BitTorrent Users Beware. You Are Being Watched.

BayTSP and Peer Media, two prominent anti-piracy companies that are expected to participate in the U.S. six-strikes anti-piracy scheme are already monitoring thousands of torrent files. Statistics obtained by TorrentFreak show that BayTSP and Peer Media have been increasing their activities in recent months.

The BitTorrent activity of these two companies is three times greater than that generated by all customers of a smaller ISP such as Sonic.net

For years BayTSP and Peer Media have been hired by movie studios and record labels to track the IP-addresses of file-sharers so these can be reported to their Internet providers.

In the U.S. this process is about to change as it will soon be formalized with the upcoming six-strikes anti-piracy scheme. Under this mechanism customers of five large ISPs will receive so-called copyright alerts. Besides being warned, repeat infringers face a variety of punishments under the new regime including temporary Internet disconnections. The MPAA and RIAA may eventually use the collected data to sue file-sharers even though New York Judge Gary Brown has already ruled that an IP-address alone is not sufficient evidence to identify copyright infringers.

Facebook director Thiel cashes out

Last Thursday and Friday, Facebook Inc director Peter Thiel sold roughly $400 million worth of Facebook shares, according to a regulatory filing. Thiel sold his shares at average prices ranging between $19.27 and $20.69 per share after the end of the first lockup, which barred early investors and insiders from selling shares following the IPO.

Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and was among Facebook's earliest backers, still owns roughly 5.6 million shares of Facebook.

Thiel, the libertarian entrepreneur who pays students $100,000 each to drop out of school and pursue business ideas, is one of Silicon Valley's more prolific investors. After selling his then-startup PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Thiel bankrolled Facebook in its early days.

Mt Dew had to shutdown a public poll to name new soda

Mt. Dew had a "Dub the Dew" campaign to let Internet users choose the name for a green-apple infused soft drink... Awfully optimistic.

The Mt. Dew marketing team forgot just what they were dealing with. After all, they were asking the same people who exiled rapper Pitbull to a Walmart in Alaska for advice. As could have been expected, the results of Dub the Dew were so offensive and useless that the entire promotion needed to be shut down.

M3Server hosting special: 50% OFF for 6 months

M3Server promo:

• $34 per month ($17.00 each of the first 6 months)
• CPUs: 2
• RAM: 1024 MB
• Disk Space: 100 GB RAID 1
• Bandwidth: 7 TB per month

Use Coupon Code: 50off1024 when signing up.

Microsoft drops the ball with outlook.com

Engadget reports:

So Microsoft launched a new email service today -- not a redesigned version of Hotmail, but a completely new, built-from-the-ground-up service. It's called Outlook.com, and for now, at least, it will exist separately from Hotmail, as Microsoft attempts to distance itself from Hotmail's bad rap.

So far, so good. But when we visit outlook.com, what is the first thing that happens? We get redirected to a live.com login page. The help section there is not dedicated to the new outlook.com site, but it's the generic live.com stuff.

Why would I want to sign up for an outlook.com account, if you can't even visit outlook.com without a live.com account? What features does does an outlook.com account have? I don't know because outlook.com doesn't even have a "features"-page or a "faq"-section. Or maybe it does, but unless I first sign up for a live.com account, I'll never know.

After reading the engadget article, I was curious and wanted to find out more. Two seconds after visiting outlook.com, it looks like Microsoft dropped the ball again. But then again, when was the last time Microsoft didn't drop it when they developed an internet service?

Leaked Report Reveals Music Industry's Anti-Piracy Strategy

A confidential internal report of the music industry outfit IFPI has been inadvertently made available online by the group itself. Penned by their Head of Internet Anti-piracy Operations, the report details the global strategy for the major recording labels of IFPI. Issues covered include everything from torrent sites to cyberlockers, what behavior IFPI expects of Internet service providers, the effectiveness of site blocking, and how pirates are accessing unreleased music from industry sources.

The IFPI report says it has 5 possible reactions to a threat:

1. Take down
2. Disruption
3. Investigation
4. Lobbying
5. Litigation

IFPI splits illicit content availability into two sections:

1. "content held on users' computers" and distributed via P2P networks such as BitTorrent, Gnutella, DirectConnect, eDonkey and Ares.
2. "content held on central servers", including file-hosts and cyberlockers.

IFPI is also keeping a close eye on the downloading and sharing of content across mobile data and other wireless networks. IFPI worries that these networks are providing here-and-now streaming of content via all-you-can-eat plans. Making matters worse is that IFPI reports challenges when it comes to matching an IP address to a subscriber.

The recording group also reports that Apple and Android architectures are encouraging the creation of 3rd party music apps. IFPI say they are crawling both the App Store and Google Marketplace and are focusing on "quick take down agreements" with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Palm to remove apps they don't like. They are also mulling an expansion of their "payment provider program" to target "rogue" Android app developers.

Unauthorized music sites

IFPI say they have identified in excess of 50 Russian and Ukrainian pay MP3 download sites. The group reports that law enforcement authorities have "secured evidence that the illegal sites are annually stealing hundreds of millions of dollars" which is creating opportunities for money laundering and tax evasion investigations. IFPI say their next steps will include strangling the sites' finances with the help of payment processors, recovering proceeds of crime, and developing asset confiscation.

Disruption of revenue streams

IFPI's advertiser strategy is based around the "disruption of revenue streams" to unauthorized sites by several methods. In the report they speak of a "structured notice and take down program targeting Google's AdSense and DoubleClick advertising networks," plus "out reach" to IASH and IAB to implement "comprehensive infringing block lists." IFPI says it also initiates direct contact with advertisers to flag when their ads appear on infringing sites. Agreements are said to be in place with VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, CTIA, Monitise, PaySafeCard and PhonePayPlus to strangle finances to unauthorized sites.

EU ignores will of the people after ACTA was rejected

The European Parliament rejected ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, with a large majority on 4 July 2012, but just one week later the EU is trying to push back the rejected agreement through the back door, that is, through CETA, the EU–Canada trade agreement that includes measures similar to ACTA.

The negotiations between EU and Canada on CETA started in November 2009 and will probably be ended by the end of this year. Just like ACTA, the trade deal has been drafted in secret but leaked documents, dated February 2012, have shown parts of ACTA being introduced in this new agreement.

MEP Nigel Farage drew the attention over the similarities between ACTA and CETA:

If the commission has a glimmer of respect for the voice of the people it would change CETA as soon as possible and stop trying to bring ACTA into legislative life by stealth. ACTA is like a Frankenstein which has been bolted together and keeps on moving. It is dangerous and must be brought to an end immediately.

Michael Geist:

The backdoor ACTA approach creates enormous risks for Canada's trade ambitions. Given the huge anti-ACTA movement, the Canada-EU trade deal could face widespread European opposition with CETA becoming swept up in similar protests.