TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Federation Against Copyright Theft Takes Down TorrentShack
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 08/04/14
- The Copyright Monopoly Should Be Dead And Buried Already
| Federation Against Copyright Theft Takes Down TorrentShack Posted: 04 Aug 2014 12:50 AM PDT
Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has closed dozens of smaller sites located in the Netherlands and the Federation Against Copyright Theft has been carrying out similar work in the UK. FACT’s tactics of hunting down, identifying and then threatening torrent site operators have proven very successful in the past. The impact of having FACT’s representatives at the front door has resulted in the closure of many sites, while emailed threats have only added to the tally. Yesterday came news of another closure, this time of TorrentShack, a long-standing and loved-by-many private tracker. The exact mechanism of FACT’s contacts with the site’s operator haven’t been made public, but it’s clear that the anti-piracy group has placed the site under a lot of pressure. “It seems once again that FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) have gone after the small site rather than those that make thousands each and every month in profit,” the site’s operator announced over the weekend. “I have been under investigation by FACT for some time it seems and to avoid being dragged through the courts and having huge legal fee’s I have to adhere to their demands.”
“They have said that I need to hand them over the domain to this site and to cease my involvement with running such a site. If I comply then any and all charges against me will be dropped,” TSH’s admin explained. It’s predicted that the TorrentShack.net domain will be handed over to FACT during the next few days. It’s possible a FACT ‘warning’ page will replace the site but many ‘seized’ domains simply lie dormant. While the site’s users will no doubt be disappointed by the site’s closure, those concerned about FACT getting their hands on the site’s database can rest easy – the TSH admin has assured users that no such request has been made. “In simple terms, the Domain is simply the URL you type in to visit the site. It has no connection with your accounts, your security. There is no reason fro anyone to worry,” TSH assures site users. “It’s been a great run and I have really enjoyed what we have done here over the last few years. I want to thank everyone that has made it possible. I guess I proved that what they said ‘Couldn’t’ be done…. Actually ‘Could’ be done.” OpenTrackers has further information on the site here. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.    | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 08/04/14 Posted: 03 Aug 2014 11:31 PM PDT
Divergent 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.   | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Copyright Monopoly Should Be Dead And Buried Already Posted: 03 Aug 2014 02:25 PM PDT
“How will the artists get paid?”. The copyright industry has been absolutely phenomenal in misleading the public in this very simple matter, suggesting that artists’ income somehow depend on a distribution monopoly of publishers. If the facts were out, this debate would have been over 20 years ago and the distribution monopoly already abolished quite unceremoniously. There are three facts that need to be established and hammered in whenever somebody asks this question. First: Less than one percent of artists’ income comes from the copyright monopoly. Read that sentence again. The overwhelming majority of artists get their income today from student loans, day jobs, unemployment benefits, and so on and so forth. One of the most recent studies (“Copyright as Incentive”, in Swedish as “Upphovsrätten som incitament”, 2006) quotes a number of 0.9 per cent as the average income share of artists that can be directly attributed to the existence of the copyright monopoly. The report calls the direct share of artists’ income “negligible”, “insignificant”. However, close to one hundred per cent of publishers’ income – the income of unnecessary, parasitic middlemen – is directly attributable to the copyright monopoly today. Guess who’s adamant about defending it? Hint: not artists. Second: 99.99% of artists never see a cent in copyright monopoly royalties. Apart from the copyright industry’s creative accounting and bookkeeping – arguably the only reason they ever had to call themselves the “creative industry” – which usually robs artists blind, only one in ten thousand artists ever see a cent in copyright-monopoly-related royalties. Yes, this is a real number: 99% of artists are never signed with a label, and of those who are, 99% of those never see royalties. It comes across as patently absurd to defend a monopolistic, parasitic system where only one in ten thousand artists make any money with the argument “how will the artists make money any other way?”. Third: Artists’ income has more than doubled because of culture-sharing. Since the advent of hobby-scale unlicensed manufacturing – which is what culture-sharing is legally, since it breaks a manufacturing monopoly on copies – the average income for musicians has risen 114%, according to a Norwegian study. Numbers from Sweden and the UK show the same thing. This shift in income has a direct correlation to hobby-based unlicensed manufacturing, as the sales of copies is down the drain – which is the best news imaginable for artists, since households are spending as much money on culture before (or more, according to some studies), but are buying in sales channels where artists get a much larger piece of the pie. Hobby-based unlicensed manufacturing has meant the greatest wealth transfer from parasitic middlemen to artists in the history of recorded music. As a final note, it should be told that even if artists went bankrupt because of sustained civil liberties, that would still be the way to go. Any artist that goes from plinking their guitar in the kitchen to wanting to sell an offering is no longer an artist, but an entrepreneur; the same rules apply to them as to every other entrepreneur on the planet. Specifically, they do not get to dismantle civil liberties because such liberties are bad for business. But as we see, we don’t even need to take that into consideration, for the entire initial premise is false. Kill copyright, already. Get rid of it. It hurts innovation, creativity, our next-generation industries, and our hard-won civil liberties. It’s not even economically defensible.  About The Author Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy. Book Falkvinge as speaker? Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.   | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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