YouTube Is Not Liable for Pirating Users, Court Rules

YouTube has won its most recent legal battle against German music rights group GEMA. The Higher Regional Court of Munich ruled that YouTube is not liable for content uploaded by its users, even when it profits from videos that are clearly copyright infringing.

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

sadyoutubeYouTube has been battling music rights group GEMA in several court cases for more than half a decade.

In one of the most prominent cases the music group, which claims to represent 70,000 artists, argued that YouTube is liable for the content its users upload.

As such, the music group demanded Google’s video service to pay 0.375 euro cents per view for a selection of copyrighted music videos.

Before the weekend the Higher Regional Court of Munich announced its verdict in the case, resulting in a clear win for Google. According to the court YouTube is not liable for the infringing material uploaded by its users.

The verdict, which confirmed a ruling from a lower court last summer, comes as a disappointment to GEMA. The music rights group believes that services such as YouTube are profiting from piracy.

“Today’s decision is most regrettable. The court has obviously followed YouTube’s argument that it is only the uploaders who are responsible for the contents that are retrievable via the service,” says Tobias Holzmüller, GEMA’s General Counsel.

“We consider this to be wrong. Furthermore, the decision is not justified from an economic perspective, as it continues to enable YouTube to generate high advertising revenues without passing them on to musical authors,” he adds.

The court’s decision is in line with the safe harbor principle which holds that user-generated content services are automatically not responsible for the actions of their users.

However, in recent months various music industry groups have called on lawmakers to reconsider this position. The European music group IFPI, for example, argued that these sites and services must obtain proper licenses.

In line with GEMA, IFPI chief executive Frances Moore previously called out YouTube for not playing fair, accusing it of benefiting from piracy.

“It is true that artists and record producers are not being paid fairly for the use of their music. This is because user upload platforms, such as SoundCloud and YouTube, are taking advantage of exemptions from copyright laws that simply should not apply to them,” Moore said.

“There should be clarification of the application of ‘safe harbors’ to make it explicit that services that distribute and monetize music do not benefit from them.”

GEMA says it’s reviewing the decision from the Higher Regional Court Munich, which it expects to appeal in the near future.

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

OpenGL-Ersatz: Vulkan bringt sehr viel (für) Open Source

Für Linux-Nutzer werde das Grafik-API Vulkan einige Vorteile bringen, erklärt ein Intel-Entwickler, und Programmierer können sich auf ziemlich viel Open-Source-Code rund um Vulkan freuen. Doch genauso ist mit Problemen zu rechnen – und womöglich Jahren des Wartens. (Fosdem2016, Intel)

Für Linux-Nutzer werde das Grafik-API Vulkan einige Vorteile bringen, erklärt ein Intel-Entwickler, und Programmierer können sich auf ziemlich viel Open-Source-Code rund um Vulkan freuen. Doch genauso ist mit Problemen zu rechnen - und womöglich Jahren des Wartens. (Fosdem2016, Intel)

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 02/01/16

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. ‘The Big Short.’ tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Spectre’ ‘Ride Along 2’ completes the top three.

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

bigshortThis week we have four newcomers in our chart.

The Big Short is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking (last week) Movie IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1 (2) The Big Short (DVDscr) 8.1 / trailer
2 (1) Spectre 7.9 / trailer
3 (…) Ride Along 2 5.8 / trailer
4 (3) The Revenant (DVDscr) ?.? / trailer
5 (6) The Martian 8.2 / trailer
6 (4) The Intern 7.4 / trailer
7 (…) Creed (DVDscr) 8.0 / trailer
8 (8) Bridge of Spies 7.9 / trailer
9 (…) Lazer Team 7.1 / trailer
10 (…) Sisters (Webrip) 6.5 / trailer

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

Van den Driessche: Fahrrad mit Motor bei Cyclocross-Weltmeisterschaft entdeckt

Beim 2016 Cyclocross World Championship in Belgien ist ein Fahrrad mit verstecktem Hilfsmotor entdeckt worden. Es soll der U23-Fahrerin Femke van den Driessche gehören. Diese bestreitet die Vorwürfe. (Elektrofahrrad, Technologie)

Beim 2016 Cyclocross World Championship in Belgien ist ein Fahrrad mit verstecktem Hilfsmotor entdeckt worden. Es soll der U23-Fahrerin Femke van den Driessche gehören. Diese bestreitet die Vorwürfe. (Elektrofahrrad, Technologie)

Isaac Mizrahi: Damen-Smartwatch mit OLED-Display

HP hat zusammen mit dem Designer Isaac Mizrahi eine Smartwatch für Frauen vorgestellt, die mit einem monochromen OLED-Display ausgerüstet ist, analoge Zeiger besitzt und mit Swarovski-Kristallen besetzt ist. (Smartwatch, OLED)

HP hat zusammen mit dem Designer Isaac Mizrahi eine Smartwatch für Frauen vorgestellt, die mit einem monochromen OLED-Display ausgerüstet ist, analoge Zeiger besitzt und mit Swarovski-Kristallen besetzt ist. (Smartwatch, OLED)

The science behind a good cup of coffee

Here’s the data behind making a healthy, flavorful cup of joe—from beans to brew

(credit: Amanda)

Coffee is one of the most popular drinks worldwide, with countless cups of the dark, alluring elixir brewed up each day. And, lucky for those coffee-guzzlers out there, mounting data suggest it’s good for you; moderate coffee drinking has been linked to lowered risk of cardiovascular disease, liver diseases, diabetes, and an overall lowered risk of dying too soon.

But, as coffee-lovers happily continue sipping their morning fix with a dash of self-satisfaction, it’s worth noting that not every cup of coffee is equal. Brewed coffee can vary wildly in its flavor and chemical make-up, particularly the chemicals linked to health benefits. Everything that happens before the pour—from the bean selection, roast, grind, water, and brew method—can affect the taste and quality of a cup of joe.

So far, there’s little to no data on the health impact of drinking one type of coffee over another. In studies linking coffee to lowered risks of disease and death, researchers mostly clumped all coffee types together, even decaffeinated coffee, in some cases. But, there is a fair amount of data on individual components of coffee that are flavorful and beneficial—and how to squeeze as much them as possible into your mug. Here’s what the science says:

Read 21 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Neato BotVac Connected review: A LIDAR-powered robot vacuum is my maid now

Vacuuming is for chumps. Make a robot do it.

It's been about two months since I've vacuumed my house, and the floor has never been cleaner. That's because I haven't been doing it—a robot has. For the past two months we've had a Neato BotVac Connected rolling around the house, the latest robo vac in Neato's lineup. Like all Neato robots, this has a spinning LIDAR unit that maps out the house. In this new "Connected" version, it's got Wi-Fi and a smartphone app.

The household name in household robots is definitely iRobot's Roomba, a round robotic vacuum cleaner that popularized the idea of having a little bot clean up after you. The fundamentals of the Roomba haven't changed much since its introduction: it's a vacuum on motorized wheels with a bumper plate in the front. When the plate bumps into something, the robot knows it hit an obstacle and changes directions. Start a Roomba on floor and usually it will spiral outward until it hits a wall, try to feel out the perimeter of the room, and then ping pong all across the center of the house in an attempt to cover the interior space.

Most Roombas can't "see." Its only window to the outside world is the little bumper plate—it feels its way around a space by running into stuff. Roomba will say it takes this limited information and runs it through an algorithm to be a little smarter than "randomly driving around," but to the human eye, there's little logic to where the little disk is driving.

Read 31 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Starting the racing year right at the Rolex 24

The classic season-opening event for endurance racing in the US.


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—The Rolex 24 at Daytona is the start of the American sportscar racing season. Since it happened to coincide with my 40th birthday, we decided to fly down to Florida to check it out. The main event is a 24-hour race for the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which you might remember last year as the Tudor United SportsCar Championship. The race involves four different classes of car racing on track at the same time.

The fastest cars race in the Prototype class, a mix of older Daytona Prototypes (tubeframe race cars) and LMP2s (carbon fiber prototypes that race at Le Mans). Next quickest are the GTLM cars, which are factory-supported racecars based on roadgoing machines like the Corvette Z06 and Porsche 911. Both Prototypes and GTLM feature lineups of professional drivers, many of whom are world-class. Several stars of NASCAR and IndyCar were in the field this year.

The next two classes are pro-am, where wealthy amateurs are joined by professional hotshoes. There are the Prototype Challenge cars, which are all identical open-cockpit cars with Chevy V8s. The other pro-am class is GTD, which this year uses the GT3 technical ruleset. Like the GTLM cars, these are based on road-going machines like Lamborghini Huracáns and Dodge Vipers, but there is less room for technical development.

It's been an action-packed race so far (with almost six hours left to run at the time of writing). Who wins is anyone's call. You can catch the end of the race on Fox Sports or streaming via the IMSA website or app.

Read on Ars Technica | Comments