A few weeks ago I spotted the abstract of an article that had just been published in an academic journal.

The article was relevant to the topics we cover here at TorrentFreak, but unfortunately it was hidden behind a paywall, like most scientific articles are.

To bypass this hurdle I usually ask the author for a review copy. Not to publish it online, but to get a better picture of the findings and perhaps cover them in a news piece.

In this case the author in question was kind enough to respond, although not with a copy of the paper. Instead, he encouraged me to contact the publisher noting that they now control the rights.

“We no longer own the copyright of our work,” the author wrote back.

This certainly wasn’t the first time that a researcher has shown reluctance to share work, so I didn’t complain and gave the publisher a call. The publisher, one of the largest in the world, then informed me that the person responsible for these matters was not available.

A bit frustrated, I decided to reach out to the author of the article again. Instead of requesting a copy of the paper I sent over a few questions regarding the methodology and results of the study, which would be enough to begin a piece.

But, instead of commenting on the findings the author asked if the publisher had given permission to discuss the matter, fearing that it would otherwise lead to “trouble.”

Baffled by what had happened I lost all interest in writing an article and decided to move on to something else.

While the above is an extreme example, it does signal a problem that many scientists face. They are literally scared they’ll get into trouble if they share their own papers with the rest of the world.

The author above was a junior researcher with little experience, but even established researchers encounter similar problems. For example, we previously reported that the American Society of Civil Engineers cracked down on researchers who posted their articles on their personal websites.

So where is this coming from?

Well, in order to get published in subscription based journals researchers have to sign away their copyrights. A typical “copyright transfer” agreement (pdf) prohibits them from sharing the final article in public, even on their own websites.

Accepted articles are separately sold for dozens of dollars per piece, so if the researchers shared these for free the publishers could lose income. It’s a commercial decision.

That said, most publishers do allow authors to talk about their work, so the author in our example had no real reason to be worried. Similarly, it’s often permitted to share pre-print copies in public without restrictions.

Still, the reluctance among researchers and the restrictions they face are not helping knowledge to spread, which is a key goal of science.

So why aren’t a few bright minds starting a non-profit publishing outlet then?

Well, these already exist and there are several initiatives to promote “open access” publications, where everyone can read the articles freely. However, in many research fields the most prominent (high impact) journals are controlled by commercial publishers and placed behind paywalls.

Journals get a high impact rating if they publish a lot of frequently cited articles so it’s hard for new ones to gain ground.

And since researchers are often evaluated based on the impact factor of the journals they publish in, “open access” doesn’t appeal to a wide audience yet. In a way, science is trapped in a copyright stranglehold controlled by a few large publishers.

It’s an absurd situation in which universities pay researchers to write articles, the copyrights to which are signed over to publishers. Those publishers then demand a licensing fee from the same universities to access the articles written by their own employees.

Please read the paragraph above once more, and keep in mind that some researchers are actually scared to share their work…

Meanwhile, Elsevier enjoys a net income of more than $1 billion per year, while suing websites that dare to infringe on the copyrights that researchers are ‘forced’ sign over.

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

To even get off the ground, file-sharing type sites need competent people behind them. A minority learn ‘on the job’ while others already have experience in parallel web projects. Either way, technical experience is an absolute must.

In one way or another, site operators also need to be able to handle finances. Sites don’t run on fresh air, so whether the aim is to operate a hobby-type platform or an ad-supported behemoth, keeping control of the purse strings is paramount.

But successfully bringing together the technical and financial aspects requires a third element, an element so important that a site may as well not exist without out it. Like other ‘AFK’ businesses – whether for or non-profit – sites need customers, or ‘users’ as they’re more commonly known.

In most torrent site environments (particularly in the public scene), these are the real powerhouses behind the site. Sure, the site admin and his staff provide and maintain the platform, but the majority of content is provided by the users and it is their bandwidth that provides the virtual infrastructure for the distribution. After all, an ant-hill without ants is just a pile of dirt.

To put it into perspective, many of the top torrent sites have a few staff but many millions of users. One such site, The Pirate Bay, grew so huge that it attracted the attention of authorities in every corner of the world. It’s worth repeating that the size of the target on the site’s back was directly linked to the number of users it had, not the size of its management team.

If TPB had just a couple of thousand users, few anti-piracy outfits would be interested – there are bigger fish to fry. But since millions of people decided to jump on board it meant that the site’s operators got the blame for everything those people did. And in the end they all went to jail, largely for crimes they personally didn’t commit.

So who is to blame for their incarceration? Arguments against copyright law aside, were Gottfrid, Fredrik and Peter the criminals for providing the platform? Or were their millions of law-breaking users, who insisted on sharing copyrighted content, the ones that should be shouldering the responsibility?

In a Finnish interview this week, Peter Sunde provided a small inkling of how he was perceived during his recent prison sentence. His comments are quite revealing in respect of how prison staff viewed his crime through the prism of what appears to be their own contributions to the infamous torrent site.

“The people who worked there called me Jesus, because I sat there for their sins,” Sunde said.

“It was totally sick. One is locked up in a room while signing autographs for those who lock one in. I do not think many people have experienced this situation,” he added.

It’s a curious situation indeed. There can be few hardcore file-sharing fans who wouldn’t grab an autograph, ‘selfie’ or two minutes lively discussion with Peter, Gottfrid or Fredrik if they had the chance, and few that wouldn’t sympathize with the jail sentences they received.

But how many of those same users sit around thinking, “I was partly responsible for those huge numbers cited by Hollywood during the trial. I contributed to the swarms, rampant sharing, and alleged industry losses. It was our crimes, the users, that put the admins in jail.”

Rest assured, in the case of Pirate Bay the founders wouldn’t place a second’s blame on any user, but it is food for thought. In most cases file-sharers go about their daily business without a care in the world, although some probably pause occasionally to scowl at the latest admin arrest.

It’s a fact that thanks to the millions of others in a similar position, torrent users remain largely safe, even though it is their actions that contribute most to the distribution of copyright content. That said, someone has to pay. Someone has to have their head stuffed on the end of a pike. Most are simply glad that the head isn’t theirs.

Likening Peter Sunde to a religious icon is going a bit far, but there’s little doubt that without the actions of the millions he aimed to serve, his life today would be minus a jail sentence. Not getting involved in the Pirate Bay might’ve helped him too, but not even Jesus himself could see that perfectly into the future.

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

Every day copyright holders report millions of infringing links to Google.

Nearly all of these requests are automated and involve little oversight. This leads to the occasional mistake but some bogus takedown notices are sent on purpose.

It appears that spammers have discovered Google’s takedown forms and found a way to submit their own fake notices.

While browsing through the Chilling Effects archive of Google’s DMCA notices we spotted some unusual entries. Instead of trying to remove pages from the Internet, spammers are using Google’s takedown forms to promote their counterfeit software, clothing and other merchandise.

Their goal is not to take anything down but to generate links to their own websites. Below is an example of a typical “comment spam” takedown request of which tens of thousands can be found online.

Besides bodypart “enlargements” there are plugs for medicine, sports jerseys, designer clothing, handbags, sunglasses and even counterfeit copies of Microsoft products.

The spammers target a wide range of Google services including Search, Blogger and Picasa. While Google tends to ignore them, copies of the requests are available in the Chilling Effects archive and through Google’s Transparency Report.

While somewhat of a nuisance, it’s doubtful that the takedown notices will be very effective in driving traffic. Most URLs are not linked and the Chilling Effect site itself is not indexed by Google at all.

Still, the spam overload is not making Google’s job any easier.

The company already invests significant resources in checking the millions of legitimate DMCA requests, and dealing with a spam flood only adds to this already troubling task.

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

There’s a theory among anti-piracy organizations that if unauthorized sites like The Pirate Bay can be separated from their finances they’ll eventually become a burden to their operators and close down.

This “follow the money” approach is gaining momentum worldwide and is largely centered on the companies financing pirate sites with their advertising spend.

Last week Sweden became the latest country to launch an initiative designed to stop ads appearing on torrent, streaming and other related sites. A partnership between anti-piracy outfit Rights Alliance and advertising association Swedish Advertisers, the partnership has clear aims.

“The aim of the project is to raise awareness, so that advertisers/brands don´t end up on the wrong sites and also to try to stop money from legal companies flowing to illegal sites,” Sara Lindbäck from Rights Alliance informs TorrentFreak.

To that end, Swedish Advertisers have come up with a set of recommendations designed to keep ads away from unlicensed sites. They include observing good ethics, avoiding advertising contracts that include bulk sales, and considering where ads are ultimately placed, beyond simply targeting a specific audience at a certain price.

According to the advertising association the initiative has been well received. As a result they’ve publicly announced the first batch of sites to be added to their fledgling ‘pirate blacklist’, a boycott which will be observed by around 600 advertisers.

“The recommendations have become very popular so now we are taking this a step further by naming movie sites where serious advertisers’ brands certainly should not be seen,” says Anders Ericson, CEO of Swedish Advertisers.

Topping the list in terms of popularity is The Pirate Bay, the Swedish born torrent site that simply refuses to die. Nine others currently being named are Dreamfilmhd.org, Sweflix.to, Swefilmer.ws, Swefilm.tv, Swesub.tv, Laddanerfilmer.com, Svenskafilmer.nu, Undertexter.se and film365.se.

“There has been an evolvement over time where the illegal sites are getting more and more commercial and getting substantial amounts from advertisements,” Lindbäck says.

“For example in the Swefilmer case where 13 million SEK ($1.57m) has been traced through the advertisement broker/platforms.”

The majority of the sites present on the blacklist do indeed contain large amounts of advertising, sometimes to the point where they become somewhat irritating to use. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop big brands from advertising on them.

Dreamfilmhd, for example, carries advertising for Bet365 and Coral, two well-known gambling companies regularly featured on other pirate sites.

Interestingly, another ‘offender’ is Sky Bet. This gambling outfit is owned by British Sky Broadcasting, a massive media company whose parent is 21st Century Fox. Their somewhat hypocritical popup ad is shown below.

In order to suffer the full onslaught of advertisers, TF fired up an unprotected browser and deliberately clicked around on the sites in question to see what kind of ads we could discover. Major advertisers already seem few and far between but there is work to be done.

Largely though it’s a miserable user experience, with popups, popunders, ads for scammy fake download sites, plus get-rich-quick schemes regularly bombarding the senses. As schemes like this one in Sweden and others around the world really begin to bite, expect more of the same.

Pirate sites will almost certainly be able to find advertisers willing to put hands in pockets but as times get tough, the quality of those ads is likely to deteriorate even further still. With that, user experience will also decline. Will pirates put up with the junk? Time will tell.

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

uTorrent was first released to the public on September 18, 2005 and the torrent client has come a long way since.

What began as a minimalist and no-nonsense client, targeted at an already BitTorrent-savvy crowd, is now an application that’s become mainstream.

Over the years uTorrent’s target audience has also changed. BitTorrent was still a geek thing ten years ago but today its audience includes soccer moms, grandparents and many others who are not generally classified as computer experts.

How it started

The groundwork for uTorrent, where the μ stands for micro, was laid out in 2004. At the time most BitTorrent clients were resource hogs or bloatware, while computer memory was relatively limited.

Swedish developer Ludvig Strigeus wanted to counter this trend. Inspired by a friend he took up the task of building a simple but powerful client with the main purpose of downloading torrents.

At the end of 2014 Strigeus started coding the application in his spare time, but after a month development stalled. He eventually picked up the project in September 2015 and three days later the first version was released to the public.

In a matter of days the news spread among Windows-bound BitTorrent users worldwide. For many people uTorrent was a breath of fresh air, due to its simplicity and the minimal use of computer resources.

Fast forward a few months and hundreds of thousands of people had switched to the newcomer.

Progress

Most progress in terms of features was made in the first year. Strigeus implemented several key changes which are a core part of the BitTorrent ecosystem today.

uTorrent.com October 2015

It was among the first clients to implement DHT support, for example, as well as BitTorrent encryption.

Ashwin Navin, who was the CEO of BitTorrent at the time, praised uTorrent for its innovations early 2006. Navin said that he and his colleagues were big fans of Strigeus’ work which soon after introduced the next step in the software’s history.

The Takeover

December 2006, little over a year after the first release, uTorrent was acquired by BitTorrent Inc. The San Francisco based company of BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen had just secured millions in funding and with uTorrent it hoped to expand its userbase.

“Bringing together uTorrent’s efficient implementation and compelling UI with BitTorrent’s expertise in networking protocols will significantly benefit the community with what we envision will be the best BitTorrent client,” the two companies announced.

uTorrent’s founder, Ludvig Strigeus, cut his ties with the application soon after and went on to develop another piece of P2P-powered software, Spotify.

The takeover increased uTorrent’s development capacity but not all users were happy. Some feared that the client would become bloatware and others were wary of BitTorrent’s “deal” with the MPAA.

The vast majority of the people were satisfied though and the number of users grew exponentially.

In the years that followed uTorrent implemented several key improvements including the uTP protocol. In addition, the company also released long-awaited support for Mac and Linux operating systems.

By 2007 uTorrent had a larger userbase than any other BitTorrent client, and twice as many as the runner-up. And this trend continued. A year later uTorrent passed the milestone of 25 million active users and the year after more than half of all BitTorrent users had it marked as their favorite client.

Money…

Like all other commercial torrent clients uTorrent needed a business model. For many years the company has made the bulk of its revenue from bundled software such as toolbars. This software is presented as an option during the install process, which can be tricky to spot for some.

The “extra” software sometimes caused controversy. For example, earlier this year many users complained that uTorrent had silently installed a Bitcoin miner. Soon after the news broke, the company decided to no longer include this offer.

Another revenue stream comes from embedded advertisements. When these were first announced there was a lot of pushback from users, but these complaints slowly faded, in part because the advertisements became optional.

How much money the ads generate is unknown, but with billions of displays per year it must be a sizable amount.

uTorrent ads

Very tiny?

Those who compare uTorrent’s appearance will see that the basic layout hasn’t changed that much. However, in terms of functionality and features it’s an entirely different beast.

The downside of these improvements is that the application is no longer as minimal as it used to be.

The installer has also grown in size quite a bit. While it’s still advertised as a “(very) tiny” application the installer is now close to 2MB, instead of the 97kb it used to be back in 2005.

uTorrent version 1.1

Remarkably, however, the memory footprint is still very small. The first version of uTorrent consumed roughly 4MB memory, and today that’s roughly 12MB depending on the setup, which is low compared to most alternatives.

Going forward

Regular visitors and beta testers of uTorrent have noticed that the application’s development has stalled a bit, compared to the early years. However, new fixes and changes are still being released on a monthly basis.

One of the most prominent developments comes in the form of a new monetization strategy uTorrent will be testing during the months to come. Instead of bundled software uTorrent may switch to a new revenue model where it will ask users for money.

Looking back it’s safe to conclude that uTorrent led the way in many aspects, and it’s still a leader today. Alternative clients have a relatively small userbase compared to the client and despite a small group of vocal protesters who resist change, there are no signs of a mass exodus.

It’s safe to say that ten years ago nobody could have predicted that uTorrent would be installed over a billion times, with roughly 150 million active users a month today. As such, congratulations is certainly in order.

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