The yen has gained amid a re-emergent risk-off tone in global markets, which is been led by oil price declines. Brent crude is down by over 1.5% today, and by 7% from Friday's peak, with the market lacking faith in producers to implement a supply cut. This, along with ongoing concerns about moderating economic activity in China, has weighed on most stock markets in Asia, and on European and U.S. index futures, while underpinning haven assets.
The dollar lost ground in morning dealings, as stocks slipped, following China's lead, and as oil prices fell. Incoming U.S. data was mostly disappointing, as personal income was flat, construction spending missed the mark, consumption was soft, and manufacturing ISM remained mired in contractionary territory. EUR-USD topped at 1.0912 after opening at 1.0870 following the ISM data, though couldn't hold the figure, while USD-JPY slipped into 120.68 lows, though later managed to reclaim the 121 handle, as Wall Street pared losses.
More than 15 years ago a large group of homeless people in Portland moved into an area on the outskirts of the city and erected their tents. Amid both opposition and support, Dignity Village was born.
Over the years the tents were displaced by small hand-built structures that provided basic shelter for the village’s residents who were all desperate to stay off the streets.
In time these largely wooden shelters and the formation of a non-profit gave the village a more permanent feel, to the point today where it describes itself as a “democratically self-governed” entity with a mission to provide “transitional housing that fosters community and self-empowerment.”
In addition to providing shelter, places to cook, plus rudimentary electrical and sanitation facilities, Dignity Village also provided its residents with free WiFi. This resource was invaluable for staying in touch with the outside world, attempting to find work and participate in training.
However, according to Jonathan DeCarmine, operations director of GRACE Marketplace, a non-profit which coordinates homeless services in North Central Florida, residents and visitors no longer have access to the service.
“We were notified by our Internet service provider that there were people downloading things illegally, and if we didn’t put an end to that, they would turn off Internet to the entire property, which would keep us from being able to do business and provide services,” DeCarmine says.
Apparently the illegal downloading continued, as did the complaints. This resulted in the Village feeling under pressure to safeguard its Internet connection.
“We had a couple complaints from our provider and notified everyone, ‘please don’t do this, we’ll end up losing the service,’ and it happened again, so our decision was to disable the Wi-Fi because we would be charged,” Theresa Lowe, executive director of the North Central Florida Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry, told WUFT.
TorrentFreak contacted Dignity Village for additional details but we are yet to receive a response. However it seems clear that their Internet service provider has received complaints from copyright holders about peer-to-peer file-sharing taking place in the Village.
These notices often contain scary language which suggest that people can be on the hook for $150,000 in statutory damages if file-sharing continues. It’s a terrifying prospect for a homeless shelter trying to make ends meet so one can sympathize with their decision to withdraw WiFi.
That being said, the actions of a minority may have spoiled it for everyone in Dignity Village and there can be no doubt that strongly worded threats from copyright holders have also played their part.
Furthermore, while they are complying with the law, the Village’s ISP should certainly be more sympathetic. While copyright infringement laws apply to all, the ISP should understand that like itself, Dignity Village is effectively a service provider too, albeit one that doesn’t have the resources to effectively police its users.
TF asked Dignity Village which content providers had been sending infringement notices and when we receive a response we’ll update this article accordingly. But in the meantime, here’s some food for thought. There are largely three groups of companies sending notices to Internet service providers in the United States.
The first are the major studios and record labels involved in the so-called “six strikes” scheme. These companies send out large volumes of notices to connections which they claim are entirely residential. However, it’s unclear whether Dignity Village has a business or residential account with its Internet provider.
The second group involves rightsholders that aren’t part of the scheme. These target both residential and business users but do not ask for cash settlements or push aggressively for disconnections. However, these groups are known to pressure ISPs to take action against infringing accounts.
The third group are the copyright trolls, including companies like Rightscorp which not only demands cash but also aggressively seeks Internet account disconnections. Their emails to ISPs are designed to scare and with a recent victory over Cox under their belt, the company is more emboldened than ever.
Either way, all three groups are having a chilling effect on the notion of providing free and open WiFi, with the residents of Dignity Village now feeling the effects most acutely. Let’s not forget too, at this stage these are mere allegations of copyright infringement, no one has been convicted of anything.
Finally, while Dignity Village has to protect itself, the Internet service provider that dares to disconnect its service on a copyright infringement allegation would be a very brave one indeed. Furthermore, the entertainment industry companies making the copyright infringement claims Dignity Village’s ISP would be committing commercial suicide if it pursued any claim against a Village resident.
With that in mind it might well be safe to turn the WiFi back on, but that’s the Village’s decision alone.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
The yen and commodity currencies settled after Friday's BoJ-induced underperformance of the former and outperformance of the latter. USD-JPY posted a narrow range in the low-to-mid 121s, holding below Friday's six-week peak at 121.68, while EUR-USD made time in the low-to-mid 1.08s. USD-CAD recouped above 1.4000, putting in some distance from Friday's three-week low at 1.3947. AUD-USD extended its correction from the three-week highs seen on Friday. Oil prices and other commodities traded lower, while European stocks and U.S. equity index futrues posted moderate declines.
In one of the most prominent cases the music group, which claims to represent 70,000 artists, argued that YouTube is liable for the content its users upload.
As such, the music group demanded Google’s video service to pay 0.375 euro cents per view for a selection of copyrighted music videos.
Before the weekend the Higher Regional Court of Munich announced its verdict in the case, resulting in a clear win for Google. According to the court YouTube is not liable for the infringing material uploaded by its users.
The verdict, which confirmed a ruling from a lower court last summer, comes as a disappointment to GEMA. The music rights group believes that services such as YouTube are profiting from piracy.
“Today’s decision is most regrettable. The court has obviously followed YouTube’s argument that it is only the uploaders who are responsible for the contents that are retrievable via the service,” says Tobias Holzmüller, GEMA’s General Counsel.
“We consider this to be wrong. Furthermore, the decision is not justified from an economic perspective, as it continues to enable YouTube to generate high advertising revenues without passing them on to musical authors,” he adds.
The court’s decision is in line with the safe harbor principle which holds that user-generated content services are automatically not responsible for the actions of their users.
However, in recent months various music industry groups have called on lawmakers to reconsider this position. The European music group IFPI, for example, argued that these sites and services must obtain proper licenses.
In line with GEMA, IFPI chief executive Frances Moore previously called out YouTube for not playing fair, accusing it of benefiting from piracy.
“It is true that artists and record producers are not being paid fairly for the use of their music. This is because user upload platforms, such as SoundCloud and YouTube, are taking advantage of exemptions from copyright laws that simply should not apply to them,” Moore said.
“There should be clarification of the application of ‘safe harbors’ to make it explicit that services that distribute and monetize music do not benefit from them.”
GEMA says it’s reviewing the decision from the Higher Regional Court Munich, which it expects to appeal in the near future.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
The Big Short 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 | (2) | The Big Short (DVDscr) | 8.1 / trailer |
| 2 | (1) | Spectre | 7.9 / trailer |
| 3 | (…) | Ride Along 2 | 5.8 / trailer |
| 4 | (3) | The Revenant (DVDscr) | ?.? / trailer |
| 5 | (6) | The Martian | 8.2 / trailer |
| 6 | (4) | The Intern | 7.4 / trailer |
| 7 | (…) | Creed (DVDscr) | 8.0 / trailer |
| 8 | (8) | Bridge of Spies | 7.9 / trailer |
| 9 | (…) | Lazer Team | 7.1 / trailer |
| 10 | (…) | Sisters (Webrip) | 6.5 / trailer |
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
It has been a day of dust settling in currency markets following the volatility of Friday, which came at the prompt of the BoJ's unexpected adoption of a sub-zero interest rate policy. USD-JPY has posted a narrow range in the low-to-mid 121s, holding below Friday's six-week peak at 121.68. The commodity currencies, Friday's outperformers, have traded moderately lower. EUR-USD, meanwhile, has made time in the low-to-mid 1.08s. Weak manufacturing PMI survey data out of China today didn't have the impact it likely would have were it not for the BoJ's move on Friday.
