Month: February 2016

Die Spione dürfen weiterhacken: Privacy International und der CCC sind mit einer Beschwerde gegen die Hacking-Praxis des britischen Geheimdienstes gescheitert. Das Investigatory Powers Tribunal möchte die "dringenden Bedürfnisse der Geheimdienste" schützen. (GCHQ, CCC)

Über ihr Opendata-Portal hat die Deutsche Bahn eine Liste von Haltestellen in Deutschland unter Creative Commons veröffentlicht. Darin finden sich nicht nur große Bahnhöfe, sondern auch Haltepunkte und Anlagen anderer Verkehrsunternehmen. (Deutsche Bahn, Open Data)

Der auf Games spezialisierte Streamingdienst Twitch.tv wächst: Durchschnittlich haben im Jahr 2015 mehr als eine halbe Million Zuschauer den Dienst in jedem Augenblick genutzt. Bei einem besonderen Event waren es sogar mehr als zwei Millionen. (Twitch.tv, Film)

Kanye West has been dominating the news this week with a combination of absurd statements and the release of his new album The Life of Pablo.

In a surprise move West released his album exclusively on Tidal and his personal website. This limited availability angered many fans who refuse to sign up for an expensive monthly subscription.

And even those who signed up for Tidal had issues getting their hands on the album. Tidal’s support desk has been flooded with complains from people who failed to receive a copy due to issues with the service’s payment system.

Then, a few hours ago, Kanye West fueled the controversy by claiming that his latest album will never be for sale.

“My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal,” he wrote.

Not for sale

Kanye’s statement received a lot of pushback from fans, several of whom had already noticed the various unauthorized copies of The Life of Pablo that have been floating around on the Internet.

Soon after the album was released pirated copies started to populate many torrent and direct download sites, something many people on social media were quick to point out.

Arrr

TorrentFreak has been keeping a close eye on the popularity of the album on BitTorrent and after the first day an estimated 500,000 people have already grabbed a copy.

The album is currently leading The Pirate Bay’s list of most shared music torrents by a landslide. At the time of writing close to 10,000 people were sharing a copy of the most popular torrent simultaneously, something we haven’t seen with a music release before.

Aside from torrent sites, the album is also being widely distributed on various direct download services and hosting sites, increasing the overall piracy numbers even further.

The Life of Pablo

The Life of Pablo was a highly anticipated album which would have resulted in a lot of piracy anyway, but it’s safe to say that the limited release boosted these numbers significantly.

On the flip side, Tidal most likely received tends of thousands of new subscribers, so it’s hard to draw any strong conclusions in terms of revenue. But perhaps Mark Zuckerberg can jump in if the results are disappointing.

Thus far Kanye hasn’t commented on the piracy issue, but the RIAA is working hard to take links to pirated content down. Many of the torrents that were uploaded yesterday have been removed, but these are soon replaced by new ones.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Andere haben Prototypen oder fertige Geräte, Microsoft hat ein Patent angemeldet: Es geht um den modularen Computer, der steck- und stapelbar ist, genauer einen All-in-One-PC samt Bildschirm. (AiO, Microsoft)

Die Deutsche Telekom hat neue Magenta-Mobil-Tarife vorgestellt. Künftig gibt es generell mehr ungedrosseltes Datenvolumen und alle drei Flatrates können ohne Aufpreis im europäischen Ausland verwendet werden. Das führt zu höheren monatlichen Preisen. (Telekom, Mobilfunk)

Die Deutsche Telekom führt eine Tarifoption für Magenta-Eins-Kunden ein. Bei Buchung der Tarifoption erhalten die Kunden jedes Jahr ein neues Smartphone oder auch ein neues Tablet. Das alte Gerät kann beliebig weiter genutzt werden. (Telekom, Mobilfunk)

Das Internet Archive hat Tausende Shareware- und Freeware-Anwendungen für Windows 3.1 gesammelt und stellt sie jetzt zum Download bereit. Sie lassen sich im Browser testen - wir haben es ausprobiert. (Internet Archive, Supercomputer)

This special episode features Lance Weiler – writer, director & experience designer. Lance is the creator of movies The Last Broadcast (1998) and Head Trauma (2005). WIRED magazine named him ‘one of 25 people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.’

As well as zooming through Lance’s career, Jamie and Lance discuss how digital distribution revolutionized indie filmmaking, while filmmakers resisted it; how Lance sees piracy as a positive; the challenges for discovery and attention when everyone’s a creator; and how to hijack Sherlock Holmes.

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Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing copyright and file-sharing news. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary and analysis.

The guests for our news discussions will vary and we’ll aim to introduce voices from different backgrounds and persuasions. In addition to news, STS will also produce features interviewing some of the great innovators and minds.

Host: Jamie King

Guess: Lance Weiler.

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Eric Bouthiller
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Siraje Amarniss

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Bundesverkehrsminister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) will 15.000 neue Ladesäulen für Elektroautos in Deutschland aufstellen lassen. Diese sollen etwa an Einkaufszentren und Baumärkten privat betrieben werden. (Elektroauto, GreenIT)