A New Textbook Torrent Site

August 31, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

TorrentMyBook, dedicated to sharing knowledge in the form of textbooks, ims to become the world’s largest BitTorrent index of textbooks, following in the footsteps of the late TextBookTorrents.

As it can been seen from its own description, Torrent My Books is „a torrent search engine and indexer for all things relating to books. Our goal is to become the number one source for providing users with an endless supply of digital books”.

The main difference with the late TextBookTorrents is that the site doesn’t have a tracker. It just provides an index of book related torrents where users can add to and download from.

The appearance and feature set of the site is similar to many other sites. Visitors can browse through the different sections, and the homepage of the site shows the more recent titles added to the various categories. TorrentMyBooks currently lists just over hundred torrents, but the founders hope there will be thousands of titles available soon.

Tags: free downloads, textbooks, torrents

FTC Ends LimeWire Investigation

August 31, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games

The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation into peer-to-peer site LimeWire, though the agency said it remained concerned about the security implications of users running legacy versions of the company’s software.

“Upon review of the matter, including non-public information submitted to the staff, we have determined not to recommend any further action by the commission at this time,” Mary Koelbel Engle, associate director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, wrote in a letter to LimeWire chief executive George Searle.

When LimeWire is installed, it allows users to share files via a peer-to-peer network, and the investigation centered around the concept that LimeWire originally would automatically share a user’s files rather than letting the user opt-in. Many people were sharing files they did not know they were sharing on the wide-open P2P network.

The FTC found that LimeWire provided enough safeguards to protect users, and had improved its offering on letting users know about the dangers of inadvertently sharing sensitive files on the P2P network, like tax documents, bank statements and other types of information.

LimeWire is not entirely free from legal battles, however. In June, eight music publishing organizations sued LimeWire for copyright infringement “on a massive scale.” That suit came weeks after a Manhattan federal judge ruled in favour of 13 record labels and the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), which also sued LimeWire for copyright infringement.

A LimeWire spokeswoman said Friday that a trial for the RIAA case is set for January 18, 2011. The case involving the music publishers is separate from that, but “we still hope to work together and settle through a business agreement rather than a legal one,” she said.

In the meantime, LimeWire is working on the development of its own music service.

Tags: file-sharing, Legal P2P News & Issues, limewire

Disney and WB React Desperately

August 31, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry, Legal P2P News & Issues, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games

Trying to keep their work away from the file sharing site/service moles, Disney and Warner Bros. make desperate efforts and have sued an ad firm called Triton Media for providing advertising services to a series of sites that the studios feel facilitate copyright infringement.

They claim that the sites in question ”have posted, organized, searched for, identified, collected and indexed links to infringing material that is available on third-party websites, otherwise provided access to infringing material, and/or hosted infringing material”, therefore, no trace of hosting or transmission of copyrighted material.

These sites just allow users to post links. But even so, it seems that they are a real threat for the Disney’s folks so they are trying everything they can to stop advertising on pirate websites.

All of these websites could themselves be liable for a contributory infringement claim, but the studios have instead decided to reach out even further by taking action against a larger business in Triton.

The two studios aren’t the first to attempt to crack down on piracy by targeting so-called facilitators. Adult entertainment publisher Perfect 10 sued Mastercard and Visa in 2004, alleging the two credit card companies provided “crucial transactional support services” to pirate websites. A district court dismissed the case, and later the Ninth Circuit upheld it, determining that Perfect 10 had failed to support any theory of liability against the defendants.

It appears that Warners and Disney, represented by the anti-piracy experts at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, want to take a shot at being the very plaintiff that might expand the definition of contributory copyright infringement.

The studios are seeking unspecified monetary damages as well as an injunction that would prevent Triton from doing business with these websites.

Tags: anti-piracy, copyright infringement, disney, Warner Bros.

Top 10 Most Downloaded Movies via BitTorrent

August 30, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Downloads

This week there are four newcomers in the list. The Expendables is the most downloaded movie on BitTorrent this week (now as DVD screener), currently shared by more than 100,000 people.

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

Rank

Last week

Movie

Rating/Trailer

(…)

The Expendables (DVDscr)

7.4 / trailer

(1)

Salt (R5)

6.7 / trailer

(2)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

6.9 / trailer

(…)

Grown Ups

5.7 / trailer

(5)

Sex and the City 2

3.9/trailer

(…)

Wild Target

6.9 / trailer

(…)

The Other Guys (DVDscr)

7.1 / trailer

(3)

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (DVDscr)

4.6 / trailer

(4)

Centurion

6.6 / trailer

(8)

Toy Story 3 (TC)

9.0 / trailer

(via TorrentFreak)

Tags:

“Voluntarily” Fight against P2P

August 27, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues

RIAA wants to legally formalize the partnerships between copyright holders and ISPs so that the fight against illegal file-sharing becomes voluntary.

RIAA President Cary Sherman told an audience at a Technology Policy Institute forum in Aspen, Colorado recently that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is failing copyright holders miserably, and that it needs to be revised in order to allow ISPs and others to filter the Internet of copyrighted material.

“You cannot monitor all the infringements on the Internet. It’s simply not possible. We don’t have the ability to search all the places infringing content appears, such as cyberlockers like Rapidshare.”

Consequently, the RIAA wants voluntary partnerships with ISPs, and even search engines, payment processors, and advertisers to help stem the tide of illegal file-sharing.

So far, no ISPs have chosen to cooperate and the RIAA is working to tirelessly to try and convince them fighting P2P is the right thing to do.

Tags: copyright infringement, file sharing sites, ISP, riaa