AFACT, the Australian organization for protecting the movie industry’s copyrights, sent a warning concerning the nation’s forbidden love for Pirate Bay and other file-sharing websites.

Things were different back in the 90’s for Australia’s regulations regarding media and communication. But the fast development of technology pushed the “Federal Government Media Convergence Review” to take a closer look upon the changes that come with fast-evolving times and their impact upon the media landscape. Naturally, they did receive the message sent by AFACT. Here’s what the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft had to say:

“AFACT has analysed the top 100 most popular and visited sites in Australia according to their Alexa ranking, and it is apparent that Australians also have a strong preference for infamous pirate sites.” – the sites in subject being Piratebay.org (#40), isoHunt.com, Hotfile.com and Mediafire.com.
The numbers given by AFACT show that Piratebay occupies a better place in the list than in the UK or US where it’s placed on the 60th respectively 81th. They also mentioned that not only illegal content has been downloaded but legal too.
“In two separate data samples which the researchers analysed, it was found that at least 89 percent of all files traded on BitTorrent were infringing.”

“It also found 70 percent of all content being traded was motion pictures or television shows — none of which was identified as legal, and much of which is the intellectual property belonging to our representative companies.”

AFACT’s concern goes back in the past when they started a lawsuit against iNet (a major local broadband provider) which it eventually lost. Letters were sent to other Australian ISPs with requests of cutting down the users’ appeal for peer-to-peer.
In the submission sent to FGMCR they also stated:

“In a converged world, the business models for delivery and consumption of content services are adapting and evolving, but the underlying intellectual property framework (especially copyright) must be maintained.”

“Creators, providers and owners of content in the content supply value chain have a legitimate expectation that their rights will continue to be protected, despite increasing convergence.”

Fortunately, not everyone agrees with AFACT. Google, Yahoo!7 and eBay joined pens and wrote to the same organization (FGMCR) about the benefits of the online space:

“Continued innovation and investment in the Australian digital economy — further facilitated by the opportunities that will be created by the National Broadband Network — represents an opportunity for almost unlimited potential to deliver even more innovation in the types of content creation, delivery and consumption models that will be available to the Australian content industry and the Australian public.”

The bottom line would consist in the fact that past regulatory models may no longer make sense when applied to the content of regulation.

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UK has become one of the most active battle fields where issues such as anti-piracy, internet freedom, copyright infringement, illegal file sharing are continually clenching with no fair results to this point.

With all the efforts of the copyright owners with respect to drawing a solid a viable method to tackle illegal file-sharing so far no agreement with British ISPs has been reached.

HMG’s threat to impose legislation by the end of the summer if things don’t change until then remains valid. The government will release a consultation paper on possible legislation in July.

Lisa Vango, Senior Policy Advisor at UK IPO, thinks that the difficulty in reaching a consensus may owe to the fact MPAA, BPI and other similar organizations are trying to reach individual deals between themselves and internet service providers rather than making efforts together to come up with an agreement that would be universally applicable between all content providers and ISPs.

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With worldwide box-office grosses totalling $274 million since its premiere in August of last year, The Expendables can be classified as a modest blockbuster. The film also did well on file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent, but thus far without any direct revenues. In an attempt to cash in on these unauthorized downloads, the makers of the film stood by an earlier warning and sued 6,500 BitTorrent users in the United States.

In the last 12 months filmmakers and licensees have sued well over 100,000 alleged file-sharers in the United States alone. The purpose of these lawsuits is to obtain the personal details of the alleged downloaders, and use this information to negotiate a settlement offer ranging from a few hundred to a few thousands dollars.

This scheme was pioneered in the US by the law firm Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, aka the U.S. Copyright Group (USCG), but recently it has been replicated by several other lawyers across the country. A few days ago, USCG filed a round of new lawsuits on behalf of another major client, Nu Image, the studio behind the action flick The Expendables.

After The Hurt Locker, The Expendables is the first major film release associated with this type of legal action. It is also one of the largest mass P2P lawsuits that was ever started, with a total of 6,500 unidentified defendants (Does). All defendants are suspected of having shared The Expendables on BitTorrent in recent months.

The complaint, filed by Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver at the District Court of Columbia, further appears to be copied from previous cases. It starts off with describing how BitTorrent works, and goes on to explain how the defendants have used this technology to distribute The Expendables without permission of the copyright holder.

As with previous cases, the true purpose of the lawsuits is not to start a full trial, but to obtain the personal details of the customers who are linked to the “infringing” IP-addresses. A classic pay-up-or-else scheme, or exploiting the legal system for commercial gain as others have described the process.

There is no doubt that involvement in this type of lawsuit will lead to the creation of a negative image for the studio among the general public, but on the flip side the revenue potential is enormous. If 80 percent of all defendants pay a $2,000 settlement, the plaintiffs would earn more than $10 million, which equals 10% of the total box office grosses in the US.

And there is potential for even more revenue.

Even today, five months after a high quality copy of The Expendables became available on BitTorrent, the movie is still being downloaded by a few thousand people every day. This means that there’s enough potential to sue tens of thousands additional BitTorrent users in the future, if the courts permit it of course.

The latter is a question that is likely to be answered in the months to come. Already, law firms involved in these mass lawsuits are meeting resistance from consumer rights organisations and judges. With more cases being entered month after month, the pressure on the legal system is increasing at a rapid rate too.

In the UK, where these pay-up-or-else practices began back in 2007, legal setbacks, incompetence and pressure from the public eventually led to the fall of the most prominent anti-piracy law firms ACS:Law. With the spotlight now on the US, Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver and the other law firms that are involved better brace themselves.

BitTorrent users who receive a subpoena are advised to contact a legal representative, the EFF has some good advice to start with.

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Hot on the heels of the recent announcement in court that ACS:Law will stop chasing alleged file-sharers, comes an even more dramatic development. According to a document seen by TorrentFreak, both ACS:Law and their copyright troll client MediaCAT have just completely shut down their businesses. The news comes just days before a senior judge is due to hand down a ruling on the pair’s activities.

In a statement handed to the Patents County Court earlier this month, ACS:Law owner Andrew Crossley delivered some good news for once. The anti-piracy business had all got too much for Crossley – he would now stop chasing alleged file-sharers.

Crossley, in his usual spin-doctor style, tried his best to blame just about everyone else for his downfall but for those who have followed these cases closely it was clear who was to blame. Crossley and client Lee Bowden, owner of copyright troll MediaCAT, had been the architects of their own doom.

With the Patents County Court hearing adjourned by Judge Birss QC, most observers believed that his ruling, which is now due next week, would be the next significant milestone in this whole sorry affair. But for companies that operate as unusually as ACS:Law and MediaCAT, there’s always a surprise in store.

Since TorrentFreak were the first outlet to report on the activities of ACS:Law back in 2008, it’s perhaps fitting that we should now be the ones to break the news of the company’s ultimate demise.

According to a copy of a document obtained by TorrentFreak, which appears to have been sent out by Crossley during the last week, ACS:Law have not only stopped all file-sharing related work as previously reported, but actually shut down completely 31st January 2011.

Furthermore, the document adds that ACS:Law’s only remaining speculative invoicing client – MediaCAT – has also ceased trading.

“Ahead of Judge Birss’ judgement due on Tuesday, it would seem to some that Mr Crossley and Mr Bowden are attempting to avoid not just ‘judicial scrutiny’ but financial responsibility for the flawed claims that they foolishly decided to issue,” consumer group BeingThreatened told TorrentFreak on hearing the news.

“They perhaps hoped that they might gain a judgement which they could use to threaten future letter recipients, instead their greed has led to the exposure of the significant and manifold flaws in the legal and evidential basis of the speculative invoicing scheme they employed.” 

There has been recent speculation that MediaCAT may choose to close their business, particularly since they are now facing an application for “wasted costs” following their recent catastrophic legal venture against 27 alleged file-sharers. But even closure may not save the company’s owner from some hefty payouts.

“MediaCAT’s status as a private limited company may not protect [Bowden] from personal legal liability for the costs that will be demanded by the defendants of the claims MediaCAT brought,” notes Bench. “ACS:Law was not a limited company in any sense. Mr Crossley will remain entirely and personally liable for all the actions of his firm.”

Joe Hickster, the blogger behind the ACS:Bore blog who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes supporting many people who have fallen victim to ACS:Law and similar companies, welcomed the news.

“The news of the pair’s demise is a vindication for the people who stood strong against ACS:LAW/Media C.A.T,” he told TorrentFreak. “The damage they have caused cannot be overestimated, so it’s great news that their campaign of fear against many innocent people seems to be at an end.”

“With Crossley’s upcoming appearance at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, a warning has been sent out to those Solicitors who think they can pick up the poisoned baton of Speculative Invoicing.”

Perhaps the big question now is how the closure of ACS:Law and MediaCAT will affect next Tuesday’s court hearing where Judge Birss QC is due to deliver a ruling on the pair’s activities.

“The timing [of the closures] will be no coincidence, but while these actions may have been conceived as a damage limitation exercise, they will do nothing to appease Judge Birss who is already wise to the ‘twists and turns’ of this scheme and who is unlikely to let the duo’s plan work out quite as they perhaps intend,” concludes BeingThreatened’s James Bench.

So, the show isn’t over yet. Be sure to tune in here on Tuesday to hear what Judge Birss has to say. And bring some popcorn, this should be very interesting indeed. 

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Last month, the bandwidth supplier to The Pirate Bay was ordered by a court to disconnect it from the Internet. Within hours the site had relocated and was back online with a new host – who immediately received similar entertainment industry threats. Maybe Open Internet, a new fighting fund, can help?



pirate bayLast month Stockholm’s district court ordered action to disconnect The Pirate Bay from the Internet, pending the outcome of a civil action taken by several Hollywood entertainment companies.

Black Internet was forced to disconnect TPB from the Internet or face large financial penalties. While the ISP had little choice but to comply with the disconnection order, it was soon back online with a new ISP.

Yesterday Black Internet said it would appeal the decision of the Stockholm district court, stating that the decision goes much further than The Pirate Bay. “Either we sort this out now or we will sit here in a few years time and wonder where the Internet went,” said CEO Victor Moller.

The company is hoping that other ISPs will join it by contributing to Open Internet, a foundation “to promote freedom of expression on the Internet through advocacy and by paying the costs for parties that would otherwise find it difficult to pursue a lawsuit.”

One company that will sympathize with Black Internet and might consider becoming a supporter of Open Internet, is the new bandwidth supplier to The Pirate Bay.

“It took just 20 minutes before the Hollywood companies telephoned the new host who took over operation of The Pirate Bay,” said Patrik from an ISP connected to the new TPB bandwidth supplier.

Although Patrik knows the people behind The Pirate Bay, he is not a direct supplier of bandwidth to the site. He provides bandwidth to another company who in turn supplies it to TPB.

“She [representative from Hollywood] was bitching a bit and asked me to see if I would turn off the bandwidth directly, or receive a court order instead,” said Patrik.

Patrik went on to say that he is compliant with existing laws and as long as that is the case, he will continue to supply the bandwidth. But what if the new suppliers are targeted in the same way as Black Internet – will they fight?

“It depends on the possibilities,” says Patrik. “I am a small company so I do not have the resources to run for long, but there are certainly others who want to,” he says.

Anyone wishing to donate to the Open Internet fund which will help Black Internet and others to fight in future, can do so via PayPal to donations@openinternet.se.

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A Johns Hopkins University student killed an apparent burglar with a samurai sword after discovering the man in his garage, police said Tuesday.




Baltimore, Maryland, police received a phone call shortly before 1:30 a.m. Tuesday about a suspicious person, and an off-duty officer arrived at the scene with campus security, city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

When authorities arrived, they heard calls for help and for police, he said. They discovered a suspected burglar with a severed left hand and severe lacerations to his upper body, Guglielmi said.

The suspect died at the scene, he said.
The man had entered a home where several Johns Hopkins students lived, Guglielmi said. Four students, one armed with a samurai sword, had confronted the suspect in the garage.

The man "lunged" at the students, and the student with the sword defended himself, severing the man's left hand and cutting his upper body, Guglielmi said.

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" It could be an interesting marketing technique...?"






It's happened to all of us. We've walked into the television section of an electronics store and we see the same movie playing on all the displays and wishing that something better was on instead.

While we do realize the purpose of having the same image replicated over and over again so that customers can have the illusion of a fair comparison, we know better as the displays aren't all getting the same clean signal and are usually not calibrated to the same standard.

Two 20-year olds – one of which was an employee – looking to spice things up at their local Wal-Mart, however, ended up arrested on a felony obscenity complaint after using a pornographic DVD as demo material.

“The pornographic DVD was visible to the general public as they were shopping,” according to a police report. The SW Times reports that a customer notified a manager before the DVD was removed. "

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