It’s well known that many anti-piracy companies rely on their own web crawlers and even Google to find infringing links and files. Once detected they go about their business of sending DMCA notices to search engines, torrent and file-hosting sites, blogs and forums, in order to have that content taken down.

In addition to the above techniques, anti-piracy company MUSO report they have developed a new method of gathering information on potentially infringing links and files.

The London-based outfit says that its new web browser plugin will enable any Internet user to report back the location of ‘pirate’ links or torrents whenever they appear in their web browser. The plugin will report how many files/links it has found before submitting them to the MUSO database.

“Cyberlocker, and similar download sites, do not generally allow direct searching so links are found through search engines, forums and blog sites that link back to the cyberlocker,” the company said in a statement. “MUSO’s ‘Anti-Piracy Assist Browser Plugin’ will use people power to help them protect their vast base of rights holders.”

We were interested to hear more details about this new product, such as how it will be able to differentiate ‘pirate’ files from those being distributed legitimately.

“The links found will feed into the MUSO system which already has robust systems in place for correctly matching only illegal content links to our client’s products,” MUSO Technical Director James Mason told TorrentFreak. “[We employ] a combination of automated matching algorithms, followed by a final human verification stage before any takedowns are issued.”

MUSO hopes that industry workers will install and use the plugin in a show of support for the music business although at this stage it appears that it will be open for anyone to use.

Of course, sending potentially infringing links could have legal implications so we quizzed MUSO on the privacy issues. Can users of the plugin be identified by the reports they send to MUSO and if not, will all users’ submissions be trusted as accurate?

“It’s fully anonymous and users won’t be identified in any way,” Mason told us.

“The links supplied don’t need to be trusted in any way, as it’s merely a way to make the MUSO system aware of a link. You can think of it as an extension to our existing crawler, rather than a user giving MUSO information about specific links belonging to specific products. Once the plugin or our existing crawler finds links, they are entered into our matching and verification process.”

No date has been set for the tool’s release but already it has piqued the interest of a developer in the file-sharing community. He told us that a people-powered link finding plugin with a few modifications might be useful to more people than just an anti-piracy company.

The tool will initially be available for Chrome with IE and Firefox support following “in the near future.”

Source: Browser Plugin Reports Torrent Links to Anti-Piracy Company

Despite a plethora of legal options millions of people still download MP3s from unofficial sources. These sites are a thorn in the side of the RIAA, who represent the largest music labels in the world.

One of the ways the music group is trying to decrease the visibility of these sites is by sending DMCA notices to Google. Thus far the RIAA has removed 30 million URLs from the search engine, but that is not the only action the labels are taking.

Documents received by TorrentFreak show that the RIAA has obtained several subpoenas from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ordering hosting company Softlayer to identify the owners of several MP3 sites.

The targeted sites are MP3bear.com, Kohit.net, Soundowl.com, Komp3.net and Mp3rehab.com. Soundowl, an MP3 search engine, is the most popular and among the top 5,000 most-visited sites in the United States and Canada.

In their letter to Softlayer the RIAA claims that the sites in question are infringing on the copyrights of many artists.

“We have learned that your service is hosting the below-referenced infringing web sites on its network. These sites are offering files containing sound recordings for other users to download,” the RIAA writes, listing links to MP3s from artists including Rihanna and Black Eyed Peas.

“As is stated in the attached subpoena, you are required to disclose to the RIAA information sufficient to identify the infringer. This would include the individual’s IP-address and e-mail address,” the RIAA adds.

In addition, the RIAA is asking the hosting provider to shut down the sites in question, although that is not covered by the legal paperwork.

“We are asking for your immediate assistance in stopping this unauthorized activity. Specifically, we request that you remove the infringing files from the system, or that you disable access to the infringing sites, and that you inform the site operator of the illegality of his or her conduct.”

It is unclear what the RIAA is planning to do if they obtain the personal information of the site owners. In addition to convincing Softlayer to disconnect the sites, the music group may be considering separate legal action against one or more of their operators.

For now, however, all sites are still up and running.

This is not the first time that the RIAA has gone after similar sites in this way. Last year the group targeted three other music download portals via their WHOIS privacy protection services. These sites have since closed their doors.

Similar attempts targeting the torrent sites Monova.org, Bitsnoop.com, Limetorrents.com and TorrentHound were less successful.

One of the subpoenas

Source: RIAA Asks Softlayer to Shut Down “Pirate” Sites, Identify Owners

At the turn of the last decade almost every Internet user was asking for more bandwidth. As transfers of music and video increased in popularity, having the fattest possible pipe became an almost universal dream.

Over the past few years the situation has improved somewhat and in many regions of the world users now have more available bandwidth than they can consume. But for a minority there is no such thing as enough and maxing out a connection is a daily activity.

BitTorrent users are famously bandwidth hungry and as such they have been regularly targeted by ISPs looking to more effectively manage their capacity. While Comcast’s infamous torrent meddling is now six years ago, some ISPs are still looking to introduce controls to relegate the world’s favorite file-sharing protocol.

This week Aussie ISP Telstra confirmed it would be pressing ahead with ‘trials’ aimed at ensuring that its customers “enjoy the best quality of service.” The ISP says that traffic on its ADSL network has doubled on average every 12 months for the past four years so to cope it’s going to have to better manage its network. It appears they will do this by meddling with file-sharing traffic.

“This latest trial is focused on how our customers respond when network management techniques are applied in order to manage congestion,” explains Telstra director John Chambers. “Some trial participants will be asked to evaluate how speed differences on non-time sensitive applications, like Bit Torrent, impact their overall customer experience.”

While it’s easy to see how BitTorrent could be classified as less time sensitive than HTTP for example, one could imagine the response if Telstra said they would classify Netflix in the same way as torrents. They can’t do that of course, since Netflix isn’t even available Down Under, but if bandwidth is short now, things are probably going to get worse when it is.

So, preparing for this eventuality, Telstra are looking for some volunteers to have their torrent traffic throttled to see how it affects their Internet experience. The big question is this: why on earth would BitTorrent users volunteer to have their traffic meddled with?

It’s a bit like asking if drivers would put themselves forward to have someone else take control of the accelerator in their car. Light users might not object so much but heavier users – the ones who are presumably causing the problems – aren’t going to put themselves forward for this. So what’s the point? Rival ISP iiNet believes that the trials have an ulterior motive.

“I often describe it as boiling the frog – you just do it by gently turning up the heat,” said John Lindsay, CTO at iiNet.

“They are starting to take their customers on a journey. They know what the end point looks like, but they don’t want to describe it too clearly just yet for fear of scaring off the profitable customers. Calling it a trial is a nicer way of introducing the concept and the technology into the business.”

At the moment Telstra are limiting the availability of this trial to just a few hundred keen volunteers, so if you fancy having your torrent traffic temporarily meddled with – perhaps with a view to those changes being implemented long-term – hurry over to Telstra now and get your name down.

“I would reconfirm that this trial does not involve looking at or recording the content of what customers chose to consume on the internet,” Telstra’s John Chambers concludes.

Reassuring.

Source: Hurry! ISP Needs Volunteers to Have Their BitTorrent Traffic Throttled

Following the introduction last month of a brand new law to hit online piracy, already authorities in Russia are looking to toughen up the legislation.

At the moment, copyright complaints against a site can lead to that domain being added to a national blocklist if its operator fails to render copyright movies and TV shows inaccessible. As reported earlier this month, moves are now underway to expand the law to cover music and other digital content.

Yesterday on the first day of the fall session the State Duma adopted the first reading of amendments that will see “information intermediaries” fined for failing to remove content or links to content reported as infringing by copyright holders. On the back of this success, rightsholders are now hoping to take things to a whole new level.

According to information obtained by Vedomosti, publishers of music, books and software have put forward amendments which will place a huge burden of responsibility not just on regular websites but also on search engines such as Google and local outfit Yandex.

The proposed amendments center around the creation of a national registry listing all music, software and books. This database will then be made available to search engines and site owners who will be required to consult it before servicing their users with links or content.

For example, if a user searches for a particular song using Google, in the background the search engine would be required to carry out a search on the national database to see if the song is listed. If the track is present then Google would be obliged to list official sources for the content in the first pages of results while automatically relegating other sites.

In addition, rightsholders are asking that when sites are placed on the current national blacklist for non-compliance with copyright takedowns, search engines should remove them completely from search results sent to users.

Commenting on the proposals, a Google spokesperson said that “pre-moderation” of content would be damaging to the Internet industry.

“The company can not take on the role of the courts to determine whether someone’s rights have been violated. A proposal to artificially rank links in search results does not take into account the technical characteristics of search engines and would lower the quality of the search,” he said.

Yandex are equally unimpressed, noting that the amendments are a blunt instrument that do not take into consideration the nuances of search engine operation or copyright law.

“It is impossible to rank sites with an eye on a register of legal resources,” a spokesperson told Vedomosti.

“First, in itself the assignment of resources to legal or illegal is extremely controversial. Secondly, items affected by copyright and related rights can be used in some circumstances without gaining permission from copyright holders, there is a wide range of exceptions. For example, if you thoroughly follow the amendments, a search engine will not be able to provide links to works containing the quotes that users type into the query string.”

Taken to conclusion, the proposals could have a seriously chilling effect on the real-time nature of the Internet.

“[If the amendments go through], rightsholders will switch the entire Internet into pre-moderation mode, because sites can not accommodate any comment without full verification of all the materials located on the link in this comment. For the bulk of services, this task is impossible,” Yandex concludes.

Rightsholders in the United States and Europe have been pushing Google to downgrade pirate sites in search results while promoting sites offering legitimate content. Last year Google began demoting some sites in its listings and is now offering its advice to rightsholders so that they can SEO their way to the front page. In Russia, rightsholders appear to want the law to do that for them.

Source: Copyright Holders Propose Unprecedented Search Engine Manipulation

Over the past few years the entertainment industries have repeatedly asked Google to step up its game when it comes to anti-piracy efforts.

These remarks haven’t fallen on deaf ears and Google has implemented various new anti-piracy measures over the years.

For example, the company has started to filter “piracy-related” terms from its AutoComplete and Instant services and downrank websites which their algorithms classify as infringing. But according to Google that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

To show the public and policy makers how the company addresses copyright infringement, Google has now released a paper called “How Google Fights Piracy” detailing its core principles on this front. Some of these are aimed at helping copyright holders, but the company also stresses that it’s vital to prevent abuse by rightsholders.

Create More and Better Legitimate Alternatives.

The first principle highlighted by Google is the importance of legal offerings. Without legal options it’s hard to beat unauthorized copying, they argue.

“Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply. As services ranging from Netflix to Spotify to iTunes have demonstrated, the best way to combat piracy is with better and more convenient legitimate services. The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.”

While this is mainly a task for the content providers, Google is lending a helping a hand with Google Play and YouTube.

Follow the Money.

On the enforcement side, Google is doing its best to ensure that “pirate” sites are not allowed to use its ad services. In 2012 the company cut off 46,000 sites for violating its copyright policies, and the vast majority of these violations were detected before they were reported by copyright holders.

In the report Google describes itself as a frontrunner in targeting rogue revenue streams.

“Rogue sites that specialize in online piracy are commercial ventures, which means the most effective way to combat them is to cut off their money supply. Google is a leader in rooting out and ejecting rogue sites from our advertising and payment services, and are raising standards across the industry.”

Be Efficient, Effective, and Scalable.

The most visible anti-piracy efforts are related to Google’s search results. The company is faced with millions of DMCA takedown requests every week which are processed with blazing speeds.

“Google strives to implement anti-piracy solutions that work. For example, beginning in 2010, Google has made substantial investments in streamlining the copyright removal process for search results. As a result these improved procedures allow us to process copyright removal requests for search results at the rate of four million requests per week with an average turnaround time of less than six hours,” Google writes.

Based on the volume of DMCA notices, among other things, Google also downranks websites in its search results to further minimize the visibility of copyright infringing content.

Guard Against Abuse.

The downside of the DMCA procedure is that the system is sometimes abused, either intentionally or by mistake.

“Unfortunately, fabricated copyright infringement allegations can be used as a pretext for censorship and to hinder competition. Google is committed to ensuring that, even as we battle piracy online, we detect and reject bogus infringement allegations, such as removals for political or competitive reasons.”

In the report, Google highlights several of these abuse cases including self-censorship by Warner Brothers who took down their own IMDb listing and a trailer.

Google’s examples of DMCA abuse

Provide Transparency.

The fifth and final anti-piracy principle Google highlights is transparency. Unlike most of its competitors the company publishes all DMCA notices it receives for its search results.

“We disclose the number of requests we receive from copyright owners and governments to remove information from our services. We hope these steps toward greater transparency will inform ongoing discussions about content regulation online.”

The transparency reports are used by copyright holders to point out how massive the piracy problem is, and on the other side they are used to control copyright holders by pointing out abuse cases.

Towards the end of the report Google highlights a relatively new development which it also informed the U.S. Government about last month. Besides taking down infringing results the company is also helping music labels and movie companies to improve their search engine rankings.

“For the relatively rare queries that return more problematic search results, Google is already in discussions with content owners to develop search engine optimization (“SEO”) strategies for their authorized online content distributors,” Google noted.

TorrentFreak asked Google for more details and whether all copyright holders, including independent artists, could expect SEO help from Google. However, a company spokesman pointed us to the report and most of these questions remain unanswered for now.

While it’s clear that Google is not ignoring the piracy issue, the paper appears to be a reminder to policy makers rather than the copyright holders. It’s part of an indirect back and forth between both camps where a compromise has yet to be reached.

The RIAA, for one, is still not convinced and quickly responded to Google’s report with a demand for more effective measures.

Source: How Google Helps Copyright Holders to Fight Piracy