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Monday, December 8th, 2014
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| 8:06a | Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 12/08/14
The Maze Runner 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.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10:53a | Microsoft Sues ‘Does’ For Activating Pirated Software
In fact, two months ago Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted that in some cases piracy can act as a conversion tool. “We’ve always had freemium. Sometimes our freemium was called piracy,” Nadella said, adding that the usage first approach has its advantages. This doesn’t mean that all pirates can have their way though. Microsoft does keep a close eye on the unauthorized use of its products with help from its in house cybercrime center. Late last week Microsoft filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against a person (or persons) who activated pirated copies of Windows 7 and Office 10 from an AT&T Internet connection. “Microsoft’s cyberforensics have identified a number of product key activations originating from IP address 76.245.7.147, which is presently assigned to ISP AT&T Internet Services..,” the complaints (pdf) reads. “These activations have characteristics that on information and belief, establish that Defendants are using the IP address to activate pirated software.” While many people believe that unauthorized copies are hard for Microsoft to detect, the company explains that its cybercrime team leverages state-of-the-art technology to detect software piracy. The company describes its investigative approach as cyberforensics. Among other things, they look for activation patterns and characteristics which make it likely that certain IP-addresses are engaged in unauthorized copying. “As part of its cyberforensic methods, Microsoft analyzes product key activation data voluntarily provided by users when they activate Microsoft software, including the IP address from which a given product key is activated,” the company writes. According to the complaint, the defendant(s) in this case have activated numerous copies of Windows 7 and Office 2010 with suspicious keys. These keys were likely stolen from Microsoft’s supply chain, used without permission from the refurbisher channel, and used more often than the license permits. Microsoft is now looking to identify the person or persons responsible for the copyright and trademark infringements, to recoup the damage they’ve suffered. From the descriptions used in the complaint it seems likely that the target is not an average user, but someone who sells computers containing pirated software. Time will tell whether that’s indeed the case. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7:30p | UK Users Need 27 Services to Get Most Popular Films, Report Finds
Released by research company KPMG and commissioned by NBC Universal, the report was praised by the MPAA and other similarly interested parties. Supporters said that the study provided yet more proof that studios are fulfilling their part of the consumer bargain by making content widely available. Less than three months on and KPMG has just published the results of a second study into availability of content online. In common with the US-focused September report, ‘UK Availability of Film and TV Titles in the Digital Age’ was also commissioned by NBC Universal. The study examined UK availability of the most popular film and TV titles across legal digital streaming and download services and according to KPMG, things looked good. “This report found that the vast majority of the most popular and critically acclaimed film and television content is available from legal digital platforms,” the report begins. The study found that as of December 2013, almost nine out of 10 of the 756 films reviewed were indeed available from online video services, which does sound like a great start. When 2012′s box office hits were examined 100% were available online, dropping slightly to 98% for those released in 2011. All-time box office hits also had good exposure, with 96% available online. Even 2013′s top 100 hits fared well, with 77% available digitally. These stats are admittedly a fairly impressive read, but the details take off some the shine. Accessing content online should be a relatively painless affair, but UK film fans are going to need quite a lot of patience if they want the broadest possible choice. In fact, in order to access content at the levels detailed above, users will need to use to more than two dozen services, 27 to be precise. “As at December 2013, 86% of the 756 unique films reviewed were When the researchers required that titles must be found on 5 out of 27 services, overall availability drops to 73%, meaning that more than a quarter of popular content is missing, even for consumers with five separate online movie accounts. In the US version of the KPMG report, notable was the poor availability of content on services such as Netflix. The findings showed that just 16% of the films studied were available through on-demand subscription services (SVOD). The UK does quite a bit better. “A relatively lower proportion of the most popular and critically acclaimed films were offered under the SVOD model (39%),” KPMG found.  The UK online subscription market has grown quickly over the past couple of years fueled largely by Netflix. Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2014 revealed that revenue for online subscriptions for audio-visual content reached £111.7m in 2013, up from £63.5m in the previous 12 months. Moving forward, Netflix’s growth faces similar challenges to that of its US-based service. According to KPMG, six out of 10 times consumers will not find the popular content they are looking for, meaning that additional payments to other services will be required. The other issues relate to reducing piracy. While having content around 60% of the time is better than nothing, most pirated titles are recent releases that simply aren’t available on Netflix, iTunes, Amazon or other similar services. And as far as Joe Public signing up to as many as 27 services in order to access most popular content, that isn’t going to happen in a hurry. An almost fully-comprehensive Spotify for movies might be a while off, but bringing one to market would simplify matters no end. The report can be downloaded here. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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