Pressmeddelande från Piratpartiet:

- Det är glädjande att Europaparlamentet nu har röstat för att frysa SWIFT-avtalet. Låt oss hoppas att det är slutet för detta avtal, som aldrig borde ha ingåtts från första början, säger Christian Engström som är ledamot av Europaparlamentet för Piratpartiet.

Det var med röstsiffrorna 280 mot 254 som Europaparlamentet i dag uttalade att man vill se SWIFT-avtalet suspenderat tills vidare. Detta efter att det framkommit uppgifter om att USA genom underrättelsemyndigheten NSA skall ha tillskansat sig mer data om europeiska banktransaktioner än avtalet medger. USA har också meddelat att NSA kan bereda sig tillgång till bankdata i SWIFT utan att fråga någon om lov – och att de inte ser något problem med detta.

- Nu får vi se om EU-Kommissionen och kommissionär Cecilia Malmström lyssnar på parlamentet. Att ignorera dagens beslut vore arrogant. Men vi har våra farhågor. Vi skall komma ihåg att det var Malmström som förhandlade fram SWIFT-avtalet med USA under sin tid som EU-minister under det svenska ordförandeskapet 2009. Och det var hon som, efter upprepade försök, till slut övertalade Europaparlamentet att godkänna avtalet. Så man skall inte alls vara säker på att hon nu kommer att respektera parlamentets vilja, säger Christian Engström.

- SWIFT/TFTP-avtalet ger USA och dess underrättelseorganisationer tillgång till data om europeiska privatpersoners, företags, organisationers och myndigheters bankaffärer. Och uppgifterna lämnas ut i bulk, det vill säga att ett stort antal helt oskyldiga människor drabbas. Detta är inte acceptabelt och Europaparlamentet skulle aldrig ha godkänt avtalet från första början, säger Christian Engström.

- Oavsett om det är USA eller något annat land som vill ha tillgång till bankdata från SWIFT, så får de vända sig till Europol med en traditionell begäran. En sådan skall naturligtvis beskriva en konkret misstanke om brott eller hot och uppgifter om vem som är misstänkt. Sedan skall en sådan begäran prövas rättsligt, på ett rättssäkert sätt. Europa måste stå fast vid rättsstatens grundläggande principer och inte skeppa iväg stora mängder känslig data på lösa boliner, avslutar Christian Engström som är ledamot av Europaparlamentet för Piratpartiet.

Andra om ämnet: SvD, Europaportalen, Gigaom,

In recent years YouTube has become a wonderful platform for individuals to create a product and generate revenue from it, often from the comfort of their own homes. Many provide services such as hints, tips and tutorials on anything from baking to flying a plane, but growing in popularity are YouTube-based reviewers.

One guy who has gone down that particular route is John Bain, an Englishman known online as TotalBiscuit. Bain is a great success and has almost 1.3 million subscribers to his PC gaming YouTube channel. However he now finds himself in a copyright takedown controversy sparked by his review of Wild Games Studio’s first-person survival game Day One: Garry’s Incident.

There’s no way to sugar-coat Bain’s review – he hated it, and quite rightly so. The 21 minute review ripped apart the graphics, gameplay and presentation of the game and it was quite obvious from Bain’s tone this wasn’t going to end well. Aside from the odd element receiving a lukewarm reception, the review concluded that the game is a complete turkey.

The astonishing graphical excesses of Day One: Garry’s Incident

The video review became highly viewed very quickly, topping search results for the game on YouTube. But without warning it suddenly disappeared, only to be replaced by a copyright infringement notice, issued by none other than Wild Games Studio themselves.

At this point it’s worth pointing out that Bain is no stranger to the studio. They gave him a free key to access a review copy of the game on Steam and asked Bain to place a link in his review to where the game could be bought. It was perhaps appropriate then that the CEO of the studio decided to justify their takedown actions on the Stream forums themselves.

Well aware of the circumstances behind the review and his protections under copyright law to critique the game if he so chooses, Bain summed up the mess on Twitter.

“Long story short. Dev sends code, code used to make critique, dev dislikes critique, dev abuses system to censor critique,” he said.

“This happened 2 days ago, we contacted [Wild Games] for an explanation and have heard nothing. Giving them til Monday to respond before going nuclear. It should be pointed out that US Fair Use doctrine exists in particular to protect criticism from being censored in such a way.”

While Bain may have had the intention of not “goin nuclear” until today, things are now largely out of his hands. His follow-up video (embedded below) which explains events to date has already received more than 500,000 views and the backlash on Metacritic is something to behold, with the game currently receiving 0.6 out of 10 after 683 votes. It is very clear from the comments that the Metacritic reviewers know what the developer did to Bain.

“This highlights a wider problem and an issue that must be addressed. Look at how easily a company was able to censor the most-watched and prominent critique of their game by abusing YouTube’s copyright claim system,” Bain says. “Look at how they were able to completely flaunt the notion of networks policing their partners and using a shoot first, ask questions later form, to deny revenue to someone who they didn’t like.”

In order to draw attention to the issue, Bain says he will be donating all YouTube revenue generated by the ‘incident’ to the EFF.

In the meantime, anyone wanting to see the original review can find it on here on DailyMotion, ironically now being monetized by someone else.

Source: Game Devs Abuse Copyright to Censor Negative YouTube Review

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Every week copyright holders send millions of DMCA takedown notices to Google in the hope of making pirated content harder to find.

Microsoft has been one of the most active senders and over the past month alone has asked Google to remove more than a million infringing URLs from its indexes. In addition the software giant also strips infringing links from its own search engine Bing.

While most of the submitted URLs do indeed link to infringing content, not all requests sent by Microsoft and other copyright holders are correct. Their often automated anti-piracy systems regularly trigger notices that include links to perfectly legitimate content, sometimes from direct competitors.

The latter happened with several recent DMCA takedown requests sent to Google on behalf of Microsoft. The notices, which contain references to unauthorized copies of Microsoft Office, also list many links to Apache’s open source office suite, OpenOffice.

Microsoft targets OpenOffice

The example illustrated above is not an isolated incident either. A quick search reveals that more than a dozen notices sent in June alone (e.g. ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}) include links to OpenOffice downloads, mostly on BitTorrent sites.

OpenOffice itself lists several official torrents on its download page and many of these are re-distributed across torrent sites. However, thanks to the overbroad filtering techniques of Microsoft’s DMCA takedown vendors many of these have now been stripped from Google and other search engines, Bing included.

Admittedly, OpenOffice and Microsoft Office are related terms, so mistakes can happen. However, based on the URLs we see that few attempts have been made to prevent this particular error from happening. It wouldn’t be hard, for example, to exclude the keywords “Open Office” to minimize instances of collateral damage.

Over the past several months Microsoft and many other copyright holders have built up a dubious track record when it comes to DMCA takedown notices. In addition to many “bogus” claims the company also tried to have its own website removed from Google.

The above mistakes may be relatively harmless to Apache’s OpenOffice, but they show once again how much can go wrong with these automated DMCA notices. This is particularly troublesome since Google down-ranks sites based on the number of DMCA notices it receives for them.

TorrentFreak asked Microsoft to comment on the mistakes but we have yet to hear back. Previously a company spokesman told us that the company is trying hard to eliminate false positives.

“Microsoft is committed to ensuring that copyright is respected online and that enforcement measures are appropriate and accurate. We and our vendors use several measures to verify the accuracy of information contained in our DMCA notices, including algorithmic and human review of notices,” Microsoft informed us.

Despite these efforts erroneous takedowns continue to stack up.

Source: Microsoft Censors OpenOffice Download Links

A couple of things. First off, ‘Close but no WiFi’ is something my cousin Nab said once, and it got me thinking about other sayings. Secondly, yes, some of these don’t quite make sense if you think about them too long—some are just meant to be funny. Also, ‘Don’t bite the hand…’ came to mind when thinking of the Google RSS debacle, and for some strange reason when I look at ‘Never judge an app by its icon’, I think of Marco Arment’s Bugshot (I know the story behind it, so in the words of Marco “Don’t email me.”). Also, normally with a post like this I’d ask for y’all’s ideas on other ones, but I plan on doing another set, so I don’t want to cheat by seeing some other great ones. ;) Thanks for reading this whole thing.

Earlier this week we reported that Google has already received takedown requests for more than 100 million URLs this year.

While most of the submitted URLs do indeed link to infringing content, not all requests received by Google are correct.

The automated systems used by many of the copyright holders often trigger notices that include links to perfectly legitimate content, and sometimes even their own work. The latter happened in a recent DMCA takedown request sent by LeakID on behalf of Microsoft.

Instead of listing URLs of infringing material, Microsoft asked Google to remove links to their own websites, as can be seen below. The six links point to Microsoft’s store, support pages and product descriptions. A pretty embarrassing mistake to say the least.

Whoops..

Luckily for Microsoft, Google spotted the error, meaning that the pages in question have not been removed from the search results, although it would have been a fitting punishment if Google had decided to comply with the request.

While the above error is rather entertaining, matters gets more serious when copyright holders censor legitimate content produced by others. It’s hard to say how frequently this happens, but just by browsing through the many DMCA notices we have been able to find dozens of examples already.

Just two weeks ago we found that HBO had asked Google to remove a perfectly legal copy of the open source video player VLC, for example. The link in question was clearly submitted in error, but at the time of writing it’s still absent from Google’s search result.

Some individuals respond to these mistakes by blaming the search engine, and taking counter-action. For example, a person who uses the handle “Google dicksuck” decided to respond to the VLC takedown request by asking Google to remove HBO.com.

How about this takedown?

Unfortunately for him or her, Google did not remove the TV-network’s website.

Of course Google can’t really be blamed for responding to takedown requests because they are required to do so by law. Considering the millions of notices submitted to them every week, Google does a pretty good job at filtering out the most obvious mistakes.

The copyright holders on the other hand could take much more care to prevent these errors. Even if it’s just to avoid embarrassing themselves.

Update: A Microsoft spokesperson told TorrentFreak the following in response to our findings.

“We believe strongly in the effectiveness and the need for accuracy in the use of notice and takedown to address online infringement. To explain what happened here, Google’s online form requires identification of both the copyrighted content being infringed and the website address of the infringement.”

“A vendor properly listed those six urls as Microsoft copyrighted content that was being infringed, but then inadvertently copied and pasted those same six urls in the field to identify the locations of infringement. This simple clerical error was identified and corrected right away, and we have taken steps to address the process to avoid it being repeated.”

Source: Microsoft Wants Google to Censor…. Microsoft.com

On Monday David Cameron told his citizens that by the end of the year broadband subscribers will be required to go through a compulsory system which will decide what they can and cannot see on the Internet.

Starting from a position of ‘porn banned’, subscribers will have to systematically unblock things they require access to. This, Cameron says, will help prevent the nation’s children from gaining access to “corroding influences” online.

While the idea of protecting children is a commendable one, censorship opponents leveled several criticisms at the scheme. Would it work? Would it lead to over-blocking? Would the system be easily circumvented? What about the privacy implications?

In the last few hours new information has been emerging which reveals that the proposals seen so far are actually only the thin end of a worryingly fat wedge.

The Open Rights Group are reporting that they’ve had a nice little chat with some of the ISPs that will be expected to introduce Cameron’s porn filter. Unsurprisingly the list of websites and content to be blocked by default won’t stop at porn.

ORG speculate on categories of content that might be filtered in future, but for a clearer idea of where we stand today we can take a look at the system currently being operated by ISP TalkTalk. The HomeSafe system, which was singled out for praise by David Cameron earlier this week as leading the way in this field, currently covers several categories as detailed in the image below.

As previously noted, leave the third box ticked and not only will all file-sharing sites be wiped out, but TorrentFreak with them too. Leave the rest of them ticked (note: the government is promising “default on” for all filters) and it’s anyone’s guess what else will disappear. Just like when many novice (or even experienced users) install software, the chances of people simply clicking through, next after next, is extremely high.

Furthermore, in news that’s unlikely to win the PM or TalkTalk many fans, it’s now been revealed by the BBC that HomeSafe is being run by Huawei, a Chinese company founded by a former China People’s Liberation Army officer.

The UK government already knows about the connection, as an Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report released last month expressed concern over the “alleged links between Huawei and the Chinese State” as they “generate suspicion as to whether Huawei’s intentions are strictly commercial or are more political.”

Whether Huawei is linked to the government or not (they insist not), it’s hardly encouraging to discover that even when TalkTalk subscribers turn filtering completely off, their traffic is still routed through Huawei’s system.

UK ISPs will be free to use whatever filtering system they like when the time comes, but it’s certainly possible that some will choose to use the existing service offered by Huawei. In order to thwart their traffic being monitored, subscribers will still be able to use a VPN. Unless circumvention tools are blocked too, as Open Rights Group suggest.

Shameless plug for Dan Bull’s new track on Cameron’s blacklist.

Source: UK Porn Filter Will Censor Other Content Too, ISPs Reveal

PayPal is widely known for their aggressive stance towards BitTorrent sites, Usenet providers and file-hosting services, but a new development suggests that VPN providers can suffer the same fate too.

PayPal has stopped providing payment services to the Swedish based VPN provider iPredator. In addition, all the organization’s funds have been frozen. iPredator is commonly known as the “Pirate Bay” VPN as it was launched by the old Pirate Bay crew in 2009, but it’s currently operated by an independent non-profit foundation.

Ipredator and Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde informs TorrentFreak that this disconnection came without prior warning and with no explanation from PayPal as to why the organization is no longer allowed to accept payments. PayPal simply stated that there is “an issue with the account.”

For Sunde and his team the disconnection comes at an unfortunate time. Just three weeks ago iPredator was also kicked out by its credit card payment processor Payson, who changed their terms of services and disallowed VPNs. Sunde believes that the two incidents are related.

“It’s not a coincidence that we are banned from Payson, and then PayPal a few weeks after,” he told TorrentFreak.

The iPredator team has tried to contact PayPal to get more information on the reason for the disconnection, but thus far without luck. The VPN provider still has to find a replacement for Payson as well, but to date have been unsuccessful.

Worryingly, one large European payment processor informed iPredator that they have been put on a blacklist of services that are not allowed to accept credit card payments.

“One processor we talked with, to replace Payson, told us that we were on a blacklist of services that are prohibited to accept credit cards. This apparently happened shortly after Payson announced it could no longer process MasterCard and Visa payments for VPN providers,” Sunde explains.

TorrentFreak has asked both MasterCard and Visa about the claims of an operational blacklist, but both companies denied one exists. However, Sunde believes that they are covering something up.

“It’s a sad day for democracy when third parties interfere with legal business, and then lie about it. This is typically something we hope someone leaks so we can see what they are morally censoring,” he adds.

Mastercard’s Senior Vice President of External Communications, Andrew Bowins, further said that they have no policy to ban VPN services, but that they occasionally disconnect merchants who violate their terms.

“We don’t currently have a policy that unilaterally prohibits VPNs or anonymizers. That said, in order to protect the integrity of the payment system and its participants, we do review merchants to determine whether their models are in compliance with our rules,” Bowins told TorrentFreak.

Neither MasterCard nor Visa could confirm that iPredator was allowed to process credit card payments. Several other payment processors and acquiring banks we contacted regarding the matter did not reply, and PayPal has offered no explanation for their decision either.

For Sunde and the rest of the iPredator team it’s this vagueness and lack of transparency that’s most frustrating. If they are for some reason banned, they would like to know on what grounds.

“If someone SAYS what it is, we can at least argue about it. With the enormous power they have accumulated, they are required to offer some transparency and responsibility,” Sunde tells us.

Without a response from PayPal we can only guess why iPredator is banned. Perhaps it’s their affiliation with the Pirate Bay, the fact that they operate a proxy, or because VPNs are starting to become tricky business. Truth is, we just don’t know.

Meanwhile, iPredator is now forced to go to the “dark corners” of the internet to find payment providers who are still willing to work with them. The VPN provider still has a few payment options left, including Bitcoin, and they hope that the public are willing to support them in during these tough times.

Source: PayPal Cuts Off “Pirate Bay” VPN iPredator, Freezes Assets

“By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account the settings to install family-friendly filters will be automatically selected. If you just click ‘next’ or ‘enter’, then the filters are automatically on,” David Cameron will announce today.

The prime minister is on a moral crusade to protect the country’s children – a commendable cause – but is this really the way to go about it?

Accepting the filters will supposedly stop adult material from being accessible from an Internet connection, but so far no one has been forthcoming about how this will be achieved. The prime minister does, however, indicate that this will be something controlled and administered remotely.

“And, in a really big step forward, all the ISPs have rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account. No more hassle of downloading filters for every device, just one-click protection. One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe,” he will say.

It seems likely that the ISPs will implement a system similar to the one currently being used by TalkTalk, as the prime minister will specifically single the ISP out for praise in his speech.

TalkTalk’s HomeSafe is a system which filters out URLs based on a remote blocklist provided and maintained by…..well, no one quite knows. This is worrying since when things don’t go quite to plan there’s no one to complain to.

As previously reported, when TalkTalk customers are asked whether they want to block file-sharing sites, TorrentFreak.com is rendered inaccessible. Despite our pleas and complaints that we are a news resource, the company said it would not remove us from their blocklist. We doubt we’re the only ones being silenced.

But of course, millions of households in the UK view adult material every day online anyway, so they will simply disable the filters when they get the chance. That’s just neutralized Cameron’s censorship efforts on that front in the blink of an eye. But there’s more.

The prime minister will also put search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo on notice that they will have to introduce further measures to block searches for illegal content such as child pornography. Google already has a zero-tolerance approach to images of child abuse so it’s not clear what more they can do, but they will have to says the PM.

“I have a very clear message for Google, Bing, Yahoo and the rest. You have a duty to act on this – and it is a moral duty. If there are technical obstacles to acting on [search engines], don’t just stand by and say nothing can be done; use your great brains to help overcome them.”

While few will argue against the need to protect children by cracking down on abusers, “illegal content” can take many forms – the law will shortly be updated to outlaw scenes of “simulated rape”, for example. The concern is that once ISPs and companies like Google are led down the censorship path, mission creep could come into play. Do they also have a “moral obligation” to protect, say, the content industries, once they have these systems in place?

The Cleanfeed system, first implemented in the by UK ISP BT, was designed to hide away images of abuse from Internet users but by 2011 it had been put to new use – blocking Usenet indexing site Newzbin2 following a court case initiated by the MPA. What began as “think of the children” eight years earlier later became “think of the copyright holders.” The chances seem high that history could repeat itself.

But it doesn’t stop there. If there is a moral obligation to censor on child safety grounds, will there also be calls to censor ‘potential’ terrorist material (and by whose definition) or those with extreme political views? If so, who will be the watchdog, and how transparent will his decisions be?

Finally, one should consider whether any of this is going to be effective in achieving its aims of stopping children becoming corrupted and abused. Frankly, it seems unlikely. Censorship of file-sharing sites is being carried out in the UK almost every month now and as time goes on users are becoming more and more adept at evading the blocks. A sampling of Twitter comments from the last few hours tells the story.

“Wow, they couldn’t even block Pirate Bay. Now they think they can take on porn. Morons,” said one unimpressed individual responding to BBC News.

“For the effectiveness of efforts to block anything on the internet see the ban on accessing the Pirate Bay,” said another.

Worryingly, if circumventing blocks is this easy for people casually looking for some MP3s or a TV show, imagine the simplicity for the hardened child abuser looking for his fix.

The solution is not to force ISPs and Google to hide this criminal behavior away in an effort to pretend it somehow doesn’t exist, but to hit it at its source. But the suggestion of how that may be achieved is also just a little bit scary.

According to the Guardian, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is going to draw up a list of “abhorrent” search terms to enable the identification of people searching for this content.

Monitored Google searches? We definitely haven’t heard the last of this.

Update: A petition against the government’s plans is gathering pace, with 11,000+ signatures in a day.

Source: Porn to be Blocked in the UK – “What’s new?” Say Pirate Bay Users

Nerval's Lobster writes "In 2009, when Apple dropped the Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions from songs sold through the iTunes Store, it seemed like a huge victory for consumers, one that would usher in a more customer-friendly economy for digital media. But four years later, DRM is still alive and well — it just lives in the cloud now. Streaming media services are the ultimate form of copy protection — you never actually control the media files, which are encrypted before delivery, and your ability to access the content can be revoked if you disagree with updated terms of service; you're also subject to arbitrary changes in subscription prices. This should be a nightmare scenario to lovers of music, film, and television, but it's somehow being hailed by many as a technical revolution. Unfortunately, what's often being lost in the hype over the admittedly remarkable convenience of streaming media services is the simple fact that meaningfully relating to the creative arts as a fan or consumer depends on being able to access the material in the first place. In other words, where your media collection is stored (and can be remotely disabled at a whim) is not something to be taken lightly. In this essay, developer Vijith Assar talks about how the popularity of streaming content could result in a future that isn't all that great. 'Ultimately, regardless of the delivery mechanism, the question is not one of streaming versus downloads,' he writes. 'It's about whether you want to have your own media library or request access to somebody else's. Be careful.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I sometimes shock my fellow human being by telling them that I am a criminal.

One might suspect this is done in order to stir up a conversation among and with my fellow human beings. It is. But more than that, it is done in order to inform them that I am indeed a criminal.

You may or may not find the reason I'm a criminal laughable. The reason is that I'm a file sharer. Which might not seem like such big deal - there are worse things to be guilty of, after all, and in the grander scheme of things it's not that big of a deal. When they wrote the seven deadly sins, copying computer files was not among them. You may or may not approve of it, but when compared to murder, rape or large scale financial fraud, there's not too much doubt about which one is the worst. Which one will send you to hell, and which one will at the most give you time in purgatory.

There is a qualitative difference between the one in the other.  When push comes to shove, misdemeanor and hard core criminality are two different things, and should be treated differently.

The crux here is that in the eyes of the law, this difference does not exist. According to the law, I am as likely to go to jail for the one as the other, and if I ever become the target of a legal process, I am as guilty as charged. And I both can and will go to prison for it, as sure as if I did something of the worse order.

The reason I tell people I'm a criminal is that in the eyes of the law, I am a criminal. Not of the hardcore life of organized crime kind - but the kind that goes to jail anyway.

The disconnect between being a criminal and being a criminal is the prime reason I tell my fellow beings about my criminal being. Because it is not just me - it's just about everyone that is younger than me who's used a computer. There's a whole generation of criminals out there, living their life in the shadow of their possible prison sentences. Living their life in preparation for a police investigation - or a police raid - that may or may not ever come.

Living lives of crime. Becoming used to thinking like criminals. Without ever committing something most people would consider criminal. In the common sense use of the word.

This does not have to be.

Copyright Monopoly: The movie subtitle fansite undertexter.se has been raided by the police and copyright industry. This marks an escalation of the war against sharing culture and knowledge, as the site contained nothing but user-submitted translations of movie dialog. We are quickly coming to a two-tier justice system, where the copyright industry is right against single parents by definition, and that’s not taken very well.

The movie subtitle fansite undertexter.se, literally meaning subtitles.se, is a site where people contribute their own translations of movies. This lets people who aren’t good at the original language of a movie or cartoon put those fanmade subtitles – fansubs – on top of the movie or cartoon. Fansubbing is a thriving culture which usually provides better-than-professional subtitles for new episodes with less than 24 hours of turnaround (whereas the providers of the original cartoon or movie can easily take six months or more).

What’s remarkable about this raid is that the copyright industry has decided to do a full-out raid against something that is entirely fan-made. It underscores the general sentiment of the copyright monopoly not protecting the creator of artwork, but protecting the big distribution monopolies, no matter who actually created the art. The copyright industry in Sweden has previously asserted threateningly that the dialog of a movie would be covered by the copyright monopoly, and that any fan translation – even for free – would be a violation of that monopoly. Still, going all-out with a police raid backed by the copyright industry’s enforcement arm in Sweden is a clear escalation of violence.

(In Sweden, the copyright industry can legally order police raids. Such raids are called intrångsundersökning and are technically executed by the Enforcement Authority who enlist Police in turn. Details on the exact chain of command in this specific raid remain unclear as of Wednesday morning.)

In short, this event shows that the copyright industry will stop at nothing to reverse time to where they and they alone decided what culture and knowledge was available, and to whom. This war will not end until 1) the copyright industry is dead, or 2) they have complete control over access to the planet’s culture and knowledge. Pick your sides and place your bets.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the police is acting to protect the copyright industry, and not to uphold the law. This is very, very serious. When Netflix copied fansubs for their Hollywood movies from the fansub site DivXFinland, everybody was amused – even though it was a textbook copyright monopoly violation of those fansubs. But Netflix is part of the copyright industry, and therefore, they are above the law.

When the Swedish video-on-demand service Voddler sat up on its pretend high-horse-in-shining-armor and proclaimed its love for the copyright monopoly and how important it was to all of civilization, while at the same time building its entire service on GPL code and thereby committing a huge copyright monopoly violation themselves, there’s a pattern here. The rights, monopolies, and privileges don’t matter in the slightest; what matters is who holds them.

This is the emergence of a two-tier justice system, where some rules apply to one set of people (“high justice”), and other rules apply to the rest of people (“low justice”). But a two-tier justice system is not a justice system at all; it is an oppression system.

This game is a dangerous one to play for the political elite. When ordinary people are told that there aren’t police resources to investigate who raped them, who stole their car, and who broke into their home, and get the investigations closed in 15 minutes (which was the case with a rape investigation recently) – but there are police resources to conduct raids against fan-made creations from the common folk, just because the wealthiest feel like it (there’s not even a credible threat to base the raid on) — that’s a recipe for more than growing discontent. That’s a recipe for an uprising, in one form or another. Which form such an uprising takes will depend entirely on how bad the corruption has fested.

The crew from undertexter.se has a statement out as of this morning:

Undertexter.se has had a police raid this morning (July 9) and servers and computers have been seized, and therefore, the site is down. We who work on the site don’t consider an interpretation of dialog to be something illegal, especially not when sharing it for free. Henrik Pontén [the copyright industry's primary henchman in Sweden], who is behind the raid, disagrees. Sorry Hollywood, this was the totally wrong card to play. We will never surrender. [...] We must do everything in our power to stop these anti-pirates. [...]

The Swedish Pirate Party has published a press statement:

“The copyright industry is resorting to increasingly desperate measures to defend an obsolete copyright monopoly”, says Anna Troberg, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. “Today’s monopoly scuttles and inhibits creativity in a way that is completely unreasonable. The raid against undertexter.se is yet another piece of evidence that the time has come to reform the copyright monopoly from the ground up.”

(The subtitled frame illustrating the story is from the movie TPB AFK by Simon Klose.)

See also Marcus Fridholm, Gustav Nipe, Erik Hultin, Henrik Alexandersson, Magnihasa (all in Swedish).

UPDATE; In the Facebook thread, Adam Kumiszcza tips about a similar Polish case where the charges were dropped and the expert opinion was that translating from hearing and sharing for free is not infringing the copyright monopoly. This is relevant as any EU court sets precedent all over the EU.

New submitter egladil writes "As seen previously here on Slashdot, the European Parliament was to vote on 'whether existing data sharing agreements between the two continents should be suspended, following allegations that U.S. intelligence spied on E.U. citizens.' With the votes now having been cast, the result is 483 in favor of the resolution and 98 against, while 65 abstained. The resolution in question in part called for the U.S. 'to suspend and review any laws and surveillance programs that "violate the fundamental right of E.U. citizens to privacy and data protection," as well as Europe's "sovereignty and jurisdiction."' It also decided that the E.U. should investigate the surveillance of E.U. citizens, and finally gave backing to the European Commision in case they should decide to suspend the data sharing deals currently in place with the U.S., such as the Passenger Name Record and Terrorist Finance Tracking Program agreements. The question now is whether the E.U. commision will go through with suspending these deals or not."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Payment providers are increasingly taking action against sites and services that are linked to copyright infringement.

There’s an unwritten rule that Mastercard and Visa don’t accept file-hosting sites that have an affiliate program and PayPal has thrown out nearly all cyberlockers in recent months.

It now appears that these policies have carried over to VPN providers and other anonymizing services. Before the weekend customers of the popular Swedish payment service provider Payson received an email stating that VPN services are no longer allowed to accept Visa and Mastercard payments due to a recent policy change.

“Payson has restrictions against anonymization (including VPN services). As a result Payson can unfortunately no longer give your customers the option to finance payments via their cards (VISA or MasterCard),” the email states, adding that they still accept bank transfers as deposits.

The new policy went into effect on Monday, leaving customers with a two-day window to find a solution.

While the email remains vague about why this drastic decision was taken, in a telephone call Payson confirmed that it was complying with an urgent requirement from Visa and Mastercard to stop accepting payments for VPN services.

One of these customers is the iPredator VPN, launched by Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and friends. Sunde tells TorrentFreak that he is baffled by the decision, which he believes may be an effort to prevent the public from covering their tracks online and preventing government spying.

“It means that US companies are forcing non-American companies not to allow people to protest their privacy and be anonymous, and thus the NSA can spy even more. It’s just INSANE,” Sunde says.

Sunde explains that iPredator will always have plenty of other payment options, but sees it as an outrage that Mastercard and Visa have apparently decided to ban a perfectly legal technology.

“For iPredator there are always other payment methods, like Bitcoin, but it’s insane to censor a totally legit system that is there to avoid censorship and surveillance,” Sunde says.

Despite these alternatives, Sunde is not going to stand idly by. He informs TorrentFreak that Ipredator considering taking legal action, citing the Wikileaks win against the credit card companies as a favorable precedent.

Ipredator is far from the only VPN provider that is affected by the policy change. Anonine, Mullvad, VPNTunnel, Privatvpn and several others are also using Payson’s services.

At this point it’s unclear why the two companies are taking a stand against anonymizing services. It seems likely that an industry or authority has been pushing for the policy change behind the scenes. However, with privacy high on the agenda with the PRISM scandal, the move comes at an odd time.

TorrentFreak has reached out to Mastercard and Visa but we have yet to hear back from the companies. We are not aware of any other payment service providers who have taken action against VPN providers, so the scope of the actions are unknown at this point.

Update July 4: Visa Europe told us that it “has not been involved in this matter in any way, and has not made any such stipulations to Payson or to any other organisation.” We specifically asked whether VPNs and other anonymizing services are in any way prohibited by Visa, but the company didn’t confirm nor deny. Visa believes that the issue was raised by Payson’s acquiring bank, which acts as an intermediary between payment processors and card associations such as Visa and MasterCard.

Update July 8: MasterCard also denies that they are responsible for Payson’s decision to stop accepting VPN services. “Contrary to earlier reports, MasterCard has not been involved in this matter in any way. We have not placed any restrictions on Payson.” MasterCard’s Senior VP of External Communications, Andrew Bowins, told TorrentFreak. The company agreed to offer more insight into their policies which we will address in an upcoming article.

We have asked Payson to clarify the discrepancy and will update the article when we hear back from them.

Source: Mastercard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers?

Jag måste säga att det mest av allt känns konstigt när The Pirate Bay bjuder in till en tioårsfest den 10 augusti. Festen ska gå av stapeln i Stockholm – enligt uppgift i en lokal med plats för 6000 besökare. Varför känns detta så konstigt? Av flera skäl, som jag nu ska försöka att reda ut.

Lite konstigt är datumet. Jag är rätt säker på att The Pirate Bay inte existerade den 10 augusti 2003. Betänk att Piratbyråns lansering skedde i september och en blick i det kompletta nyhetsarkivet visar att det var först den 11 november 2003 som The Pirate Bay presenterades. Antagligen hade trackern varit uppe ett tag, men inte offentligt och knappast i tre månader. Alltså är det alldeles för tidigt att fira födelsedag den 10 augusti. Just denna konstighet är dock en petitess.

Desto konstigare är att inbjudan till födelsedagsfesten sprids genom en länk från The Pirate Bay till Facebook. Sajten som vill hylla sig själv klarar inte ens av att själv lägga upp en enkel infosida, utan måste förlita sig på en övervakningsmaskin. Vilken fin present till NSA! Men framför allt en oerhört slätstruket sätt att samla sina skaror. Detta känns väldigt, väldigt långt från hur The Pirate Bay brukade agera under sin storhetstid.

Samtliga hyperlänkar från festsidan går till andra sidor på Facebook. Numera har The Pirate Bay även en officiell sida på Facebook, där det kommuniceras åtskilligt som aldrig dyker upp på den egna sajten. Exempelvis att man nu efterfrågar donationer för att kunna bjuda in musikartister från Japan, Australien och USA. En av Piratpartiets festarrangörer skriver:

Want to be a part of history? Are you a dancer? Artist? Alternative culture? Circus artist? Singer? DJ? Videomaker? Actor? Street performer? – We want this party to embrace the very core of culture in any form. Consider signing up as a performer at the party. We can’t pay you, but if you wan’t to be with us – look for the open call for artists that will be announced later.

Om vi ska snacka kopimi, blir det väl ofrånkomligen så att “kulturens självaste kärna” är kopiering, om något. Men här ser jag snarare en kulturjargong som kretsar kring konstarternas moderna system, om än i postmodernt “alternativ” tappning. Detta känns för mig ganska konstigt, men det kanske bara är jag.

Betänk sen det faktum att The Pirate Bay de facto är en kriminaliserad organisation i dagens Sverige. Vi vet inte vilka individer som står bakom. Om någon skulle träda fram som officiell representant för The Pirate Bay, skulle vederbörande snart få en privaträttslig process på halsen. Detta gör det i praktiken omöjligt för The Pirate Bay “som organisation” att ordna en fest i Sverige.
Lösningen på detta problem tycks ha blivit att festfixandet har överlåtits på Piratpartiet Stockholm. Glidningen från “party” som i fest till “party” som i parti är kort sagt konstig.

Men outsourcandet tar inte slut där! Piratpartiet Stockholm uppger att de “ligger i förhandlingar med eventbolag” om att arrangera festen. Eventbolag! Behöver jag ens förklara varför detta känns skitkonstigt?

Allra konstigast – för att inte säga sorgligast – är det trötta apellerandet till en karikatyrmässig piratidentitet. Dricka rom, ha ögonlapp och ropa aaargh. Kanske får det begripas som ett sätt att besvärja insikten om att The Pirate Bay befinner sig i långsam förruttnelse alltsedan sensommaren 2010.

In Paul Theroux's dystopian novel O-Zone, wearing masks in public is simply a fact of life, because of the network of cameras that covers the inhabited parts of earth. Earthquake Retrofit writes with a story at the New York Times describing a life-imitating-art reaction to the perception (and reality) that cameras are watching more of your life than you might prefer: clothing that obscures your electronic presence. "[Adam Harvey] exhibited a number of his stealth-wear designs and prototypes in an art show this year in London. His work includes a series of hoodies and cloaks that use reflective, metallic fabric — like the kind used in protective gear for firefighters — that he has repurposed to reduce a person’s thermal footprint. In theory, this limits one’s visibility to aerial surveillance vehicles employing heat-imaging cameras to track people on the ground. He also developed a purse with extra-bright LEDs that can be activated when someone is taking unwanted pictures; the effect is to reduce an intrusive photograph to a washed-out blur. In addition, he created a guide for hairstyling and makeup application that might keep a camera from recognizing the person beneath the elaborate get-up. The technique is called CV Dazzle — a riff on 'computer vision' and 'dazzle,' a type of camouflage used during World War II to make it hard to detect the size and shape of warships."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This year The Pirate Bay celebrates its 10th anniversary, which is quite an achievement considering the legal trouble that surrounds it.

The site was founded in 2003 by Swedish pro-culture organization Piratbyrån (The Bureau of Piracy).

The idea was to create the first public file-sharing network in Sweden, but the site grew out to become a global file-sharing icon in the years that followed.

Today, there are millions of people who regularly visit the site and TPB has more than earned a place in Internet history, with one of the first servers being on permanent display in a museum.

To celebrate the 10 year milestone The Pirate Bay has decided to throw a party in Stockholm on August 10, hoping that thousands of sympathizers will come and meet up AFK.

“10 years is a lot on the internet timeline. When we first launched the tracker on a crappy laptop in Mexico, every tenth person on this planet used the Internet. Today, every third one does. Hundreds of millions of people in pretty much every country in the world uses our site,” the Pirate Bay announces.

“So, it’s time to celebrate the history and embrace the future. Let the world know that YOU are a part of The Pirate Bay. IT’S TIME TO PARTY!”

The party was first announced last fall and since then considerable progress has been made. There are currently six artists in the line-up who also participated on The Promo Bay, including the pirate band “Ye Banished Privateers” and rising UK star George Barnett.

Quite fittingly, the organization of the event will be handled by the Swedish Pirate Party who are looking to book a venue that can hold up to 6,000 people.

On Facebook more than 30,000 people have been invited and thus far over 15,000 have “confirmed” that they’re going. How many of these will really turn up has yet to be seen, but it may get crowded.

The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak that the event will not be used as a political rally, despite the Pirate Party’s involvement. The focus will be on drinking rum and having a good time with fellow pirates.

“It’s time to see the face of your fellow pirates. To shout ‘seeed!!1′ in public! To drink rum and wear eye patches like in the old days!” TPB notes.

“Let Stockholm taste some piracy!”

More details about the Stockholm venue and other meetups that may be organized throughout the world will be posted on the event’s Facebook page in the coming weeks.

Source: Pirate Bay Docks in Stockholm for Massive 10th Anniversary Party

An anonymous reader writes "Remember AltaVista from the late '90s? Yahoo is finally pulling life support and letting Altavista die a noble death after over 15 years of hard service." You can only take so many years of being a running gag.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

För att synskadade och blinda ska kunna läsa böcker måste de konverteras till tillgängliga format, som till exempel Braille. Sedan länge har de synskadades organisationer i olika länder rätt att ta fram böcker i tillgängliga format, tack vare ett undantag i upphovsrätten. Men hittills har de varit förbjudna att låta synskadade i andra länder få tillgång till de konverterade böckerna. Upphovsrätten förbjuder det, och bokförläggarna har slagits med näbbar och klor för att behålla det förbudet.

Det här har lett till absurda konsekvenser: Harry Potter på engelska har blivit konverterad till tillgängliga format åtta eller nio gånger — en gång i Storbritannien, en gång i USA, en gång i Canada, en gång i Australien, en gång på Irland och så vidare. Samtidigt är det så att majoriteten av alla böcker som ges ut aldrig blir konverterade, på grund av brist på resurser. Det gör det extra frustrerande att upphovsrätten har tvingat de synskadades organisationer att göra en massa onödigt dubbelarbete, istället för att kunna göra fler titlar tillgängliga.

Nu kommer ett internationellt avtal som förhandlats fram i FN-organet WIPO råda bot på den här situationen. Avtalet har slutförhandlats i Marrakech i veckan, och kommer att undertecknas vid en ceremoni imorgon fredag. Länge såg det ut som att det endera inte skulle bli något avtal, eller att det skulle bli ett avtal med så snåriga regler att det inte skulle ha någon positiv inverkan alls. Men glädjande nog ser det ut att ha blivit ett avtal som de synskadades organisationer är nöjda med.

Maryanne Diamond, som representerar organisationen World Blind Union WBU, skriver på deras hemsida:

”The WIPO treaty better than I could have hoped for.  We stayed firm and as a result all of the key issues for blind people remain in the final text.  This has been a long battle with many people playing important roles.  The text goes to the drafting committee Wednesday, Thursday back to plenary for formal adoption; Friday will be the signing ceremony and celebration.  Stevie Wonder will be here for that.  We are exhausted but thrilled with the outcome.”

Det här positiva resultatet var inte alls någon självklarhet. Busarna i de här förhandlingarna har varit USA och EU (inklusive Sverige), som har varit mycket ovilliga att gå med på ett meningsfullt avtal. Men till slut blev det alltså ett avtal som WBU är positiva till.

Jag har ingått i en informell grupp av EU-parlamentariker från olika partigrupper som har gjort vad vi har kunna för att sätta press på EU-kommissionen att ställa upp för de synskadades sida mot bokförläggarnas lobbyister. Vi har arbetat nära tillsammans med WBU och EBU (European Blind Union), som har sett till att vi haft tillgång till relevant information för att kunna ta upp frågan vid olika tillfällen i olika utskott i parlamentet.

Därför är jag väldigt glad nu när det visar sig att det ledde till ett avtal som förhoppningsvis kan förbättra situationen för miljoner synskadade människor runt om i världen. Om vi har lyckats mildra en av de samhällsskadliga effekterna av dagens överdrivna upphovsrätt, då har vi tagit ett litet steg i rätt riktning.

…………

Andra om ämnet: Techdirt, IP-Watch, Knowledge Ecology International

Pressmeddelande från Gröna gruppen i parlamentet

Mina tidigare bloggposter om böcker för synskadade

Apparently, he always walks around with a pokeball.  Ya know, just in case.

The beloved but doomed Google Reader is still a healthy source of traffic. Google+, on the other hand…

According to data from the BuzzFeed Network, a set of tracked partner sites that collectively have over 300 million users, Google Reader is still a significant source of traffic for news — and a much larger one than Google+. The above chart, created by BuzzFeed's data team, represents data collected from August 2012 to today. (Yesterday, Google announced that it would close Reader in July.)

We should add that this data isn't complete. Google Reader traffic became much harder to measure last year when Google began defaulting users to SSL encryption in such a way that masked referral data. And this doesn't include data from apps that use Google Reader as a sync service, such as Reeder. In other words, it's likely that we're actually missing some Reader traffic here.

The second graphic* shows measured Reader and Google+ referrals over time. This one, too, requires qualification: The changes in Reader's numbers can be explained mostly by the addition of new sites to BuzzFeed's partner network, not growth in Google Reader (the total number of visitors to partner sites increased, in other words).

But the relative numbers are still surprising: Despite claims that it has over 100m monthly active users, Google+ barely moves the needle for sites across the network, while Reader is a healthy source of readers.

*For reference: in August of 2012, according to the same data, Facebook drove over 70m visitors to sites in the network while Google Reader was well under 10m.

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