Big Music ‘raids’ Oz ISP
p2pnet.net News :- The Big Music cartel’s Australian Music Industry Piracy Investigations faux police unit has raided an Australian ISP company.
This may become the first Australian legal proceeding against an ISP said to have used BitTorrent to link copyright infringers to music clips and sound recordings, outgoing MIPI boss Michael Speck is quoted as saying by ZDNet Australia.
The ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) raid was launched at the offices of Swiftel Communications in the Western Australian capital’s central business district after federal magistrate Rolf Driver yesterday granted a civil search order, it states.
"We believe hundreds of thousands of downloads have been conducted in the last year in breach of copyright laws," said Speck, going on, "Evidence gathered during the raid would, Speck said, be used to bring a copyright prosecution before the courts."
He told ZDNet Australia MIPI’s investigation focussed on Torrent Web and Archie’s Hub, hosted by Swiftel.
Archie’s Hub could only be accessed by members of Swiftel, says ZDNet. "Unlike the Torrent Web server, however, the Web site uses Direct Connect software to allow user members of Archie’s Hub to share digital sound recordings and music video files with other members," according to Speck.
Turning to BitTorrent
Australian IP expert Alex Malik told p2pnet BitTorrent’s popularity has been driven in part by local TV programmers who’ve, "adopted a strategy of being slow to air current episodes of popular TV shows".
By delaying the broadcast of popular TV programs, Oz programmers have increased local demand for popular TV programs, he says. As a result, "impatient viewers have increasingly turned to BitTorrent to download their favourite shows."
Malik says some Australians have to wait for more than eight months to see first-run episodes of cult programs from overseas.
TV programmers blame the delays on their decision not to “waste” successful programs during the Australian summer, the “unofficial” non ratings period. However, many of the programs that remain unaired in Australia are seen in the US during the Australian ratings period, says Malik.
The delays provide a window opportunity for viewers to upload TV programs after their US broadcast date, thereby making them available to viewers outside of the US, and to viewers within the US who may have missed the program.
But wherever they are, all would-be viewers need to download shows is a broadband connection and BitTorrent software, Malik points out, adding:
"While there are no accurate Australian BitTorrent usage figures, anecdotal evidence and reports from on line forums suggest that Australians are downloading TV programs in large quantities. Australians are also uploading programs like My Restaurant Rules and Rove."
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See:-
ZDNet Australia – Music piracy unit raids ISP in BitTorrent assault, March 10, 2005
outgoing MIPI boss – Big Music enforcer quits ARIA, p2pnet, February 17, 2005
March 10th, 2005 at 10:49 pm
“Australians are also uploading programs like My Restaurant Rules”
and there is the beauty of P2P networks and the like, I never would have seen that show or the actors etc without P2P…
March 11th, 2005 at 12:55 am
Speck is an idiot if this ZDNet quote is correct:
“Speck told ZDNet Australia the unit’s investigations revealed that the Torrent Web servers hosted a “database of music video files which can be very quickly downloaded,” provided the user has BitTorrent software or software following (sic)
a protocol equivalent to BitTorrent.”
Torrent websites do not host the files, they host links to trackers which themselves link to the files.
March 11th, 2005 at 12:56 am
If they didn’t take so long to show good TV programs people wouldn’t need to download them. It’s another example of P2P helping the community when their content suppliers let them down.
March 13th, 2005 at 9:57 am
It doesn’t say web servers are hosting the acutal files, it says they host a database of the files…