Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

'Tor and Bitcoin Hinder Anti-Piracy Efforts' (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by msmash on from the odd-ones-out dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A new report published by the European Union Intellectual Property Office identifies a wide range of 'business models' that are used by pirate sites. The organization, which announced a new collaboration with Europol this week, signals Bitcoin and the Tor network as two key threats to ongoing anti-piracy efforts. According to the research, several infringing business models rely on encryption-based technologies. The Tor network and Bitcoin, for example, are repeatedly mentioned as part of this "shadow landscape." "It more and more relies on new encrypted technologies like the TOR browser and the Bitcoin virtual currency, which are employed by infringers of IPR to generate income and hide the proceeds of crime from the authorities," the report reads.

13 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Sharing is a business now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No one I know has ever paid money for pirated media. That's kind of the entire point. What is this drivel about business models?

    1. Re:Sharing is a business now? by dnaumov · · Score: 3, Informative

      No one I know has ever paid money for pirated media. That's kind of the entire point. What is this drivel about business models?

      Advertising and/or malware distribution. Don't be dense.

    2. Re: Sharing is a business now? by WarJolt · · Score: 2

      All those proxy/vpn services that people pay for directly market to torrent users. Some are paying for anonymity for the sole purpose of pirating.

    3. Re:Sharing is a business now? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How do you offer a better product at better than free? People obviously want the artist's product; and a rational person wants that product for the lowest price.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    4. Re:Sharing is a business now? by PatientZero · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A rational person also wants to be able to consume said content easily. The content producers are doing their damnedest to make it as difficult as possible. Why can't I type in a movie name and watch it on my Tivo? Oh sure, it searches Netflix and Amazon and Xfinity and Hulu and . . . but then when you choose your provider (you can't always see the cost so it's hard to choose) you still have to search again in the actual app to watch it.

      But then you can't download it to pause/rewind quickly, or you have to watch commercials, or you only have 24 hours to watch it, or you can't watch it in Bumfuckistan, or . . . WTF! I am happy to pay for content. I would be happier if the content providers got their shit together instead of fighting content sharing and wringing their hands over Bitcoin.

      --
      Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
      I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
    5. Re:Sharing is a business now? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Malware free, easy download without fake download buttons, extras like artwork, lossless encoding...

      How do you think Amazon and iTunes sell anything if The Pirate Bay constantly undercuts them?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:Sharing is a business now? by PCM2 · · Score: 2

      I've been to what looked like a legitimate video store in a mall in Malaysia. By "legitimate," I mean the employees were all wearing polo shirts with the store logo embroidered on them, the product was all neatly arrange on shelves in alphabetical order, the whole bit. There was one shelf right inside the front door offering "imported" DVDs for something like $40. Everything else in the entire store were Asian bootlegs. When I told one of the employees that you couldn't buy the original Star Wars Trilogy in the US (as you couldn't at the time), he seemed legitimately baffled. He'd probably personally sold hundreds of them.

      That's a little different from claiming pirates are building businesses based on BitTorrent, though.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    7. Re:Sharing is a business now? by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 2

      > All transactions are recorded in the block chain and supposedly available for inspection by anyone.

      Yes, they are. But they only record the sending address, receiving address, and the amount being sent. No names or other personal information. Here, look at a transaction from the most recent block, and tell me anything about the people involved:

      https://blockchain.info/tx/ce1...

    8. Re:Sharing is a business now? by KiloByte · · Score: 2

      Malware free, easy download without fake download buttons, extras like artwork, lossless encoding...

      Malware in pure data like flac, ogg, opus or mp3, how? Use a reputable site like The Pirate Bay. Most music torrents include artwork. If you want lossless encoding, you're far more likely to find it in a torrent rather than a pay site.

      Plus, try to find actual music on a pay site -- all you get is corporate prolefeed apparently indeed made with a versificator, because that's what sells. Most music I prefer was made in 80's-90's and it wasn't mainstream even then, so good luck finding the copyright holder, as the band disbanded and so did the label.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    9. Re:Sharing is a business now? by bug1 · · Score: 2

      Copyright infringement happened before there was websites, and it will continue to happen even if there is no business model.

      And how about you grow up, no need for insults.

  2. Re:In other news; water is wet, the sky is blue... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

    Urgh. Sometimes governments really get stupid when it comes to translating common sense to any concept that happens to be "...on a computer."

    Actually, they are floating plans to ban cash too. Bitcoin is just online cash, so the impetus to ban both would be largely the same.

    And, yes, this means they want complete control of every aspect of every piece of commerce that happens among their subjects.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  3. Arr by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    It is probably more accurate to say TECHNOLOGY hinders anti-piracy efforts.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  4. Re:Bitcoin? Yes. TOR? NO! by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 2

    Actually, Day One for Bitcoin was buying two pizzas for 10,000 BTC, and that was 18 months after the network first booted up. Until then it was just a cryptographic curiosity. The Silk Road prosecution revealed that only 4% of bitcoin transactions were used on their black market to buy drugs and other nefarious purposes. That's not much higher than the ratio of illicit drugs to GDP worldwide (3%), and is far less than the total underground economy in the US (20%). The underground economy = black market (illegal) + off the books economy (nominally legal but not reported).

    Good old cash is still by far the preferred choice for illegal activity. That's why over 70% of hundred Dollar bills are overseas:

    http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...