TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Movie Chief: We Won’t Sue Kids, Moms or Dads Over Piracy
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 08/11/14
- Apple Approves Self-Censoring BitTorrent App
| Movie Chief: We Won’t Sue Kids, Moms or Dads Over Piracy Posted: 11 Aug 2014 01:48 AM PDT
Not only has the chasm between some of the key ISPs and rightsholders remained large, but even those expected to be on the same page have been showing signs of division. The two key government ministers in the debate, Malcolm Turnbull and George Brandis, last week contradicted each other over who should pick up the tab for any online piracy scheme. Brandis balked at the idea of ISPs being “innocent bystanders” in respect of piracy, instead insisting that their role in infringement must lead to them financially supporting rightsholders. Turnball, on the other hand, said that he didn’t find that a “persuasive argument.” But if Turnbull thought he was only at odds with Brandis, he’s now been shown as out of touch when it comes to rightsholders. The minister recently said that if rightsholders want to send a message that they’re serious over piracy, they need to strategically sue a few people – “moms and dads and students”. As expected the comments weren’t well received by the public, but now the very people Turnbull said should take action have dismissed the idea as unworkable. Speaking with Fairfax Media, Village Roadshow chief Graham Burke said that suing people only makes lawyers rich, but above all it simply doesn’t work. "We don't want to sue 16-year-olds or mums and dads. It takes 18 months to go through the courts and all that does is make lawyers rich and clog the court system. It's not effective," Burke said. Village Roadshow famously dragged local ISP iiNet through the courts for many years over the issue of service provider liability. They not only lost that case, but also sparked a rift between rightsholders and iiNet that continues today, often being played out in public. Still, at some point all sides will have to come to the table. Despite the disputes, Burke and Turnbull are on the same page when it comes to ISPs being involved in an educational program to deter would-be pirates, and punish them if necessary. Both believe that Australia needs a three-strikes style system to deter online infringement, ending in Internet throttling for the most persistent infringers. However, if current indications are anything to go by, there is a lot of work still to be done before all parties are on the same page. Whether consensus will be reached voluntarily of by force remains to be seen. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 08/11/14 Posted: 10 Aug 2014 11:46 PM PDT
Captain America: The Winter Soldier 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 anonymous VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apple Approves Self-Censoring BitTorrent App Posted: 10 Aug 2014 12:59 PM PDT
Apple defended this policy and told developers that their apps were not allowed "because this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third-party rights." This BitTorrent aversion is also one of the main reasons why popular BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent, Vuze and Transmission don't have an Apple-approved presence on the iPhone and iPad. This week the BitTorrent client "Blue Downloader" was approved by Apple and added to the App store. The application allows users to control and add torrent downloads through a built-in browser. The torrents can then be directly downloaded to the device. The application handles torrent downloads without any problems, but there is one rather big restriction. The developer has decided to only allow downloads from a few trusted sources. Trying to add files from The Pirate Bay or KickassTorrents wont work, but white-listed sites such as Archive.org, Linuxtracker and Bitlove are freely accessible. Talking to TorrentFreak, Blue Downloader developer Harrison Tyler says that he implemented these restrictions to improve his odds of getting the app approved by Apple. “Apple is very restrictive about torrent downloading, so I thought I would take the same precautions. If Apple were to see a completely unrestricted torrent downloader, they would not take it as well as what I have now,” Tyler tells us. “I am not for restrictions normally, but as I am bending the accessibility of the app based on Apple’s will,” he adds. This strategy appears to have worked, for now, as the torrent client is still available in the App store. There is a chance that it may not be around for long though. Blue Downloader carefully avoided the B-word and Apple may still ban the app if they spot the connection. The self-censoring developer believes that BitTorrent is unfairly stigmatized. Pirated files can be found all over the Internet, and Apple has no restrictions for apps that download from direct sources. “There is an unfortunate stigma associated with torrent downloading. Even though there is almost an equal amount of illegal files on the Internet to regularly download, people still crack down on the evils of BitTorrent,” Tyler says. For those interested in giving the rather limited Blue Downloader a try, it’s available in the App Store for $2.99. Update: Censorship no more? The developer is now allowing access to Google as well. This provides access to all torrent sites on the Internet. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As the discussions over online piracy heat up in Australia, there’s an interesting situation developing which provides insight into why agreement on the topic has been so difficult to reach.
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