Last week, lawyers Davenport Lyons who are currently threatening hundreds of BitTorrent users with legal action, tasted victory in Central London County Court with wins in cases against four file-sharers. Fortunately, these ‘victories’ mean little, as Davenport chose not to go after people who defend themselves, instead picking on people they knew wouldn’t even come to court.

To those in the BitTorrent community, the name Davenport Lyons will be familiar. The London-based lawyers are responsible for a barrage of threatening letters sent to hundreds of alleged file sharers. They want people who they accuse of uploading Dream Pinball 3D, Colin McRae Dirt and Call of Juarez to comply with their demands, which means accepting that the highly-suspect evidence provided by anti-piracy tracking company Logistep is actually correct, promising never to share files again and then paying several hundred pounds to Davenport Lyons to call off the legal action.

Several individuals accused by Davenport in the Dream Pinball 3D case have access to some formidable resources and are actually relishing the opportunity of having their day in court. However, as we recently reported, Davenport Lyons like to carefully pick their prey - they simply cannot afford to lose a case due to faulty evidence. TorrentFreak is in contact with many people who are accused by Davenport of uploading, and it’s becoming apparent that people who dig in their heels - who refuse to be intimidated and refuse to be bullied - are mysteriously left alone and not taken to court.

But before we get carried away, here’s some sobering news. Last Friday, seemingly against all the odds and proving our previous articles completely wrong, Davenport Lyons achieved court victories against four file-sharers it accused of unauthorized distribution of Topware’s Dream Pinball 3D.

David Gore, a partner at Davenport Lyons said: “Copyright owners spend millions of pounds developing copyright works for sale to the public for their enjoyment and yet many think it is acceptable to obtain the work illegally and for free by procuring a copy on a peer-to-peer network.”

The four were hit with fines of £750 each - to be paid within a week - along with £2000 costs. Ouch. Surely these historic victories would now open the flood gates to enable the lawyers and anti-pirates to absolutely hammer the hundreds of people who also stand accused?

Well, not quite, no. Not even close.

The victories claimed by Davenport Lyons at Central London County Court on behalf of publisher Topware were all achieved by way of so-called ‘default judgment’. In basic terms, this means that as the individuals accused didn’t bother to turn up at court or even answer court documents, the court had no alternative than to hand victory to Davenport Lyons and Topware.

The remaining several hundred people accused of file-sharing by Davenport Lyons will be heartened to know that the company only has the confidence to go after people it knows will not turn up at court, assuring them of victory.

Loading up its metaphorical gun and getting ready to fire more legal bullets into a small barrel of defenseless fish, Davenport says it has more of these cases lined up to ‘win’ later on this week, while everyone else stands around yawning wondering when they’ll pick on someone who will actually fight back.

If you are one of the four who lost their case last Friday or have been served with court documents to appear in the future, please get in touch via the contact page, we want to speak with you.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Court Hits BitTorrent Users Who Failed to Appear

If you ask any Australian what the most annoying thing is about TV shows or movies, a common response is that it can take a long time for things popular in the US and UK to make it ‘down under’. Apparently, the Mafia has picked up on this, as they have started selling pirated movies and TV-shows on the streets, or have they?

When you get in any sort of reporting, you start to see the same sort of stories crop up. We’ve been writing for almost 3½ years, and even in that short time, and in as narrow a field as I keep an eye on, we see the same things crop up. In that way, it’s like fashion, except instead of cycles of 20-30 years, its often only 3-4. One such example comes courtesy of yesterday’s The Australian. Under a headline of “Organized Crime gets into Video Piracy” is a number of claims.

“DVD and other piracy can now be more profitable than drug trafficking,” AFACT’s director of operations Neil Gane told The Australian. “That’s why crime organizations are going into it.”

It might not sound familiar to some of you, but a similar claim was made some four years and 9500 miles away, in the UK. Back then, during a campaign called “piracy is a crime” they made similar allegations (see the top of this page, court. wayback machine), allegations that didn’t stand up to scrutiny back then, when we first encountered them.

Do these? Well, the article in question makes use of the infamous LEK study, and even the MPAA knows it’s inaccurate (pdf). So, it’s not exactly off to the best of starts. Unfortunately, that’s also the only start. Despite a trawl of the websites and press releases put out by the two organizations (the other being Foxtel), there is only one recent link (doc) between drugs and ‘piracy’ and that is the prosecution of ONE MAN just over a month ago, for cultivating cannabis, and what is described as ‘multiple copyright offenses’.

So, we’ve gone from one guy, with 3,300 movies+TV shows and growing some cannabis (total punishment, 7 month suspended sentence, and a 2 year good behavior order) to Organized Crime. Despite the utter failure of the similar campaign in the UK years earlier (where the only thing remaining of the campaign is the ‘You wouldn’t steal a…” advert) Australia seems determined to try and make it work.

However, there is a plus side, in that AFACT have established a market price it believes consumers feel to be the worth of a DVD. In all their estimations of yearly capacity, they give a ’street value’ of roughly $5AUS, which is about $4.77 US (3 Euros, or £2.40). In this they differ from the campaign in the UK, where the value given was some 20 times greater. In this, while telling lies, they are also more truthful.

In the end, no ‘criminal gang’ will forego their drugs, weapons or other lucrative money-making operations for DVD piracy. The reasoning is as plain as it is simple. With drugs, or guns they have small, highly valuable goods that can’t be easily obtained elsewhere. As the world becomes increasingly connected, and peer-to-peer becomes simpler to use, more reliable, less time consuming AND more powerful, the potential returns on selling bootleg DVDs reduces, ask Tony. Ten years ago, people had dial-up, and hard drives were maybe big enough for 2-3 DVDs. Now you can buy terabyte hard drives, and even the TorrentFreak researcher, living in the middle of rural Georgia, 10 miles from the nearest shops, has an 8Mbit connection.

The reasons for comparisons become clear when you hear the comments of Foxtel’s head of Fraud, Mark Mulready (a ‘former police prosecutor and detective’), who told The Australian “Police should have all the same investigative tools to fight piracy they currently have for organised drug trafficking or money laundering,” so, as usual, it’s about not having to spend time and money on civil cases, but having the taxpayer foot the bill, and the ability to use law enforcement to patch their business model.

Rehashing failed campaigns is a sign that the industry has no new ideas, and is desperately trying to avoid dealing with the root of the problem – themselves and their greed. When even the police are so into ‘piracy’, that there are too many to prosecute, it’s time to stop sticking your head in the sand, and deal with the causes.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Australian Drug Mafia to Sell Pirated DVDs?

TV shows are by far the most wanted files via BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s fast becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?

The data is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.

At the end of the year we will publish a list of most downloaded TV-shows for the entire year, like we did last December.

TV-shows such as “Lost” and “Heroes” can get up to 10 million downloads per episode, in only a week.

Top Downloads June 22 - June 29

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent (wk26)