TechLuver.com

Feb 03, `08 — As Swedish prosecutors fixed their sights last week on The Pirate Bay, an Internet file-sharing service that is a scourge of the movie and music industries, the operators of the site responded by hoisting a defiant, digital Jolly Roger, reports the IHT.

The Pirate Bay, on its blog, called for a celebration saying, “This week we’ve hit some magic numbers. We’re tracking over 1 million torrents. We have had over 10 million simultaneous peers on the trackers. We’re at 2.5 million registered users (and they are active as well).”

The 100th post on the Pirate Bay blog further adds, “In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site. The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We’ve been here for years and we will be here many more.”

The Wires writes, “Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, one of the four Swedes charged in Sweden on Thursday, said in a telephone interview that the site has set up a clandestine, double-blind operation with its servers spread throughout the world — and out of reach of the Swedish authorities.

“The Pirate Bay is not in Sweden,” the 29-year-old Kolmisoppi said. Where are the servers?

“It’s a distributed system. We don’t know where the servers are. We gave them to people we trust and they don’t know it’s The Pirate Bay,” Kolmisoppi said. “They then rent locations and space for them somewhere else. It could be three countries. It could be six countries. We don’t want to know because then you’ll have a problem shutting them down.” More at IHT, theWired.

Feb 01, `08 — Four men who run one of the most popular file-sharing sites in the world have been charged with conspiracy to break copyright law in Sweden, the BBC reported on Thursday.

Pirate Bay does not store music and video files on its own servers, but instead helps users share them on the internet. The website acts as a directory of the files used by the BitTorrent file-transfer protocol.

“It’s not merely a search engine. It’s an active part of an action that aims at, and also leads to, making copyright protected material available,” public prosecutor Hakan Roswall told Reuters. “It’s a classic example of accessory — to act as intermediary between people who commit crimes, whether it’s in the physical or the virtual world.”

Pirate Bay told the news agency that the people running the site cannot be held responsible for how its directory services are used. The website is said to have between 10 and 15 million users around the world and is supported by online advertising.

Police seized computers in May 2006, temporarily shutting down the website.

Prosecutor Hakan Roswall said the website was commercially exploiting copyright-protected work because it was financed through advertising revenues. According to the Pirate Bay website, its users are currently downloading close to a million files.

On the site, a statement says: “In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site.

“The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We’ve been here for years and we will be here many more.”

In an interview with the BBC’s technology programme Click last year Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde said: “I think it’s okay to copy. They get their money from so many places that the sales is just one small part.”

The other three men facing charges are Carl Lundstrom, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. If convicted, the four men could face a maximum of two years in prison.

The website had up until 2006 based its servers in Stockholm, but moved some to the Netherlands after a raid in May of that year by Swedish police, who seized equipment and held three people for questioning “on suspicion of breaking copyright law or abetting the breaking of copyright law,” authorities said. The site was taken down for a day, but was soon up and running again.

Moves against the site have been backed by entertainment industry groups, including the Motion Picture Association of America and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. More at BBC News.

WASHINGTON — Nov 25, ‘07 — BRIAN BERGSTEIN of The Associated Press reports an excellent article on Business Software Alliance bullying over small business firms in North America.

“Michael Gaertner worried he could lose his company. A group called the Business Software Alliance was claiming that his 10-person architectural firm was using unlicensed software.

The alliance demanded $67,000 — most of one year’s profit — or else it would seek more in court. “It just scared the hell out of me,” Gaertner said.

An analysis by The Associated Press reveals that targeting small businesses is lucrative for the Business Software Alliance, the main copyright-enforcement watchdog for such companies as Microsoft Corp., Adobe Systems Inc. and Symantec Corp.

Of the $13 million that the BSA reaped in software violation settlements with North American companies last year, almost 90 percent came from small businesses, the AP found.

The BSA is well within its rights to wring expensive punishments aimed at stopping the willful software copying that undoubtedly happens in many businesses. And its leaders say they concentrate on small businesses because that’s where illegitimate use of software is rampant.

But software experts say the picture has more shades of gray. Companies of all sizes inadvertently break licensing rules because of problems the software industry itself has created. Unable or unwilling to create technological blocks against copying, the industry has saddled its customers with complex licensing agreements that are hard to master.

In that view, the BSA amasses most of its bounties from small businesses because they have fewer technological, organizational and legal resources to avoid a run-in.

In Gaertner’s case, employees had been unable to open files with the firm’s drafting software, so they worked around it by installing programs they found on their own, breaking company rules, he said. And receipts for legitimate software had been lost in the hubbub of running his company.

“It was basically just a lack of knowledge and sloppy record-keeping on my part,” said Gaertner, who got a settlement that cost him $40,000.

These cases get costly because the BSA considers software pirated if a company can’t produce a receipt for it, no matter how old it is. Then the BSA generally demands at least twice the retail price of software deemed out of compliance. Plus it charges the “unbundled” prices of software that generally comes together at a discount, like Microsoft Office.

However, software-management gurus say the BSA could do far more to assist companies — which are, after all, its members’ customers.”Instead of just being the software police, be the police in the sense of helping old ladies across the street,” said Barbara Scott, a software consultant for Redemtech Inc. “The BSA could become more of a partner with organizations that they’re hammering as well.”

Gaertner, who worried his BSA encounter would crush his business, wants to rid himself of the Autodesk, Microsoft and Adobe software involved in the case.”It’s not like they have really good software. It’s just that it’s widespread and it’s commonly used,” he said. “It’s going to be a while, but eventually, we plan to get completely disengaged from those software vendors that participate in the BSA.“” More at AP.

Paris — Nov 23, ‘07 — French web users caught pirating movies or music could soon be thrown offline.

Those illegally sharing files will face the loss of their net access thanks to a newly-created anti-piracy body granted the wide-ranging powers. The anti-piracy body comes out of a deal agreed by France’s music and movie makers and its net firms.

The group who brokered the deal said the measures were intended to curb casual piracy rather than tackle large scale pirate groups.

In a landmark speech Nicolas Sarkozy said: “The rights of authors, the preservation of creativity, the recognition of the rights of each artist, of each performer… was an important commitment of my presidential campaign. “The deal was a decisive moment for the future of a civilised internet” he further added.

Net firms will monitor what their customers are doing and pass on information about persistent pirates to the new independent body. Those identified will get a warning and then be threatened with either being cut off or suspended if they do not stop illegal file-sharing.

The agreement between net firms, record companies, film-makers and government was drawn up by a special committee created to look at the problem of the net and cultural protection.

Denis Olivennes, head of the French chain store FNAC, who chaired the committee said current penalties for piracy - large fines and years in jail - were “totally disproportionate” for those young people who do file-share illegally.

In return for agreeing to monitor net use, film-makers agreed to speed up the transfer of movies to DVD and music firms pledged to support DRM-free tracks on music stores.

The deal was hailed by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents the global interests of the music business.”This is the single most important initiative to help win the war on online piracy that we have seen so far,” it said in a statement.

French consumer group UFC Que Choisir was more cautious.It said the agreement was “very tough, potentially destructive of freedom, anti-economic and against digital history”

Beijing, China — Nov 07, ‘07 – Microsoft and China’s No. 2 personal computer maker signed an agreement Wednesday to pre-install Microsoft’s Windows operating system in PCs to combat widespread Chinese product piracy.

The agreement with Founder Technology Group Corp. shows “the commitment of both companies to protect intellectual property rights,” the companies said in a joint statement. Founder also will sell Microsoft keyboards, Webcams and other hardware in more than 500 stores across China, the companies said.

“Our partnership with Founder is an essential part of our strategy here in China and around the world,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said at a signing ceremony. Founder President Qi Dongfeng, speaking at a news conference later, declined to say how much the Chinese company would pay Microsoft. Qi said Founder expects to pre-install Windows on nearly all its consumer PCs and about 40 percent of its business computers.

Ballmer did not take questions from reporters or mention piracy directly in his comments. China is the world’s leading source of illegally copied software, music and other goods. Foreign officials and business groups say the scale of piracy is growing despite increased Chinese enforcement.

Some 82 percent of software used in China last year was pirated, well above the Asian regional average of 55 percent, according to an industry group, the U.S.-based Business Software Alliance. More at FoxNews.