Android Trojan Warns You about Illegal Downloading

March 31, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

File-sharing websites have a new unwelcome guest – an android Trojan disguised as an app which when people download it tells them to stay away from downloading illegal copies of software, The Inquirer reports.

The app in question is a version of Walk and Text available for legal purchase at the Android Market. The bogus version Android Walkinwat (1.3.7) is in fact a Trojan that apparently found its way on several torrent sites.

According to security software maker Symantec, if you run the app on your smartphone, you are shown a dialog box that would have you think that the app is being compromised or cracked; actually, your personal information is being sent to an external server.

Next, all your contacts will receive a SMS message saying, “Hey, just downloaded a pirated app off the Internet, Walk and Text for Android. I’m stupid and cheap, it cost only one buck. Don’t steal like I did!”

But the app still has one more trick up in its sleeve and it leaves you with a final reproachful message (a link where you can purchase a legal copy of Walk and Text) – “We really hope you learned something from this. Check your phone bill. Oh, and don’t forget to buy the app from the Market.”

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You Need More Evidence, Says Danish Supreme Court to Rightsholders in File Sharing Case

March 30, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Yesterday we were discussing just what a relief is to see judges no longer carrying on that easily with file-sharing cases that lack substantial evidence produced by copyright holders (which made it all the more upsetting when former RIAA lobbyist turned federal judge recently allowed such cases to proceed) .

Denmark has followed in the footsteps of other fervent anti-piracy fighting countries but it looks like the Supreme Court will only green-light those cases where evidence presented by record labels is irrefutable.

It recently dealt with a case involving a guy who was accused of sharing 13,000 songs via p2p networks a bit differently than IPFI would have it. The court’s ruling said that the man should pay $1,900 damage compensation fee. If we take a look at the industry’s “standards” when it comes to the amount of money they demand in compensation for infringement acts, well, we can say that’s a mighty decent sum.

Reportedly, the main reason the court decide for such a low fee was the limited quality of the evidence “anti-piracy” group Antipiratgruppen presented.

APG used techniques which scraped the index of the files said to be being made available by the defendant and then linked them back to his IP address, a method which has been acceptable in the past. But while the Court accepted that some sharing had occurred due to the defendant’s confession, it wasn’t satisfied that the index was an accurate representation of the files physically present on the defendant’s computer.

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Former RIAA Lobbyist Turned into File-Sharing Case Judge

March 29, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Over the last years, file-sharing lawsuits have become instruments of threat and making money for copyright holders. However, this situation began to change as an increasing number of judges started to see right through the poor, weak arguments they have been presented with by record and movie industries against individuals, services and companies. Hence, the dismissal of numerous file-sharing cases found as…unfounded.

But one judge seems to be swimming against the natural current. DC federal judge Beryl Howell recently gave green light to three cases filed by copyright holders. The problem is Howell used to be a RIAA lobbyist.

TorrentFreak points to the foulness at play here, seeing these lawsuits as comfortable ways for copyright owners to arrange out-of-court settlements and squeeze some money off the frightened alleged copyright infringers.

Although judges are deemed to be objective, the above is troubling information which at the least hints at a slight bias in judgement. This is fueled by the fact that less than a week after her investiture ceremony as a judge, Howell opened the door for copyright holders to send out settlements to tens of thousands of alleged file-sharers without first having evidence against them tested in court.

As a lobbyist there was only so much Howell could do, but as a U.S. District Court Judge she can really make a difference it seems.

In layman’s terms her ruling means that copyright holders can easily request the personal details of people who have allegedly downloaded copyrighted works on BitTorrent. With this decision in hand the copyright holders have all they need. After all, the intention of these lawsuits was never to take the defendants to court, but to send them settlement letters to resolve the issue for a few thousand dollars.

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ISP Will Launch Music Download Service to Deter File-Sharing

March 29, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues 

The rumors that BT plans to launch a not-for-profit music download service have been confirmed by the UK internet service provider. The company hopes through this service to make its customers quit the habit of using illegal file-sharing networks.

BT’s music service will follow the subscription model but no details regarding pricing have been revealed. Apparently, the company will keep the service free of charge for the first six to nine months and set o monthly fee after that period.

eWEEK Europe quoted BT in a recent article:

“We are very keen to launch a music service in the near future, but it will have to be with a model that customers will want and can work financially for BT. We are in the early development stage so we are not currently in a position to comment further.”

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Recording Industry’s Claims about File-Sharing Proved Wrong by Economists

March 28, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry, Legal P2P News & Issues 

The music industry’s habit of blaming file-sharing for everything and when anything goes wrong with respect to sales, it’s becoming nauseating.

But the more it complaints, the more it lacks credibility especially since studies proving it inaccurate are pouring in. Another one comes from London School of Economics and (again) shows things in a different light than copyright holders like to picture them.

Bart Cammaerts and Bingchun Meng of LSE’s Department of Media Studies point to the wrongness in the industry’s claims: “The music industry is performing better than is being claimed and declining sales can be explained by other factors in addition to illegal filesharing. The negative framing of the debate about file-sharing and copyright protection threatens to stifle the very same creative industry the Act aims to stimulate.”

From ArsTechnica:

“Downward pressure on leisure expenditure is likely to continue to increase due to rising costs of living and unemployment and drastic rises in the costs of (public) services,” says the report.

Having less money for entertainment has played a huge role in the decline of items like CDs. A 2004 US Consumer Expenditure Survey showed that even spending on CDs by people who had no computer (and were therefore unlikely to download and use BitTorrent) dropped by over 40 percent from 1999 through 2004.

“Household budgets for entertainment are relatively inelastic as competition for spending on culture and entertainment increases and there are shifts in household expenditure as well,” the LSE study notes.

And if file-sharing wasn’t the major cause of the revenue downturn, stepping up copyright enforcement is unlikely to return the industry to those heady days.

And while it is true that many consumers have turned to illegal file sharing in bad economic times, a 2007 Journal of Political Economy study found that most downloaders would not buy that content, even if they couldn’t share it.

“Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero,” the authors flatly concluded then. “Our estimates are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the decline in music sales during our study period.”

Read the whole paper here. Also read another P2PON post about yet another file-sharing study saying online piracy doesn’t kill music.

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