously, this isn't too hard guys! It just doesn't work!. There are software companies that make high-end graphics and video editing suites that cost thousands of dollars to license, that protect their software with deeply complex and highly secure code, multiple layers of remote license validation and so forth, and you can still download cracked copies of the software from Usenet and bittorrent sites. If software companies, with [to use a little *IAA logic] thousands of dollars to lose per copy made can't protect their content, how do you think that music and movie companies that makes hundreds of thousands of copies of their products that have to be accessible/decodable on hundreds of different hardware platforms can possibly do it?

It doesn't matter how you feel about pirates, DRM still doesn't make sense.

A Danish court recently ruled against a Danish ISP and ordered it to block all access to the site Allofmp3.com. According to the ruling, the ISP is willingly infringing copyright if it's customers use AllofMP3 to download music.

The verdict could have very strong implications for the future. It clearly states that an ISP can be held liable for temporarily (milliseconds) storing infringing data on their routers. This means that ISPs can be forced to block websites, if the court decides that these sites are mainly used to spread "illegal" content.

Read more here and here...

Actually in some other discussions I've said that I think this could be really beneficial -- with systems like BitTorrent, and to a lesser extent Skype and other P2P systems, it's conceivable that a big broadband provider could configure its network so that a lot of "bulk" traffic was kept on its own wires, and didn't have to traverse the public net.

For example, if they provided a Skype supernode that all the broadband users could connect to, whenever one of the customers wanted to call another, the routing could all be done without having to send packets through a peering/transit point. It would all be on the ISPs network, which costs them basically nothing.

You can make similar arguments for positioning cache servers for other types of stuff on the network. Were it not for the copyright concerns, they could probably save themselves a lot of customer aggravation and bandwidth expense, if they just did some intelligent caching of bittorrent traffic. (And it's my understanding this is the whole theory behind the Cache Discovery Protocol, but I'm not sure which ISPs are going to use it.)

The place where I think this could have the biggest effects, would be in places that have large networks that are basically isolated from the public net by narrow connections -- say, Australia. A system of intelligent caching and encouraging the use of P2P applications would probably lighten the load on the traffic actually passing in and out of a "network island" by favoring internal connections instead.

So a broadband ISP that let you connect to your neighbor at 100Mb/s but only pass packets out to the public 'net at 1Mb, might at some point in the future, if it was designed correctly, seem like a really sweet deal.

http://tomsnetworking.com/2006/08/11/qnap_ts101_na s_review/

or lok at a review of the asus unit here: http://torrentfreak.com/review-the-wireless-bittor rent-router/

Fist of all, they announced 2000 not 20000 cases. Secondly, it's funny to see how they keep on suing the same people. The judge, chef and councilor are in every press release.