Month: December 2016

If someone without the proper knowledge who happened to be the biggest fans of “Heroes“, this poor guy is going to think that the genetic alteration is a real stuff after seeing these guys flying around. Well, it’s actually not a real human. They are alike, but it’s actually a plain RC airplane with human […]

Microsoft möchte das überarbeitete Tastaturdock des Surface Book früh im ersten Quartal 2017 in den deutschen Handel bringen. Was die neue Surface Base allerdings hierzulande kostet, hat Redmond bisher nicht verraten, sondern einzig US-Preise. (Surface Book, Microsoft)

Google wird Kuba in sein Global Cache Network einbeziehen. Das löst jedoch nicht das Problem, dass ein Seekabel aus Florida fehlt. (Google, Eric Schmidt)

Es ist ein Grand Theft Auto der besonderen Art: Die Amazon-Autotestserie The Grand Tour mit Jeremy Clarkson soll laut Medienberichten derzeit die meistkopierte TV-Sendung sei - und sogar das diesbezüglich lange unfreiwillig führende Game of Thrones geschlagen haben. (Video-On-Demand, Urheberrecht)

Statistics are generally pretty boring, but when pirates come into play it’s an entirely different story.

Yesterday, numerous self-respecting news publications ‘reported’ that Amazon’s Top Gear ‘inspired’ series “The Grand Tour” is now the most pirated TV-show ever, beating Game of Thrones, which held this title for nearly a decade.

While it sounds exciting, it’s not really true.

Admittingly, collecting piracy statistics is far from an exact science. However, even when we look at publicly available data it’s obvious The Grand Tour is no competition for Game of Thrones.

The confusion started with a report from the bastion of quality news reporting, The Daily Mail. “Clarkson’s TV comeback becomes the most illegally downloaded show in history,” it claimed.

The report cites data from piracy monitoring firm MUSO and suggests that the first episode was illegally downloaded 7.9 million times. More than any other show in history, the company’s chief commercial officer claimed.

“It is the most illegally downloaded programme ever. It is off the scale in terms of volume. It has overtaken every big show, including Game Of Thrones, for the totals across different platforms,” MUSO’s Chris Elkins said.

While we’re not going to dispute this number directly, the “most downloaded” claim is nonsense. First of all, it would be virtually impossible for any new show to be the most downloaded ever if it’s up against those that have been available for years.

But, let’s assume that we’re talking about downloads on a weekly basis. Even then, the signs are pretty bad. Looking at the most recent list of most pirated TV-shows on The Pirate Bay shows that several other shows currently outrank The Grand Tour by a wide margin, The Walking Dead in particular.

In addition, recent streaming data from several of the most popular streaming sites online places The Grand Tour behind The Walking Dead, which traditionally is far less popular than Game of Thrones.

TorrentFreak has kept a close eye on the most-shared torrents for The Grand Tour, which get roughly 20,000 people sharing simultaneously at their peak. Peanuts compared to Game of Thrones’ record, which sits at over a quarter million.

Also, the claimed “record” number of downloads is significantly less than our 14+ million estimate for Game of Thrones last year.

Even Muso itself indirectly disputes its own claim, as the quoted 7.9 million figure for the Grand Tour is lower than an estimate it previously gave for Game of Thrones.

We asked Muso itself for clarification and it appears that there has been some misunderstanding. The spokesperson for the company suggests that The Grand Tour is ‘just’ the most pirated UK TV show.

“Demand analysis across a three week monitoring period for episodes 1-3 of The Grand Tour placed it as having the highest volume of piracy views for a UK TV show in history, as well as the most piracy views in a debut season for a TV show.”

That sounds more like it. In addition, it’s probably also the most pirated TV show with the word “Grand” in the title, as well as the most illegally downloaded show about cars.

TorrentFreak asked the company for additional clarification on what data is covered in the 7.9 million estimate, as “piracy views” suggests that it’s about more than torrent downloads. It’s likely that MUSO also included a streaming estimate in its data, but at the time of publication we have yet to receive a response.

We don’t know whether MUSO was misquoted by The Daily Mail, but it’s safe to say that The Grand Tour still has a long way to go before it outpaces Game of Thrones, if it ever will.

Fake news anyone?

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

Alle Optionen, die Facebook im Kampf gegen Propaganda und Falschmeldungen derzeit hat, sind schlecht. Die schlechteste: jede Verantwortung auf die Nutzer abwälzen. (Facebook, Soziales Netz)

Experten für Game Engines, Spieleprogrammierer und Fachleute für Streaming und die Cloud: Golem.de bietet auf der Fachmesse Quo Vadis ein Podium für Vorträge, Best-Practice-Präsentationen und Diskussionen. Noch bis Mitte Januar 2017 können sich Sprecher mit ihren Ideen melden. (Quo Vadis, Applikationen)

Swedish ISPs have argued against the block of The Pirate Bay in the piracy site's home country, warning that it amounted to nothing less than censorship.

The ISPs, Bredbandsbolaget and Telenor, were both responding to an Appeals Court hearing, which will determine whether rights-holders, including Universal Music and the Swedish Film Industry, have to right to force ISPs to block the Pirate Bay. 

Both ISPs warned against this potential "dangerous path" according to a translation obtained by TorrentFreak.

"It is a dangerous path to go down, which forces Internet providers to monitor and evaluate content on the Internet and block websites with illegal content in order to avoid becoming accomplices," the companies wrote in a joint statement.

"The copyright holders argue that the blockades they request are similar to those in neighboring Nordic countries. But with the legislation we have in Sweden, it means rightsholders' demands require a form of censorship that has no equivalent in any other EU country."

The rights-holders are appealing an earlier decision by the district court which found that ISPs were not liable for the actions of their customers.

The ISPs didn't entirely close the door on all kinds of anti-piracy measures to be implemented on the ISP side of things, but asked for rights-holders work with them to come up with an industry based solution.

"We hope that the rightholders will be more open to dialogue when this lawsuit is over," the ISPs wroe.

[via TorrentFreak]

Valve hat das bislang größte Update für Dota 2 veröffentlicht. Version 7.00 bietet mit dem Affenkönig einen neuen Helden, dazu kommen Änderungen an der Karte, der Nutzeroberfläche und an vielen weiteren Elementen. (Dota 2, Valve)

Apple hat für das Apple TV und die Apple Watch neue Betriebssystem-Updates bereitgestellt, die Fehler beheben und teilweise auch neue Funktionen mitbringen. (Apple, Apple TV)