After coming under intense and sustained US-pressure to change its attitudes to online piracy, earlier this month it became clear there had been an Italian breakthrough. After being firmly planted on the USTR’s Watch List in the Special 301 Report, Italy was notably absent from the USTR’s 2014 edition.

“Italy’s removal from the Special 301 List reflects the significant steps the Government of Italy has taken to address the problem of online piracy, and the continued U.S. commitment to meaningful and sustained engagement with our critical partner Italy,” the USTR said in a special announcement earlier this month.

What Italy had done to deserve these compliments was fairly extraordinary. Instead of legislating to make a piracy crackdown easier or more effective, the government handed AGCOM, the Italian Communications Regulatory Authority, the power to deal with infringement.

Without need for costly and drawn out legal cases and court-ordered injunctions, from March 31, 2014, AGCOM had the power to order the removal of infringing content or the blocking of allegedly copyright-infringing domains. Remember, these are regulations calling the shots – not legislation.

Now, a little over two months since the start of the new system, AGCOM has been flexing its muscles against what many people believed to be the framework’s primary targets – torrent sites.

In four decisions made public this week by AGCOM, LimeTorrents, TorrentDownload.ws, Torrentz.pro and TorrentDownloads.me were all deemed to be infringing and as a result will end up blocked by the country’s ISPs. The decisions, published on AGCOM.it, also reveal who made the complaints and when.

The LimeTorrents case was reported to AGCOM by local anti-piracy group FPM representing Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music. In their evidence the labels provided links to torrents that linked to their works. After a review AGCOM agreed that the labels’ complaints were genuine. Attempts to contact LimeTorrents’ owners failed so they were disallowed from involvement in the process.

In conclusion, and “in compliance with the principles of proportionality”, on May 5 Italian ISPs were given just two days to block subscriber access to LimeTorrents. In general terms the complaints against the other sites were similar and featured both music and video focused anti-piracy groups working on behalf of several movie studios. Those sites will also be blocked.

Notable is the streamlined nature of the process. All complaints were filed mid-April and today, less than three weeks later, the blocks should already be in place. Little wonder the USTR is pleased.

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

It’s been five years since Sweden implemented the controversial anti-piracy legislation, IPRED.

The law, which gives rights holders the authority to request the personal details of alleged copyright infringers, was met with fierce resistance from ISPs and the public at large.

At the same time, however, there were plenty of signs that the law stopped people from pirating. A day after it went into effect, Netnod Internet Exchange reported a significant drop in Swedish Internet traffic.

Inspired by the anecdote, the effectiveness of IPRED has become a topic of interest for economists at Uppsala University in Sweden. In a new paper they report their findings on the effect of the anti-piracy law on Internet traffic and music sales.

The main goal of the research is to examine whether the anti-piracy law did indeed have an effect, and to what extent. To make sure that the effect is unique to Sweden, both Norway and Finland were chosen as control groups.

The results, which will be published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, confirm that Internet traffic decreased quite a bit after IPRED went into effect, beginning abruptly the very same day.

IPRED’s apparent effect on Internet traffic

Perhaps even more surprisingly, music sales also skyrocketed compared to the other two Scandinavian countries.

“We find that the reform decreased Internet traffic by 16% and increased music sales by 36% during the first six months. Pirated music therefore seems to be a strong substitute to legal music,” the researchers write, summarizing the results.

IPRED’s apparent effect on digital music sales

Interestingly, however, the overall effect on Internet traffic and music sales vanished after half a year. The only effect that remained was the increase in digital sales. Internet traffic and physical music sales returned to normal, in part because the chance of getting caught is quite low.

“The deterrent effect decreased quickly, possibly because of the few and slow legal processes. Law enforcement through convictions therefore seems to be a necessary ingredient for the long-run success of a copyright protection law,” the researchers note.

The researchers suggest that if more people are convicted, the effects may last longer. During the first few years only a handful of file-sharers were brought to justice, while hundreds of thousands took steps to circumvent the law.

“As the first court cases were only settled recently, it is still possible that further convictions would restore an effect that is more long-lasting,” they write in their conclusion.

The question remains, however, whether bankrupting people or throwing them in jail is the ideal strategy in the long run…

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

Just when it seemed that Tarantino and his legal team were in for the long haul against Gawker, things have taken a turn for the unusual.

After his initial lawsuit over the leak of his script ‘The Hateful Eight’ was kicked out by a judge due to a lack of evidence, just last week Tarantino filed an amended complaint.

But now, and without even waiting for Gawker to respond to his revised allegations, Tarantino has withdrawn the lawsuit attacking Gawker’s conduct as it reported the leak, or as the writer/director previously claimed, actually encouraged its distribution.

“This dismissal is made without prejudice, whereby Plaintiff may later advance an action and refile a complaint after further investigations to ascertain and plead the identities of additional infringers resulting from Gawker Media’s contributory copyright infringement, by its promotion, aiding and abetting and materially contributing to the dissemination to third-parties of unauthorized copies of Plaintiff’s copyrighted work,” the dismissal motion reads.

The details were covered in our earlier article, but this means that Tarantino may later decide to refile his complaint if he can come up with a way to identify third parties that infringed his copyrights after being encouraged to do so by Gawker. No easy feat.

It’s also possible this is a convenient way to back out of a battle that’s looked less solid after each step. Tarantino loves making films, and it’s doubtful he likes legal battles to the same degree. After spending a considerable sum on lawyers already, swapping one for the other may have been too great a temptation.

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

The introduction of the controversial Digital Economy Act in 2010 was supposed to significantly reduce online piracy but four years on just about nothing has changed. The legislation envisioned repeat infringers being cut off from the Internet, but that deterrent has never come to pass.

Instead, frustrated rightsholders – who believe that doing nothing against unauthorized file-sharing just isn’t an option – have been channeled into talks with ISPs to try and find a voluntary solution to the problem.

Today, and after years of wrangling, it now appears the sides have agreed terms on what will be known as Vcap – the Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme.

The system will see the music and movie industries monitor BitTorrent file-sharing networks for infringement, logging pirates’ IP addresses as they go. These will be tracked back to ISPs who will send out a warning letter to the subscriber account associated with the alleged deed.

According to the BBC, only four ISPs – BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media – are currently signed up to the BPI and MPA scheme. Users of other ISPs won’t receive any letters for now but that could change in the future.

Unlike other “graduated response” schemes elsewhere in the world, the UK’s Vcap has no real “teeth”. Even though the language used in the letters will reportedly increase in tone, there will be no punishments, and after receipt of a fourth warning no account will receive a fifth.

On the privacy front subscribers will be pleased to know that within Vcap, ISPs won’t be handing their identities over to the music and movie companies. Rightsholder access to Vcap data will be limited to how many alerts have been sent out but since they are the ones generating the data for the warnings, the IP addresses of the alleged infringers will already be known to them.

The BPI and MPA will be pleased that a deal has been reached, but it has come at a cost. While the language used in the warnings will increase, threats or suggestions of consequences for continued infringement have been replaced by messages designed to educate. Also, warnings sent will be capped at 2.5 million over three years.

It will also come at a financial cost. The BBC reports that rightsholders will pay each ISP £750,000 to set up the system, or 75% of the costs, whichever is smaller. On top of this initial outlay the BPI and MPA will pay each ISP an additional annual sum of £75,000 to cover administration costs.

While the ISPs and industry groups have agreed terms, Vcap is not quite a done deal yet. As part of the scheme, ISPs hope to keep records for up to a year detailing which subscribers have received warning letters and how many each has received. On this issue they are awaiting approval from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

In the right circumstances and armed with a court order its certainly conceivable that not only the BPI and MPA could gain access to this data, but also outside companies with similar interests.

Finally, and despite the ‘gentle’ tone of Vcap, there is a sting in the tail. In the agreement seen by the BBC, rightsholders say that if Vcap doesn’t achieve results, they will call for the “rapid implementation” of the harsh measures promised by the Digital Economy Act.

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

Born in Sweden but with Finnish roots, Peter Sunde will run as candidate for Finland’s Pirate Party in the European Parliament elections next year.

The Pirate Party movement currently has two Swedish Members of the European Parliament. In the 2014 elections the Pirates are participating in many countries, hoping to expand the success story.

With Sunde the Finnish party definitely has one of the most prominent candidates on the ballot.

As an Internet entrepreneur and the former spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, Sunde’s subversive work is already known to millions of people across Europe. Despite a pending prison term for his involvement with The Pirate Bay, he is determined to disrupt the European Parliament in Brussels.

Today, Sunde launches his run for the European Parliament elections with a rather unusual video. Instead of scolding the competition, the campaign will highlight several personality traits of the Pirate Bay co-founder, starting with his romantic side.

“Most politicians are boring and unromantic. Romance is needed because it means you have a heart and a soul,” Sunde told TF commenting on the relevance of romance in politics.

Most of all, however, Sunde wants to bring back ideology to modern-day politics. Instead of taking notes from powerful lobbyists and bashing other politicians, he wants to let people know what he believes in, and how that should be accomplished.

“I’m tired of careerists in politics who rather talk about what the other guys are doing wrong instead of talking about what our future should be. I see no ideology in politics anymore, but we never needed it more than today,” Sunde tells TF.

“Politicians in general, EU-politicians in particular, are prone to listening to lobbyists and afraid of not getting re-elected. I am clear with what I want, and I will fight for those no matter what lobbyists will say,” he adds.

Running for the Pirate Party, Sunde is in favor of decriminalizing file-sharing for personal use. In addition, he wants to keep the Internet free and open, without needless censorship and restrictions.

“We need a free Internet, an open democratic society, more transparency in governments,” he says.

The Pirate Bay co-founder is well aware of the fact that he is not the typical Parliament member, but that may be a strength rather than a weakness. In any case, he definitely stands out.

“I might be a weird fit for the EU but that’s exactly why I think I’m needed. My campaign videos are probably quite weird too, just for the same reason,” Sunde concludes.

In a few weeks we will know if the Finns agree that Sunde is the right choice to represent them in Brussels.

Photo credit

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