Month: April 2016

Hamburg bekommt als erste Großstadt VDSL mit 100 MBit/s von der Telekom. Alle Kunden müssen auf VoIP migrieren. Die anderen Metropolen müssen bis 2017 auf Vectoring warten. (Vectoring, VoIP)

Die Kompetenzen des Bundeskriminalamts bei der Terrorabwehr gehen den Verfassungsrichtern zu weit. Grundsätzlich ist der Einsatz von Bundestrojanern aber erlaubt. (Überwachung, Instant Messenger)

Following a series of High Court orders, six of the UK’s major ISPs are required to block access to dozens of the world’s most popular ‘pirate’ sites.

The measures were supposed to make it harder for UK Internet subscribers to access these sites, but the effects on actual behavior are widely debated.

A new study published by Carnegie Mellon University and Wellesley College researchers aims to provide some empirical evidence on this issue.

The researchers investigated the effects of a 2014 court order that required ISPs to block an additional 53 pirate sites. Using data from a panel of 58,809 UK Internet users, they then reviewed the changes in browsing patterns among these users.

Not surprisingly, visits to the blocked sites dropped dramatically, 90% in this case. However, the researchers didn’t observe an increase in visitors to pirate sites that remained unblocked.

“We found that these blocks caused a 90% drop in visits to the blocked sites while causing no increase in usage of unblocked sites. This led to a 22% decrease in total piracy for all users affected by the blocks”

This suggests that the pirate site blockades are indeed effective to a certain degree. However, as anecdotal evidence has shown in the past, they also boost the interest in circumvention tools such as VPNs.

“Some users of the blocked sites, however, did seem to employ technical workarounds to continue usage of the blocked sites,” the researchers reveal.

The data show a marginally significant effect which indicates that “for every 10 additional visits to blocked sites before the blocks, a consumer increased their visits to VPN sites after the blocks by an additional 30%.”

In other words, while some pirates may drop out, there are also those who actively try to circumvent the blockades.

Overall, however, the researchers conclude that there’s a decrease in piracy and an increase in use of legal services. This effect is most pronounced for ad supported streaming services, and to a lesser degree (and only a 75% confidence level) for paid services.

“We also found that these blocks caused a 6% increase in visits to paid legal streaming sites like Netflix and a 10% increase in videos viewed on legal ad supported streaming sites like BBC and Channel 5.”

One should take into account that the results are based on data from 2014, after several large pirate sites were blocked already. This means that other pirates may have already dropped out after earlier blocks, while the more persistent pirates remain.

This may also explain why there was a stronger effect on visits to legal services in a previous study. That said, the additional blocking measures still change people’s behavior.

“The evidence suggests that blocking large numbers of sites can still ‘move the dial’ in terms of consumer behavior, but that there may be diminishing returns as remaining pirates may be more dispersed or else have lower willingness to pay for legal content.

“Nonetheless, such blocks can serve to mitigate the possibility of a long-term return to the prior status quo,” the researchers add.

The research was carried out as part of Carnegie Mellon University’s Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics, which received a generous donation from the MPAA. However, the researchers suggest that their work is carried out independently.

That said, the results are likely to be used by the entertainment industries to justify additional blocks around the world.

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

Ein Erdrutsch und ein junger Krater: Die Sonde Dawn hat neue hochaufgelöste Bilder vom Zwergplaneten Ceres zur Erde gefunkt. (Raumfahrt, Nasa)

Swisscom erwartet, dass Smartphones, die 1 GBit/s unterstützen, im kommenden Jahr vorgestellt werden. LTE Advanced Pro soll Anfang 2017 in das Netz des Betreibers kommen. (Mobilfunk, Ericsson)

Der Suchmaschinenbetreiber Google findet sich selbst offenbar teilweise gefährlich. Er hält es jedoch mit Douglas Adams: "Don't Panic". (Google, Virus)

Ein Hersteller von Chips für wiederbefüllte Tintenstrahl- und Laserdruckerkartuschen kauft das Traditionsunternehmen Lexmark. Billige Verbrauchsmaterialien erwiesen sich als das bessere Geschäftsmodell. (Lexmark, IBM)

Bei den neuen Magenta-Mobil-Tarifen verspricht die Deutsche Telekom mehr als sie liefert. Nicht alle Bestandteile der Mobilfunktarife können uneingeschränkt auch im EU-Ausland verwendet werden. (Telekom, Mobilfunk)

Mehr Umsatz und Gewinn, aber ein Finanzchef und 12.000 Angestellte weniger: Intel hat im ersten Quartal 2016 gute Zahlen vorgelegt. Bis Sommer nächsten Jahres sollen 1,4 Milliarden US-Dollar eingespart werden, doch die Entlassungen kosten viel Geld. (Intel, Server)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has helped Blu-ray sales achieve a major milestone - it has beaten DVD sales for the first time in a given week.

The latest in the Star Wars saga, The Force Awakens has already broken many records in its theatrical run, and it was no surprise that the Blu-ray edition has continued to break most if not all of the standing Blu-ray records.

The Blu-ray and DVD sales results for the week ending April 9 shows Blu-ray breaking many records, including finally beating DVD after having come close last year during the week Jurassic World was released.

Weekly Blu-ray sales was $93.54 million, compared to only $64.26 million for DVDs. That's 59% of total disc sales belong to Blu-ray - the previous record was only 48%, set by Jurassic World last year.

While weekly Blu-ray sales didn't break any records, outside of the busy holiday sales period, this was the best weeks for Blu-ray. It outdid most weeks with big releases, but failed to match the power of 'Frozen', which debuted with an amazing $101.98 million for that week.

82.61% of those buying the new Star Wars film chose the Blu-ray edition over the DVD edition, which in itself was a new record for a new release (that wasn't a re-release or a Blu-ray exclusive). As a comparison, "only" 67.06% of buyers chose the Blu-ray edition of Jurassic World over the DVD only edition.

Surprisingly, Disney has chosen not to release a 3D edition on Blu-ray despite the film having a profitable 3D theatrical run, and the company has yet to commit to the Ultra HD Blu-ray format for a 4K edition of the film.