Dropbox Says No to Open Source File-Sharing App

April 28, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

After Dropbox was caught out over changes in its terms of service – TOS – it now rejects an open-source project by the name of Dropship. According to Dan DeFelippi, “Dropbox is trying to deep-six Dropship”the latter being an MIT licensed application which allows the user to use Dropbox like a file-sharing network. For example, if a hash from one file is present on a public folder, anyone can copy that file.

Their decision is not surprising since the company did very well until now. However, what did came as a shock was their attempt to get rid of this app, to the point of sending fake DMCA notices to people.

(*See update below) DeFelippi says that he received a DMCA notice from Dropbox for copying the file to his Dropbox account.
DeFelippi sent a copy of the license (MIT, meaning the license allows him to do whatever he wants with the code) to Dropbox. Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox CTO) replied:

“He requested that I not only remove the archive from Dropbox but delete my posts on Hacker News, which at that point included the fake DMCA takedown. He outlined his objections, that Dropship reveals their proprietary client-server protocol and that it could be used for piracy. He told me that the DMCA takedown was a mistake and reverted the lockdown on my public files.”

According to Joe Brockmeier, DeFelippi said that the company was very diplomatic and he accepted the request to remove this software from Dropbox. Also, Dropbox’s purpose was the removal of the application from its server(s) and contacting the author of the code – as the firm was unaware of any DMCA notices being sent to GitHub, etc. He also added that no legal threats were made against those who provide the software, except maybe the risk of losing their account.

Following up Hacker News, Drew Houston from Dropbox wrote:

“When something like this gets called to our attention, we have to do something about it. Note that this isn’t even by choice — if we don’t take action, then we look like we are tacitly encouraging it. The point is not to censor or “kill” it (which is obviously impossible and would be idiotic for us to try to do), but we sent kindly worded emails to the author and other people who posted it to take it down for the good of the community so that we don’t encourage an army of pirates to flock to Dropbox, and they voluntarily did so.

There were no legal threats or any other shenanigans to the author or people hosting — we just want to spend all our time building a great product and not on cat-and-mouse games with people who try to turn dropbox into an illegal file sharing service against our wishes. (For what it’s worth, dropship doesn’t even work anymore — we’ve fixed the deduplication behavior serverside to prevent “injection” of files you don’t actually have, for a variety of reasons.)

That said, when we disabled public sharing of that file by hash, it auto-generated an email saying we had received a DMCA takedown notice to the OP, which was incorrect and not what we intended to do, so I apologize to Dan that this happened.”

Although the company invokes the right to set its own rules, we should bear in mind that Dropship can be used for sharing open-source applications and even operating systems (linux), etc. Moreover, DMCA notices are not supposed to be auto-generated.
A very hard road is ahead of Dropbox. The company’s future depends on its response.

Update:
Dropbox said that it was an erroneous notice of a DMCA takedown, rather than a takedown request (meaning that the system generated the takedown).

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Latest Features from uTorrent: Comments, Rating and Streaming

April 27, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

A new version of uTorrent client described as their best yet by the developing team is out now. By enabling features like comments, ratings, streaming and more they hope to reach both novice and long time users. Ever since uTorrent for Windows launched back in 2005, it has rapidly become one of the most used platforms for file-sharing.

uTorrent 3.0 Beta was recently released coming with a variety of new features and improvements, thanks to months of extensive testing.

The highlight feature is, of course, the rating and comment options. For example, the comment feature has been asked for by users since a very long time, reaching no. 4 in BitTorrent’s most-requested list. The usefulness of commenting a torrent has been debated, splitting the users into two groups, one saying that spammers will become a problem, others pointing out the benefits.

The rating system is classic, giving you the possibility to award a torrent with 1 through 5 stars; by combining this with comments, a feedback system will be created.

Streaming has been also added. This allows the user to preview or watch video files while downloading. Aiming towards novice users a “simplified view” option is to be found in uTorrent’s interface. Novice users can also benefit from the improved guides and video tutorials. The “Drop files to send” option makes file-sharing even easier than before.That’s not all. A link is provided (after uploading) containing the .torrent file. If your friend doesn’t have uTorrent on his computer, he’s presented with the option to download the torrent bundled with a copy of uTorrent.

Remote access is now possible through smartphones and other devices. A USB-stick version is also available, bringing functionality and mobility to the next level.

“Our design goal is to simplify the way people interact with uTorrent while continuing to offer and expand features and expert capabilities,” BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management Simon Morris told TorrentFreak. “This will likely broaden the appeal for many users while maintaining the technical capabilities popular with power users.”

“From a functionality perspective, we’re taking two approaches. First, embed high-demand features like streaming, ratings and remote access that are valuable to many users. Second, creating the ability for people to add-on features via the Apps platform,” Morris added.

New addons and gadgets will be added in the near feature.

“We have an active roadmap for uTorrent for 2011, and the company. We see uTorrent as offering an ideal file sharing experience with deep insight into the background data. Ideally, such a client would enable someone to find, get, play, send, and shift large files over the Internet,” he said.

“In particular, major initiatives are underway focused on sending or synching of large files, and introducing support for live streaming,” Morris added.

A full listing of the client’s features can be found on uTorrent’s official website.

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Limewire Founder’s Personal Finances Under Scope

April 27, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Mark Gorton’s financial affairs will be debated in court the following month since record labels are pushing for tens of billions in damages. Being accused of facilitating illegal file-sharing and breaking copyright laws, Limewire was forced to close its gates at the end of the last year.

Now Gorton is blamed for refinancing Limewire’s budged back in 2005 by transferring assets to family limited partnerships in order to protect himself against lawsuits like this. The financial situation should only be involved in this court if a jury decides it’s necessary, said his defense.

Judge Kimba Wood, however, said the Recording Industry Association of America is free to bring Gorton’s financial affairs up in court. Claiming that Gorton thought his actions were legal back in the days as part of the defense has been already blocked by Wood. This is due to the refusal of Team Lime to share correspondence between their boss and his lawyers from that period.

The showdown of this sad comedy is to be seen next month.

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BitComet New Release Comes with 64-Bit Version

April 26, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

BitComet users will be now able to enjoy a fresh release of their favourite file-sharing client which offers a stable 64-bit version whose advantageous larger disk caches is surely to the liking of heavy downloaders.

Over the last couple of years BitComet has managed to become a leading BitTorrent client by intelligently including those features that would bring it some edge. Its full featured HTTP/FTP download manager, the VIP downloading feature, its long-term seeding file sharing protocol and many other additions have truly made it one of the most relevant peer-to-peer apps currently available.

The new 64-bit version is expected to offer a very rewarding experience.

“Our analysis of crash reports has shown that there are many users who have used BitComet for extreme downloading where disk cache sizes were maxing out the abilities of any 32-bit app. So now BitComet x64 has ability to support disk cache up to 16GB, compared to 2GB for 32-bit apps,” says the company.

“The average user probably doesn’t really need it yet, but for those on very fast connections who want to run a large number of tasks that operate primarily within the disk cache, this new ability is perfectly suited,” it adds.

For BitComet 1.27 and a full changelog of all the new features and fixes follow this link.

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Movie Studio Gets Ridiculous in Chasing File-Sharers: It Sues BitTorrent Swarms

April 26, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry, Legal P2P News & Issues 

We’ve kind of got used to the extent of efforts the copyright holders would go to make a banknote stick to their pockets. Yet, recently a film studio has surprised us all when it launched two lawsuits against BitTorrent swarms.

The company in question is Corbin Fisher which together with SKN-Law.com sued numerous individuals within the Ohio area for making available via file-sharing sites two separate hash files tagged Amateur College Men Down on the Farm.

Slyck reports:

So why exactly has SKN-Law.com sued an entire BitTorrent swarm? In the complaint, SKN-Law limits the scope of the defendants to a rather small number – and also used geolocating technology to identify these defendants as Ohio residents. The enormity of a swarm, however, would extend well beyond the boundaries of Ohio. But no worries, SKN-Law plans to pursue them too. From Corbin vs. Does 1-5:

“While other members of the swarm have and will be sued in other jurisdictions, each of the IP addresses noted in this Complaint has specifically been traced to an address located in this jurisdiction. Additionally, the John Doe Defendants named in this Complaint all reside in this jurisdiction, the complained of acts occurred here, and/or the Defendants have sufficient contacts here such that they could reasonably be expected to be haled into this court.”

The American film studio specialized in gay pornography tried to reach settlements with the alleged illegal file-sharers and attract them with a $1,000 fine paid to get them off the hook. As many other companies before, they hope that the fear of being ordered to pay an enormous amount (like the $990,000 fine given to an infringer last year) would persuade lots of individuals to take in the considerably less fine offered through the settlement.

However, the changes with these lawsuits are not exactly solid for Corbin Fisher considering that some participants in BitTorrent swarms are not actually participating in the distribution of the files. Proving that the IP addresses the studio has put their hands on were actually accountable for the illegal file-sharing activity that caused them the so called losses may prove itself quite a complicated task to accomplish.

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