Hulu Tracks Pirates to Decide What to Buy

When major movie and TV companies discuss piracy they often mention the massive losses incurred as a result of unauthorized downloads and streams.

However, this unofficial market also offers a valuable pool of publicly available data on the media consumption habits of a relatively young generation.

Many believe that piracy is in part a market signal showing rightsholders what consumers want. This makes piracy statistics key business intelligence, which many large companies already actively use.

Netflix, for example, uses piracy to figure out how much they can charge in a country, as well as what content they license. They are not alone.

A few days ago we learned that Hulu does the same. Hulu’s head of content acquisitions Lisa Holme told Business Insider that piracy data is an important factor in deciding what content the company licenses.

Pirates can show what TV-shows or movies people are interested in and if they go through the ‘trouble’ of downloading something illegally, it is bound to do well on legitimate platforms as well.

According to Holme, piracy effectively tells Hulu how committed people are to a show. “They are passionate enough about it to break the law,” she says, adding that many would pay to stream content if there’s an easy way.

Piracy tracking and intelligence firm MUSO is one of the players that offers this type of data to copyright holders. While they don’t work with Hulu, the company says that it’s more common nowadays to use piracy as input.

“Piracy data analytics really are a window into the size of global piracy audiences, as well as their behavior around piracy. If you put that data together with regional focus, piracy suddenly isn’t black and white, but has multiple shades,” MUSO’s Chief Commercial Officer Christopher Elkins says.

This type of data can often reveal important geographical trends. And aside from using in for anti-piracy means, the same analytics can be used to make content acquisition decisions.

“Rights owners are starting to use piracy insights effectively to help support their digital strategy, and we’re seeing huge benefit now across the TV and live broadcast industry in particular, which has such geographic-specific rights.”

Ultimately, this should be a win-win for all parties involved. Media companies and copyright holders have a better grip on their audience, and pirates get more legal options of their liking.

“For us, it’s incredibly encouraging to see the creative ways the content industry are using data to ultimately serve a better experience for audiences,” Elkins

TorrentFreak reached out to Hulu for some additional insights about their use of piracy data, but unfortunately the company did not reply. Piracy can come in handy at times, but talking about it apparently still isn’t always convenient.

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

Weekly Indicators: is an inventory liquidation underway? edition

The biggest news of the week was the slightly positive first Quarter GDP.  First Quarter employment costs also increased.  

 

Monthly data for April started out with a barely positive Chicago PMI, and decreases in two measures of consumer sentiment. March data included positive personal income, but flat personal spending in real terms. Durable goods orders increased. New home sales declined, but prices continued to increase at a decelerating pace.

 

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Portugal Blocks 330 Pirate Sites in Just Six Months

One of copyright holders’ most-favored anti-piracy mechanisms in place today involves site-blocking. Censoring sites at the ISP level is effective, rightsholders insist, not to mention cheaper than direct legal action against pirate sites.

In most countries where site-blocking is already in place, authorities have previously determined that the legal system must be involved. In the UK, for example, existing legislation was deemed to offer rightsholders the tools they need. Australia, on the other hand, decided to introduce legal amendments to keep things on the straight and narrow.

Portugal decided to take a different approach, one that simply involved an agreement between rightsholders, ISPs and the government. Now, if a site is considered to be illegal by these parties, it can be blocked without stepping into a courtroom.

For copyright holders it’s the Holy Grail and they’re taking full advantage of the new system. This week during a conference in the capital, Lisbon, the Portuguese Association for the Protection of Audiovisual Works revealed the extent of the program and it’s as critics feared.

Executive Director Antonio Paulo Santos reported that Portugal is now blocking a vast range of file-sharing and related sites, offering movies, TV, shows and music to streaming sports and books. In total more than 330 sites are now being blocked by local Internet service providers.

The rate of blocking is unprecedented. In October 2015 more than 50 sites were blocked by ISPs, including KickassTorrents, ExtraTorrent, Isohunt and RARBG. The following month another 40 were added, including BitSnoop, YourBitorrent, SeedPeer, Torlock and Torrentfunk.

Since then another 240 sites have been quietly added to the list. This rapid growth means that along with the United Kingdom and Italy, Portugal is already a world leader in pirate site blockades. All this has been achieved without ever going near a court room.

It is this kind of voluntary agreement that Hollywood and the major record labels are pushing for internationally, whether they’re with Internet service providers, domain registries or companies such as PayPal, Visa and Mastercard. The process in Portugal ticks all the right boxes for the entertainment companies so expect it to be championed elsewhere.

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

Aussie Gov Agency Endorses VPN Use to Reduce Piracy

When a government agency produces a report urging major changes to intellectual property laws, one often expects something heavily weighted in favor of rightsholders

Documents published today by the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission contain a more balanced set of recommendations, several of which are likely to provoke an adverse reaction from both local and international rightsholders.

The Intellectual Property Arrangements draft report is a 600 page epic covering everything from copyright and patent issues through to pharmaceuticals and plant breeders’ rights. Of most interest to readers will be the agency’s comments on infringement, fair use and copyright terms.

Bring on the VPNs

For years Australians have felt that when it comes to entertainment content they’re treated as second class citizens. Aussies believe that not only do they pay over the top for content, but they also have to wait longer for it to arrive.

As a result many access overseas services by using a VPN, something which is frowned upon by rightsholders and actively blocked by companies such as Netflix. Nevertheless, the Productivity Commission wants to do everything it can to open up options for consumers.

“Geoblocking results in Australians paying higher prices (often for a lesser or later service) than consumers overseas,” the report reads.

“The Australian Government should implement the recommendation made in the House of Representatives Committee report At What Cost? to make clear that it is not an infringement for consumers to circumvent geoblocking technology.”

But the Commission doesn’t stop there. In case any foreign country wants to pressure Australia into acting otherwise, the agency advises the following.

“The Australian Government should seek to avoid any international agreements that would prevent or ban consumers from circumventing geoblocking technology,” it adds.

Dealing with piracy

The Productivity Commission notes that enforcement is a key factor in the efficiency and effectiveness of the Australian IP system. It also acknowledges that copyright infringement is an ongoing issue. That being said, rightsholders probably aren’t going to like the draft’s conclusions.

“Online copyright infringement remains problematic for rights holders. Evidence suggests many people infringe copyright because of the ongoing difficulty and cost in accessing content,” the report notes.

“Evidence suggests infringement declines with better content availability and most consumers prefer paid, legal consumption. As such, an effective approach to reducing infringement is the timely release of content to Australian consumers. This requires action by rights holders and their intermediaries.”

It’s not difficult to see how these statements dovetail with the recommendation on VPN use and the pressure could eventually see Aussies getting a better deal. But for rightsholders hoping for more enforcement options in the meantime, only disappointment awaits.

“Changes to the law to encourage Internet service providers to cooperate with rights holders, as well as litigation, have only had a modest impact in reducing infringement. Further legislative change is unlikely to improve compliance with the law,” the report states.

Fair Use and Copyright Terms

In keeping with the positive response to increased consumer choice, proponents of expanded fair use provisions and diminished copyright terms also have something to celebrate.

“Australia’s copyright system has expanded over time, often with no transparent, evidence-based policy analysis demonstrating the need for, or quantum of, new rights. A new system of user rights, including the introduction of a broad, principles-based fair use exception, is needed to help address this imbalance,” the report notes.

“The Australian Government should amend the Copyright Act 1968 to replace the current fair dealing exceptions with a broad exception for fair use. The new exception should contain a clause outlining that the objective of the exception is to ensure Australia’s copyright system targets only those circumstances where infringement would undermine the ordinary exploitation of a work at the time of the infringement.”

And on copyright terms, yet more consumer-friendly advice.

“The term of protection for most works is now more than 70 years and considerably longer than necessary to incentivize creation of most works (with a commercial life less than 5 years). The current duration of copyright imposes costs on the community and access to works is restricted, particularly for works not commercially available but still subject to copyright protection,” the draft reads.

“While hard to pinpoint an optimal copyright term, a more reasonable estimate would be closer to 15 to 25 years after creation; considerably less than 70 years after death. Perpetual copyright protection of unpublished works should also be removed.”

Consultation period

The report is currently in draft and written submissions are invited up until Friday 3 June 2016. The final report will be handed to the government in August and published shortly after.

The full 603-page report can be found here (pdf)

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

XE Market Analysis: Asia - Apr 29, 2016

It was a risk-off session in N.Y. on Friday, as the dollar, yields, and equities all turned lower. Incoming data was mostly light of expectations, with income holding up, but consumption lagging, as Chicago PMI and Michigan sentiment numbers both faded. EUR-USD posted three-week highs of 1.1459, just shy of the 1.1464 multi-month top posted earlier in April. USD-JPY meanwhile, took it on the chin again, falling to a 15-month base of 106.64 as risk-off and fallout from the BoJ's no-move policy meeting continued to reverberate.

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Canadian Movie Pirates Targeted in Reverse Class Action

When it comes to the business model of turning piracy into profit, the name Voltage Pictures is never far from the action.

The Los Angeles-based movie outfit has tested the legal waters in several jurisdictions in an effort to extract cash settlements from alleged pirates, most recently in Australia with its movie Dallas Buyers Club.

In 2012, Voltage targeted Canadian ISP Teksavvy in a long drawn out battle to identify 2000 allegedly pirating users in order to force them to settle. Now, four years later, Voltage are back again with a new strategy.

This week the company filed an application in Federal Court, requesting certification of a reverse class action against an unquantified number of BitTorrent users who alleged shared five movies including The Cobbler, Pay the Ghost, Good Kill, Fathers and Daughters, and American Heist.

According to law professor Michael Geist, reverse class actions are very rare in Canada with only a few having been reported. The application of a reverse class action in a copyright case appears to be unprecedented.

“Class actions typically involve a representative plaintiff who represents many others who have suffered the same harms from the actions of the defendant. Reverse class actions feature a single plaintiff (Voltage) and multiple defendants (the alleged file sharers),” Geist explains.

According to the case documents (pdf) Voltage intends to build its case around a single and as-yet-unidentified customer of ISP Rogers. He or she is referred to as John Doe #1 and by the IP address allocated when the alleged offense took place.

“Through custom-designed software designed to track copyright infringements, and the online identities of those who commit such infringements (by way of IP address and time of infringement), the Voltage Parties have identified many thousand instances of their films (including the Works) being illegally offered for download from Individuals using the Internet,” the Voltage application reads.

“The proposed Representative Respondent, John Doe #1, as well as each member of the proposed Respondent Class….are persons whose names and identities are currently unknown to the Voltage Parties, but who have unlawfully, and without the Voltage Parties’ authorization or consent, infringed copyright in the Works, including by illegally uploading and distributing the Works for free, in full or in part, over the internet.”

Interestingly, Voltage is open about the reasons behind this new strategy, noting that widespread piracy and the high cost of litigation means it has sought a cheaper way to target large numbers of infringers at once.

“The Voltage Parties seek to certify this Application as a class proceeding as a way to address these issues and obtain reasonable compensation for the significant damages that each proposed Class Member has caused, in a cost-effective and fair manner for both the Voltage Parties and the proposed Class Members,” the application reads.

Voltage accuses the Class Members of three “Unlawful Acts” including making movies available for download via BitTorrent, advertising by way of the BitTorrent protocol that a work is available for download by each member, and failing to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that downloaders were authorized by law to do so.

But the big question remains – could such a strategy work? Professor Geist has his doubts.

“One of the biggest concerns involves questions of representation for the defendant class. Before certification [of the reverse class action], the court will want assurance that the interests of the defendants will be fairly represented. But who will represent those interests? Who will pay for the legal counsel?” Geist asks.

“Unlike a plaintiff-led class action, where lawyers are often willing to invest in the case, there is no payoff at the end of this case and finding someone to represent the class will be a challenge when the only named representative is John Doe #1.”

But the problems don’t stop there. Geist says that in a certified reverse class action defendants actually have the option to opt out of the class.

“In other words, after going through the process of trying to meet the requirements for class proceedings, all the defendants will be permitted to simply walk away,” he explains.

If they do, however, other questions are raised, including whether those who opt-out will be allowed to keep their anonymity. If they are not, this could play right into Voltage’s hands.

Copyright cases are complex in their own right but this strategy from Voltage will set in motion a vigorous scratching of heads. Definitely one to watch.

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

XE Market Analysis: North America - Apr 29, 2016

The yen surge and general dollar dip has continued today. USD-JPY crashed through the former April low at 107.63 during Tokyo-less trade in Asia before extending to an 18-month low of 106.91 during the London AM. EUR-USD, meanwhile, rose to a 17-day peak at 1.1414, assisted by the soft buck and strong Spanish and French GDP data, which was duly followed by the release of 0.6% q/q growth in Eurozone Q1 data, double the median forecast, although by this time the euro had settled back under 1.1400, where it remained.

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XE Market Analysis: Europe - Apr 29, 2016

The yen has remain strong, and the dollar soft as the BoJ and Fed policy statements this week continue to resonate, having resolutely disappointed expectations for an easing in the case of the former and mildly disappointed those market participants looking for hawkish spin in the case of the latter. USD-JPY continues to dominate the forex magnitude scales, showing a 0.7% loss on the day as London traders and sales dealers take to their desks.

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XE Market Analysis: Asia - Apr 28, 2016

Following overnight gyrations, led by USD-JPY, FX trade was relatively calm through the N.Y. session on Thursday, with major dollar pairings largely stuck inside of narrow ranges. Wall Street stumbled on the back of a softer GDP report, though yields moved up from session lows. EUR-USD moved between 1.1359 highs and 1.1311, as USD-JPY attempted to rally, peaking at 108.73 before falling back into 108.00 as stocks faded. USD-CAD eased into 1.2521 lows as oil prices topped $46/bbl, while cable found support into 1.4550, and later traded to 1.4623 highs.

[EUR, USD]

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Language Creation Society Backs Star Trek Spin-off in Klingon Copyright Battle

Earlier this year Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios filed a lawsuit against the makers of a Star Trek inspired fan film, accusing them of copyright infringement.

The dispute centers around the well-received short film Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar and the planned follow-up feature film Anaxar.

Among other things, the Star Trek rightsholders claim ownership over various Star Trek related settings, characters, species, clothing, colors, shapes, words, short phrases and even the Klingon language.

The makers of the fan-spinoff responded to several of the allegations last month. Among other things, they argued that the Klingon language is not copyrightable because it’s not more than an idea or a system. They therefore asked the court to dismiss or strike the copyright claims in question.

Paramount and CBS disagreed. In their reply the rightsholders called the argument absurd and among other things, they pointed out that the language system is not very useful if there are no real Klingons to communicate with.

Considering the stakes, the lawsuit has drawn the attention of the Language Creation Society (LCS), a non-profit that aims to promote the art and craft of language creation. The group submitted their opinion to the court yesterday, siding with the makers of the fan-film.

In their amicus brief, which actually uses Klingon language, the LCS points out that it’s understandable that Paramount Pictures feels that they own the language. After all, they commissioned Linguistics professor Marc Okrand to create some of the language thirty years ago.

However, this doesn’t mean that the copyright claims hold ground.

“Feeling ownership and having ownership are not the same thing. The language has taken on a life of its own. Thousands of people began studying it, building upon it, and using it to communicate among themselves,” the LCS notes.

“As the Klingon proverb says, we succeed together in a greater whole,” the brief adds, with pro-bono attorney Marc Randazza writing in Klingon.

The brief, partially in Klingon

The Language Creation Society lists many examples of how Klingon has evolved, and it specifically disputes Paramount’s earlier claims that there are no human beings who communicate using the Klingon language.

“In fact, there are groups of people for whom Klingon is their only common language. There are friends who only speak Klingon to each other. In fact, at least one child was initially raised as a native speaker of Klingon,” LCS writes.

“Now that Klingon has become an actual living language, Paramount seeks to reach out and stake its ownership by using copyright law. But, as ‘Klingons do not surrender’, neither do those who speak Klingon,” they add.

As such, Paramount should not be allowed to claim copyright over the entire Klingon language, both in written and spoken form. The language is a tool for people to communicate and express ideas, something people should be allowed to do freely under U.S. law, LCS argues.

Klingon alphabet (image: wiki)

If Paramount is allowed to claim copyright over the language, they would be able to silence the free expression of thousands of people, many of which helped it to evolve in recent years.

“Klingon gave Star Trek characters convincing dialogue. But, it broke its chains and took on a life of its own – a life that the Copyright Act has no power to control. Klingon, like any other spoken language, provides tools and a system for expressing ideas,” LCS writes.

“No one has a monopoly over these things, effectively prohibiting anyone from communicating in a language without the creator’s permission. This is not permitted by the law, and it is not why the Constitution allows Congress to provide copyright protection,” they add.

Summing up, the Language Creation Society sides with the makers of the Star Trek spin-off, asking the court to dismiss the copyright claims over the Klingon language, so it can be used freely and continue to evolve.

It is not up to the California federal court to decide whether the ‘Klingons’ can prevail or not.

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

Housing: April 2016 update

Let me do one of my periodic updates on housing.  As I have often said, I pay a lot of attention to this market because it is probably the single most leading sector of the US economy, with broader consequences one and even two years out.

My mantra is: 

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Housing: April 2016 update

Let me do one of my periodic updates on housing.  As I have often said, I pay a lot of attention to this market because it is probably the single most leading sector of the US economy, with broader consequences one and even two years out.

My mantra is: 

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XE Market Analysis: North America - Apr 28, 2016

The yen surged in the wake of the BoJ's decision to refrain from easing policy, which resolutely disappointed markets with data today showing core CPI falling to a three-year low of -0.3% y/y, well off the BoJ's 2% target. Japan's Nikkei 225 equity index finished 3.6% in the red having been showing a 1.5% gain ahead of the central bank's announcement. USD-JPY clocked low at 107.93 during the London AM session, extending a 2.5%-plus decline in Tokyo trade, which is a 10-day nadir and 3.2% below yesterday's New York closing level.

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U.S. Labels Switzerland an Internet Piracy Haven

Every year the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes its Special 301 Report highlighting countries that aren’t doing enough to protect U.S. intellectual property rights.

In 2016 the report sticks to a tried and tested format, with countries such as China, Russia, India and Ukraine all making the Priority List once again. However, just as the USTR wasn’t afraid to place Canada on the Watch List several years ago, this year it has added another ally.

Situated in the heart of Europe (although not part of the Union), Switzerland has long-standing ties with the United States and has acted as the protecting power between the U.S. and former foes Iran and Cuba. Nevertheless, when it comes to protecting copyright the USTR didn’t hesitate to add Switzerland to the Watch List in 2016.

“Generally speaking, Switzerland broadly provides high-levels of IPR protection and enforcement in its territory. Switzerland makes important contributions to promoting such protection and enforcement internationally, including in bilateral and multilateral contexts, which are welcomed by the United States,” the USTR writes in its assessment.

“However, the decision to place Switzerland on the Watch List this year is premised on U.S. concerns regarding specific difficulties in Switzerland’s system of online copyright protection and enforcement.”

Although the USTR doesn’t go into much detail, the key problem that the United States has with Switzerland surrounds the so-called ‘Logistep Decision‘. Anti-piracy outfit Logistep built a reputation in the latter half of the last decade for providing tracking services for copyright trolls operating in Europe and the UK. However, things didn’t go entirely to plan.

In 2010 following several years of legal action, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court ordered Logistep to stop harvesting the IP addresses of file-sharers. The Court ruled that IP addresses amount to private data, a decision that effectively outlawed the tracking of file-sharers in privacy-conscious Switzerland.

This apparent lack of protection for rightsholders is unacceptable, the USTR says.

“Six years have elapsed since the issuance of a decision by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, which has been implemented to essentially deprive copyright holders in Switzerland of the means to enforce their rights against online infringers; enforcement is a critical element of providing meaningful IPR protection,” the report reads.

According to the USTR, since 2010 Switzerland has also become an increasingly popular host country for many pirate sites, a position highlighted in the 2015 Notorious Markets review.

While the USTR says that it welcomes the steps being taken by Switzerland to address its concerns, the tone of the United States suggests there is somewhat of a mountain to climb before the country gets a clean bill of health.

“[M]ore remains to be done and the United States continues to encourage the Swiss government to move forward expeditiously with concrete and effective measures that address copyright piracy in an appropriate and effective manner, including through legislation, administrative action, consumer awareness, public education, and voluntary stakeholder initiatives,” the USTR writes.

Canada

After being on the Watch List for some time now, Canada did not do enough in 2015 to get back into favor with the U.S.

While welcoming Canada’s amendment to its Copyright Act which extended sound recording protection to 70 years from date of recording, the U.S. has little other praise for its northern neighbor.

“[T]he United States continues to urge Canada to fully implement its commitments pursuant to the WIPO Internet Treaties and to continue to address the challenges of copyright piracy in the digital age,” the USTR writes.

Going on to condemn Canada on everything from counterfeit goods to pharmaceuticals and patents, there was not even a passing reference in the report to the long called for notice-and-notice anti-filesharing regime implemented by Canada in 2015.

Other countries with Internet piracy issues

India is criticized on a number of fronts, with the USTR calling for the implementation of notice-and-takedown procedures, statutory damages for infringement and the introduction of effective anti-camcording legislation.

Despite noting that anti-piracy legislation is evolving in Russia, the USTR saw no reason to take the country off the Priority List in 2016. Interestingly the USTR’s report praises the fact that “a Russian court shut down Rutracker.org”, when in fact the site was only blocked and remains fully operational today. Nevertheless, it appears that court orders are not enough for the United States.

“Issuing injunctions against infringing websites does not address the root of the problem; Russia should be investigating and prosecuting the operators of such sites. The overall number of raids, criminal charges, and convictions have declined in recent years,” the report reads.

Finally, Ukraine remains on the Priority List in 2016.

“With respect to improving the government’s response to online infringement, several attempts at legislative reform appear to have stalled,” the USTR notes.

“As highlighted in the 2015 Notorious Markets List, Ukraine continues to host some of the largest pirate sites in the world serving IP infringing content to a global audience.”

The full 2016 Special 301 Report can be downloaded here (pdf)

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

XE Market Analysis: Europe - Apr 28, 2016

The yen surged over 2.5% in the space of less than three minutes following the BoJ's unexpected decision to refrain from easing policy. USD-JPY dove from 111.68 to a low of 108.76, more than reversing the gain seen last Friday following a Bloomberg report suggesting that the central bank would introduce negative-rate loans. No such policy came to be, and the central bank left the deposit rate at -0.1% and the annual pace of QQE purchases at Y80 tln. Yen crosses posted similar declines to USD-JPY.

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Steal This Show S01E09: Fairtade For Music – Can The Blockchain Fix Copyright?

This special episode of STEAL THIS SHOW features Benji Rogers of the direct-to-fan music platform, PledgeMusic.

As we find out, Benji’s an independent musician who founded his platform to offer artists a unique way to engage their fans and super fans, resulting in chart topping albums worldwide.

In 2013, Benji was recognized on Billboard’s 40 Under 40 Power Players list and in 2014 at the MUSEXPO International Music Awards, he won Digital Executive of the Year.

We discuss how Benji’s early days with his band produced the idea for PledgeMusic; just how broken the traditional copyright system is for musicians; and Benji’s big idea: to push music rights into the blockchain, creating a “Fair Trade” for musicians!

—

Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing copyright and file-sharing news. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary and analysis.

The guests for our news discussions will vary and we’ll aim to introduce voices from different backgrounds and persuasions. In addition to news, STS will also produce features interviewing some of the great innovators and minds.

Host: Jamie King

Guest: Benji Rogers.

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Eric Bouthiller
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Siraje Amarniss

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

XE Market Analysis: Asia - Apr 27, 2016

FX trade was quiet into the FOMC announcement, though the dollar initially spiked higher after the as expected, no-change rate outcome from the FOMC. The dissent in favor of a hike by KC Fed's George, may have given a boost to the buck, though gains quickly reversed. EUR-USD fell to 1.1271 from 1.1345, before ramping back over 1.1360. USD-JPY popped to 111.75 from 111.40, the fell under 1.1110. The statement indicated labor markets are improving, though growth appears to be slowing.

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Judge: RIAA and MPAA Can’t Copy Megaupload’s Servers, Yet

Well over four years have passed since Megaupload was shutdown, but all this time there has been no real progress on the legal front.

Last December a New Zealand District Court judge ruled that Kim Dotcom and his colleagues can be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges, a decision that’s currently under appeal.

With the criminal case pending, the civil lawsuits against the major record labels and Hollywood’s top movie studios have been halted as well.

Fearing that they might influence criminal proceedings, Megaupload’s legal team have had these cases put on hold since 2014, with permission from the copyright holders. However, when Megaupload’s counsel recently opted for another stay, the RIAA and MPAA objected.

Instead of simply signing off on another extension, the movie and music industry groups asked for permission to subpoena Megaupload’s former hosting provider Cogent Communications. Suggesting that the data might not be safe, they asked to make a backup of some crucial evidence the provider has in storage.

“To avoid the risk of substantial prejudice to Plaintiffs from the potential loss of the relevant data in Cogent’s possession, the Court should carve out of any further stay of this case the permission for Plaintiffs to subpoena Cogent for a forensic copy of that data,” both groups informed the court.

The MPAA and RIAA even offered to pay the costs of such a backup, which they estimate to be in the range of $20,000 or less.

Megaupload’s legal team, however, rejected the proposal. Among other things, they argued that privacy sensitive data on their former customers should not be freely shared, and asked the court not to issue a subpoena.

Last Friday both parties presented their case during a hearing and after careful deliberation District Court Judge Liam O’Grady has now decided (pdf) not to issue a subpoena.

Instead, he decided that things should stay as they are, meaning that Cogent will be the only party that has a copy of the Megaupload data in question. RIAA, MPAA or Megaupload should, however, inform the court if they have concrete evidence that this data is at risk.

“…if any party gains knowledge that any potential evidence in this case, including digital evidence currently being held by Cogent Communications, Inc., is being or might be destroyed, it should notify the Court immediately.”

This decision can be seen as win for Megaupload and Kim Dotcom, as they have successfully averted an attempt from the movie and music companies to gain access to crucial evidence in the case before the official discovery process begins.

“We are pleased that the Federal Court granted the Megaupload defendants’ request for a stay of the civil copyright cases and denied the MPAA and RIAA plaintiffs’ request for early discovery,” Ira Rothken, Megaupload’s Lead Global Counsel, informs TorrentFreak

“The stay will assist the orderly conduct of parallel criminal related proceedings,” he adds.

As requested by Megaupload, Judge O’Grady agreed to put the civil cases on hold for another six months, after the appeal of the New Zealand extradition decision is heard.

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

XE Market Analysis: North America - Apr 27, 2016

The dollar has traded steadily against the yen in pre-Fed/BoJ announcement trading while posting moderate loses to the euro and other European currencies, but an advance of nearly 2% against the Australian dollar, which took a bath on an unexpected deflationary CPI reading in Q1 data that catalysed speculation for the RBA to cut rates at its upcoming meeting on May-3. UK Q1 GDP data matched expectations for +0.4% q/q growth and had little market impact. Nor did the OECD's backing of the UK remaining in the EU.

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Getty Files Google Image Piracy Complaint With EU

Search giant Google is facing massive copyright-related pressure in the United States on several fronts, not least the recent consultation on the efficacy of the DMCA and the FCC’s proposals to open up the set-top box market.

Over in Europe, Google faces other issues, including charges that it abused its web search dominance to push its own shopping products and its control of Android to corral users into using Google software. Piling on the pressure, Google is now set to face another European Commission grilling over alleged copyright infringement in Google Images.

This morning Washington-based Getty Images says it will file a complaint with the European Union’s antitrust commission over what it describes as Google’s piracy of its copyright content.

According to an FT report, Getty will accuse Google of undermining its business by harvesting Getty stock images in a manner that “siphons traffic” away from the company’s premium website.

The complaint says that pre-January 2013, Google displayed only low-resolution thumbnails of third party images in Google Image search. However, soon after the company switched to a large, high-resolution slideshow format. This, Getty says, was Google abusing its dominance of Internet image searches.

Getty general counsel Yoko Miyashita says Google’s reproduction of high-res images means that people searching for Getty content via Google have less reason to leave the search giant’s Images services, thus depriving Getty of legitimate traffic.

Google “promoted piracy,” Miyashita says, “resulting in widespread copyright infringement, turning users into accidental pirates.”

As evidence that it was Google’s decision, not outside factors, that caused the drop in traffic to Getty’s site, Miyashita says that traffic collapsed in 2013 immediately after Google made changes on its .com and .co.uk domains. However, Google did not immediately implement the features on its .FR and .DE variants from where traffic remained healthy.

Getty says that it reported its complaints to Google in 2013 but rather than make changes, Google told the company it could either live with the situation or completely opt out of its image search feature.

While offering a solution this is somewhat of a catch-22 situation. On the one hand Getty can accept Google’s use of its content in order to boost visibility on the web, or opt out altogether and face disappearing from search altogether.

In this instance Getty chose to stay on board with Google, describing a complete exit as not being “viable”. Today’s complaint envisions the EU leveling the playing field on Getty’s behalf.

“By standing in the way of a fair market place for images, Google is threatening innovation and jeopardizing artists’ ability to fund the creation of important future works,” Miyashita says.

In due course the European Commission will have to decide whether Google has broken competition rules. Google declined to comment on the case but denies any wrong-doing.

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

XE Market Analysis: Europe - Apr 27, 2016

The Aussie dollar dove on CPI data out of Australia showing inflation tumbling to 1.3% y/y in March from 1.7% in the previous month, with the q/q figure unexpectedly turning negative for the first time since 2008, falling to -0.2%. The Aussie is nursing a 1.5% loss to the U.S. buck ahead of the London open, and is down by 1.7% versus the yen, which registers the biggest movement out of the currencies we track. The data has catalysed speculation that the RBA will be forced to consider at rate cut at its May-3 policy meeting. AUD-USD clocked a nine-day low at 0.7623.

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XE Market Analysis: Asia - Apr 26, 2016

A relatively quiet day in FX Land in N.Y. on Tuesday, as the market girded for Wednesday's FOMC announcement. The dollar started out on a softer footing early on, though managed to recover some as the session went on. Softer durables and confidence data dented sentiment to a degree, though Wall Street remained close to flat through the session. The Fed is unanimously expected to maintain an unchanged rate stance, so focus will be on the nuances of the policy statement and the degree to which it presages a June hike.

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MPAA Says Pirate Sites Will Take Advantage of Set-Top Box Proposals

For millions of cable TV viewers around the world, the only way to access the content provided by broadcasters is through a set-top box. In many cases these boxes are provided exclusively by broadcasters, forcing out competition.

This consumer-unfriendly situation has attracted the attention of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States who report that 99% of pay-TV subscribers are chained to set-top boxes provided by suppliers at inflated rates.

“Lack of competition has meant few choices and high prices for consumers – on average, $231 in rental fees annually for the average American household. Altogether, U.S. consumers spend $20 billion a year to lease these devices,” the FCC announced in January.

According to the FCC, since 1994 the cost of computers, TVs and mobile phones has dropped by 90%. However, due to a lack of competition in the same period cable set-top box costs have risen by 185%.

“Congress recognized the importance of a competitive marketplace and directed the Commission to adopt rules that will ensure consumers will be able to use the device they prefer for accessing programming they’ve paid for,” the FCC said.

In February the FCC approved a proposal that would allow consumers to swap expensive cable boxes for other devices and apps, a change set to boost competition but deliver a blow to companies such as Comcast who would suddenly be open to competition from companies such as Alphabet/Google.

The proposal triggered a 60-day period in which cable providers and other stakeholders were invited to provide input and comment. Earlier this month President Barack Obama came out in favor of the plan but now the MPAA has weighed in with an unsurprisingly hostile opinion.

In a piece titled “It’s About Creators”, Neil Fried, MPAA Senior Vice President, Government and Regulatory Affairs, accuses FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and even the President of “gloss[ing] over the harm the proposal will cause the creative community.”

Noting that the MPAA’s members are not in the set-top box market, Fried says that they’re in the vital content creation business, content which gets licensed to cable, satellite and other platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon and AppleTV.

“These distributors then profit from the content through equipment sales, subscription fees, advertising, and the monetization of viewers’ online profiles,” the MPAA says.

According to the MPAA, the FCC proposals will ‘take’ the intellectual property of its members and “give” it to the technology industry, effectively ignoring copyright law.

“[T]he FCC proposal requires pay-TV providers to transmit to third-party device manufacturers and internet application developers all the content that pay-TV providers license from programmers, without requiring those third parties to seek consent from the programmers or to compensate them,” the MPAA writes.

Interestingly, not only is the MPAA concerned about competition from third-parties such as Google, but is also suggesting that pirate sites could take advantage of the situation to begin offering new unauthorized services.

“No matter what you think about the pay-TV set-top box market, the FCC may not promote alternatives by taking the intellectual property of the content industry and giving it to some members of the technology industry, or by making it easier for pirate site operators to build a black market business by stealing that content. Unfortunately, that’s what the proposal would do,” the MPAA warns.

Indeed, as one delves deeper into the MPAA’s statement, the scale of their concerns really becomes apparent.

The currently locked-down set-top box environment ensures that via strict licensing arrangements, entertainment industry companies have complete control over which content is offered to the subscriber. However, third-party set-top boxes are expected to provide content from both Pay-TV providers and also content being offered on the Internet. And according to the MPAA that can mean only one thing.

“We anticipate that video navigation device and application providers will rely on the proposed rules to offer ‘cross-platform searches’ and ‘recommendation engines’ that mingle pay-TV content with internet content,” the MPAA says.

“We are not contesting cross-platform searches of authorized content — but we must oppose any regulation that would import the piracy problem from the internet search world into the pay-TV world by mixing pirated content with authorized content, causing further harm to content creators and the creative economy.”

Of course, even if not referenced by name, no MPAA piece of late would be complete without a negative reference to Google. Hollywood blames Google for falling to curtail Internet piracy, a situation that could bleed into the living room with the FCC’s set-top box proposals.

“[O]n the Internet, search engines frequently prioritize search results for sites offering stolen content over those offering authorized content, and searches for film and TV programming almost always yield results that mingle the two types of sites,” the movie industry group complains.

Noting that some have suggested that if the content providers don’t like the situation they’ll just have to litigate under existing copyright law, the MPAA says that is “cold comfort” to content creators.

“[T]he regulation would fundamentally undermine copyright law, create a piracy problem that does not exist today, and place new burdens on content owners to police the app and device market for stolen copies of their works, forcing them to undertake time-consuming, costly litigation, and sustain additional lost revenue to piracy,” the MPAA concludes.

The FCC’s proposals certainly have the potential to open up a huge can of worms. That being said, it’s inevitable that the Internet will eventually dominate the living room, it’s only a question of how controlled – if at all – its pipe will be.

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

XE Market Analysis: North America - Apr 26, 2016

The dollar traded lower, aided by a continued "Obama bounce" in Cable, which some also attributed to a bid tone in EUR-USD amid declining odds for Brexit, in addition to position jigging ahead of tomorrow's Fed announcement. EUR-USD lifted to a two-day peak at 1.1299, putting in some distance form yesterday's and Friday's lows at 1.1218. At the highs the euro was still showing a near 1.5% decline versus the 1.1466 six-month peak that was set exactly two weeks ago. The yen posted moderate gains amid a moderate risk-off backdrop during Asia and the first part of the European AM session.

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Pirates Switch From Torrents to Streaming and Download Sites

While there haven’t been any breakthroughs in file-sharing technology in recent years, the piracy ecosystem is constantly evolving.

Torrent sites have traditionally been very popular, but according to a new report published by piracy tracking outfit MUSO, direct download and streaming sites have taken over.

Using data sampled from over 200 million devices by a leading data provider, the company compiled a detailed snapshot of the traffic that flowed to various websites last year.

In total MUSO monitored traffic to 14,000 of the largest global piracy websites, which were visited a dazzling 141 billion times over a 12-month period.

While overall visits remained relatively stable, there was a major shift away from torrent sites to more centralized streaming and direct download sites.

“Our data shows a rapid change in piracy behavior, with a large movement away from torrent usage, and growth in web based piracy,” MUSO informs TF.

The tracking company exclusively shared several interesting data points from the report with TorrentFreak. Zooming in on torrent sites it shows a clear downward trend in number of visits.

From January 2015 to December 2015 these sites saw a 24% reduction in monthly visits. There was still plenty of traffic left though, as the average monthly visits hovered around 3 billion, totaling 34.8 billion for the entire year.

All Torrent Site Visits

The traffic drop applies globally, with some notable exceptions and variation. In France, for example, visits to torrent sites actually went up.

“Our data can split the above traffic by country, and shows that most countries follow this downward trend. There are however some notable exceptions, such as France, where torrent usage increased throughout the year,” MUSO informs us.

The United States remains the country with the most visits to torrent sites, 3.6 billion per year, followed by India and Russia with 3.3 and 2.7 billion visits respectively.

Interestingly, the downward trend mostly applies to public torrent sites. Private trackers, which make up roughly 4% of all torrent site visits, are affected less.

“Unlike public torrent site usage, private torrent site visits started to increase again during the second half of the year, and ended the year with 8% fewer visits per month,” MUSO explains.

Private Tracker Visits

The data is part of a large study into the piracy ecosystem. MUSO publishes two commercial reports today, with the first focusing on music piracy, and the second on film & TV.

Overall, MUSO concludes that the piracy ecosystem is rapidly changing. Over the past year torrent sites lost a big chunk of traffic, but piracy remains relatively flat as the decrease in torrent traffic is offset by an increased interest in other web-based pirate sources.

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