HD-UNiT3D Taken Down by BREIN?

December 15, 2010 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games 

Update: HD-UNiT3D seems to be back online

The High Definition community site HD-UNiT3D went offline, Slyck reports. The site is known among heavy downloaders as it offers links to HD content found on HTTP sites such as MegaUpload or RapidShare.

While not exactly in the BitTorrent area, it is obvious why such a site could become a target for copyright enforcing agencies. Since when trying to access the site you are redirected to BREIN (the Dutch RIAA-sort-of anti-piracy group) it doesn’t take much to figure out who might be behind the takedown.

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Musicians Who Like File Sharing: Charlie McDonnell

December 15, 2010 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads 

Charlie McDonnell is a musician and very popular YouTube video blogger who debuted musically with his album “This Is Me” on December 1, 2010 released by DFTBA Records.

Below there’s a video made by the artist in which besides talking about his album McDonnell is also sharing his views on file sharing. The singer says one cannot compare file sharing to stealing, first of all because nothing’s gone missing, and second, the phenomenon can actually help an artist promote himself/herself.

Other artists either aspiring or renowned such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, have backed up similar views on file sharing demonstrating that music fans do support artists they like without the need of an intermediary (record label) and artists can indeed find alternative ways for their promotion.

“This Is Me” consists of many tracks McDonnell has written and performed on his YouTube channel (“A Song About Acne”, “Duet With Myself”, “Chemical Love”, “A Song About Monkeys”, “A Song About Love” and “In the Absence of Christmas”) but also some new songs that have been released for the first time.

Track listing

1. “Rhymezone.com” – 3:37
2. “A Song About Acne” – 3:24
3. “Duet With Myself” – 3:32
4. “Chemical Love” – 3:48
5. “A Song About Monkeys” – 3:21
6. “Hayley G Hoover” – 2:30
7. “Melody for Melody” – 4:14
8. “A Song About Love” – 3:12
9. “Bread” – 3:30
10. “In the Absence of Christmas” – 3:00
11. “A Song About a Song” – 2:33
12. “This is Me” – 4:48
13. “The Birthday Song” – 1:05

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Music Service Selling Beatles Songs Loses Case to Record Labels

December 13, 2010 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Last year we reported about digital music store BlueBeat being sued by EMI for releasing Beatles songs as Mp3s without a license. Now a federal judge’s ruling on summary judgment says BlueBeat.com is liable for copyright violation.

In 2009 BlueBeat became quickly popular for putting out songs for 25 cents and streaming songs for free especially since The Beatles in digital format (and legal) were kind of a white elephant.

Back then the defense invoked by Hank Risan, CEO of BlueBeat (“psycho-acoustic simulation” defense) when faced with record labels’ legal threat was based on stipulations of 17 U.S.C. § 114(b), which doesn’t extend rights of copyright owners to “the making or duplication of another sound recording that consists entirely of an independent fixation of other sounds, even though such sounds imitate or simulate those in the copyrighted sound recording.” And since the company claimed it made single copies of each sound recording, then analyzed them and destroyed the copies before creating a new simulation based on parametrics of sound, it also claimed its musical offering was within legal boundaries.

But last week Judge Josephine Staton Tucker dismissed the so called “psycho-acoustic simulation” defense saying in her decision that “BlueBeat fails to provide any evidence…showing how or why its purported ‘simulations’ are anything but illicit copies of the Copyrighted Recordings.”

BlueBeat is left praying for not so enormous damage compensation fees paid to the record companies since the Judge Tucker considered that “Risan’s obscure and undefined pseudo-scientific language appears to be a long-winded way of describing ‘sampling,’ i.e. copying, and fails to provide any concrete evidence of independent creation.”

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Judge Dismisses ACS:Law File-Sharing Cases

December 13, 2010 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Remember ACS:Law, the firm that has specialized in file-sharing cases and whose database has been exposed by the cybergroup Anonymous in response to the firm’s habit of threatening suspected downloaders with costly lawsuits? Well, it recently tried its luck again by suing eight people that had been accused of copyright infringement.

While generally ACS:Law is busy sending out warning letters hoping to convince alleged illegal file-sharers to settle matters out of court, this time they went all the way bringing the case before the court; the scheme was to go for a verdict against the accused because they didn’t respond to the summons.

Tough luck, though, as Judge Birss QC didn’t think any of their cases had solid legal grounds and dismissed them all saying “The claimant’s right to be a claimant at all is somewhat unclear on the face of the pleading. A copyright case can be brought by the owner of copyright or an exclusive licensee but the Particulars of Claim does not allege the claimant is either of those.”

“The allegation is that the claimant ‘represents’ such persons. There is a plea that the claimant has an agreement with the Rights Owner to identify, pursue and prosecute instances of copyright infringement but no plea that the claimant owns the copyright or has an exclusive licence.”

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Top 10 Most Downloaded Movies on BitTorrent

December 13, 2010 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Downloads 

TorrentFreak has published the data they collected with the top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent for the week ended December 12. All the films included in this chart are DVDrips (unless mentioned otherwise).

We have a new leader this week – the well received ‘Legend of the Guardians’ while ‘Inception’ holds on to #2. The third position is occupied by ‘Devil’.

The list features three new entries in the list.

Ranking (last week) Movie Rating / Trailer
1 (7) The Legends of the Guardians 7.2/trailer
2 (2) Inception 7.4/trailer
3 (…) Devil 6.5/trailer
4 (3) Despicable Me 7.6/trailer
5 (4) Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows 1 (TS) 8.1/trailer
6 (…) The Legend of Awesomest Maximus —-
7 (…) Game of Death 3.8/trailer
8 (1) The Town 7.9/trailer
9
 (8) The Sorcerer’s Apprentice 6.3/trailer
10 (6) The Social Network (DVDscr) 8.4/trailer

(via TorrentFreak)

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