Film star and Hollywood ‘Punkd master’ Aston Kutcher is in the spotlight again. While some might consider it one of his stunts, this one could land him in jail. At the premier of his latest movie, Killers, Kutcher broadcast the first 13 minutes of the premier online.

This has caused a storm of outrage from many in the industry that say he’s not “treating the issue of piracy seriously”. However, the issue of piracy hurting the industry still has little evidence to back it up. In fact the movie industry is doing better than ever, with the MPAA reporting just 3 months ago, that “global box office receipts reached an all time high of $29.9 billion” in 2009.

Kutcher was unapologetic about the act. “Everybody calls people airing stuff on the web piracy,” he told Access Hollywood, “just because they’re not making money off of it yet. If they (executives) can figure out how to make money off of it, they won’t call it piracy anymore.” He is also adamant that he hasn’t broken any laws.

If only that were so. Under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, he did indeed commit an offense, unless he had the permission of the copyright holders (Kutcher, while a Producer on the film, is almost certainly not the copyright holder), and means that he can be imprisoned for up to 3 years, or fined, or both.

While it’s unlikely that he will be prosecuted, it does underscore the film industry’s determination to stick to the status-quo of the last few decades.

Article from: FreakBits

We have been getting quite a few emails about the EMI vs. Pink Floyd rift this week. The band and the label have a dispute over the royalty payments of the music that’s sold though online shops, with Pink Floyd arguing that EMI can’t sell single tracks from the band’s albums.

The comments on most of the reports on this issue have been extremely negative towards the label. “Go for these capitalist pigs throats Pink,” and “EMI and other labels deserve to be bankrupt,” to name a few.

Although we have been very aware of the copyright abuse of some of the major labels and the unfair treatment of some artists, we have to root for EMI in this battle.

Before the MP3 era many people complained bitterly about having to buy a full album if they were only interested in a few songs. Today, people have the choice to pick only the songs they like, but not it is was up to Pink Floyd.

It seems to us that it’s not the greed of the labels but the greed of Pink Floyd that is at the root of this dispute. If the band was so worried about the label “breaking” the album they should have never put out a single either, or allowed single tracks to be played on the radio.

If Pink Floyd would win we might be thrown back in time, being forced to buy full albums, that’s not at all in the interest of the consumer. So, we stand behind a major label for once.

Go EMI.

Update: too late

Article from: FreakBits

Kaye decided to contact the owners of various torrent sites and for some reason she also contacted (our parent blog) TorrentFreak with the following message.

You are illegally offering my COPYRIGHTED EDUCATIONAL ITEMS as downloads on your website: (linking to fenopy.com)

CEASE AND DESIST! This is totally UNAUTHORIZED AND ILLEGAL! Remove this download of MY Internationally Copyrighted items on your website. You are in Violation of the Copyright Law – I am the ONLY ONE to sell my own items!

We don’t host any torrent files or TorrentFreak of course, and I kindly replied to her explaining that we are a weblog covering BitTorrent news. For some reason she wasn’t quite convinced, as we received the following reply after having exchanged a few more emails.

You’re a liar and a thief, CEASE AND DESIST!

Again, trying to be polite I explained that she was targeting the wrong person. Because I sympathized with her I even offered to help her out and get her in contact with the people who could remove the torrents. This wasn’t helping much though.

You’re a liar, a pirate, and a thief and a no-body – you’re coming down buddy, don’t give me that run-around BS! Whoever you are, you’re THIEF AND A DELIBERATE PIRATE!

I’m known to 100s of 1,000s of musician world-wide and they’re going to know about you too, posting you on my website which gets 100s of 1,000s of hits all the time! CEASE AND DESIST!

After one more attempt to explain that TorrentFreak has nothing to do with the site where she found her content I eventually gave up. But Carol didn’t.

A few hours later my inbox was starting to fill up with friends/fans or colleagues of Carol who were spitting out more false accusations. Below is one I received from Deb Hastings.

Ernesto – you are offering free downloads of intellectual property? I am referrng to Carol Kaye’s jazz improv books and accompanying cd’s. This is STEALING my man. What is wrong with you? You don’t steal from other people. This is illegal and in violation of the copyright law. What the hell kind of a preson are you? That you steal from other people? I am going to do everything I can – with as many other people as I can – to bust up your ugly little business. I am tenacious and you have now become my focus. You are a thief. Take her stuff off your site.

Sigh.. I give up.

Article from: FreakBits

BitTorrent sites have slowly started to replace record stores, with peers taking care of the music distribution.

More and more artists and indie labels have decided to give away their music without charging a penny. Instead, they hope to gather new fans that will support them through concert visits and by buying merchandising.

At FreakBits we are more than happy to support independent artists who publish their work for free on BitTorrent. One such band that recently uploaded its music onto BitTorrent and various other places is Citizen Collision.

“Citizen Collision is a band from Dallas, TX, ranging from rock to acoustic in genre. We offer all our music for free,” band member Caleb Killingsworth told FreakBits. “We feel that you should get our music from us instead of paying a company for it.”

“We all know most artists make the majority of their money from ticket and merch sales and that’s why we don’t charge for our music.”

“You can download Citizen Collision music off of most major music trackers, or download it from a new site I just launched for musicians to share their music, with no compression on your tracks like other music services,” Caleb added.

Of course the best way to get your music out to the masses is by uploading it to some of the major torrent sites, and that’s why you can also grab a copy from The Pirate Bay.

Photo by MarS.

Article from: FreakBits

Below is a passage of the The Village‘s article on Alan, describing what he went though during the last years of his life.

“For two years, the Twitter account @diditleak was the secret weapon of online listeners and music critics alike. In real time, the account, which ultimately garnered over 11,500 followers, announced whenever a digital copy of a particularly desirable record first hit the Internet. For that it became a beloved resource of torrent-hungry music fans and writers angling for first listens. Using email tips and message-board-scouring alchemy, @diditleak seemed to know leaks better than anybody on Earth.”

As many others, we used Alan’s website as a resource numerous times. It is sad to see such a brilliant man passing away at such an early age.

Alan, you will be missed.

Article from: FreakBits

This is a guest post by FreakBits reader Benjamin Arntzen . If you’d like your file-sharing, copyright or piracy related article to appear on FreakBits, please email it to us at tips@torrentfreak.com.

As someone growing up in the so-called Napster Generation, I have always had an interest in peer-to-peer and the way that the Internet has fundamentally changed many things, both in music and cinema.

As BitTorrent matured, I was able to witness its advantages over other P2P technologies and indeed experience them. Often, today’s generation is described as having no respect for the value of content, having gotten everything for free for their whole lives.

As someone who is part of that, my experience indicates that has not held true: the respect is still there, fueled by a fascination for content and media that is unprecedented.

Respect no longer comes solely in the simple form of money, as music, movies, and other videos are passed along between friends and strangers. Nearly every piece of music and video created is available in some form on the Internet, free and easily accessible, and the connections between creators and consumers are getting stronger.

Respect for content now comes in many forms; as fans constantly reupload songs and videos to video sites such as YouTube, rebelling against the publishers and copyright owners, remixing and re-releasing content in new forms, and participating in a sort of creative anarchy. BitTorrent sites are thriving as people use them to discover more and more media, fueled by trends like tagging and social networking.

Perhaps most importantly however, most of the people involved in these activities aren’t doing it out of hate or malice. Their actions are, in nearly all cases, based on a love for the content that they possess, and a will to share it with other people and build reputation for the creators, artists and content itself. The money element is still very much involved, too. Concert tickets are still a sought-after item, and despite the availability of nearly all purchasable content at no cost, music and video sales are still alive. If the sky is falling, there are no signs that make it apparent.

One of the major changes in this new paradigm is perhaps one of the most interesting: the middleman is dead. The music industry’s “Big Four” (Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group) and the movie industry’s equivalents aren’t going anywhere soon, but as artists begin to create and share outside of contractual obligations and restrictions, the major media companies are getting less and less powerful.

I believe that success in media of various forms won’t necessarily be measured solely in terms of profit in the future. Creative Commons and similar projects are allowing artists to grant permissions to their fans in an easy, uncomplicated manner, and combined with BitTorrent and other web/P2P technologies, helping to remove the boundaries of distribution. Success will be measured by what consumers do with a creator’s content, and the way they support it.

Nine Inch Nails have shown that success outside of the labels is possible, although most of their popularity stems from their label days. Perhaps more realistic examples are webcomics like xkcd and Penny Arcade and artists like Jonathan Coulton and Brad Sucks. They are shining, if rare, examples of what can happen with a dedicated fan-base.

Self-sufficiency is the dream of most independent content creators. Various methods of achieving such a goal, with varied success, are being tried and tested at this very moment. Most people, even within the “Napster Generation” are still very much willing to pay for quality content – despite no longer being forced to. Over the last year, I’ve probably spent more than $160 on various bits of Creative Commons music, and $40 or so on label-music, bought second-hand. All of it was content I already had – but the satisfaction and nostalgia of buying music and video, whether physical or digital, remains regardless.

The general consensus among my friends is simple: if content can be purchased at an affordable price, even if it’s available for free, most of them will do so if they have the ability.

Within film, the situation is a little different and far more experimental: viable ways of making money in the file-sharing reality are still being sought after. In the meantime, the barriers to both creation and distribution are being lowered, allowing more ambitious projects and drawing in talent that may not have been reachable before. At the same time, some argue, mediocrity is given a chance to thrive, but people will put their passion and support behind the content that they love. Essentially, consumers are becoming the ones who decide what content is worth, both in terms of money and in terms of reputation, rather than a company deciding what will make them money. Those who love content will open their wallets or their Internet connection in the pursuit of supporting or promoting it.

This is mainly what I’m known for today – the pursuit of promoting content. In July of last year, I wanted to share some Creative Commons content with friends, but existing links and downloads for it were either too slow or not packaged in a coherent way, so I decided to remedy this. I simply downloaded the content, renamed some files, added some information and changed it into the format that made sense to me, then released it on The Pirate Bay and Mininova. The main interest in the downloads came from my friends, as that was the original purpose of the releases. I decided to package xkcd comics in a similar fashion and released those, which brought interest to the other torrents.

At the time, Mininova was one of the largest sites on the Internet, and I decided that their Content Distribution service would make releasing things easier, so I applied, using my existing torrents as a reference. Within a couple of days I had a second Mininova account with no CD access, after being accepted for the program. A quick conversation with Erik Dubbelboer later, I had a working account and re-released the existing torrents under Mininova’s CD service. Mininova CD was at the time a way of giving privilege to legal content, such as that offered under Creative Commons licenses, and as a result any torrents I posted would be put at the top of the front page for about a day, in the Featured Torrents category. I established a simple rule for content I posted: If I liked it a lot and was legally able to, I would publish it.

Most of the content I posted at first came from sites like FrostClick, through which I discovered some of the most played music in my collection. It is also how I discovered the #2wkfilm project (aka two week film challenge – shoot, edit, finish a feature length movie in a two week window) and got dragged kicking and screaming into the strange world of Twitter. As the preferred method of communication for #2wkfilm participants was Twitter, I used it to contact them and discuss the torrents and films. I also used it to mention newly uploaded torrents, so that people who particularly liked my releases could easily stay up to date with what I published, either through Twitter or RSS.

Soon after republishing the old torrents, I contacted one of the artists, Adam McHeffey, and told him about the download count which was at the time about 250. As a thanks, he sent me two pressed CDs of the album and a personal note. The album was at the time only available as a set of highly compressed MP3s, so I ripped the CD into lossless files and made multiple releases in various formats which all got a similar reception on Mininova, quickly bringing the count to 1000. I also helped him set up LetsKickFire.com, which has served as the home of the album since, as well as, occasionally, a blog. By the end of the year it had been downloaded just over 11,000 times.

Since what I was doing didn’t cost me anything but small amounts of time and effort, and it was making people happy, I sought out more Creative Commons content. This is how I discovered the Intercontinental Music Lab, right after they had released their third album. I released all three albums in four formats simultaneously on Mininova, gathering a decent number of downloads in a couple of weeks, but (at the time) more importantly allowing the albums to be downloaded and shared in a coherent, easy manner, rather than as single files or large slow downloads. Eventually things got to a stage where seeking content has been much easier and some content creators would even contact me when they wanted to put out some large content. As of Oct 1st there was 25,000 downloads, and by the end of things, everything was sitting at around 750 downloads, and there was a total of 36,000 downloads.

Towards the end of November, Mininova deleted all non-Content Distribution torrents from their servers in order to comply with a court order. Whilst the traffic to the site dropped significantly, the demand for the remaining content went way up, as seen in this picture, taken on December 1st during the aftermath. Downloads have remained at a constant 4000-per-day average, and on December 8th total downloads had reached 100,000. As a result, interest in the #2wkfilm projects, as well as the music of Adam McHeffey, the Intercontinental Music Lab and nearly everything on my Mininova account increased significantly. Total downloads for the IML have recently broken 100,000 and the total downloads for the #2wkfilm projects on Mininova recently reached 25,000.

The overall impact of my actions as a simple fan of content has been much larger than I expected. I would love to say that I am responsible for the content creators being rich and prosperous, but this is not the case, mainly because most of the content was not originally intended to be a way of making money, so there was not much information within the releases about where to purchase merchandise or donate money. My personal goals for my actions were simple: to spread the word about content I loved and wanted to share with others, as well as gain exposure for those who I believed deserved it. In both of those respects, in my opinion, I’ve been successful.

As of 11:25am PST on December 31st, 2009, content I’d published had been responsible for a total of over 59,685 gigabytes of Internet traffic, nearly 60 terabytes. This bandwidth has mainly been provided by the people who downloaded the content and cared enough about it to contribute to the distribution of it, as well as Mininova Content Distribution’s “seedbox” servers. The phrase “ZORLiN-CC” on Google now returns 37,200 Google results, and the torrents I created ended up on hundreds of different torrent sites and mirrors. The power that fans have to influence the popularity of content that they like is real, and will change the way things are both created and distributed, and the way profit is made on content. There is no longer a monopoly on distribution, and for better or worse, there is no longer control over the free availability of content.

The old business model will continue to exist and be profitable for at least the next 4-5 years, but today, consumers and creators alike are working together to carve out a new one.

Welcome to the new creative age.

Benjamin Arntzen is a self-proclaimed expert in digital culture who distributes content via BitTorrent. You can visit his profile on Mininova here.

Article from: FreakBits

This is a guest post by FreakBits reader Ruslan Almukhametov. If you’d like your file-sharing, copyright or piracy related article to appear on FreakBits, please email it to us at tips@torrentfreak.com.

Before Windows 7 I used a legal copy of Vista and I was OK with that since the price for the OS was included in the price of my Toshiba laptop. Other than that, I’d have probably used Ubuntu and Open Office or a pirated copy of Windows. Why am  I writing these lines? Because our world needs to be changed, and that change can become a reality only with you participating.

It’s a well known fact that with the advent and development of computer technologies, the process of exchanging information between two or more net users has become that much more easy and convenient, it’s obvious that interested parties cannot control the process anymore.

Content producers, such as computer game developers, artists and movie makers (depending on their size and the amount of money they have in their pockets) have been found behaving differently. While some cannot stop sending  court summons’ to copyright infringers, others simply close their eyes to the notion. The former usually do not get their money back, and the latter do not earn more due to their inaction.

Not until recently has anyone among content producers ever thought of what could they possibly do, in order to get “stolen” money back and start earning even more than they used to.

EA Games are a company who opened their eyes first and started to think of game creation, development and support processes from a quite different perspective. In retrospect, what EA did was a great step forward, even though we have yet to see the fruits of that move. EA bought PlayFish for some 400 million USD – a company which is one of the leaders in the social game development market.  In fact, PlayFish was and is one of those successful companies  which reports great profits from selling virtual goods in games released on major social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.  Let’s examine EA’s move a bit closely.

In general, while developing a computer game the developers are hoping that their product  will be actively bought, moreover they hope that the revenue from game sales will cover the development costs and bring in additional money to invest in future projects. There again, with the advent of broadband Internet and overall  expanding global Internet penetration, it’s becoming a lot easier and faster for gamers to download games from the Internet, from file hosting servers and peer-to-peer networks etc.

Frankly speaking, ISPs in Russia allow  pirated games, movies and software on their FTP servers for their clients for free use.  As a result, developers aren’t getting additional money, even though their games might be hit of the season. Pay attention, I didn’t say developers lost their money or got robbed. They are just not getting additional money.

What PlayFish, Zynga and other companies did is what I call a money making revolution. They have started making money and I must say good money on an enormous scale, from what is free from the very beginning.

Consider this. They are releasing their product on a platform that has more than 300 million users all over the world, for free. They do not spend money on pre-promotion as we see it in the off-line world. Instead, once they have released a game they go all in advertising on the same platform. Then the platform acts quite the same as TBP’s top downloads list, the main difference however, is that it makes the game developer company cash flow positive. They are not getting money from every new gamer, instead they are selling particular items inside the game so that the gamer can advance more quickly.

As an employee of the same company operating in Russia I must say that this proves to be effective. Development spendings are reduced. Flash semi-casual games are easier to develop, require less “hands”, have low hardware requirements, hence can be played on virtually any machine.

“Social gaming, with its emphasis on friends and community, is seeing tremendous growth and this is the right time to invest to strengthen our participation in this space,” says EA Interactive’s senior VP and GM Barry Cottle.

A team of four to five coders, designers and game developers could make a decent game in two weeks, with development costs which would eventually be 100% covered. What amuses me now is why music labels and movie companies  haven’t tried to implement the same approach.

Why threaten torrent sites when you can… buy them. And turn a part of their enormous user base into paying customers.And here is the part where we, as a user base come in.

It is high time we developed and offered a working system for content producers where the users get the material they want quickly and producers get additional money for that. I think we must collaborate to create the above-mentioned system. We should do that to prevent unnecessary court hearings and and get rid of excessive anger between downloaders and producers.  Here are my 5 cents as I see it.

Seeders are those heroes who keep torrents alive. Rating or ratio, on some torrent sites requiring registration, is what motivates leechers to keep seeding after the  download is completed. The less ratio a user has the less can they download. Or sometimes, particular hit and runners even get banned from the torrent site.

What I see is a torrent site and tracker, or even better – many of them, controlled by a group of content producers: music labels, movie studios and so forth. The site requires registration in order to count ones ratio, that’s the only thing the registration is used for.

Content providers then release their product on the site, setting a certain ratio rate on the upload – for example, users having ratio less than 1.25 cannot start downloading. Users are given two options – either support some previous upload by that particular content provider or purchase some ratio points, just as they might via donation at a regular site.

Some torrent addicts would rather help seeding previous uploads while others, who cannot wait to see the new episode of their favorite show in perfect quality, would gladly buy some points to be able to download.

The scheme is simple as it is, and i’m sure it could be developed. The main thing is not to think of torrent downloads as stolen money. CD sales aren’t dropping because of piracy, it is because the CD is becoming an outdated and inconvenient format. Millions of songs, on the other hand, are being successfully sold on iTunes and other sites where users can get what they want easily and in abundance. That proves that several monetizing models could co-exist.

I’m not stating that that my idea is perfect, all I want is to start a collaborative work aimed at making BitTorrent a place where technology is used legally and everyone is happy. If content providers could think of a way to build something which is working fine for both parties, we are the only ones left.

Yours sincerely,
Ruslan

Article from: FreakBits

In the letter, Mr Gaiman stresses the importance of looking into new ways of getting artists paid when their music is played online. “The old way no longer works.” he states bluntly.

However, he opposes disconnecting users as a way to accomplish this. Following such a course “won’t put a single extra penny in the pockets of the recording artists and their agents.” He goes on to to express his concerns about the punishment involved “particularly as disconnection from the internet will occur without trial.”

The author concludes the letter by asking Lord Carter to use his influence by “publicly opposing the pernicious elements of the Digital Economy Bill.”

Recently others, such as Facebook, Ebay, Yahoo and Internet giant Google have also expressed concerns about the legislation as well. No word yet on whether any of this will actually work, but UK citizens are encouraged to sign the anti-disconnection petition.

Thanks to Patrick from Open Rights Group for the heads up on the story. For a full copy of the letter please visit their site.

Article from: FreakBits

This is a follow-up to articles recently published on TorrentFreak which can be found here and here.

FreakBits: What is your musical background and when did you start creating your own music?

Dan Bull: I’ve always been a big music fan ever since I used to sing the Ghostbusters theme tune as a toddler. I got my first music software (Magix Music Maker) when I was about 12 and I used to make dance music inspired by The Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim.

As a teenager I formed a band with my friends and we made peculiar songs with titles like “Funky Miss Marple” and ” “. After a while I started making various solo tracks, which evolved into my current fusion of rap, electronica and indie pop.

FreakBits: You aren’t operating on a huge budget so how do you record your material?

Dan Bull: I do it all on my PC using a basic setup of a mic, external soundcard, MIDI keyboard and Cubase. I play guitars and keyboards, and I can play drums too but my home setup doesn’t allow it. My studio speakers blew up and I couldn’t afford another set so I mix everything on a portable hi-fi. I taught myself to mix by studying my favourite artists and trying to match their quality.

FreakBits: Who are your influences?

Dan Bull: I try and learn from everything I listen to, but I would say my main inspirations are Radiohead, Outkast, Lee Scratch Perry, Pink Floyd, The Smiths, Ghetto / Ghetts, Eminem, and currently Brother Ali. He’s recently released his new album “Us” – from what I’ve heard so far it’s beautiful and I recommend you check it out.

FreakBits: Are you making music full time or is it a growing hobby? Do you have another job too?

Dan Bull: Aside from music, I’ve worked a few random IT jobs and some freelance graphic design. I would love for music to be my career but that’s only reserved for a privileged few while the vast majority of us do it for the love. As long as there are people who enjoy listening to my music I’m happy.

FreakBits: What challenges and difficulties have you faced in trying to get off the ground and how have you overcome them without label support?

Dan Bull: I sent my album to a bunch of labels last year and I was ignored by every single one of them, so I decided to set up my own label and release it myself. It cost me roughly 25 times as much money to have a thousand CDs made than it did to get global online distribution for the MP3 version. The biggest challenge in doing everything off your own back is getting it heard – very difficult on my remaining budget of £0. Releasing music this way is rewarding though because every decision is yours and yours alone.

FreakBits: Do you perform live?

I don’t perform live at the moment because I see myself as a producer who happens to be a vocalist too – but live performing is something I want to get into. Live gigs are a whole different experience to listening at home – knowing that the music you hear is being created right in front of you by people you can see.

FreakBits: Where next for you? What are your hopes and dreams for the future of your music?

Dan Bull: I want to keep making new music, better music, and sharing it with people who enjoy it. Anything more is a most welcome bonus.

FreakBits: Thanks for your time Dan, and keep up the good work!

Dan’s MySpace page can be found here and his album ‘Safe’ is available from FreshNut but can also be downloaded digitally from iTunes, Amazon, Napster and all good file-sharing networks.

Article from: FreakBits

A few days after the news broke Reese is explaining his Twitter actions in a rather lengthy response. Going after pirates on Twitter is not the most sensible thing to do for a director, but Reese attributes his behavior to his emotional state (triggered by MPAA propaganda on 60 minutes).

While Reese should probably not have tweeted anything about the piracy issues in the first place, it is good to see that he followd it up with a detailed explanation. Below is his reply to all the response his tweets generated.

What do you think? Does he have some fair points or is he out of touch with reality?

—

Hi all, since I’m the one who unwittingly started this particular firestorm, here are my thoughts.

SG

Article from: FreakBits