SOPA Fallout Makes Anti-Piracy Lobbying a Tough Job

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Tightening laws is a key weapon for entertainment industry companies looking to crack down on piracy in the civil courts, but there are other options too.

Certain acts of copyright infringement are criminal offenses, which opens up the possibility of jail time on top of already sizable fines, with the tax payer helping with the bill.

Current US law provides felony penalties for willful copyright infringement which apply to individuals who reproduce or distribute copyright works. However, companies distributing movies, TV shows and sports events say there is a loophole which allows streaming services to avoid the toughest of penalties.

The problem is that it remains unclear whether Internet streaming is considered distribution under current law and therefore any prosecution as a felony could prove problematic.

According to the MPAA, the lack of clarity means that prosecutors don’t want to pursue cases against streaming services so are instead using their limited resources to prosecute cases with a more certain outcome.

Since streaming video is currently only classed as a misdemeanor, outfits such as the MPAA and mixed martial arts company UFC desperately want to up the ante with a greater deterrent effect. Their efforts during 2011 and 2012 were concentrated on the streaming provisions in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), but both collapsed under a wave of opposition.

During March this year there were fresh calls to update the law but according to UFC lawyer Lawrence Epstein, it’s proving a tough job.

“I think we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Epstein told MMAjunkie.

“There is a general sort of bias that has anything to do with intellectual property because of the fallout from [the Stop Online Piracy Act] and [Protect IP Act].”

According to OpenSecrets, the UFC spent $620,000 on lobbying in 2012, much of it aimed at toughening up the law, changes that could have consequences far beyond the UFC. With $110,00 spent in the first quarter of 2013 the organization is keeping up the pressure, with Epstein confirming that he will be meeting with U.S. lawmakers this week to speak on the issue.

“The only way this is really going to slow down is if, frankly, there is criminal prosecution,” he said. “This needs to be a felony, and you need to prosecute these people.”

That kind of development would be welcomed not only by the UFC, but organizations such as the MPAA, the RIAA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO), all former supporters of the Commercial Felony Streaming Act.

If the six-strikes scheme really starts to bite in the U.S., streaming services will only gain in popularity, so deterring their operators now will be a useful tool.

Source: SOPA Fallout Makes Anti-Piracy Lobbying a Tough Job

Vía TorrentFreak http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/zPlkEQV526A/

Language Matters: Framing The Copyright Monopoly So We Can Keep Our Liberties

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“1984″ by George Orwell is a book that seems to increasingly define our society, mixed in with a dash of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. One central theme to 1984 is the concept of Newspeak – but the language Newspeak never takes center stage in the book, it is just pervasive throughout the storyline.

The concept of Newspeak was simple. By taking away the expressions for free thinking and challenging authority from the language, the people in power would remove other people’s ability to conceptualize those thoughts, and thus ensure obedience.

In one passage in the book, translators of Oldspeak into Newspeak say they have a trouble with translating the Declaration of Independence into Newspeak – there is simply no way to express what it says in Newspeak. Orwell comments on this in an appendix: as long as the language has words for rebellion, freedom of thought, and dissent, then society will eventually throw off any tyrant.

This matters, because the words we use define the society we live in. That definition of society, in turn, decides what problems need to be solved and how. We are nerds and geeks; we tend to not bother with subtleties and nuances of communication, except to be technically precise in what we express. But all words have values to them. Some are negative, some are positive. Some have double meanings. Some evoke feelings of happiness, others of discomfort. Being aware of this as you discuss net liberty and culture today is paramount to the discussion – the side that wins the definitions, wins the long-term war.

It is not a coincidence that the deceptive term “Intellectual Property” has been relentlessly used by the copyright industry. They are trying to get others to use it. They are trying to make it define the copyright monopoly; to make people think of their monopoly in terms of property. Property is a positive word, and it follow-up-defines any violation of those monopolies as stealing (as violation of property rights is stealing). Don’t ever fall for using this term. Not once, not ever.

The way to spread your own framing of the world is not necessarily to correct others in their use of language – that would only seem rude. Rather, we use our own language consistently, persistently, and tenaciously. We use our language that defines the world of the net generation the way we see it, and in a way that doesn’t give influence to the copyright industry.

Every time you repeat a term of the adversary’s worldview, you help them take away your rights. Every time you use one of the terms that define our worldview, you help the net generation retain their civil liberties. People will copy your terms subconsciously. Be happy when they do, but don’t point it out. Again, that would be rude.

Here’s a sample of words to be conscious of:

Copyright industry – use this consistently instead of record industry and/or film industry. It highlights how the middlemen incumbents are monopolistic parasites that aren’t necessary for the cultural ecosystem, having industrialized lobbying for their monopolies and cashing in on them, and the term sticks very well.

Sharing knowledge and culture – use this instead of “file-sharing”. The “file-sharing” term tends to be too technical, and doesn’t appropriately convey the usefulness of the act. Also, “sharing knowledge and culture” is fundamentally positive to anybody who hears it – plus, it is technically correct. People who share knowledge and culture should never be punished, they should be rewarded.

Copyright monopoly – don’t ever use “copyright” alone. When you do, you will reinforce that it is a right of some kind, like the right to freedom of speech. In reality, it is a monopoly. While a somewhat clumsy term, it is necessary at this stage to communicate that the copyright monopoly is just that, a monopoly. Use language to tie the concept together with its nature to people who haven’t seen it as such yet.

Patent monopoly – Same thing there.

Industrial Protectionism – don’t ever use the IP term that reads out as some kind of “property”. That’s self-defeating. If you cannot escape using the IP term (which you should, as it lumps completely unrelated laws together) then take care to read it out as “Industrial Protectionism”. It’s what it is, and the value of the word protectionism is sharply negative.

Manufacturing copies – try avoiding “downloading” copies of something. That implies “taking”, and leads down the wrong line of thought. What people are doing are manufacturing copies using their own raw materials, and it highlights how the copyright monopoly is trying to restrain a legitimate activity. Say “when people are manufacturing their own copies of knowledge and culture”, if you can’t highlight the process of “sharing knowledge and culture”.

Digital Restriction Mechanisms – DRM. No comment necessary. Read it out as Digital Restriction Mechanisms. (Some have used “Management” for M. That is a positive word that dilutes the negative “Restriction”; I prefer Digital Restriction Mechanisms.)

There are many more examples, but these are a starter. Remember that the side that wins the language wins the definition, and take time to judge the subtleties of how language defines and shapes the problem we discuss.

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.

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Source: Language Matters: Framing The Copyright Monopoly So We Can Keep Our Liberties

Vía TorrentFreak http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/syJ0Eng6yfQ/

Top BitTorrent Trackers Serve 30 Million Peers Across 4.5 Million Torrents

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BitTorrent has come a long way since it was first announced to the public on July 2nd 2003.

During the past decade the protocol has established itself as the dominant file-sharing technology, used on a daily basis by millions of people all across the world.

Due to its decentralized nature it’s difficult to obtain statistics on the number of people who use BitTorrent, but data from the largest public trackers can give a good indication.

The three largest public trackers at the moment are PublicBitTorrent, OpenBittorrent and Istole.it, who all use the beerware-licensed Opentracker software. TorrentFreak asked their operators to provide some statistics on how many torrents they track, and how many people are connected at any given point in time.

The owners all agreed to share their statistics, resulting in a unique snapshot of the BitTorrent ecosystem today.

In the table below we report the number of unique torrents that each of the trackers has listed, as well as the number of peers (downloaders + uploaders) and seeders (uploaders). In addition, the trackers combined their data to arrive at a total that doesn’t include any duplicate peers or hashes.

3 Largest BitTorrent Trackers, July 2013

#	Tracker	Torrents	Peers	Seeders
torrentfreak.com
1	OpenBitTorrent	4,239,374	26,391,969	21,027,875
2	PublicBitTorrent	4,247,717	23,386,982	18,066,840
3	Istole.it	2,780,298	21,859,219	16,913,149
Total (combined)		4,508,514	29,414,471	22,258,311

As can be seen above, OpenBitTorrent tracks the most peers of the three, more than 26 million at the time of the measurement. PublicBitTorrent tracks a few million less but has more torrents, 4,247,717 to be precise.

Since there is quite a bit of overlap in the peers and torrents we asked the owners to combine their data for the ‘total’ row. To do this the trackers matched their data and picked the largest swarm for every unique torrent. The result is a fairly complete snapshot of the BitTorrent ecosystem, without any duplicate peers.

The combined data shows that the total number of torrents with a unique hash tracked by either tracker is 4,508,514. The total number of peers is 29,414,471, but can vary a few million from day to day. The current snapshot was taken on Tuesday and most peers are usually connected during the weekend.

With the combined data we are also able to look at how the peers are distributed over these 4.5 million torrents.

As can be seen below, BitTorrent has a very long tail where the majority of the torrents have relatively few downloaders. In fact, more than 91% of all torrents have between just 1 and 10 people sharing. Only 1,282 torrents are shared by more than 1,000 people, which is less than 0.0003% of all torrents tracked.

BitTorrent distribution, July 2013

Peers	Torrents
torrentfreak.com
1-10	4,133,225
10-100	387,534
100-1,000	30,301
1,000-10,000	1,249
10,000-20,000	28
20,000-30,000	4
30,000	1

Finally, we take a look at the best and the worst-seeded torrents connected to these trackers. Perhaps not surprisingly we found that it’s mostly porn torrents that are badly seeded. The torrent with the worst ratio was a “top 40 adult stars collection,” which had 14 seeders and 412 leechers, a ratio of 0.0316.

The credit for the best ratio goes to BitTorrent Inc’s Kaskade promo bundle, which has a ratio of 907.0500 with 18,141 seeders and just 20 leechers.

The torrent with the most seeders of all is “SpeedUpMyComputer” which is promoted through uTorrent via billions of in-app advertisements. This torrent had 27,599 seeders and just 96 leechers.

The above gives a unique insight into the current state of the BitTorrent ecosystem, and we want to thank the trackers for their voluntary cooperation. We hope to repeat this overview on a yearly basis so we can keep track of how it develops over time.

Source: Top BitTorrent Trackers Serve 30 Million Peers Across 4.5 Million Torrents

Vía TorrentFreak http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/praOTc_Ypr4/