TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Google: Piracy is An Availability and Pricing Problem
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 03/10/14
- VPN Providers Ban BitTorrent Traffic Over Piracy Concerns
| Google: Piracy is An Availability and Pricing Problem Posted: 10 Mar 2014 03:50 AM PDT
As in many other countries, online piracy is causing headaches for the Australian Government. A variety of anti-piracy strategies to deal with the problem have been suggested in recent years, but thus far without result. Late last year Australia’s Minister for Communication invited several companies to share their thoughts on the reduction of regulation in the communication sector. The minister asked for input on a variety of issues including future legislation regarding copyright. One of the companies that responded is Google, and TorrentFreak has obtained a previously unpublished copy of the company’s response. In its letter Google warns the Government not to implement draconian ant-piracy legislation. The search giant notes that they believe piracy is mostly an availability and pricing problem, which is best tackled with innovation instead of legislation. "We believe there is significant, credible evidence emerging that online piracy is primarily an availability and pricing problem. We would encourage the Government to promote new business models and a free marketplace for legal purchasing of content," Google writes. “We would be disappointed if the Government decided to go down the route of overly harsh regulation to combat piracy without considering the evidence from around the world that this would likely be costly for businesses to implement and with little effect,” they add. Besides the warning above, Google stresses that some of the current legislation is also problematic. For example, Section 313 of the Telecommunications Act is used to censor websites, which threatens the free availability of information. “It appears that this law has been interpreted broadly by various Australian government agencies to include the take down of websites that are deemed illegal,” Google writes. “Google believes that section 313 does not contain sufficient safeguards, and could potentially impact significantly on the availability of information and content on the internet through the overbroad blocking of websites.” Google recommends that the Government should create more oversight by implementing measures to make these website takedowns more transparent. In addition, Google is also worried about the lack of a safe harbor for Internet services, which can now be held liable for pirating users. According to the company it is of “critical importance” that this gap is addressed, as the current uncertainty has a chilling effect on innovation among Internet services. Google’s suggestions appear to stand in sharp contrast to the plans Australia’s Attorney-General George Brandis unveiled a few weeks ago. In a speech to the Australian Digital Alliance forum, Brandis opted for a ”three strikes” graduated response system for persistent pirates as well as wide scale blockades of infringing websites. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 03/10/14 Posted: 10 Mar 2014 12:57 AM PDT
Oscar winner 12 Years A Slave is the most downloaded movie this week. The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| VPN Providers Ban BitTorrent Traffic Over Piracy Concerns Posted: 09 Mar 2014 07:58 AM PDT
It therefore makes sense for frequent BitTorrent users to use anonymity services such as VPNs and proxies. But those who sign up with a VPN should take a good look at the fine print, as not all VPN providers allow BitTorrent traffic across their entire network. TF is currently compiling our latest overview of logging policies at various VPN providers, and by popular demand we also asked whether these services allow BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic. The responses received thus far confirm that BitTorrent traffic is not welcome everywhere. While VPN providers often have BitTorrent-friendly servers, many have chosen to block file-sharing traffic on U.S. and U.K. servers. The main reason for these policies is piracy related. VPNs Blocking File-sharing trafficIt appears that companies who offer VPN services in the US are often flooded with DMCA notices. This causes issues with the ISPs, as Unspyable explains. “The issue is simply that the U.S. ISPs forward all the DMCA complaints to us. This forces us to deal with them which wastes time and effort, as we do have to send them a response,” Unspyable says. “Since we don’t track anything we have nothing to give them in the response to the DMCA. However, many times that is not sufficient and we have had ISPs shut down our servers several times. This results in having to find new ISPs and the expense of setting up new servers,” the company adds. NexTGenVPN notes that they block file-sharing traffic in the U.S. and U.K. because of bandwidth restrictions. The company also mentions that banning this type of traffic helps them to prevent being flooded with DMCA requests. “The reason is quite simple actually. UK and U.S. are the only two locations where our bandwidth allocation is not really extendable at the moment, and we cannot accommodate massive transfers speeds there. Also, this prevents us from being flooded with DMCA complaints. Not that we really care, but it gets annoying in the end,” NexTGenVPN explains. HideIPVPN doesn’t allow file-sharing traffic on all servers either. The company notes that downloading copyrighted content is prohibited by law in the US, UK and Canada, so has decided to block both legal and unauthorized BitTorrent traffic on these servers. “As you know uploads and downloads of copyrighted content via P2P and torrent networks is considered illegal in the U.S. With that in mind and also the fact that we do not wish to monitor traffic and data exchanged by our users, the simplest solution was to ban such traffic on some servers,” HideIPVPN tells TF. While unauthorized file-sharing is against the law in most countries, rightsholders mostly send their takedown notices to U.S. ISPs. This is one of the main reasons why several VPN providers block BitTorrent traffic there. NordVPN provides a similar explanation. The company currently blocks all file-sharing in several places. “We only allow P2P traffic on servers that are located in the countries where there are no restrictions on the content downloaded via BitTorrent or other file-sharing applications,” NordVPN informed us. File-sharing traffic is a no-go on EarthVPN‘s U.S. servers as well. The company mentions the DMCA as the main reason for this decision. “Torrent and other file-sharing traffic is only allowed on Canada, Panama, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Luxembourg and Romania locations as of now due to the DMCA,” the company explains. PureVPN takes it a step further. In addition to blocking file-sharing traffic on their servers in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, they also block various torrent sites on these connections. “We have blocked torrents on some of our servers. If users want to use BitTorrent, they can connect to our servers in Turkey, Sweden, Romania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany (Frankfurt only) or Russia and enjoy P2P/file-sharing there. Non-blocking ISPsNot all VPN providers are blocking file-sharing traffic in the U.S. and elsewhere though. Private Internet Access, for example, prides itself on providing unrestricted access to the Internet on all servers. “We do not discriminate against any kind of traffic/protocol on any of our servers, period. We believe in a free, open, and uncensored internet,” PIA notes. Ipredator, the VPN that was launched by a founder of The Pirate Bay, doesn’t have any file-sharing restrictions either. “Besides filtering SMTP on port 25 we do not impose any restrictions on protocols our users can use on the VPN, quite on the contrary. We believe our role is to provide a net-neutral access,” the company told us. The same is true for BlackVPN, Mullvad, Proxy.sh, VikingVPN and many others. TF’s full report on the BitTorrent and logging policies of several dozen VPN providers will be published next week. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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