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TorrentFreak

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Microsoft Fined For Abusing Power to Harass Pirates

Posted: 14 Dec 2009 01:15 PM PST
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/C5l0X7QqT3o/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email


To protect its intellectual property, Microsoft recently sued four software
pirates who allegedly used the companys software without permission.
However, the outcome of this action was quite unexpected.

The Delhi High Court decided to fine the software giant, after it found out
that the cases the company had initiated in Indias capital were related to
alleged copyright infringements that occurred in Bangalore, Hyderabad,
Chandigarh and Mumbai.

According to the Court, Microsoft is needlessly abusing its unlimited cash
flow as a power tool to financially hurt the defendants, who will have to
travel all across the country in order to defend themselves. This abuse of
money power to harass defendants is unacceptable according to the Court.

When the constitution of India provides equality before law, this equality
has to be all pervasive and cannot be allowed to be diluted because of
money power or lobbying power, Judge Dhingra commented on the case.

Aside from the harassment angle, the Court found that Microsoft chose Delhi
because the High Court can order compensation up to $40,000 for the alleged
crimes.

However, instead of taking on the case directly, the court chose to fine
Microsoft $4,000 for each of the four defendants instead. If it turns out
that the software piracy claims are unfounded, this money will go directly
to the accused. In addition, Microsoft was ordered to pay a local
commissioner who will investigate the piracy claims.

Although it was not illegal for Microsoft to file the four cases in the
national capital where the company is headquartered, the Court found that
something had to be done to prevent shear abuse of power by the software
giant.

On the strength of its money power it [Microsoft] has the added advantage
of choosing a court of its own liking which is so far away from the
defendant that it becomes problematic and a harassment for the defendant to
contest the suit itself, the Delhi High Court ruling read.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.


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Private BitTorrent Trackers Commit Suicide With Rising Costs

Posted: 14 Dec 2009 10:00 AM PST
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/p2H9FDlOs40/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email


Private BitTorrent trackers are usually much smaller than public trackers.
More commonly ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 members (but some with many tens
of thousands), these sites are often accessible by invite only, meaning
that prospective users need to have direct contact with someone who is
already a member.

Private sites commonly operate a ratio-based system where users are
expected to upload around the same amount of data as they download, to
ensure that the trackers economy stays healthy. Some sites experiment with
different methods of achieving the same ends, but whatever the technique
the result is often more users seeding than can be commonly found on
similar torrents on public trackers, resulting in higher speeds and shorter
download times.

For many in the BitTorrent community, private sites are where the real
action can be found, but they also face some serious problems of their own.
FileShareFreak has recently come up with a list of more than 300 private
trackers launched in 2009 of these only 179 remain online today. So what
is causing the death of these sites before they even reach infancy?

In many cases sites are started by people who have no idea of the scale of
the task that lies ahead of them and simply give up. Some sites are started
by people who break off from other trackers after a dispute and believe
they can do better and find out they cant. While some thrive, others simply
cant carve themselves an audience or a big enough niche to satisfy their
world-beating ambitions, while being hamstrung by their own invitation
policy in an attempt to stay attractively exclusive.

Increasingly, however, more and more sites are simply running out of money,
which is a fairly curious situation. After all, wasnt BitTorrent created to
make it really cheap to shift data around?

In themselves, the average private tracker and forum dont cost that much to
run, with many decent sized sites managing to operate for less than $150
each month an amount easily covered by a generous sysop and a handful of
small donations. But in recent years many private trackers have become very
competitive particularly with each other as they literally race to bring
content to their sites as quickly as possible and offering their demanding
users the fastest download speeds.

What they are trying to achieve are great ‘pre-times.’ ‘Pre-time’ is a term
used to describe how long it takes for a private tracker to make available
a Scene release after it has been released (pred) on Scene topsites. The
shorter the pre-time, the bigger the bragging rights, with the ultimate aim
of the site winning the race.

Participating in these races costs a lot of money, as the roles
traditionally fulfilled by users (providing content and bandwidth) are
increasingly taken on by the site itself. For many, this is becoming a
crippling burden. So how much does this all cost?

Thanks to a smallish private site (6,000 users) known as StN (StoreTheNet)
which chose to make its bills public as it tried and failed to justify
turning their previously free site to a subscription model, we have an
idea. (Please note: All the following information is already in the public
domain, many private sites make no secret that they engage in this activity
and StN will shutdown tomorrow.)

Around $200 per month goes to pay for site and IRC hosting and additional
features to increase site security. For a traditional torrent site setup
(users provide all content and content bandwidth), thats where the costs
would end.

But of course, since this site and many others feel they have to become
involved in racing content to their site and providing ultimate download
speeds, from here the costs start to skyrocket.

Around $330 is being paid every month to operators of so-called topsites
where the latest releases are raced from, and while users of the site do
contribute bandwidth via their normal sharing, these releases are initially
seeded directly to the members via an unmetered bandwidth seedbox which StN
says is approx $630 per month.

All these bills add up to approaching $1,200 in costs every month for what
is essentially a pretty small site, so whats the solution to bring costs
down and avoid the death of yet more trackers during their first few months?

Well, first of all, many sites can achieve this amount through voluntary
member donations, but a lot of private site members are also members of
other trackers and they cant possibly donate to them all. So inevitably,
some are favored and others arent.

Another option for struggling sites (and many private site users will be
stamping their feet with reddened faces at the mere suggestion) is to get
out of racing altogether, instead letting users bring content and allowing
BitTorrent and its users to propagate it naturally with their own home
bandwidth and if theyre lucky, their own seedboxes. This will be much
slower admittedly, but probably preferable to a site closing altogether. It
also drastically reduces the security risk for the site itself.

Something that proves very successful for many sites is to find a niche.
While all the latest movies may be a major attraction, they are also what
cause the biggest burdens on a site in a myriad different ways. Niche
material sites usually have great communities, great speeds and usually fly
easily under the radar. Expect to see many more of these in the future.

There are hundreds of private sites out there that dont operate in the
fashion outlined above and dont have the accompanying financial burdens,
yet still achieve good times and speeds. Time will tell if the craze of the
race dies down in favor of lower running costs, or if the need for Blu-ray
rips at lightning speeds prove simply too irresistible.

If the latter is true, in the end someone is going to have to pay for it.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.


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Tags: health, claims, software, microsoft, free.