Pirate Party Launched Another Movie Portal

The Czech Pirate Party launched “Linking is Not a Crime” campaign back in July, which was a sign of protest against a teenage being fined $7 million for simply providing links to copyrighted content. Earlier, in frames of this campaign the Czech Pirate Party had already launched 2 film download portals, where it was providing links without hosting the information itself.

The high school student in question was a 16-year-old Liberec resident. He was accused by the Czech Anti-Piracy Union for offering links to copyright content and is now demanded to pay over $7 million in damage. In response, the Pirate Party has opened another portal, called Moviehome and also referred to as “Facebook for movies”.

The head of the local Pirate Party claimed that sharing of links is actually a principle without which the web would cease to function, and that’s why they were regularly fighting against the criminalization of linking. The party also pointed out that the Czech Anti-Piracy Union had no idea what to do, as they were probably focusing on the court action with the student, hoping that they might claim all of the party’s sites are against the law. At the same time, the Union also didn’t want to give them publicity and didn’t have much to say, because really the Pirate Party’s websites were legal.

The party claimed they would support Moviehome as long as it maintains its non-commercial status, since they are a party which doesn’t want to depend on the finances from online advertising. This is the reason for all of their linking websites being strictly non-profit. However, the party believes that for others there is nothing wrong about running commercial linking sites – actually, Google has been doing so for a while now.

The party noted that they would also welcome anyone with such project who asks for their support – for example, the Pirate Party has already sent open invitations to The Pirate Bay to make use of Czech hosting in case legal matters force the BitTorrent tracker to do that.

In addition, apart from the three Czech linking websites there comes the Pirate Party Canada’s Travis McCrea’s website, which means that pirates simply decided they couldn’t lose that war. The party is sure that if the country’s court rules linking is a crime, the public uproar would get the party into parliament, because public hates to lose rights they already had, particularly when they fought hard to obtain them.

Pirate Bay Warned Facebook and Twitter Could Be Threatened Too

Defense claims that the public has seen similar examples regarding copyright issues over the years, recalling how the entertainment industry targeted any new technology – from radios and satellite dishes to VCRs and DVRs.

The world’s largest BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay has faced the last day of its appeal trial of the conviction for the facilitation of copyright violation with nothing new.

The attorney for one of the co-founders of the service, Frederik Neij, first highlighted that almost each case of unauthorized downloading where the tracker has been accused of facilitating, took place in a country with laws allowing legal file-sharing (Spain, for example).

Besides, he reiterated his contention that according to the Section 16 of the E-Commerce Act, the tracker is in fact protected as transmission service. If the court allows a guilty verdict to stand, this could endanger the whole worldwide web as we know it. The attorney says that a guilty verdict for his client would automatically imply a threat to the similar online search services, such as Twitter and Facebook, especially taking into consideration that the tracker never hosted any copyrighted content, and didn’t violate the laws itself, only its users did.

Another attorney, for the second co-founder Peter Sunde, later made an attempt to get to the core of technology, which is what all the trial has been about. He emphasized how the public has seen other examples over the years, with rights owners having targeted everything from radios to DVRs.

Whatever new technology appears, large companies always claim that it is really life-threatening. In the case of The Pirate Bay, the prosecutors are also after the technology. Then, the attorney argued that since the tracker never hosted copyrighted content, it can’t be held liable for infringement, but its users can, as they are the real people who committed the violation.

Finally, the attorneys pointed out that the only figures the judges have seen when estimating financial damages have been those the entertainment industry provided to the court, but not the ones of the independent outside experts.

The court is expected to hand out its verdict in the late November, but either way it’s just a boring waste of time. It actually doesn’t matter, what the outcome of the case will be – it will still make its way to the High Court.

Hackers Pick Up Where Facebook Privacy Leaves Off

LAS VEGAS--Hackers are weighing in on the Facebook privacy controversy with creations that help people strengthen privacy or empty profile pages at the world's leading social networking service.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) technology fellow Chris Conley showed off an arsenal of such applications at the infamous DefCon gathering, which kicked off Friday in Las Vegas.

"They are needed because people don't have control of their privacy and don't really understand," Conley said after the presentation.

"They give people options."

A program written by Conley displays pictures, posts, or other profile data being accessed by applications at Facebook accounts. People can then see what personal information programs are gleaning from their pages.

News stories about privacy control issues at Facebook may slip people's minds by the time they sit down at their computers, but Conley's application grabs their attention with a winning subject -- themselves.

"People love to hear about themselves, that is the thing that Facebook is great at," said Ceren Ercen, who worked briefly for the California company and wore a T-shirt bearing the words "Disgruntled Facebook ex-employee."

"People don't have the attention spans to carry over concerns they have to actual Facebook usage." Ercen added that during her brief stint at Facebook she had "serious problems" regarding the privacy of users and that she wasn't alone.

Applications shared by Conley included a software tool that helps people change Facebook privacy settings using simple color coding to demystify the process.

Other programs let people pack-up Facebook profile data in order to take it elsewhere or stop the social-networking service getting automated feedback about where members go elsewhere on the Internet.

"The long-term goal is they should become obsolete because Facebook has addressed this in some way," Conley said. "We would like Facebook to be doing this."

Conley's application, available online, at dotrights.org has been used by 150,000 people.

"I think people don't see the real potential damage of their information going out the door," a DefCon veteran who asked not to be named said after attending Conley's presentation.

Facebook this week launched a Web page devoted to staying safe on the Internet.

The "Safety Page" highlights news and initiatives focused on ways people can keep data secure at the social-networking community.

The new page augments a virtual Safety Center that Facebook introduced in April and was based on a "security page" that boasted more than 2.2 million "fans."

The number of people using Facebook recently topped the 500 million mark, meaning one in every 14 people on the planet has now signed up to the social network.

The launch of the Safety Page came in the wake of demands by the ACLU and other privacy activists and governments that Facebook give users more control over the use of their personal data.

A coalition of privacy groups, in an open letter to Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg last month, welcomed the social network's recent overhaul of its privacy controls but said additional steps were needed.

Facebook Traffic Tops Google For The Week

Facebook topped Google to become the most visited U.S. Web site last week, indicating a shift in how Americans are searching for content.

Web analysis firm Experian Hitwise said Monday that the social networking site surpassed Google to take the No. 1 spot for the week ended March 13.

"It shows content sharing has become a huge driving force online," said Matt Tatham, director of media relations at Hitwise. "People want information from friends they trust, versus the the anonymity of a search engine."

Facebook accounted for 7.07% of U.S. Web traffic that week, while Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) received 7.03%. The study compared only the domains Facebook.com and Google.com -- not, for example, Google-owned sites like Gmail.com.

Though the traffic levels were close, Facebook's year-over-year growth far outpaced Google's that week. The number of visitors to Facebook spiked 185% compared with the same period last year, while Google's traffic climbed just 9%.

"It's definitely a big moment for Facebook, even though they beat by a small margin," Tatham said. "We've seen it coming for quite a long time."
0:00 /2:39Facebook's 6th birthday

Facebook had never before beaten Google over a full weeklong period, though it has been the most visited site on recent holidays: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Facebook was also the top site on the weekend of March 6-7.

But Tatham noted that when he added up traffic on all Google properties like Google Maps and YouTube, the company's sites comprised 11.03% of visits. Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) was second with 10.98%.

Google.com had been the No. 1 site each week since Sept. 15, 2007, when ironically it passed another social networking site, MySpace.com, in order to take the crown.

Of course, the MySpace connection could be a bad omen for Facebook. MySpace enjoyed dominance on the social networking scene for years until it saw traffic plummet following Facebook's rise.

"By nature, the Web is ever-changing," Tatham said. "The Internet can be a fickle crowd."

Facebook blocks social network 'suicide' website

WASHINGTON- Facebook said Monday that it is blocking a website called "Web 2.0 Suicide Machine" that helps users delete their social network profiles.

The number one social network also said it had sent a "cease-and-desist" letter to another website, Seppukoo.com, which also helps you kill off your virtual identity.

The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine site, which features a hangman's noose on its homepage, deletes profiles, friends and other information on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn for users who provide their account information.

"This machine lets you delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your Web2.0 alterego," it says.

Facebook, in a statement to AFP, said the suicide site was in violation of Facebook rules.

"Facebook provides the ability for people who no longer want to use the site to either deactivate their account or delete it completely," Facebook said.

"Web 2.0 Suicide Machine collects login credentials, which is a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR)," it said.

"We've blocked the site's access to Facebook as is our policy for sites that violate our SRR," Facebook said. "We're currently investigating and considering whether to take further action."

Facebook, which claims more than 300 million users, also said it had sent Seppukoo.com "a cease-and-desist letter for similarly violating our policies."

Seppukoo.com urges users to "impress your friends" and "disconnect yourself" by committing online suicide in the manner of Japanese samurai.

Ritual samurai suicide was known as "seppuku."

"As the seppuku restores the samurai's honour as a warrior, seppukoo.com deals with the liberation of the digital body," the site says.