Following comments which suggested that the closure of QuebecTorrent was “a major victory” for the recording industry, we have a statement from the owner of the site to balance things up. The smaller battle against this site is over, the larger one against Canadian BitTorrent sites in general appears unaffected.

Yesterday we reported that, following a legal battle against 31 media industry organizations, the 85,000 member QuebecTorrent tracker had been forced to close. The site complied with a permanent injunction handed down by the Superior Court of Quebec. The recording industry, on the other hand, dropped its claim for $200,000 damages.

Solange Drouin, managing director of ADISQ, an organization that represents the music industry in Québec, said in a response to the shutdown: “We wait to see the result of this first lawsuit. We hope that this result will have a dissuasive effect. If it is not the case, it is possible that we will engage in actions against similar sites.”

Some may be under the impression that the closure of QuebecTorrent is a big legal victory for the entertainment industry. Although undoubtedly the media companies will be delighted that the site has been shuttered, due to how the case ended we’re not really much closer to the answer of torrent site legality in Canada.

Instead of mounting a poor defense, in the end QuebecTorrent chose not to mount one at all. The site’s lawyer, Sébastien Leblond, said that part of the reason for accepting the injunction to close the site was that Doditz, the site admin, wanted to avoid the case setting a bad anti-torrent legal precedent: “Instead of going to war without the proper equipment, we decided not to hurt the big case,” said Leblond.

In comments to the National Post, Michael Geist, a law professor at University of Ottawa, said he wasn’t surprised that 28 year old Brûlotte decided not to fight:

“The prospect of both the legal fees and the big organizations on the other side who are prepared to spend millions of dollars on litigation has an enormous chilling effect. Invariably, individual users, web sites, cave in the face of these kinds of legal demands.”

So, the entertainment might make it seem that the outcome of this case is a huge victory, the reality is more nuanced. Here is a message from ‘Doditz’ which should hopefully shine some light on what actually happened with the case:

Statement from Sébastien Brûlotte, aka ‘Doditz’, owner of QuebecTorrent

It is with regret that we decided to comply with an injunction against our torrent site, our company and myself as president of Québectorrent.com Inc.

I take the opportunity in this release to thank you for your support since the opening of the site, as well as throughout the judicial proceedings. Without you, this whole adventure would not have been so rewarding. Together with the community we have helped give visibility to artists by making available an alternative platform for cheaper distribution and equally effective wider recognition of their works.

I also want to explain my decision not to challenge the injunction we were served with, against which we have always expressed our disagreement.

The upheavals have caused “torrent” and “p2p” sites to have a significant impact on trade and distribution of music, movies and any work protected by copyright.

At the time we had to take a decision about defending our interests before the courts, against both the recording and film industries, represented by ADISQ and APFTQ, we found that users and operators of sites such as “torrent” and “p2p” were governed by clearly outdated laws which are non-adapted to current and modern technology.

We urge our governments to intervene in this area and to legislate so as to reflect current realities and the needs of its population. It goes without saying that this reality does not only cover the interests and needs of distribution companies, which will inevitably adjust to the market. It covers more than ever, consumers of music and films, without whom the industries would not be affluent today. The legislature must listen to those consumers who are an important part of the population.

Also, I must respond to how ADISQ commented on the judgement of the Court. The vice-president of public affairs and CEO of ADISQ, Mrs. Solange Drouin, commented that “it was a first major victory for local industry against a torrent site and that other suits against such download sites could be considered.”

At the time the procedures we were served, we had hired an attorney who, for health reasons, had to stop representing us last March. Subsequently, in early May, we hired the law firm Fetch Legal Ltd to represent us. Our prosecutors indicated then that the progress of the case was limited, and that we should require a court deadline to enable them to bring the case to state, and position us well in our defense. Expertise was necessary to file a defense to counter that of ADISQ and the APFTQ. Only two months remained before the hearing. Our prosecutors recommended that we submit a request for surrender of the hearing. ADISQ and the APFTQ were opposed to this request. As a result, and following arguments from ADISQ and the APFTQ, the court refused our request for surrender, and ordered the trial to go ahead as planned on July 2008.

Given this state of affairs in the best interest of members who have supported us financially and helped “torrent” and “p2p” sites we chose not to mount a defense, rather than defend ourselves inappropriately.

It goes without saying that our intention was to avoid a legal precedent detrimental to any litigation of the same nature.

We believe we have made the right decision in this aspect, as pointed out aptly by Tristan Péloquin in his blog dated 10 July. We are surprised by the position of the ADISQ and the APFTQ to the effect that this ruling is a precedent, since in fact, there has never been a substantive debate about the issues raised by the dispute.

Ultimately, it was never our intention, in connection with the operation of our site, to allow the violation of copyrights, as claimed by the allegations contained in the judicial proceedings. We are convinced that the Court could make an interesting decision in the case if it had to assess contradictory positions, which it did not have to make…..

We still intend to abide by the terms of the injunction issued against us, but speak to correct certain statements made publicly in recent days.

Sébastien Brûlotte, president of Québectorrent.com

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

No Anti-BitTorrent Precedent Achieved in Canada

ISPs have been throttling BitTorrent traffic for years now, but only recently has this turned into a political issue. In a huge victory for BitTorrent users, the FCC has now announced that it will order Comcast to stop interfering with BitTorrent traffic.

Almost a year ago we first reported that Comcast was actively disconnecting BitTorrent seeds. Now, after numerous debates and false promises from Comcast, the FCC has ruled that Comcast’s BitTorrent interference is unacceptable, and orders the company to stop doing so.

Kevin Martin, FCC chairman told AP that Comcast’s BitTorrent throttling is “arbitrary”, and that the company had violated the principles of the Federal Communications Commission. Martin said that Comcast slows down BitTorrent users independent of the amount of traffic they use, and that the company failed to communicate their network management practices to their consumers.

Indeed, a recent study by the Max Planck Institute showed that the company had misinformed the FCC and their users. Comcast has always argued that BitTorrent upstream traffic was only blocked during periods of heavy network traffic, this turns out to be a lie, as the study showed that they blocked BitTorrent upstream traffic 24/7.

The FCC has announced that it will take appropriate action against Comcast, and the ISP will be ordered to stop interfering with BitTorrent traffic. Comcast has said before that it will invest in its network capacity and stop slowing down the traffic of their users, but these were all false promises.

Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press who filed the complaint with the FCC is delighted with this outcome, and said in a response: “Nine months ago, Comcast was exposed for blocking free choice on the Internet. At every turn, Comcast has denied blocking, lied to the public and tried to avoid being held accountable. We have presented an open and shut case that Comcast broke the law.”

“The FCC now appears ready to take action on behalf of consumers. This is an historic test for whether the law will protect the open Internet. If the commission decisively rules against Comcast, it will be a remarkable victory for organized people over organized money,” Ammori added.

It is to be expected that - if the pipes are really congested - Comcast and other ISPs will have to step away from the all-you-can-eat plans they have been offering for years, now that people are actually using bandwidth they signed up for.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Comcast Ordered to Stop BitTorrent Traffic Interference

The battle to keep QuebecTorrent open against a legal attack by the CRIA and 30 other media organizations, is over. The site has complied with a permanent injunction handed down by the Superior Court of Quebec. The recording industry has dropped its claim for $200,000 damages.

QuebecTorrent, the Canadian-based BitTorrent tracker has lost its legal battle against the Canadian recording industry.

Targeted in 2007, they faced the combined resources of the CRIA, ADISQ and APFTQ (the TV and movie companies) - and CIRPA. In all, 31 organizations went after QuebecTorrent, demanding $200,000 in punitive damages.

They ordered that the admin, Sébastien Brûlotte, aka ‘Doditz’, should close the site and never again engage in any similar activity, and post a message clearly indicating the closure of the site. At the time, Doditz didn’t comply. The full details of the case are available in an interview we conducted back in January.

However, the pressure became too great and on July 9th QuebecTorrent was forced to close after it received a permanent injunction from the Superior Court of Quebec. The judgment reads:

ORDER the defendants Sébastien Brûlotte and Quebectorrent.com inc., their officers, administrators, employees, representatives, mandator as well as any person acting directly or indirectly on their behalf or according to their instructions, as well as to any person informed of the present injunction to immediately close the torrents on these website Quebectorrent and to refrain from being involved in any website using the bittorrent technology, peer to peer, or any other technology allowing the download of any work protected by copyright.

QuebecTorrents had indicated all along that they intended to fight the recording industry but in the end, their combined resources proved to be too much. Solange Drouin, the managing director of ADISQ explains:

“We had envisaged three days of lawsuit, but they indicated last week to us that they would comply with the demands. In return, we agreed to drop the claim for $200,000 in damages brought against the site and its administrator.”

Indicating that she hopes the shutdown has an effect on other current and potential torrent site admins he goes on: “We waited to see the result of this first lawsuit. We hope that this result will have a dissuasive effect. If it is not the case, it is possible that we will engage in actions against similar sites.”

Doditz briefly told TorrentFreak: “I just wanna say thanks to all the people who supported the cause and me all along.”

This post will be updated shortly with an exclusive message to the BitTorrent community from Doditz.

Stay tuned.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Permanent Injunction Closes QuebecTorrent

During their annual summit meeting in Japan, the G8 members agreed to get the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) ready for implementation by the end of the year. The agreement, pushed by multimillion dollar companies, will open the doors to a digital police state, much to the pleasure of the MPAA and RIAA.

This May we already posted about the leaked ACTA proposal, and it now seems that the final agreement will be ready sooner than we had hoped. Fresh out of the G8 meetings ‘Declaration on the World Economy‘, passages under the heading ‘Protection of Intellectual Property Rights’ suggest member states want the international anti-piracy agreement ready for implementation sooner than some expected, as it reads:

We encourage the acceleration of negotiations to establish a new international legal framework, ACTA, and seek to complete the negotiation by the end of this year.

This date is consistent (surprise, surprise) with that which the US Trade Representative has set as its own timetable for ACTA. Together with some insider information that was obtained by TorrentFreak, this doesn’t sound promising.

How will ACTA affect P2P users?

So what does this mean for P2P users? The honest answer is that it’s hard to be sure. The degree of secrecy surrounding the ACTA negotiations is astonishing, blocking attempts at a variety of levels to develop a counter-strategy. The process is deliberately avoiding both the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which now have enough member countries suspicious of the “anti-piracy maximalist” agenda to make ACTA’s progress impossible.

At a recent EU meeting following the June ACTA negotiations in Geneva, a packed room of “stakeholders” — that is, industry representatives — were desperately trying to get information on what had made it into the June draft of ACTA while revealing as little as possible, publicly, about what they themselves wanted in it. The Commission — on first-name terms with these industry reps, showing only too well how well regarded they are in this policy-forming process — has basically indicated that no-one will see the text of ACTA until it’s ready to sign.

Also at this EU meeting, it was made absolutely explicit that ACTA is in large part about updating legal frameworks to take account of P2P and developments on the Internet. The previous regime to deal with IP and piracy, TRIPS was 12 years old, officials said, and the Internet had ‘not existed in the same way’ when TRIPS was drafted. In this respect, the hints we have about what might make it into ACTA from a list of suggestions the RIAA obtained by Knowledge Ecology International (which has been double checked for veracity) are very important. More than any other lobby, of course, the RIAA is dealing with issues specifically related to the Net. This gives some pointers of where ACTA could go if the anti-piracy and IP lobbies get their way.

Getting your iPod though customs…

RIAA’s proposals for ACTA go well beyond U.S. law on the enforcement of copyrights online. As earlier reported, they want ‘competent authorities’ to be able to take action at borders over pirated copies without the need for a complaint from a rights holder. An official at the EU meeting ridiculed the ‘iPod search’ stories about ACTA, pointing to the EU’s own border measures — but given U.S. border agents are already retaining and searching large amounts of laptops at borders, this is another burden for travelers who are already harassed by ridiculous “security” measures in the Homeland and beyond. Those dismissing such ideas as ‘merely’ the wish list of the rabid anti-piracy lobbies take note: although there has only been one draft of ACTA made so far (and no one outside the secretive gang involved has been able to see it), reliable sources say there is text relating to the border measures provisions. So at least one of the RIAA’s wishes seems, in some form, to have already made it in.

The RIAA’s wish list for online enforcement of its ‘rights’ is also of great concern, not least because it implies that they would get access to private data from ISPs in order to be able to see what we’ve been sharing. As the year goes on, it’s becoming clear that the P2P / IP debate is merging with the surveillance and privacy debate in ways that I think many people hadn’t forseen. We need to understand fast that enforcement of copyright is one of the main levers being used to drive a wedge into our data privacy at the international level.

RIAA and MPAA want to police the Internet

In general, what the RIAA want is ‘harmonization’ (read: extension of US law over the whole world) of the tricky Grokster ‘inducement’ provisions that make providers of software liable if they can be seen as inducing infringing behavior in users. As I know personally from discussions with the RIAA about projects like VODO, interpretations of what constitutes contributory liability are very broad in the States. What the industry wants to do is chill the rapid innovation that led to products like Napster and BitTorrent by rendering entrepreneurs uncertain about the legal status of their activities. The fact that BitTorrent is the most efficient media reproduction and distribution system in history, used by hundreds of thousands of producers to distribute their own work outside the clutches of the corporate media cabals is, of course, not part of the picture here. This is precisely about media conglomerates’ desire to hang on to the tatters of their empire.

The RIAA’s ACTA would also continue the trend towards ISPs and search engines to weed out infringing users. RIAA expects ISPs to filter infringing materials and police offending P2Pers, cutting off their access if necessary. Again this points to mass surveillance of internet use that, in the light of the wiretapping controversy alread raging in the States, is utterly unacceptable in Europe or anywhere else.

How We Can Slam On The Brakes

So what can be done, and what hope do we have over ACTA? Well, firstly, there are internal contradictions in the process that might make its progress less than smooth. The inclusion of the ‘3 strikes’ rule for kicking P2P users from their ISP contract is a case in point — the European Parliament is actually very suspicious of the 3 strikes rule and the UK government is reportedly desperately looking for alternatives to this political hot potato, which only months ago was portrayed as a fait accompli. This raises the possibility of a showdown between ACTA and the European Parliament.

Secondly, the European Commission has no mandate to implement criminal sanctions on copyright matters - this is down to the individual member states who will be very wary about antagonizing their electorates. Since these criminal sanctions are seen by players like the RIAA as a key ‘virtue’ of ACTA - without which it would be a ‘dodo’ - the shakiness of the legal base for inclusion of criminal sanctions is a big issue.

Thirdly and relatedly, the secrecy around ACTA is a potential pitfall. A mandate should have been obtained from the Commission to negotiate the Treaty, but if it exists it has been declared too secret, or at least ‘confidential’ to bring out. Since this document would very likely have to include a rationale for allowing the Commission to negotiate beyond its power on criminal sanctions, it may be rather suspect. European TorrentFreak readers should immediately write to your MEP in your Member State and ask them to request a copy of the mandate, so that we can get a copy of it online and look at how the EU justifies negotiating an ACTA that includes criminal measures. Since the US wants ACTA to be signed before Bush leaves office, a derailing tactic like this has a good chance of working.

ACT against ACTA before it’s too late…

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

G8 Pushes Anti-Piracy Trade Agreement

Today, the Pirate Bay and the Bureau of Piracy start their journey throughout Europe, that will reach its climax at the art festival Manifesta by the end of next week in Bolzano, Italy. The good news is that if you’d like to join them en route, everyone is welcome.

The pirates will be touring in an old bus they bought and prepared for their trip road trip through Europe. After several days of preparation in Stockholm, the bus stops tonight, July 10th, in Malmö, where the Pirate Bay and the Bureau of Piracy have declared “mixtape amnesty”.

They invite everyone who’s ever stared at the torrent clients’ speed graph, cursed Kazaa, carried a hard drive to a friend or made a copy of their mother’s cookie recipe to join them, as long as you bring drinks, your mixtapes and at least two peers.

The bus will then move on this Friday and reach its second stop, Berlin, the next day. After Berlin, the Pirate Bay and the Bureau of Piracy will set course to their final destination, Bolzano, where they will be participating in the Manifesta7 art event.

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde will also be on the bus, and he told TorrentFreak: “We have a schedule somewhat already set. We’d love for people to hang out with us at the stops - and we would love for them to come and party with us. The bus looks great and we’re soon on our way.”

“It kinda shows that we’re more than just a site, that we’re an idea, and that we’re art in ourselves. As I’ve said many times before, we see The Pirate Bay as some sort of ongoing art project/performance,” Sunde added.

So, feel free to join the party if you live close to one of the stops. For more info about the trip to Manifesta7, and for some video material of the bus, check out the the project page at the Bureau of Piracy website.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

The Pirate Bay Starts its Summer Tour 2008

A German court has ruled that Internet users operating a WiFi router are not responsible if others use their equipment to infringe copyright on P2P networks. The news is likely to be seen as yet another blow for lawyers Davenport Lyons who have been insisting that German law decisions would be mirrored in the UK.

All around Europe there are instances of individuals receiving demands for compensation due to the fact that their open WiFi routers have been used by others to infringe copyright.

Now, a new judgment has come from the Frankfurt court of appeal. The judges have decided that the owner of an Internet connection is not responsible for copyright infringements carried out without their knowledge on their open WiFi. The same court already ruled that parents are not responsible for copyright infringements carried out by their children.

Lawyers representing copyright holders have long insisted that it is the responsibility of the bill payer to ensure that nothing illegal happens on his connection by taking technical measures to stop unauthorized access by a 3rd party. The plaintiff in this case stated that the IP address of the defendant was tracked making unauthorized uploads of copyright works and demanded damages. The defendant had insisted that not only was he innocent but also away on vacation at the time of the alleged offense.

Regular readers of TorrentFreak will know that lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK have been sending out many letters which accuse people of copyright infringement when, through ignorance or simple generosity, have simply left their WiFi open for others to use. Davenport state that a previous German court decision has ruled that users are responsible for the infringing actions of others on their Internet connection, and in their opinion UK courts would rule the same. This is the ruling that the Frankfurt court has just over-ruled.

Given this decision, further recipients of Davenport letters should expect to see these comments about open-WiFi liability removed, at least until the highest court in Germany has had the opportunity to review the situation. Describing the decision in Frankfurt as “sensational”, Christian Solmecke, a lawyer currently defending around 500 file-sharers told TorrentFreak: “The future will show us what the highest court in Germany - the Bundesgerichtshof - says to this difficult question.”

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Victims of WiFi Theft Not Responsible For Illegal Uploads

While the Pirate Party might be well known in Sweden, and heard of elsewhere around Europe, it’s not really taken off in the country that prides itself as being ‘the land of the free’. Unperturbed, the US Pirate Party has soldiered on and with the preliminary release of data from it’s first study, it’s hitting back at the media lobbyists.

Claims by the music or film industries that ‘piracy is costing billions’ are commonplace. In 2005, for instance, the MPAA funded the LEK study, which claimed that over $6 billion was lost to MPAA members due to piracy. However, the figures and data behind those claims have never been publicly released, a fact underscored this past January when the MPAA had to release a statement saying ‘they made a mistake’ in one of the figures. It’s a figure that’s been quoted a lot, to this day, and was something that rankled US Pirate Party Administrator, Andrew Norton.

“I was tired of seeing those claims on every press release,” he tells TorrentFreak, “knowing there was no evidence to back them up. They could have said that the loss was $20 billion, if they think they could bluff it out. The sad fact is that we have news outlets, and politicians quoting this figure as fact, and yet not one verified any claim. If I said I could turn lead into gold, I would be bombarded with requests to prove it. They have turned air into $6billion, and supposedly smart people accept it without question.”

Frustrated, Norton decided he should study the MPAA’s own figures. When he couldn’t find any data to support their claims, he decided that there needed to be a study of the data the MPAA did put out. “I was thinking about where I could look, when the MPAA announced a new record year, and I thought ‘of course’. The MPAA can hardly question the accuracy of the data published by its members, and itself.”

The preliminary findings of the study, published today, show a different picture to the one the MPAA paints. Norton took the view that the films most likely to be distributed on filesharing networks, and sold on street corners, would be the big blockbuster films, and so he should look at the top 10 films of each year. The results from that are shown below.

With average growth throughout the time period, it would seem that claims of cinema piracy hurting box office figures (leading to cinemas issuing night vision goggles to staff, and teenagers being charged with crimes for recording 20-second clips) are unfounded. When certain p2p protocol lifespans are marked on the graph, for comparison, the MPAA claims are pretty much shattered.

Mr. Norton is also aware that he will have to prove he is not just making things up. The US Pirate Party, who is publishing the study, has stated that all data used in the study will be available when the full study will published at the end of July. He does have a comment for the MPAA however. “Prove your claims, or shut up about them.”

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

US Pirate Party Study Shatters MPAA Claims

Mininova has just launched their new bookmarking feature for registered users. One of the benefits of your mininova bookmarks page is that generates a personalized RSS feed which allows you to automatically add bookmarked torrents to your BitTorrent client.

Importing torrents via RSS can be very useful if you’re at work, school, or at a friends place. With this new feature from mininova you only have to bookmark the torrent, and it will start downloading automatically when your BitTorrent client is running at home.

Here is how it works. First of all, you’ll have to be a registered user at Mininova to use the bookmarking feature. Then, when you come across a torrent you would like to download, simply click on the “Add to bookmarks” button. The torrent will then be added to your personal bookmarks page, which has its own RSS feed.

Next, you will have to add your personal bookmarks feed to your favorite BitTorrent client and then you’re all set. In addition you can customize the process a bit more, depending on the client you use. Some clients, for example, let you choose whether to download the torrent immediately, or start it later manually.

Mininova is not the first BitTorrent site to add bookmarking capabilities. Torrentz.com has had this feature for quite some time now. However, Mininova is the first site to combine it with an RSS feed that has BitTorrent enclosures, which makes it compatible with BitTorrent clients that support RSS downloading.

Mininova has covered their new bookmark feature, with some additional details, in their latest blog post. For those who are interested, we have some more RSS tutorials over here.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Download Torrents Remotely with Mininova Bookmarks

The Pirate Bay, often attacked by the Swedish establishment, but never beaten. However, their faith in the judicial system has plummeted after prosecutors have stated that Jim Keyzer, a police official investigating the Pirate Bay, has done no wrong by working for Warner at the same time.

You probably know the story by now. Jim Keyzer, a Police IT forensics specialist who was leading the Pirate Bay investigation, let it slip he was working for Warner on a social networking site. A strange move to say the least.

Soon after the news got out it became clear that Keyzer had started working for the movie studio before the Pirate Bay investigation was closed. Warner denied this initially, and stated that the investigator was not employed or paid by the movie studio while he was still working on the case.

However, after The Pirate Bay crew filed criminal complaints for bribery of a police officer, Warner suddenly admitted he was working for them.

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde was convinced that they had a strong case, as he said: “He [Keyzer] confirmed that he is an employee there [Warner Bros'] and we can’t see it in any other way than this being the reward for work well done from the new employer of the police, the entertainment industry”

However, in a letter received today by Peter Sunde, Kay Engfeldt of the prosecutors department states that there will be no investigation into Jim Keyzer. “[there is] no reason to believe that a crime has been committed by anyone employed by the police.”

Of course, until you investigate, you won’t find any evidence. That’s why in general allegations are investigated first, especially when there is evidence to back up the claim. Sunde told TorrentFreak that they would be filing an appeal on Monday.

In the meantime, they’re working on a datacenter move for their secondary sites, which had left services like Bayimg unavailable for a time.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Pirate Bay Cop Not to be Investigated

The head of Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition organization for the communication industries in the UK, has suggested that they may not stay silent on the issue of file-sharing for much longer.

The Office of Communications, or Ofcom as it’s better known, is the UK’s independent regulator for the communications industry. Awarded power from the government under the Communications Act 2003, it has a duty to care for the rights and interests of UK citizens and consumers while protecting them from harmful and offensive material. It also has a responsibility to promote healthy competition in the telecoms marketplace.

At the Intellect Conference 2008, the head of Ofcom, Ed Richards, made a speech. In it he touched on many issues but in an unusual move for Ofcom, towards the end of the speech he made some comments about file-sharing in the UK. In a section entitled “Sticking To Principles Of Good Regulation”, Richards stresses that Ofcom must not “duck difficult questions” where doing so would impact the long term success of the communications market. Of course, the question of online piracy is one such ‘difficult question’ in what Richards describes as a “complex digital environment”.

Richards notes that just because Ofcom has not been overly vocal on the subject of file-sharing, that shouldn’t be interpreted as disinterest: “To date, Ofcom has not made a lot of public noise about the piracy issue. But that should not be mistaken for a lack of interest or concern. Our formal locus may be limited. But this sort of piracy is something that affects network operators, ISPs, content creators and consumers – and as the converged regulator we have of course been keeping a watchful eye on developments.”

Going on to speak about the need for ISPs and telecoms companies to invest in improved systems for a developing Internet, Richards notes that these businesses need to be assured that they can return profit on their investments:

“An operator investing in next generation networks will not want it clogged up with illegal peer-to-peer content if that means no-one will pay to ensure a return on the investment, as we have seen in some Asia Pacific markets. And content providers, self evidently, do not want illegal traffic undermining their investment in IPR.”

Richards feels that the issue of piracy is important for network providers and creators of content alike, and says that he hopes business agreements can be reached to find a solution, presumably as an alternative to a government implemented strategy such as the controversial “3 strikes” idea.

ISPs make a lot of money from their subscribers, with media-hungry file-sharers investing in high-bandwidth premium packages more often than regular users. With around 6 million file-sharers in the UK, these customers are a significant driving force behind the need to create the next generation Internet Richards mentioned earlier.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

UK Communications Regulator Enters File-Sharing Debate

Hi all, just to give you a quick update of whats been going on at YouTorrent

1. We have passed 300,000 searches / day, we are on course to hit 500,000 by the end of February (thanks for your support guys!)

2. We have made the Digg front page three times:

http://digg.com/software/YouTorrent_Great_New_BitTorrent_Search_Engine
http://digg.com/tech_news/YouTorrent_Give_It_A_Shot_Before_It_s_Shut_Down
http://lifehacker.com/350405/top-10-bittorrent-tools-and-tricks

3. We made TechCrunch:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/19/youtorrent-give-it-a-shot-before-its-shut-down/

4. We made the top 10 alexa movers and shakers.

As you can see, this is very exciting news for YouTorrent! As far as new features go, we have now added engine customization and improved a few things. Soon you will be able to group torrents by hash, as well as do much more advanced searching. Stay tuned folks.

P.S. If you thought the news above was good, we promise you there is some even more incredible news around the corner

Dear users,

Firstly we would like to thank you all for the kind words we have received by email. Your support is much appreciated!

Much to our amazement, the YouTorrent site has already surpassed 50,000 unique visitors daily and 150,000 searches! (largely thanks to a great article at TorrentFreak):

While the buzz is still very much there, we just wanted to reassure you all that we are working as fast as we can to improve the site to your expectations. Please don’t hesitate to let us know which new features you would like to see on YouTorrent and also tell us if you see any bugs or problems that shouldn’t be there! Last but not least, spread the word!

Features that are on their way:
- Better blog design (naturally!)
- Information pages (about, help, FAQ .etc)
- Boolean Searches (support for AND, OR and + - )
- Linux Firefox Support
- Static Cached Results Pages
- Advanced Search Features
- Engine Customization Options
- More Engine Selections
- Official Firefox Search Plugin