After numerous experiments elsewhere, notably in the US, two years ago Voltage Pictures took its turn piracy-into-profit business model to Canada.

The company’s targets were 2,000 Internet subscribers at local ISP Teksavvy. The early stages of the case saw the ISP dig in its heels while bringing on board the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) with the aim of protecting consumers from potentially large fines.

While CIPPIC was allowed to intervene, the subscribers’ identities were ordered to be handed over and with that in hand the arguments turned to who would have to pay for proceedings thus far.

Needless to say, Voltage Pictures’ and Teksavvy’s assessments were at the opposite ends of the spectrum, with the former saying that should it pay around $884.00 and the latter claiming a few hundred thousand dollars, $346,480.68 to be exact.

In the event the court rejected both sides’ claims, but the ruling was far away from Teksavvy’s expectations. The Federal Court told Voltage to pay $21,557 – $17,057 in technical administrative costs plus $4,500 in legal fees – associated with the IP-address lookups.

After being awarded just 6% of its original claim, it comes as little surprise that the ISP has now filed an appeal against the decision.

Teksavvy says that Prothonotary Aronovitch’s decision to disallow the large majority of its claim was flawed in that it was “based upon a wrong principle, an error of law and/or misapprehensions of the fact that cannot reasonably be supported by the evidence.”

Outlining its case, the ISP says that Prothonotary Aronovitch improperly interpreted the scope of an earlier decision by Prothonotary Aalto concerning Norwich order (disclosure order) jurisprudence, including the nature of costs to which an innocent third-party respondent (Teksavvy in this case) is entitled.

The ISP further asserts that Prothonotary Aronovitch relied on “irrelevant jurisprudence” to justify excluding Teksavvy’s costs and disallowing costs on the basis they amounted to the “costs of doing business.”

In support of several other complaints and claims, Teksavvy demands a four-hour hearing to outline why it should achieve the following:

– An order which awards Teksavvy “reasonable legal costs, administrative costs and disbursements” or an amount the Court deems “just and appropriate”

– An order which awards Teksavvy its costs in the previous hearing before Prothonotary Aronovitch

– An award for the costs of this appeal, plus any “further and other relief” the court might deem “just”

Commenting on Teksavvy’s decision to appeal, copyright lawyer Howard Knopf says that the ISP’s earlier decision to “take no position” on the original Voltage disclosure application may have cost the company dearly.

“This appears to have been a key factor in the Federal Court’s refusal to reward TekSavvy and its counsel with almost $180,000 in legal fees,” Knopf writes.

“Ironically, if TekSavvy had actually opposed Voltage’s motion, it may well have been in a much better position to successfully seek costs. Prothonotary Aronovitch cites [a similar case] where two the ISPs actively opposed the disclosure motion. In that case, the Court ultimately denied the motion but awarded the costs of the motion to the third-party ISPs who had opposed it.”

So while the parties battle it out under appeal, there is still the matter of the consumers who are expecting a letter through the post from Voltage Pictures. Those letters still haven’t gone out and before they do so their content much be approved by the court. While that may offer recipients some protection, the end game is almost guaranteed – demands for some kind of cash settlement to avoid supposed legal action.

And according to Voltage counsel James Zibarras, that be could more costly than people might have been led to believe.

Discussions thus far have indicated that statutory damages in such cases sit at $5,000. However, Zibarras says that plaintiffs can also opt for actual damages instead. These take into consideration damages caused by those who distribute content as well as upload, he says.

“And this is the thing, the people that Voltage goes after… technically aren’t downloaders. What Voltage goes after is people that make their product available for upload,” Zibarras says.

“Once you switch to actual [damages], then there’s no cap, it’s whatever we can prove.”

While that assertion is refuted by lawyer Howard Knopf, one thing is for certain. Voltage certainly sees dollar signs in this action and it’s not going to be giving up anytime soon.

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

This week we have five newcomers in our chart.

Taken 3 is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(…)	Taken 3	6.1 / trailer
2	(1)	Interstellar	8.8 / trailer
3	(…)	Last Knights	6.2 / trailer
4	(…)	The Gambler	6.1 / trailer
5	(…)	Furious 7 (CAM)	8.8 / trailer
6	(2)	Cinderella	7.6 / trailer
7	(3)	Exodus: Gods and Kings	6.2 / trailer
8	(5)	Into The Woods	6.2 / trailer
9	(…)	Careful What You Wish For	5.0 / trailer
10	(7)	Fifty Shades of Grey	3.9 / trailer

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

In Western countries piracy is often seen as a leisure tool, granting people unauthorized access to the latest hits and Hollywood blockbusters.

However, there are also parts of the world where piracy is frequently used as a means to gather and spread knowledge. In parts of Africa, for example, where legal access to educational books and software is often restricted or unavailable.

Over the years we have seen various illustrations of the educational importance of piracy in developing countries. When the e-book portal Library.nu was shut down, for instance, we were contacted by a United Nations worker in Kenya, who voiced his disappointment.

“I am very concerned about the recent injunction against library.nu. The site was particularly useful for people like me working in Nairobi, a city that has no more than four bookshops with nothing but bestsellers,” the UN worker informed TF at the time.

In an effort to determine how piracy affects literacy and the spread of knowledge, the African Governance and Development Institute conducted an in-depth study comparing piracy and human development data from 11 African countries.

The findings, presented in a paper titled “The Impact of Software Piracy on Inclusive Human Development: Evidence from Africa” show that “software piracy increases literacy”.

“Adoption of tight IPRs regimes may negatively affect human development by diminishing the literacy rate and restricting diffusion of knowledge,” the authors write.

Not all copyright protection measures have a negative effect though, and the researchers found that is negatively linked to the human development index.

“Adherence to international IPRs protection treaties (laws) may not impede per capita economic prosperity and could improve life-expectancy,” the paper reads.

The paper reports mostly correlational data so it’s not unthinkable that countries where human development is higher have less need to pirate, as there are better alternatives.

The reverse effect could also apply to the literacy findings but according to the researchers this is unlikely. Researcher Simplice Asongu informed TF that his previous work showed a causal effect from piracy on scientific publications.

“I tested the impact of piracy on scientific publications and established a positive causality flowing from the former to the latter,” Asongu says.

From that research, it was concluded that African countries with less copyright restrictions on software will substantially boost the spread of knowledge through scientific and technical publications.

The findings reported here are limited to the effect of software piracy, but it’s not hard to see how book piracy may also positively influence literacy and the spread of knowledge.

In sum, the research suggests that piracy does have its positive sides, especially in terms of human development. Still, it seems unlikely that rightsholders will take that into account when lobbying for new policy changes.

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

Last week Microsoft announced Halo Online, an all-new, free-to-play online multiplayer experience on PC.

While the upcoming late spring release generated excitement, that was tempered somewhat by the revelation that the game will be restricted to players in Russia only, at least for the foreseeable future.

The news was met with predictable resistance from the ‘modding community’, the hardcore few who prefer to play Halo on their own terms. After a leaked copy of Halo Online was obtained, a tool enabling exploration of the game was uploaded to Github. It didn’t stay there long.

Microsoft hit Github with a DMCA takedown notice and the code platform responded by disabling access to the tool, titled ‘ElDorito’.

Just before the weekend TorrentFreak caught up with the loose-knit ElDorito team who gave us the background to the leak and subsequent interest from Microsoft.

“Microsoft is probably quite bothered by what we’ve done already as these files were leaked. We obtained the files from a user on 4chan’s /v/ board,” team member ‘Woovie’ told TF.

Sure enough, even now a post by the 4chan user in question contains a still-live link to a file hosted by Microsoft partner Innova, helpfully titled ‘halo_setup-ru.exe’. No takedowns in this instance.

“From there, user Emoose proceeded to create a hack that would allow the client to load files and thus get in game,” Woovie adds. “He has in the past done the same for Halo 2 and Halo 3 betas so he had experience with this. The files we have are definitely an early internal alpha. A lot of left over code from other Halo games.”

The big question is whether the copyright move from Microsoft has put the team off continuing. Initially TF was told that might be the case, but subsequent discussion painted a very different picture.

“In terms of DMCA/C&D mitigation, we have made redundant git backups on private and public git servers. This is to ensure we will always have one working copy. These are being synchronized so that data is always the same,” Woovie explains.

“Further DMCAs may happen potentially, it’s not really known at the moment. Our backups will always exist though and we will continue until we’re happy.”

So what is motivating the ElDorito team to carry on? Aside from a passion for Halo itself, the team seems perplexed by the Russian geo-restrictions and also what they believe could turn into a free-to-play game requiring in-game purchases for players to succeed.

“We of course still don’t know 100% what items are purchasable with real money, but it would appear at first glance to have pay-to-win potential. We also of course want to play this game, which as far as we see, is a Russian market only game,” Woovie adds.

Of course, all this could mean more action from Microsoft, but team member Neoshadow42 sees the modding of leaked files as more of a service.

“As someone involved in game development, I’m sympathetic with some developers when it comes to copyright issues. This is different though, in my opinion,” the dev explains.

“The game was going to be free in the first place. The PC audience has been screaming for Halo 3 for years and years, and we saw the chance with this leak. The fact that we could, in theory, bring the game that everyone wants, without the added on stuff that would ruin the game, that’s something we’d be proud of.”

Refuting claims by some that the team’s actions might be damaging, Neoshadow42 says this case is different.

“I don’t particularly see this as damaging, as some people have said. I don’t believe it for a moment, honestly. We’re working to improve people’s experience, bring it to those who wouldn’t have been able to play it anyway. I’d see that as a noble cause.”

But isn’t this just the same as pirating any other game and making it free to play?

“This whole project would be completely different in an ethical way if we had taken a paid game and reversed it for everyone to access for free,” Neoshadow42 insists.

“At the end of the day, El Dorito aims to deliver exactly what everyone wants. The closest thing to a Halo 3 experience as possible, but on PC. If we can manage that, I’ll be more than happy.”

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

Well, I for one don’t give a flying fuck. I don’t care if the “pirate movement” lives, exists or whatever. I only care about the causes. Too much focus is put on the form, liveliness and influence of groups, organizations and nostalgic icons.

What’s the point on spending energy and resources (not to talk about lost publicity) to discuss the meta-debate about the form of the causes? It’s just pointless.

You’ve all heard it. The “pirate movement” is dead, diminishing and what not. But ignore that. What are the causes that we talk about here? Freedom of information, freedom of speech, surveillance, state corruption, corporate overlords, control of our infrastructure, the right to access education and culture, plenty. Are these discussions dead? No. But are we moving anywhere with them? I’m afraid not.

As I’ve said numerous times over and over again, we lost those battles. Now some people are refusing to give them up, in true Monty Python spirit, claiming that their beloved “pirate movement” is not dead. Mixing apples and pears.

Give up the idea of pirates being cool. They’re not. My biggest regret in my part in all of this was to use the word pirate. Not even Johnny Depp can make pirates look cool – and he manages to make cocaine-dealers look awesome. Pirates are awful. And today’s pirates – the ones in Somalia – also lost their battles. Good! So let’s get rid of this stupid culture of having a stupid culture.

In the essence of what a pirate means today – I’m talking the political pirate – I’m all in. But I’m also so much more and I hope you guys are as well. I hope you care about the bigger picture. The “pirate movement” does not have space for that though. So why would you limit yourself to that? Why would you spend your energy and time on something that has no working big picture? It’s a subset of politics that the “movement” has been dealing with. And that’s fine, but not in the form of a party.

A party needs to be able to have that ideological big picture view. Who can say what the “pirate movement’s” view on immigration is? Or the war against drugs and so on? It would be different in each country. There’s no alignment here.

So fuck the “pirate movement”. Rename it, re-brand it, do whatever you want. Just fucking don’t be a pirate. Be something more awesome. Be a world citizen that cares about the same topics. Join other parties and make them understand the topics at hand. Infiltrate them. Cooperate and have people join all the parties in your nation, make sure they all agree. Be a fucking undercover ninja for all I care. Just don’t sing songs about pirate booty, looting and shit.

Anyhow, i’m pretty sure we lost the big fight. But I don’t mind you guys trying to fix it. I’m involved no matter if I want to be or not anymore – but I’m spending my time on new approaches. I’m doing art and I’m traveling to tell you all that you’re stupid. It’s fun to do that. And fun is what’s missing in your beloved “pirate movement”.

You’re stuck in 2005. 10 years of history on the ‘nets is an insane amount of time for being stuck. For most it’s half of your life. And you’re refusing to evolve. If that’s the message of a “pirate movement” I don’t get why anyone wants to be involved.

The “pirate movement” is dead – yeeey! Long live everything else. This is the only essence of what used to be a “movement” that should be there. Ignite, re-ignite, burn and ignite again. Pyromania is creative.

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