BitTorrent

Internet
October 15, 2012
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Study shows P2P music thieves also buy more music than everyone else

By on October 15, 2012 at 3:29 PM.

Study shows P2P music thieves also buy more music than everyone else

Study P2P Users

The recording industry may loathe users who illegally download free music using peer-to-peer technologies such as BitTorrent, but it turns out that these music thieves are also the industry’s best customers. Per TorrentFreak, a new survey conducted by the American Assembly non-partisan public affairs forum shows that while P2P users do download a lot more free music from the web than non-P2P users, they also buy a lot more music through legitimate venues as well.

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Internet
August 9, 2012
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Comcast has been well-behaved ever since the FCC smacked it down over BitTorrent throttling

By on August 9, 2012 at 4:10 PM.

Comcast has been well-behaved ever since the FCC smacked it down over BitTorrent throttling

Comcast BitTorrent Throttling Plummets

As amazing as it may seem, corporations’ behavior can change when federal regulators decide to step in. TorrentFreak reports on a new study from Measurement Lab showing that Comcast (CMCSA) has dramatically reduced the amount of BitTorrent traffic shaping it does despite being one of the worst offenders in the industry just a few years ago. Overall, the study found that Comcast has throttled just 3% of all BitTorrent traffic on its network in 2012, a significant drop from the days when it would routinely throttle around 50% of BitTorrent traffic. More →

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Entertainment
May 17, 2012
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BitTorrent piracy found by study to boost music sales

By on May 17, 2012 at 11:35 AM.

BitTorrent piracy found by study to boost music sales

BitTorrent Piracy Study

A recent study found that contrary to arguments repeatedly posed by major record labels — and perhaps contrary to logic as well — BitTorrent piracy has a direct correlation to increased album sales. Between May 2010 and January 2011, North Carolina State University assistant professor Robert Hammond tracked BitTorrent download statistics for new albums ahead of their releases. He then compared his data to music sales figures and found what he believes to be a connection. ”I isolate the causal eff ect of file sharing of an album on its sales by exploiting exogenous variation in how widely available the album was prior to its official release date,” Hammond wrote in his paper. “The findings suggest that fi le sharing of an album benefi ts its sales. I don’t fi nd any evidence of a negative e ffect in any specification, using any instrument.” Of course, the case may simply be that popular music is popular music; whether consumers steal it or buy it, massive marketing budgets help ensure that people are exposed to labels’ premier acts as much as possible, thus promoting demand. More →

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Internet
April 23, 2012
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Hurt Locker producers file suit against 2,514 BitTorrent users

By on April 23, 2012 at 2:35 PM.

Hurt Locker producers file suit against 2,514 BitTorrent users

Voltage Pictures, the production studio behind the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker, has filed a new lawsuit in a federal court in Florida, according to TorrentFreak. The studio’s latest complaint targets at least 2,514 alleged BitTorrent users, whom Voltage Pictures claims pirated the film and cost the studio millions. The company last year filed a joint lawsuit against more than 30,000 alleged BitTorrent users who illegally downloaded the film. The case closed this past December, with Voltage Pictures collecting an undisclosed number of settlements. The studio’s latest suit looks to obtain a subpoena that will order ISPs to reveal the identities of the defendants. The alleged pirates will then be offered a settlement of about $3,000, the report claims. All of the defendants allegedly downloaded the film in 2010 and are Charter Communications subscribers. More →

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General
February 14, 2012
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BitTorrent inventor’s new p2p tech could ‘kill off television’

By on February 14, 2012 at 6:50 PM.

BitTorrent inventor’s new p2p tech could ‘kill off television’

BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen took the stage at the San Francisco MusicTech Summit on Monday and gave onlookers a live demonstration of his new peer-to-peer live video streaming technology. Cohen’s new tech is potentially capable of streaming live video to millions of Internet-connected devices without the need for a central infrastructure, and he said the protocol could be used for video conferencing or even streaming sporting events. “My goal here is to kill off television,” Cohen joked to GigaOm at the summit, adding that he developed the new technology from scratch because earlier peer-to-peer technology introduces too much latency for live applications. Cohen said he is in discussions with several potential partners regarding implementations for the new technology, but there are currently no firm launch plans for products based on the new protocol. More →

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Business
February 13, 2012
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BitTorrent piracy has no impact on U.S. box office sales, study finds

By on February 13, 2012 at 2:25 PM.

BitTorrent piracy has no impact on U.S. box office sales, study finds

Though box office revenues declined for the second consecutive year in 2011, a new study suggests that there is little if any correlation between United States box office revenues and illegal file-sharing facilitated by BitTorrent. Major Hollywood studios have spent tremendous resources over the years fighting digital piracy, but the recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Minnesota and Wellesley College is the latest to suggest that illegal file-sharing services have less of an impact on movie sales than had previously been conveyed, at least where U.S. box office sales are concerned. While there is some evidence that suggests a link between BitTorrent and decreased international box office sales due to the delay between U.S. openings and international openings, no such connection could be made in the U.S. ”We do not see evidence of elevated sales displacement in US box office revenue following the adoption of BitTorrent, and we suggest that delayed legal availability of the content abroad may drive the losses to piracy,” the researchers wrote. The team did not investigate the potential relationship between digital piracy and DVD sales or legal movie downloads.

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Legal
February 10, 2012
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Unstoppable file-sharing network ‘Tribler’ spells trouble for copyright holders

By on February 10, 2012 at 12:15 PM.

Unstoppable file-sharing network ‘Tribler’ spells trouble for copyright holders

Copyright holders thought they had scored a major victory last month when one of the biggest file-sharing networks in the world was shuttered. Megaupload had been responsible for an estimated 30% to 40% of all file-sharing traffic worldwide, but a recent study suggests that the network’s closure did absolutely nothing to slow piracy related to file-sharing. To compound matters, another network that has flown under the radar for some time has now been dragged into the spotlight, and it may pose one of the biggest threats yet to copyright owners and their content. Read on for more. More →

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Legal
December 14, 2011
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Sony, NBC Universal and Fox employees caught illegally using BitTorrent

By on December 14, 2011 at 1:05 PM.

Sony, NBC Universal and Fox employees caught illegally using BitTorrent

Considering all of the concerns major music and movie studios have over piracy and file sharing, one would think the studios could at least manage to keep their own employees from stealing content. That is apparently not the case, however. TorrentFreak has a new tool that reveals what a specific IP address has downloaded from BitTorrent, and used it to snoop around a few popular studios. The site found that employees at Fox, Sony and NBC Universal were downloading illegal content from BitTorrent. A Sony employee, for example, downloaded Conan the Barbarian, an album from The Black Keys, and a Beavis and Butthead video. An NBC Universal Employee downloaded HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones, Cowboys and Aliens and a trance album. Fox typically contacts the FBI when a movie has been leaked, but TorrentFreak found an employee downloading a 1080p HD version of the movie Super 8. “By highlighting the above our intention is not to get anyone into trouble, and for that reason we masked out the end of the IP addresses to avoid a witch hunt,” TorrentFreak said. “An IP address is not a person, IP addresses can be shared among many people, and anyone can be behind a keyboard at any given time.” A Google employee was also caught downloading Windows 7, and the Church of God was busted for downloading two popular TV shows. More →

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General
May 24, 2011
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‘Hurt Locker’ studio to file lawsuits against record-breaking 24,583 BitTorrent users

By on May 24, 2011 at 6:59 PM.

‘Hurt Locker’ studio to file lawsuits against record-breaking 24,583 BitTorrent users

The production studio behind the movie Hurt Locker, Voltage Pictures, is attempting to go after a record 24,583 illegal BitTorrent users. The studio has already filed lawsuits against 5,000 BitTorrent users who illegally downloaded Hurt Locker and, in an effort to make up losses due to piracy, it’s now going after more with the help of law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver. According to TorrentFreak, the lion’s share of subscribers — provided on a list to the U.S. District Court of Columbia — are Comcast customers (10,532). 5,239 are Verizon subscribers, 2,699 are Charter customers, and 1,750 are Time Warner users. The lawsuits will likely be tried over the next several years, however, as Verizon and Charter only offer up 100 and 150 customer IP-addresses per month. TorrentFreak suggested that Voltage Pictures would prefer to reach cash settlements with customers as opposed to taking each case to court individually. More →

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Software
October 26, 2010
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Limewire to shutdown core services, for now

By on October 26, 2010 at 9:27 PM.

Limewire to shutdown core services, for now

It truly is the end of an era. AllThingsD is reporting that P2P file sharing service Limewire will shutdown “searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality” as the result of a court ruling last year that favored the recording industry. A Limewire spokesperson had this to say:

While this is not our ideal path, we hope to work with the music industry in moving forward.  We look forward to embracing necessary changes and collaborating with the entire music industry in the future.

If you have a drink in your hand, pour a little out for your homeboy Limewire… and go find yourself a good BitTorrent client. More →

51 Comments
News
December 23, 2009
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Comcast settles P2P traffic throttling class action suit

By on December 23, 2009 at 12:07 PM.

Comcast settles P2P traffic throttling class action suit

Ironic Comcast Ad - The Slowskys

Back in 2007 and 2008, internet service provider Comcast was accused of throttling packet data traveling over its network; more specifically, packet data that was deemed to be P2P traffic, a la BitTorrent.  The story goes: Comcast denies the whole thing, the Associated Press, smelling blood, launches an investigation, and customers’ suspicions are confirmed. After the AP published its report — stating Comcast was indeed throttling, or in some instances outright blocking, data flowing over ports commonly used by P2P sites and programs –  Comcast suddenly remembered that it was, perhaps, doing a little “network management.” Class action lawsuits suits ensued (pun intended). Today it looks like Comcast has settled one of the suits, filed out of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, for a cool $16 million. The ISP maintains the settlement is to “avoid a potentially lengthy and distracting legal dispute that would serve no useful purpose”…right. Now, those who enter into the class action settlement aren’t going to be on easy street as they are guaranteed no more than $16 for their troubles, but can you really put a price on damning the man? More →

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Retail
December 7, 2008
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Amazon gets attacked by Pirates of the online variety

By on December 7, 2008 at 1:01 PM.

Amazon gets attacked by Pirates of the online variety

pirates of the amazon

News is spreading like wildfire about a new Firefox extension that makes pirating media listed on Amazon easier than ever. The extension, Pirates of the Amazon, detects what you are viewing on Amazon and provides a link to a “free” copy courtesy of Pirate Bay. The plugin embeds a button right into the web page literally providing one click access to a presumably illegal copy. It works with CDs, DVDs, games, and books. The website for the extension is currently offline, most likely due to a crushing amount of traffic from all the publicity. This is not the first plugin to link your web browser to BitTorent files but it is the first one to link the largest online retailer, Amazon, and the largest BitTorent tracker, Pirate Bay. The people behind the extension explain their rationale and claim no affiliation with Pirate Bay, “We are not affiliated with The Pirate Bay, and do not host or even link to any illegal content. This artistic project addresses the topic of current media distribution models vs. current culture and technical possibilities.”  We are not sure that such an extension could be deemed an “artistic project” but we will leave it to you to form your own interpretation of what they mean. Whatever the reason behind the extension, its presence raises bigger questions about the impact of online piracy during a point in time when online retailers are slowly moving towards non-DRM forms of media distribution. Will the presence of this plugin provide fodder for the RIAA and MPAA to further increase their efforts to combat online piracy by imposing filtering methods on ISPs and pushing for more stringent DRM requirements for media distribution ? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think.

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