TorrentFreak Email Update

High Court: Kim Dotcom Can Have His Cars, Millions in Cash Returned
Android Pirate Agrees To Work Undercover For the Feds
Square Enix: DRM Boosts Profits and It’s Here to Stay

High Court: Kim Dotcom Can Have His Cars, Millions in Cash Returned

Posted: 16 Apr 2014 04:35 AM PDT

When Kim Dotcom’s New Zealand mansion was raided in 2012, some of the most memorable images were of his luxury car collection being loaded onto trailers and taken away. The authorities hoped the pictures would help to symbolize Dotcom’s fall from ‘power’ but two years later he might be burning rubber in them once again.

Just two days before the raid on Dotcom’s home, foreign restraining orders were granted to enable the seizure of the entrepreneur’s assets. As they are set to run out on Friday, the Crown applied to the High Court yesterday to have them extended.

Unfortunately for United States and local authorities, the application was turned down, which means that Dotcom’s assets including his car collection, substantial quantities of cash, artwork and other equipment, could soon be returned.

Shortly after the news broke, Dotcom took to his beloved Twitter to celebrate.

Dotcom added that when his cars are returned he will be treating member of his newly formed Internet Party to a day out racing.

“I will rent the Taupo race track for a track day with #InternetParty members when my cars are returned!” he tweeted.

While Dotcom is understandably excited, the Crown has two weeks to file an appeal. That is almost certain to happen.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Android Pirate Agrees To Work Undercover For the Feds

Posted: 16 Apr 2014 04:07 AM PDT

In 2012, three Android-focused websites were seized by the Department of Justice. With help from French and Dutch police, the FBI took over applanet.net, appbucket.net and snappzmarket.com, a trio of so-called ‘rogue’ app stores.

Carrying out several arrests the authorities heralded the operation as the first of its kind, alongside claims that together the sites had facilitated the piracy of more than two million apps.

Last month the Department of Justice announced that two of the three admins of Appbucket had entered guilty pleas to charges of criminal copyright infringement and would be sentenced in June.

Yesterday the DoJ reported fresh news on the third defendant. Appbucket’s Thomas Pace, 38, of Oregon City, Oregon, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and will be sentenced in July.

As reported in late March, the former operator of Applanet says he intends to fight the U.S. Government. However, the same definitely cannot be said about Kody Jon Peterson of Clermont, Florida.

The 22-year-old, who was involved in the operations of SnappzMarket, pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. He admitted being involved in the illegal copying and distribution of more than a million pirated Android apps with a retail value of $1.7 million. His sentencing date has not been set, but even when that’s over his debt to the government may still not be paid.

As part of his guilty plea, Peterson entered into a plea agreement in which he gave up his right to be tried by a jury and any right to an appeal. He also accepted that he could be jailed for up to five years, be subjected to supervised release of up to three years, be hit with a $250,000 fine, and have to pay restitution to the victims of his crimes.

Peterson also agreed to cooperate with the authorities in the investigation, including producing all relevant records and attending interviews when required. However, in addition to more standard types of cooperation, the 22-year-old also agreed to go much further. A copy of his plea agreement obtained by TF reveals that Peterson has agreed to work undercover for the Government.

“Upon request by the Government, the Defendant agrees to act in an undercover investigative capacity to the best of his ability,” the agreement reads.

“The Defendant agrees that Defendant will make himself available to the law enforcement agents designated by the Government, will fully comply with all reasonable instructions given by such agents, and will allow such agents to monitor and record conversations and other interactions with persons suspected of criminal activity.”

The plea agreement also notes that in order to facilitate this work, Government attorneys and agents are allowed to contact Peterson on no notice and communicate with him without his own attorney being present. The extent of Peterson’s cooperation will eventually be detailed to the sentencing court and if it is deemed to be “substantial” then the Government will file a motion to have his sentence reduced.

But despite the agreements, Peterson has another huge problem to face. According to court documents he is an immigrant to the United States and as such a guilty plea could see him removed from the country. Whether he will be allowed to stay will be the subject of a separate proceeding but given his agreement to work undercover it seems unlikely the Government would immediately choose to eject such a valuable asset.

In the meantime, former associates and contacts of Peterson could potentially be talking online to him right now, with a FBI agent listening in over his shoulder and recording everything being said.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Square Enix: DRM Boosts Profits and It’s Here to Stay

Posted: 15 Apr 2014 09:17 AM PDT

Even in the early 1980s illegal copies of games were viewed as lost sales. In response, software producers built anti-copying mechanisms into their cassette-based content.

While these systems made copying more awkward, they did very little to stop piracy. Also, it didn’t take long for legitimate buyers to begin noticing something strange. For some reason, games with copy protection errored more often when loading than games without it.

Fast forward more than 30 years and technology is almost unrecognizable from those early 8 bit days, but perhaps surprisingly today’s copy protection – or DRM as we now know it – is still producing conundrums similar to those of three decades ago.

People who use pirate copies these days are generally unaffected by DRM since it is removed in advance, whereas legitimate buyers often have to jump through several hoops in order to get their products running as expected. This punishing of ‘honest’ customers is at the root of most DRM complaints.

Still, many of the world’s games developers see DRM as a necessary evil, claiming that without it copying would continue completely unchecked and as a result sales would decline. One such company is Square Enix, the gaming giant behind Final Fantasy and many dozens of other iconic cross-platform titles.

Adam Sullivan, Square Enix America’s Senior Manager of Business and Legal Affairs, informs TorrentFreak that the company’s choice to include DRM in its products has its roots in a simple concept – maximizing revenue.

“The primary benefit to us is the same as with any business: profit,” Sullivan explains.

So does DRM really work?

“We have a well-known reputation for being very protective of our IPs, which does deter many would-be pirates,” Sullivan adds. “However, effectiveness is notoriously difficult to measure — in short, we rely on the data available to us through our sales team and various vendors, along with consumer feedback.”

Of course, consumer feedback in the Internet space often includes fierce criticism of DRM, especially when it goes catastrophically wrong, as it has done on a number of occasions in recent years. So has Square Enix learned from these mistakes?

“The key to DRM is that it can't interfere with the customer's ability to play the game,” Sullivan says.

“It's not uncommon for people to get a new computer every few years, or to have multiple computers. Sometimes they don't have reliable internet connections. There's no perfect solution yet.”

But while the problems persist, Sullivan says that Square Enix will pursue its anti-piracy strategy while considering the factors that are most important to the company and the game’s target audience. So is DRM here to stay?

“This depends on your definition of DRM, but generally yes — I think DRM will be essential for the foreseeable future,” Sullivan explains.

“When F2P [free-to-play] began trending, lots of people thought it would be the death of DRM. I remember talking with one F2P developer who couldn't imagine why hackers would want to attack his game, since it was free and all. Two months later they were barraged with several hacks.

“So long as we're concerned about things like data privacy, accounting sharing and hacking, we'll need some form of DRM,” Square Enix America’s Head of Legal concludes.

More of Square Enix’s thoughts on anti-piracy and DRM initiatives will be heard during the Anti-Piracy and Content Protection Summit in Los Angeles this summer where Adam Sullivan will be a guest speaker.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.