When it comes to reporting on BitTorrent-related news and issues, we try our very best to cover every angle here at TorrentFreak. Admittedly we can’t cover everything and sometimes it’s hard to constantly turn out positive articles which fill our readers with optimism that the Internet isn’t about to taken over by evil corporate entities hell-bent on web-wide file-sharing destruction.

Today, however, we have a big apology to make. We’ve let you all down and we’ve let ourselves down too by completely missing one of the biggest developing stories the BitTorrent world has ever known. We’ve totally neglected to cover what can only be described as a wholesale slaughter of file-sharing venues in The Netherlands, and for this we wholeheartedly apologize.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, who have previously given Mininova, The Pirate Bay, Demonoid and What.cd a hard time in varying degrees, have been busy. And when we say busy, we aren’t messing around. During the last few months it’s up for debate whether the group’s staff have had time to sleep. If they’ve even stopped to eat it would be, frankly, somewhat of a surprise.

According to BREIN, which works mainly on behalf of the Hollywood studios but has branched out to work for other rights holders in recent times, during the first half of 2010 it shut down a staggering 422 “illegal websites”.

While the whole world was focused on the U.S. Government taking down less than 10 sites this year but making a huge song and dance about it, BREIN was quietly showing them how it’s really done.

In addition to 5 Usenet indexers, 6 streaming sites, a FTP server, and 29 sites linking to material on one-click hosters, this most prolific and apparently effective of anti-piracy groups took down 384 torrent sites in the last 6 months. That’s more than 2 torrent sites culled every day this year and we’ve failed to report on just about every one of them.

In an attempt to fill this gap, TorrentFreak contacted BREIN boss Tim Kuik for information but we didn’t do very well at all. We were told that they aren’t releasing the URLs of the sites since they only detail those that they take to court and naming them would only give them increased traction and popularity.

We also tried to find out their names through our own network but yet again we failed miserably. For this we apologize. A bloodbath going on under our noses, in our own community, we didn’t even notice and we still can’t give you details since it appears all the corpses have been buried in unmarked graves surrounded by a wall of silence.

The worst part is that this failing on our part is nothing new. All the signs were there a few months ago that BREIN was capable of carrying out yet another massacre in 2010, just as they did last year.

In 2009, BREIN said it shut down 35 eD2K servers, 38 streaming video sites and 14 Usenet portals/NZB sites. It also took responsibility for the destruction of an unprecedented 393 BitTorrent sites. We didn’t notice, but strangely neither did anyone else.

So what were we able to find out about the closures?

“The take down most often takes place through the hosting provider,” Kuik told TorrentFreak. “We also obtain identity details from the hosting providers but these sites tend to register under a false name. If the site changes to another hosting provider, we will contact that provider. In case all else fails we will go for blocking of the site by access providers. Currently there is court case pending about that.”

If BREIN is allowed to continue this rampage there won’t be any torrent sites left by 2012 and we’ll be left with literally nothing to report on. TorrentFreak will die, but really we only have ourselves to blame. Nearly 800 torrent sites gone already and not a whisper from us? A shameful performance. We’ll try to improve, for all our sakes.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Claiming that the site was a major source of pre-release cammed movies with links to piracy groups outside the country, on May 26th 2009 the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs Investigation Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs carried out a raid on the the Russian BitTorrent tracker, Interfilm.ru.

The action followed complaints from anti-piracy group RAPO, a founding member of the MPA which represents the interests of Universal, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox in Russia.

At Interfilm’s Moscow base the police arrested several staff and also the main targets, husband and wife team Ivan and Irina Podorozhnikovymi.

Just over a year later the Interior Ministry Investigation Committee has now filed criminal charges against the pair, known online as ‘Ripper’ and ‘Nadezhda’. The scope of the accusations are quite incredible. Domestic and foreign film companies claim that the tracker caused 38.7 billion rubles in damages – a mind-blowing $1.253 billion.

Although it has not been revealed how this astronomical figure was reached, if convicted the founders – who the authorities say moved house and took technical measures to keep the site up during the investigation – could be facing up to six years in jail under Part 3 of Article 146 of the Criminal Code.

In addition to action against the site’s founders, there is an ongoing investigation into some of the top users of the site. However, in order to prove that regular users committed any crimes, under Russian law it would be necessary to prove they profited from their actions on a large scale.

There are claims that some individuals downloaded fresh movie releases from Interfilm and then uploaded them to their own sites. Police are considering whether to launch criminal investigations in these cases.

Although Interfilm went down after the initial raid, it reappeared at LeaseWeb in The Netherlands. The site remains operational today with a Malaysian host but is perhaps preparing for trouble. In addition to using the Interfilm.ru domain, the site is also in operation from BitHouse.org. Russia’s biggest torrent site, Torrents.ru, recently had to change its name to RUTracker.org after its domain was seized by Russian authorities.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

While all the main tech news sites and blogs have extensively covered the ‘Hurt Locker’ lawsuits in the U.S., over in the UK the ‘turn piracy into profit’ business model is making stateside efforts seem small by comparison, but with nowhere near the levels of publicity.

For 3 years threatening letters have been dropping through the doors of UK Internet users warning them that unless they pay up a huge fee, they could be ruined through the courts. As we now know, those threats have continually come to nothing and the lawyers involved have been subjected to unprecedented levels of complaints and bad publicity.

But as they say in Britain, “where there’s muck, there’s brass”, and that’s enough to attract more lawyers and more rightsholders to this most profitable of honeypots.

Last week, BeingThreatened, a consumer group dedicated to supporting those wrongfully accused in these cases, informed TorrentFreak of a new entrant to the market.

According to their website, Gallant Macmillan “is a niche media and litigation law practice with an international focus,” which claims to offer lawyers with skills in “reputation management, commercial litigation and intellectual property.”

The law firm lists many high-profile companies as its clients including The Jerusalem Post, Claims Direct, Ted Baker, Kookai and airport giants Servisair, but of current interest is its work with night club and dance label, Ministry of Sound.

“Unlawful file-sharing is a serious problem for Ministry of Sound, reducing income for the musicians and composers it works with and diminishing the funds needed to invest in new talent,” states the settlement letter sent out to unlucky recipients during the last week.

Accused of sharing the £8.75 Ministry of Sound – The Annual 2010, recipients are given the option to settle out of court for £375, an amount Gallant Macmillan says is intended to cover various costs including damages, evidence collection, dealing with ISPs, court attendances and sending the letter of claim.

“This offer to settle remains open only 21 days from the date of this letter,” warn the lawyers. Failure to comply, of course, means that they “reserve the right” to commence proceedings.

It has been well documented that other lawyers previously involved in this type of work, such as ACS:Law, have been heavily reported both to the government and to organizations such as the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA). Indeed, ACS:Law have proven record-breaking in this respect.

However, when looking at the website set up by Gallant Macmillan (GM) for the purposes of this work, it seems that they have done their homework on the problems and criticisms faced by other companies.

Perhaps in a preemptive move, rather than hiding the fact that they are regulated by the SRA, the company mention it prominently on every page of their site, often twice.

While ACS:Law act on behalf of “middle man” companies behind which rights-holders have the opportunity to shield their identities and reputations to some extent, GM say they will only act for brand owners “who are prepared to sue in their own names” and will not represent companies seeking settlements over porn movies.

GM also appear to be trying to show a more, for want of a better word, ‘humane’ approach to their dealings with settlement recipients.

“We understand that threatening legal proceedings can be distressing. Whilst committed to act in our client’s best interests, we strive to communicate with the recipients of our letters in a respectful and courteous fashion,” write the company.

Although thus far GM only detail a time and date for single infringement on the letters seen by TorrentFreak, the company claim that their focus is the pursuit of what they describe as “multiple offenders”.

A huge criticism of both ACS:Law and previously Davenport Lyons is that the companies make threats of taking people to court but never do. It seems that GM wish to address this too.

“If we are unable to reach an agreement with the recipient of our letters, and still consider that our client has a good claim, we shall sue,” they state. “We recognise that it is not appropriate to make threats of proceedings and to not then follow through with those threats in appropriate cases.”

Another little twist to the approach is that while other lawyers demand that letter recipients delete the material they are accused of sharing from their hard drives, Gallant Macmillan say that as part of the settlement those accused can keep the album they are accused of sharing, in this case a Ministry of Sound compilation. At £375, this must be the most expensive album ever.

Despite the very clear attempts at presenting a more acceptable side to the copyright settlement business, thus far the ‘meat’ of this operation seems to be no different to those that have gone before. It will remain to be seen if Gallant Macmillan will weather the storm that caused lawyers Tilly Bailey and Irvine to jump ship.

All letter recipients are advised to read the Speculative Invoicing Handbook. It was written with earlier cases in mind, but is just as relevant today.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

In the last year or two the entertainment industries have targeted many BitTorrent sites. The majority of the verdicts against these sites have thus far ruled in favor of the copyright holders. Only in Spain have BitTorrent sites been repeatedly found to operate within the boundaries of the law.

Under Spanish law torrent sites and BitTorrent trackers deemed legal even though some of its users may be using it to download copyright infringing content. This might be one of the reasons why the OpenBitTorrent tracker moved to a Spanish host after Hollywood managed to get a court decision in their favor against its Swedish hosting provider.

The OpenBitTorrent tracker, which doesn’t link to or host any torrent files and is not linked to any torrent search engine, merely serves as a facilitator of the communication between torrent users, much like BitTorrent clients do. This means that the site is not breaking any laws in Spain.

“According to all Spanish legal resolutions, a link does not communicate nor reproduces the work under intellectual property,” copyright expert and lawyer Javier de la Cueva told TorrentFreak. “So, linking is not a violation, hosting without the rights holders permission is.”

Despite this seemingly safe legal environment, music industry lobby group IFPI decided to go after OpenBitTorrent’s new hosting company in Spain. A few days after OpenBitTorrent moved to SoloGigabit, its owners received a threatening letter stating that the hosting company could be “liable for aiding and abetting criminal copyright infringements and receiving payments from criminal activity.”

In their communication with SoloGigabit, IFPI argues that OpenBitTorrent is facilitating copyright infringements because users of The Pirate Bay may be using the tracker. “The tracker performs a key function for the BitTorrent file sharing service provided by The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay service has been judged illegal in several countries,” IFPI writes, referring to the Swedish criminal trial that’s currently under appeal.

“The OpenBitTorrent tracker does not itself host any copyright protected works, but enables the infringement of sound recordings and other copyright works to take place by its role in The Pirate Bay file sharing service. The copyright works are made available and infringed by users of OpenBitTorrent and The Pirate Bay,” IFPI explains.

Feeling threatened by IFPI’s letter, the owner of the hosting company decided to inform OpenBitTorrent’s operator that they have to find a new bandwidth provider by the end of July. This means that, again, OpenBitTorrent has to move to a new location, this time as the result of mere threats.

TorrentFreak contacted the owner of SoloGigabit who told us that he was not sure what to do with IFPI’s complaints. After we informed the owner about the legality of BitTorrent trackers in Spain he doubted whether he had taken the right decision. However, successful or not, a lengthy battle in court is a huge burden for a small hosting company. Even though SoloGigabit might have the law on their site it is understandable that the owner is hesitant to fight IFPI.

Whatever happens, OpenBitTorrent is determined to stay online. The tracker’s operators told TorrentFreak that they are prepared to move to a new location again. This time, they hope to find a company that is less prone to threats from the music industry.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Faced with a huge BitTorrent site that simply refuses to comply, give in, or die, anti-piracy groups have been trying other methods to take The Pirate Bay offline.

With 2009′s “guilty” verdict in hand, a common theme in recent times has been to put pressure on ISPs to block the site, but most are refusing to comply.

Similar negotiations have been going on in Belgium between two ISPs, Belgacom and Telenet, and the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) for some time now, but reached deadlock.

“There should be an efficient and quick procedure to be able to act fast against illegal foreign sites. We’ve tried negotiating with the internet providers for over a year, but to no avail,” said BAF’s Christophe Van Mechelen. “A list of illegal foreign sites was also sent to the public prosecutor’s office, but was classified without result.”

Inevitably the negotiations with the ISPs transformed into legal action and this week a court was left with a decision – should it officially order the service providers to block the world’s most resilient BitTorrent site?

For the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) the outcome was bad news.

Yesterday the Antwerp Commercial Court refused to order ISPs Belgacom and Telenet to make the The Pirate Bay inaccessible to their subscribers and labeled such a blocking requirement as “disproportionate”.

BAF reacted angrily against the ISPs, stating that by taking the side of The Pirate Bay they had effectively given protection to “an illegal site”. The ISPs, however, said that the decision to block websites is not theirs to make.

“It is not the role of Telenet to decide which sites should be available or not to our users,” said a spokeswoman for the ISP. “As a service provider, this is not within our competence.”

Belgacom also defended its stance in a comment. “The judge considered that immediate action to block this site was not necessary and that BAF’s application was disproportionate to the offense, especially since the site has existed for several years and that the request comes only now.”

Article from: TorrentFreak.

In the US there have been two major file-sharing cases against individuals that have gone to trial. In both cases the RIAA was initially awarded hundreds and thousands of dollars in damages, but in both cases these were slashed on appeal.

In the RIAA’s case against Jamie Thomas, the jury-awarded damages were reduced significantly as the excessive damages were ruled to be unconstitutional. Today, the same thing has happened with the case against Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum.

The ruling issued by District Judge Nancy Gertner states that the constitutional issues are clear, and that attempting to avoid the constitutional challenges (that the damages are excessive in proportion to the crime) by reducing the damages would be the best way to handle these.

The verdict comes as no surprise to many, and may even come as a relief to the RIAA, who have faced some negative publicity over the damages awarded. It’s unclear, though, if this modification will stand, as the RIAA will have to accept it. If they don’t, a retrial will be called.

Judge Gertner finds a retrial likely, stating in the judgment: “The plaintiffs in this case, however, made it abundantly clear that they were, to put it mildly, going for broke. They stated in open court that they likely would not accept a remitted award.”

“The Constitution protects not only criminal defendants from the imposition of ‘cruel and unusual punishments’, but also civil defendants facing arbitrarily high punitive awards,” Gertner added.

The meat of the subject can be found on page 6, though.

I reduce the jury’s award to $2,250 per infringed work, three times the statutory minimum, for a total award of $67,500. Significantly, this amount is more than I might have awarded in my independent judgment. But the task of determining the appropriate damages award in this case fell to the jury, not the Court. I have merely reduced the award to the greatest amount that the Constitution will permit given the facts of this case.

There is no question that this reduced award is still severe, even harsh. It not only adequately compensates the plaintiffs for the relatively minor harm that Tenenbaum caused them; it sends a strong message that those who exploit peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully download and distribute copyrighted works run the risk of incurring substantial damages awards. Tenenbaum’s behavior, after all, was hardly exemplary. The jury found that he not only violated the law, but did so willfully.

Reducing the jury’s $675,000 award, however, also sends another no less important message: The Due Process Clause does not merely protect large corporations, like BMW and State Farm, from grossly excessive punitive awards. It also protects ordinary people like Joel Tenenbaum

This judgment relieves some of the PR pressure around the RIAA. While they were clearly happy with the height of the damages, hoping it would intimidate filesharers, it also became a rallying cry for others. The reduced damages proposed by Judge Gertner may silence the opposition to some extent, and reduce the impact of campaigns.

Joel Tenenbaum was somewhat relieved upon hearing the verdict. In a telephone interview with the Boston Globe he said: “Obviously, it’s better news than it could have been. But it’s basically equally unpayable to me.”

Even if he could pay it, none of the money – be it $675,000, or $67,500 – would find its way into the pockets of the artists whose songs were involved. The RIAA told TorrentFreak that the damages will be used to fund new anti-piracy campaigns instead.

Whether or not there will be a retrial, the current verdict is a blow to their anti-piracy campaigns, while the Constitutional concern may preclude any further strengthening of copyright laws and punishments in the near future.

Breaking story…

Article from: TorrentFreak.

In recent years copyright holders have been trying to find creative ways to turn piracy into profit, with some success. One way to make money from file-sharers is to collect the IP-addresses of the people sharing a particular file, get a court to subpoena ISPs to reveal the identity of the sharers, and then ask the alleged sharers for a settlement of several hundred dollars to avoid a $150,000 fine.

These practices have been quite common in the UK and Germany for years, and in March this year the US Copyright Group imported this mass litigation “pay up or else” scheme to the United States.

The initial targets were relatively unknown indie films, but this changed when the makers of the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker joined in. After its Oscar victory the film was downloaded by millions of BitTorrent users, and in May the filmmakers sued 5,000 of these alleged downloaders all at once.

To find out whether the download rate for The Hurt Locker plummeted after the news of the lawsuit against BitTorrent users hit the mainstream media, we decided to take a look at last month’s download statistics. Interestingly, it turns out that people seem to be downloading the film undeterred.

In June, the film was downloaded little over 200,000 times, which puts it in the top 25 of most downloaded movies last month. Considering that the film has been available on BitTorrent for more than a year already, this high download number is quite an achievement and only a few percent less than the previous month.

Our statistics further show that 23% of all downloads come from the US, the territory where the US Copyright Group launched its legal action against BitTorrent downloaders.

Whether this means that BitTorrent downloaders are not easily scared by legal threats is hard to say. It could be that the people who downloaded the movie last month simply weren’t aware of the fact that their IP-address might have been noted by the US Copyright Group.

What we can say, however, is that the makers of the film don’t really mind people sharing the film now they might have found a way to make a multi-million dollar profit out of it.

At the time of writing, there are more than 200 torrent files linking to copies of The Hurt Locker floating around on hundreds of torrent sites. Although the makers of the film are quick to sue thousands of downloaders, no effort is being made to take the actual torrent files offline through a notice and takedown procedure.

Nearly every torrent site will remove a torrent file if the copyright holder complains, but clearly the makers of The Hurt Locker haven’t done so – they prefer to protect their newly found business model instead. Taking ‘their’ torrent files down could ironically result in implied losses of several million dollars in missed settlements.

Yes, it’s the world upside down.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Ever since file-sharing sites and services have existed, someone, somewhere, has been plotting to take them down. Some of the early and most high-profile actions were against relative giants such as Napster, KaZaA and Grokster. These resulted in expensive and prolonged legal battles which all but smashed their intended targets but as file-sharing fragmented – particularly with the introduction of BitTorrent – a handful of potential targets became dozens, significantly complicating anti-piracy actions.

Within a very short space of time, those dozens of new BitTorrent sites became hundreds, and the hundreds became thousands. The MPAA outwardly took this evolution in its stride, slowly but methodically targeting some of the most prominent venues, eventually more or less ridding the United States of notable torrent sites.

While takedowns such as those at LokiTorrent and the federal action against EliteTorrents had somewhat of a psychological impact worldwide, for torrent site admins it meant that the rules had simply been clarified. Time to leave the US and head abroad, an action largely carried out by site operators with a few keystrokes.

Ever since those particularly dark days back in 2005, there has been action taken against file-sharing sites of all sizes. Many sites have disappeared under varying styles of pressure, or become much less usable, Mininova an obvious example. But while rulings against file-sharing activities in general have created an impression of a tightening noose, it seems that along with the dawning of 2010 has come renewed confidence to fight back and treat takedowns of all types as an occupational hazard.

How many threats, takedowns, rulings, decisions, blockages and raids will it take to remove The Pirate Bay from the Internet? It seems that nothing can do the job. Threats didn’t work. Civil action hasn’t worked. Police raids didn’t work. Threatening ISPs hasn’t worked. Even the promise of jail sentences has produced no results.

The much-hailed assault against the market-leading Usenet indexer Newzbin and their recent defeat in court was meant to send a message to those hoping to utilize the increased usability of newsgroups and the possibility of profiting from the content found there. End result – the entire site back online with the same URL, movies being added by the dozen and the new owners openly announcing they intend to turn a profit on the site.

So with the leading BitTorrent and Usenet indexers proving adaptive, what about yet another attack on the leading release news site, RLSLOG? That was tried earlier this year and again just a short while ago and the end result proved as successful as the takedowns on TPB and Newzbin. RLSLOG was back up in a few days, business as usual and seemingly completely unfazed by the threats.

In June, Hungarian police tried their hand at smashing up the country’s BitTorrent scene with raids on a number of sites. The main target was the 900,000 peer nCore tracker and after initially hiding behind a proxy, it too was ultimately taken down. But as is the common theme at the moment, that site has also just bounced back, proudly displaying a phoenix graphic on their login page.

At the end of June there was outrage as Bulgarian police took down online library Chitanka.info, a valued source of user translated and submitted books, poems and other literature. Just 9 days after the operation to take down the site, creator Borislav Manolov has been speaking in an interview where he reveals, amongst other things, that the site is now back and fully operational with zero data loss.

And finally, last week saw unprecedented action by US authorities to seize the domains of a handful of sites connected to the streaming, linking to, and storage of, still-in-theater movies. While most remained down, immediately TVShack and Movies-Links returned with new URLs. Will the others return? Maybe, maybe not, but others will almost certainly fill the gap – outside the US, with non-US hosts and non-US staff.

It appears that while most file-sharing sites are aware that they run an increased risk of being monitored and targeted in 2010, many already have backup plans in place to recover in the event of action against them. By treating raids and ISP shutdowns as a disaster recovery situation no different than a hardware failure, file-sharing sites can in many cases mitigate the effects of action with careful planning, a handful of emails and a few minutes of keystrokes.

The question is, how will the copyright enforcers respond?

Article from: TorrentFreak.

For years, content owners such as record labels and movie studios have been sending copyright infringement notices to Internet users. They hire companies such as DtecNet and BayTSP, who monitor file-sharing networks and automatically send infringement notices to Internet providers. The Internet providers on their turn are legally obliged to forward these to their customers.

Although these copyright infringement warnings are nothing new, little was known about the scope of these operations, until now.

This week the RIAA revealed that, since October 2008, it has sent out infringement warnings to 1.8 million Internet subscribers and 269,609 to colleges and universities in the United States. This translates into an average of well over a million infringement warnings a year.

Since the RIAA stopped pursuing individuals for sharing music online a long time ago, these infringement notices are merely a warning. However, the RIAA is confident that a significant number of the recipients will change their downloading habits once they’re notified.

An RIAA spokesman declined to inform TorrentFreak whether the number of infringement notices sent out are increasing or declining. The RIAA has no hard facts on the effectiveness of the notices either, but told us that university administrators usually see “very few” repeat offenders.

It does indeed seem plausible that some who are warned will think twice before they fire up their BitTorrent client unprotected, especially with all the talk about lawsuits recently. However, the effect of the warning campaigns are not noticeable in the number of file-sharing users and the traffic that they generate. Both are still increasing year after year.

RIAA’s openness with regard to their infringement notices comes right after the US put into effect a new requirement for colleges and universities to stop illicit file-sharing on their networks.

Starting this month, a provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 puts defiant schools at risk of losing federal funding if they don’t do enough to stop illicit file-sharers on their campus.

In recent years colleges and universities had to undertake measures to reduce piracy, and go after students who use file-sharing networks to share copyrighted files. Those who failed to do so will now lose their eligibility for federal student aid.

Effective or not, the new rules have proven to be quite costly for US educational institutions who spend between $350,000 and $500,000 a year to decrease piracy. With continuing doubts, even from the Government, as to whether or not piracy is causing losses to the entertainment industry, one has to wonder if it’s all worth it.

Whether the measures installed at colleges and universities are successful has to be doubted. We’ve reviewed the effectiveness of a few of the measures in the past and they provided little hope. If we add that users of file-hosting services such as Rapidshare and Megaupload are untraceable by the RIAA and its partners, the newly installed anti-piracy measures seem to be just symbolic.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

The Norwegian movie Max Manus, based on the real-life events of World War II resistance fighter, has been causing quite a stir for both movie fans and privacy advocates. The most expensive and successful Norwegian movie to date, it inevitably leaked out onto the Internet and the hunt for those claimed to be responsible has been going on ever since.

The investigation, controlled by notorious pirate hunter Espen Tøndel and the Simonsen law firm, yielded a single IP address which allegedly belonged to the leaker. Unfortunately, despite the fact that this IP-address did not belong to the original leaker but almost certainly a mere subsequent sharer, the pursuit of that individual has been relentless.

For those interested in whether private firms (in this case the movie companies) should have access to private data, the case has proven difficult to follow. Virtually the whole process, including various court decisions and appeals, have been kept secret, right up to the recent Supreme Court decision. Now, however, we have the full story, and it’s bad news for file-sharers and those concerned about privacy.

Initially the police showed no interest in the case so Simonsen went to court to force an ISP, now named as Altibox, to reveal who was behind the IP address in question. The result in that case was kept secret. All we knew was that one party lost and lodged an appeal.

We now know that it was Altibox who lost the case in the Stavanger District Court and was ordered to hand over the personal details of one their subscribers to Simonsen. The ISP then appealed to the Gulating Court of Appeal, again something which was kept away from the public. The Court of Appeal decision was also deemed unsuitable for public consumption.

“I can confirm that the case is being appealed to the Supreme Court, but I can not confirm which of the parties has submitted the appeal, as that may indicate what the results were in the previous hearing,” commented Simonsen lawyer Rune Ljøstad at the time.

We can now report that it was Altibox who lost that decision with the Court of Appeal’s rejection of the case. So, with the ISP refusing to give in, it would be for the Supreme Court to decide if it’s acceptable for privately owned companies with financial interests in the outcome of a case to be given the power to obtain the identity of an Internet subscriber behind an IP address.

The Supreme Court rejected Altibox’s appeal on June 18, so the previous decision stands. They must hand over the alleged file-sharer’s details. Altibox said that it would have to comply with the decision in this case but would stand firm on any further demands for information from the private sector.

“We will continue to adhere to our current practice, and only comply with this requirement if it is made in connection with a police investigation or the existence of an enforceable ruling,” said CEO Eirik Gunde Gjerde.

Already the IFPI in Norway are hailing the Supreme Court decision as a triumph in their battle against music file-sharers and said the result was expected.

“I am not so surprised – the result has been the same in both District Court and Court of Appeal,” commented CEO Marte Thorsby. “Hopefully the fact that we now have the opportunity to pursue civil illegal file sharing cases in Norway will provide the same results here as in Sweden. There the Pirate Bay ruling and the introduction of IPRED Act (ie the Swedish implementation of EU Directive on Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement) meant that music sales in 2009 increased by approximately 10%.”

Thorsby added that Simonsen law firm are in possession of the IP addresses of some Norway’s biggest music uploaders. While noting that they “..do great damage, and should be stopped,” she would not confirm how many there are.

However, Simonsen lawyer Rune Ljøstad rejected the implication that they somehow had a “sort of archive of who did what on the Internet”

“We are required to delete information we have as soon as we do not need it any more in matters of our research,” said Ljostad. “But we follow events, and know who are most active at any time.”

Despite the Supreme Court ruling, the notion that it will open the floodgates for litigation against file-sharers in general seems remote.

“Without this decision copyright holders wouldn’t have the opportunity to pursue copyright violations on the Internet. Now we have that opportunity, so the question is when to use it,” notes Ljøstad.

“Currently it’s the only option we have, but there is no one who wants a lot of litigation. We are therefore working actively for what we call ‘graduated response’ – that is, that we sometimes wish that ISPs contact those who upload and tell them that we know who they are. This can serve as a warning. Going to court will be reserved for only the most serious cases,” he concluded.

Dr. Njål Borch at the Northern Research Institute told TorrentFreak that the Supreme Court decision was far from ideal.

“Just to top off everything, 28% of the film’s budget came from the Norwegian Film Fund, so we tax payers both largely paid for the film, the personal wealth of the film makers AND we lost our fundamental rights, all in one go.”

“A sort of perversely inverted Kinder Egg…”

Article from: TorrentFreak.