RIAA Asks BitTorrent Inc. to Block Infringing Content

[shamu726]

The RIAA has asked uTorrent creator BitTorrent Inc. to come up with ways to stop infringement of its members' copyrighted content. In a letter sent to BitTorrent Inc's CEO, the RIAA's Executive Vice President of Anti-Piracy points to BitTorrent's DHT system and asks the San Francisco-based company to live up to its claim of not endorsing piracy.

 

 

Through no real fault of its own, uTorrent creator BitTorrent Inc. has become associated with the massive piracy carried out every day by its users. Due to the company sharing its name with the successful protocol, for many BitTorrent piracy and BitTorrent Inc. are one and the same thing.

 

That incorrect perception has proven corrosive for the company, so much so that for the past several years BitTorrent Inc. has been on a mission to position itself as the friend of content creators rather than their foe.

 

Now, following dozens of self-certified claims that the company doesn’t support piracy, BitTorrent Inc. has somewhat inevitably found itself in the crosshairs of the music industry.

 

In a letter dated July 30, 2015 sent from Brad Buckles, Executive Vice President of Anti-Piracy, the RIAA asks BitTorrent Inc.’s CEO to live up to his company’s claims of being a musicians’ champion. It begins with a subtle but serious reference to the company’s Distributed Hash Table.

 

“This year marks the 10th anniversary of BitTorrent Inc.’s development of a distributed hash table (DHT) approach to file distribution, and yet, as we have previously discussed with your company, we remain very concerned about the overwhelming use of BitTorrent Inc. developed clients to infringe our members’ content,” Buckles begins.

 

Building the RIAA’s case, Buckles says that software developed by BitTorrent Inc. facilitated approximately 75% of at least 1.6 million torrent based infringements in the United States during 2014.

 

Again referencing BitTorrent’s DHT – the system which allows torrents to be shared even when external BitTorrent trackers go down – the RIAA says that a sample of 500 audio torrents extracted from the database showed that 82.4% were “highly likely” to be protected by copyright.

 

Turning to comments previously made by now-former BitTorrent Chief Content Officer Matt Mason, Buckles challenges the notion that “the piracy happens outside the BitTorrent ecosystem.”

 

“[As] the above data clearly shows, this argument is disingenuous when BitTorrent Inc. itself is the source of the software that is used so overwhelmingly for infringement,” Buckles says.

 

Referencing Mason’s earlier comment that anyone using BitTorrent for piracy was “doing it wrong”, Buckles insists that the company now actually does something concrete to mitigate piracy.

 

“We urge BitTorrent Inc. to live up to those words and take meaningful steps to deter this widespread infringement occurring using its own products and services,” Buckles says.

 

The RIAA concludes with a list of hashes of its members’ works that have been infringed via BitTorrent Inc.’s “products and services” along with a suggestion that the company needs to take continuous action moving forward.

 

“We are willing to establish a process to share the hashes with BitTorrent Inc. on a regular basis so that BitTorrent Inc. can use the information to deter further infringement of those files via its goods and services,” the RIAA adds, while helpfully offering additional support, if needed.

 

“We also know of several companies that offer services to help identify infringing torrent sites and files that may be useful in helping BitTorrent Inc. take steps to reduce their facilitation of infringement.”

 

The RIAA stops short of asking BitTorrent Inc. to block or filter content in any specific manner but it’s clear what the music industry group has on its mind.

 

It’s been a long time coming but this move against BitTorrent Inc. is not unexpected and the company must’ve been preparing for the day for a long time. The ball’s now in the uTorrent creator’s court and it’s going to be a fascinating game, little doubt about that.

 

Update: TorrentFreak learned that the letter was first published by Mashable.

 

Torrentfreak Riaa Bittorrent

 

 

Source: TorrentFreak

[ugurano]

mafia nothing more

[steven36]

Bye Bye ... μTorrent® you make a deal with the devil you will burn in hell like Limewire did. How many people do you think actually uses BitTorrent Inc's Adware to download legal content ?

Not many at all because anything legal can be downloaded direct download with out it.

[Cereberus]

i don't get it. now there are other torrent clients other than bit torrent, would the original bittorrent be able to affect any of the other torrent clients out there doing p2p ?

or is any riaa endorsed solution for bittorrent only going to affect only that 1 client, but not the other torrent client variants out there ?

[steven36]

i don't get it. now there are other torrent clients other than bit torrent, would the original bittorrent be able to affect any of the other torrent clients out there doing p2p ?

or is any riaa endorsed solution for bittorrent only going to affect only that 1 client, but not the other torrent client variants out there ?

It wont effect no one but BitTorrent and μTorrent since both are made by BitTorrent. μTorrent being the number #2 used client in the world and 1# outside China that's going be lot of people having to change clients . I knew this was going happen to them when started charging money . Limewire had a free and pro and you could download songs . They didn't let up on Limewire tell they close down.

[steven36]

RIAA Asks BitTorrent To Block Infringing Content

In the latest attack on file sharing, the Recording Industry Association of America has requested that BitTorrent put into place a hash filter in order to block infringing content, but will it do more harm than good?

Almost exactly a year ago, the Hollywood-funded and run astroturfing group "Creative Future" posted a bizarre and fact-challenged article attacking BitTorrent Inc. for copyright infringement, and demanding that the company "take responsibility" for how the BitTorrent protocol was being used. There was, as always, some apparent confusion between BitTorrent the protocol and BitTorrent Inc., the company. You would have thought that this would have been figured out by now, especially given that BitTorrent Inc., the company, has been trying repeatedly to help content creators experiment with new business models that embrace the BitTorrent protocol, with a fair bit of success.

And yet, as Andy at TorrentFreak notes in a recent post, the RIAA has now sent a letter to BitTorrent Inc., once again demanding some sort of "piracy filter."

Attached is a subset of the list of verified hashes of files of our members' works that have and are likely continuing to be infringed via BitTorrent, Inc.'s products and services. We are willing to establish a process to share the hashes with BitTorrent, Inc. on a regular basis so that BitTorrent, Inc. can use the information to deter further infringement of those files via its goods and services. We also know of several companies that offer services to help identify infringing torrent sites and files that may be useful in helping BitTorrent, Inc. deter piracy through BitTorrent, Inc.'s products and services.

To quote Mr. Mason yet again, "We don't endorse piracy." If that is indeed your business philosophy, then we believe it is only right and proper for BitTorrent, Inc. to take steps to reduce their facilitation of infringement. We look forward to hearing from you on next steps.

Consider this is a shot fired. It's not hard to see where this is heading. The RIAA is likely looking to set the stage for a lawsuit arguing that BitTorrent Inc. is somehow "inducing" copyright infringement by not proactively blocking content. Of course, pretty much all previous lawsuits making that argument have failed (miserably) and it's even more ridiculous in this case. And, yes, while the RIAA is pointing specifically at apps, such as uTorrent that BitTorrent owns, the idea that the software needs to proactively contain a hash-based filter is unlikely to go over well in court. Nor, of course, would it stop copyright infringement.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the RIAA gets its way here and BitTorrent is forced to somehow insert a special "YER A PIRATE!" filter into uTorrent, two things would happen almost immediately: 1. People would quickly create slightly modified versions of works to get around the hashes and 2. people would move to other BitTorrent clients -- coming from companies that aren't willing to work with the entertainment industry and aren't helping more artists learn how to embrace the technology to make more money and reach more fans.

It's the same move repeated over and over again by the industry: rather than figure out how to make use of the technology that fans like in order to do more, they attack the technology and then don't understand why people get pissed off and no longer want to give them any money

Source

[Cereberus]

i don't get it. now there are other torrent clients other than bit torrent, would the original bittorrent be able to affect any of the other torrent clients out there doing p2p ?

or is any riaa endorsed solution for bittorrent only going to affect only that 1 client, but not the other torrent client variants out there ?

It wont effect no one but BitTorrent and μTorrent since both are made by BitTorrent. μTorrent being the number #2 used client in the world and 1# outside China that's going be lot of people having to change clients . I knew this was going happen to them when started charging money . Limewire had a free and pro and you could download songs . They didn't let up on Limewire tell they close down.

oo then basically bit torrent are just screw themselves over. no ones going to want to use their junkware, while the torrent scene lives on without them :x

i'm using the older 2.1 utorrent, doubt it will be affected ?

i'd use tixati, however from my experience, i keep getting corrupted files that still say 100% completed.... no idea why.

[StealthyBoi]

RIAA is playing the cat and mouse game with piracy, except it is the dog chasing the chat who is chasing the mouse -_-