Helping the most disadvantaged in society is an honorable aim, so it’s always sad when charitable groups with similar missions choose to fight each other in the courts. Making lawyers rich is not what most donors have in mind when they make their contributions.

Still, this is the path being embarked on by the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP). The non-profit, which was founded after the events of 9/11 in order to support wounded veterans of the military, says another non-profit is unfairly piggybacking on its image and marketing.

Keystone Wounded Warriors is an Eastern Pennsylvania-based non-profit which aids veterans by raising awareness and seeking the public’s support for related programs and services.

“Funds donated to Keystone Wounded Warriors are used to support local post-9/11 veterans and their families located in or with ties to Pennsylvania,” KWW says.

Unfortunately WWP have a number of issues with KWW and have ordered their legal team to resolve them via action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Lawyers for Wounded Warrior Project are seeking an injunction against Keystone Wounded Warriors on several grounds, including copyright and trademark. Firstly, WWP say that the logo used by KWW is too similar to its own. Both use silhouettes to depict scenes of war in which veterans help veterans, and each use a similar font.

According to PennRecord, the Wounded Warrior Project has used its logo for 10 years and received trademark approval in 2005. This trademark, WWP says, has an estimated publicity value of $500 million.

In addition to a dispute over WWP imagery allegedly present in photographs of KWW fund-raising events, the Wounded Warrior Project says the Keystone Wounded Warriors mission statement is far too close to their own. WWP promise “To honor and empower Wounded Warriors” while their ‘rival’ claims “To honor, empower, aid, and assist Pennsylvania service members.”

While WWP appear to have a reasonable point that KWW’s branding is likely to cause confusion, their demands are such that if KWW lose the case, KWW-supported veterans will suffer. In addition to an advertising campaign to educate donors and the public that the WWP and KWW are not affiliated, WWP is seeking punitive and compensatory damage for any infringements.

According to its latest report, Wounded Warrior Project generated revenues of $300 million, up from $200 million the year before.

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

To most consumers it’s common sense that they can make a backup copy of media they own, but in the UK this has been illegal until today.

After consulting various stakeholders the Government decided that it would be in the best interests of consumers to legalize copying for personal use.

Earlier this year the UK Intellectual Property Office announced that the changes would go into effect in June. However, when June came around the most crucial changes were still pending Parliamentary approval.

These final issues were resolved this summer and after a brief delay private copying is now legal.

This means that people are now free to make copies of DVDs, CDs and other types of media, as long as they’re for personal use and without copyright protection. In addition, it’s no longer copyright-infringing to store copies of legally purchased media to the cloud.

“These changes are going to bring our IP laws into the 21st century,” IP Minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe says commenting on the changes. “They will mean that the UK IP regime will now be responsive to the modern business environment and more flexible for consumers.”

The changes aim to fix the mismatch between the law and public opinion. A Government-commissioned survey previously found that 85% of consumers believed that DVD and CD ripping was legal already, while more than one-third of all consumers admitted that they’d made copies of media they purchased.

Besides the new private copying rights, the upcoming amendments will also broaden people’s fair use rights. For example, people no longer have to ask permission to quote from or parody the work of others, such as a news report or a book, as long as it’s “fair dealing” and the source is recognized.

For the public the amendments are certainly a welcome change from the more restrictive copyright laws that were previously in place. For those who are interested, a full overview of the upcoming changes is available here.

Update: The time-shifting reference was removed from this article, as that was already allowed under a previous amendment. Apologies for the confusion.

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

The Popcorn Time phenomenon is one of the biggest piracy stories of the year thus far.

The software amassed millions of users by offering BitTorrent-powered streaming in an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface.

When the original version shut down various forks continued the project, each releasing their own features. One of the most-used Popcorn Time versions comes from time4popcorn.eu, who remain very active on the development side.

After previously rolling out an Android version and Chromecast and Apple TV support, today the fork released the first Popcorn Time app for iOS. The first release requires a jailbreak and can be accessed through the Cydia platform.

TorrentFreak spoke with the developers who say they are working on a solution for non-jailbroken devices as well, but that will take some more time to complete. Nonetheless, they are happy with the progress they’ve made thus far.

“After only 5.5 months, Popcorn Time is available on all major platforms! And this is only the beginning. Our future plans are huge,” the time4popcorn.eu team notes.

The iOS app is currently missing some features that are available in the desktop version. Chromecast and Apple TV support are still works in progress, likewise the built-in VPN.

The standard functionality appears to work just fine, provided that there’s enough bandwidth available to stream the video files via BitTorrent.

The developers have released the iOS source code under a GPL V3 license, which allows others to extend and improve it. The team itself will also continue to work on improving the code, and they promise to release more “exiting details” on the application’s future in a week or two.

Popcorn Time’s appeal to pirates hasn’t gone unnoticed by Hollywood. Two months ago the MPAA pushed back and managed to get two popular forks removed from Github claiming that the apps are hurting the major movie studios.

While this was a setback, it doesn’t seem to have hindered development much. Both Popcorn Time forks are still around and show no sign of throwing the towel voluntarily anytime soon.

Popcorn Time fork on iOS

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

Last Friday Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke released his new solo album via BitTorrent. A few tracks were made available for free, but those who want the full album are charged $6.

The new experiment is part of BitTorrent Inc’s bundles project, which allows artists to easily share their work with fans. While many artists tested the waters before Yorke, he is the first to ask for money directly from consumers.

“If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of Internet commerce back to people who are creating the work. Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves. Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers,” commented Thom Yorke on his decision to join.

Fast forward a few days and the album release has turned out to be a great success. At the time of writing the number of downloads surpassed 500,000, and at the current rate this will have doubled before the end of the week.

These numbers are for both the free sample and the full album, which are both being counted by BitTorrent. Thom Yorke doesn’t want the sales figures to become public but judging from the number of people sharing the torrent this lies well above one hundred thousand.

“When the Bundle is downloaded using one of our clients, it pings back with a torrent added event which is how these are being counted. Thom Yorke has asked that sales figures remain undisclosed, which is his discretion,” BitTorrent spokesman Christian Averill told TorrentFreak.

Now that BitTorrent Inc. has become a paid music service, a whole new world opens up. Will there soon be a BitTorrent release at the top of the charts for example? We asked BitTorrent whether they are considering becoming an RIAA-certified seller, and the company’s answer was an unequivocal yes.

“Our vision is absolutely that Bundles will count toward all the usual industry accolades and charts. Again, it will be up to the publisher of the specific Bundle. But the numbers certainly merit the recognition,” Averill says.

If that happens, BitTorrent sales will be eligible for RIAA’s gold and platinum awards as well as other charts.

While some music industry insiders may need some time to adjust to the idea of BitTorrent (Inc) as an authorized music service, the RIAA itself doesn’t see any reason why the company can’t apply.

“Music sales … on digital music services that are authorized by and reported to the record labels, whether paid for by the consumer through a subscription or free to the consumer through ad-supported services, are accepted for RIAA certifications,” RIAA’s Liz Kennedy tells TorrentFreak.

Becoming RIAA-certified doesn’t happen overnight though. BitTorrent would first have to request the certification and a full audit is then required to receive an Authorized service stamp and a possible listing on whymusicmatters.com.

“Whymusicmatters.com, a joint initiative of the RIAA and Music Biz, lists the leading authorized music services in the United States,” Kennedy explains.

For BitTorrent this would be a great achievement. The company has had to withstand a fair amount of criticism from copyright holders in recent years, and recognition as an authorized music service will surely silence some of it.

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

Beleaguered music service Grooveshark is facing its biggest threat yet after a long-running case with the major labels of the RIAA came to a close last evening.

In a ruling by United States District Judge Thomas P. Griesa in the United States District Court in Manhattan, Grooveshark parent company Escape Media and two of the company’s top executives were found liable for infringing the rights of the labels on a grand scale.

The summary judgment is not a pretty read. It summarizes Grooveshark’s history and how the service began with licensed aims in mind, but achieved that by infringing the labels’ rights in the hope of reaching deals later on.

The initial problem was obtaining content to offer to users. The company solved the issue by getting employees to “seed” music to other users via its own P2P sharing software known as Sharkbyte. A 2007 email from co-founder Josh Greenberg to employees reads:

Please share as much music as possible from outside the office, and leave your computers on whenever you can. This initial content is what will help to get our network started—it’s very important that we all help out! If you have available hard drive space on your computer, I strongly encourage you to fill it with any music you can find. Download as many MP3’s as possible, and add them to the folders you’re sharing on Grooveshark. Some of us are setting up special “seed points” to house tens or even hundreds of thousands of files, but we can’t do this alone… There is no reason why ANYONE in the company should not be able to do this, and I expect everyone to have this done by Monday… IF I DON’T HAVE AN EMAIL FROM YOU IN MY INBOX BY MONDAY, YOU’RE ON MY OFFICIAL SHIT LIST.

In 2007, music obtained via Sharkbyte and other means was used to populate Grooveshark’s central music storage library. Internal company emails showed Greenberg, Tarantino and Escape’s senior programmer encouraging employees to bring in and download music so it could be uploaded to the company’s servers.

By 2008 the Grooveshark service carried more than a million tracks, including thousands uploaded by Greenberg, Tarantino and other employees. That service grew by another million tracks and eventually into the streaming service available today.

A year later the service was beginning to receive DMCA takedown notices but according to the decision handed down yesterday, the company had a solution to keep that content online.

“Escape’s senior officers searched for infringing songs that had [been] removed in response to DMCA takedown notices and re-uploaded infringing copies of those songs to Grooveshark to ensure that the music catalog remained complete,” the decision reads.

Furthermore, records show that thousands of the DMCA notices sent by the labels were forwarded internally to employees, including Greenberg and Tarantino, for the music they had personally uploaded. The fact that employees were uploading content became known to the labels following discovery in another case currently before the courts.

While the Court accepted that Escape and its employees uploaded thousands of tracks, the huge numbers claimed by the labels were rejected. In total the Court found that the defendants are liable for uploading ‘just’ 5,977 copyright works.

And, of course, there is the not insignificant number of tracks the company streamed to its users over the course of its operations. Escape’s own records show that it “streamed or publicly performed”, copies of plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings at least 36 million times.

“Each time Escape streamed one of plaintiffs’ song recordings, it directly infringed upon plaintiffs’ exclusive performance rights,” the decision reads.

As a result of Greenberg and Tarantino instructing company employees to upload copyright-protected music to Grooveshark, the Court granted the labels’ motion for summary judgment on its claim for direct copyright infringement.

On the secondary infringement front the Court ruled that Escape Media is liable for the direct infringements of the employees it instructed to upload music.

“[The record labels] advance three theories of secondary liability: (1) vicarious copyright infringement, (2) inducement of copyright infringement, and (3) contributory copyright infringement. The court finds for plaintiffs on all three theories of liability,” the judgment reads.

In respect of Escape’s co-founders, Tarantino and Greenberg, the Court found that they are not only “jointly and severally liable for Escape’s direct and secondary copyright infringement” but also liable for direct infringement due to their own personal uploads of infringing content to Grooveshark.

The judgment concludes with an instruction for the parties to submit proposals on the scope of a permanent injunction against Grooveshark within 21 days. Escape Media has already announced its intention to appeal.

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