Month: July 2018

Autofahrer sollen im Dresdner Umland künftig besser einen Platz zum Parken finden: Der regionale Verkehrsverbund VVO will Parkplätze mit Sensoren ausstatten. Fahrer können in einer App sehen, an welcher Park-and-Ride-Station ein Platz für das eigene Auto frei ist. (Parken, Internet)

Die Besucher des Kraftwerk-Konzerts auf dem Stuttgarter Schlossplatz haben nicht schlecht gestaunt über einen Gastmusiker, den die Band eingeladen hatte: den Astronauten Alexander Gerst, live zugeschaltet von der ISS. (Raumfahrt, ISS)

After years of criticism from both international and local rightsholders, in 2013 the Russian government decided to get tough on Internet piracy.

Sites engaged in Internet piracy can now find themselves blocked by ISPs, who render them inaccessible to local citizens.

Several years on, Russia is still grappling with a huge piracy problem that refuses to go away. It has been blocking thousands of sites that allegedly engage in copyright infringement. Some of the blocks are lifted when sites comply but for those that repeatedly flaunt the rules, tougher punishment lies in wait.

Sites that continuously offer unauthorized content or links to that content can now be subjected to what is known locally as the “permanent lock”. Infamous torrent site RuTracker, for example, has been permanently blocked in Russia for some time but ever since its addition the list has been growing exponentially. This week the scale of the effort was revealed.

According to local telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor, more than 3,400 online resources where “multimedia content was repeatedly and improperly placed in violation of copyright” have been placed on Russia’s national Internet blacklist.

The sites and services have been blocked on the orders of two authorities, the Moscow City Court and the Ministry of Communications.

The Court, which handed down 302 blocking decisions, deals with cases against torrent trackers, streaming sites and music services based on complaints from rightsholders. When sites are determined to be non-compliant and/or repeat infringers, they are ordered to be blocked.

The Ministry, which handed down 2,286 decisions, deals with mirror and clones of sites that have been previously blocked by the City Court. Whenever such a site appears, to facilitate access to RuTracker, for example, it can be dealt with relatively swiftly.

The 3,400 permanently blocked resources are also forbidden from appearing in search results, a point highlighted by Roscomnadzor.

“The search engines Yandex, Mail.ru, Rambler, Sputnik and Google that have been operating in Russia have stopped issuing information about pirated Internet resources blocked on an ongoing basis,” the telecoms watchdog announced.

Earlier this month, Roscomnadzor revealed that efforts to block pirate resources increased in 2018, with the watchdog acting upon hundreds of decisions from the Moscow City Court.

“During the first half of 2018, Roscomnadzor received 791 decisions of the Moscow City Court on the adoption of preliminary provisional measures [blocking] aimed at protecting copyright and related rights of rights holders on the Internet,” Roscomnadzor revealed.

This represents an increase of 36% over the same period in 2017, where 507 decisions were handed down. Thus far this year, 567 decisions have concerned movies with 89 relating to protecting the rights of TV companies.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Wer einsteigt, gibt sein Einverständnis, dass er gefilmt wird - warnte ein Aufkleber am Auto eines Fahrers, der für Uber und Lyft im Einsatz ist. Was der Aufkleber verschwieg: Das Video war im Internet abrufbar. Uber hat den Fahrer suspendiert. (Uber, Datenschutz)

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Anti-piracy firms often portray copyright infringers as thieves that must be stopped or eradicated.

However, the people at UK firm MUSO have a different take on the piracy problem. With funding from the local Government, they’re offering classic takedown tools, but the company prefers to frame piracy as an opportunity rather than a threat.

This became apparent once again when UK telecoms regulator OFCOM released new figures this week. According to the agency, online subscription services including Netflix and Amazon Prime have, for the first time, overtaken satellite and cable TV.

This shows once again that the Internet is transforming the way people consume media. Moving from linear viewing to an on-demand model is something many ‘torrenters’ already envisioned more than a decade ago.

It’s a landmark change that certainly shouldn’t be ignored. This is something Chris Anderson, MUSO’s Head of Film & TV, wholeheartedly agrees with, albeit with a major footnote.

“Technology has completely transformed the way people are able to watch TV and the days of being tied to a TV schedule are well and truly behind us, with streaming services now officially the preference for the majority of viewers,” he says.

“The word ‘officially’ is key – because what these figures from Ofcom don’t take into account is the many hundreds of thousands of people who are streaming TV in the UK through unlicensed services and sites.”

When piracy is taken into account, online streaming overtook traditional TV viewing a long time ago.

There’s a general idea that legitimate streaming services are driving people away from pirate sites. However, that’s a misperception. While more and more pirates have a Netflix subscription, piracy remains alive and well.

“The idea that services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have eradicated piracy is a fallacy. Our figures show that global piracy has increased year-on-year, in spite of the rise of streaming services. The UK had 4,776,616,717 total visits to film and TV piracy sites in 2017 alone,” Anderson says.

MUSO encourages UK broadcasters not to fixate on the competition from legitimate streaming services alone, but to consider the potential pirate audience as well.

“Piracy audiences are one of the great untapped pools of wealth – they have extremely high intent to access content but are often simply unable to. Finding ways to access this audience could be the secret bringing higher profits back to broadcasting,” the company adds.

Of course, MUSO doesn’t make these comments without having a stake in the matter. The company previously launched a piracy marketing platform, which helps content creators to connect with and convert pirates.

That said, it’s a refreshing message compared to the usual stream of legal threats, crime reports and malware warnings.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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