Tuesday, August 6th, 2019

Time	Event
10:15a	Japan: Piracy Warning Popups Could Violate Privacy In many countries around Europe and further afield, blocking pirate sites is carried out with permission from the courts. The process is often long and expensive in the first instance but once a precedent has been set, subsequent blocking of additional sites should – at least in theory – be a much more simple affair. Japan has been struggling to introduce a similar system for some time now but has continually come up against opposition from those who believe that monitoring Internet users’ traffic in order to block various domains amounts to a privacy breach. The Telecommunications Business Act guarantees privacy of communications and prevents censorship, as does Article 21 of the Constitution. Additional proposals suggested that Internet users could be confronted with popup warnings when they visit pirate sites, either as an alternative to blocking, a deterrent, or to help people differentiate them from legal offerings. However, that plan is being viewed as a potential invasion of privacy too. A report compiled this week by an expert panel with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has concluded that such popup warnings could infringe citizens’ right to secrecy of communications. Asahi reports that in order to make this kind of system work, Internet service providers would first need to obtain consent from their subscribers so that monitoring their attempts to access certain sites would remain legal. The publication says that after the panel sought opinions from the public on the proposal, it was “bombarded by emails” sent by people calling for the plan to be rejected on privacy grounds. Given that ISPs in other regions have complained that they shouldn’t bear the costs associated with blocking and similar regimes, it’s no surprise that some in Japan are taking a similar stance. Other providers indicate that they’re not ready from a technological standpoint, which of course is also closely connected with costs. Nevertheless, some ISPs have agreed to begin trialing a popup warning system during the fall, in order to assess its effectiveness. That will mean them first having to explain to their users that they wish to monitor their online behavior and then obtain legal permission to do so. Given a choice between being monitored by their ISP or not, it seems unlikely that many Internet users – if they actually understand the proposition – will willingly have someone watch over their communications. And surely, visitors to pirate sites – the obvious targets of the campaign – will reject the offer immediately, if the purpose of the offer is made to clear to them in the beginning. That calls into question the entire point of the campaign, which is to assess whether warnings on pirate sites will deter their use. Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. (Comment on this)
9:23p	Game of Thrones Visibly Boosted Global Piracy Traffic Since the release of the first episode back in 2011, Game of Thrones has conquered the hearts of many people. Unfortunately for HBO, not all of these fans have enjoyed the series through legal channels. For several years in a row, Game of Thrones has been the most pirated TV-show. This year, when the final season aired, the interest was once again overwhelming. While there have already been some numbers floating around, revealing that millions of people turned to pirate sites to watch the show, it wasn’t really clear what the broader impact was on the total piracy ecosystem. There was some anecdotal evidence, with torrent site operators reporting massive boosts in traffic, but new data from MUSO now places the Game of Thrones numbers in a broader context. When we reviewed global pirate site traffic data provided by MUSO this week, we noticed what at first appeared to be an unusual uptick. After more than a year of slowly declining visitor numbers, there was a sudden increase in April 2019, as can be seen below. Looking more closely, it turned out that this uptick was mostly related to video content. Other categories, including music piracy, were actually going down. While this seemed odd, the date of the sudden April spike provided a very likely explanation. On April 14, the day of the Game of Thrones season premiere, the number of pirate site visits jumped drastically, up by roughly 45 million compared to a week earlier. This pattern returned with each subsequent episode, with the record being set after the third episode. Overall, Game of Thrones appears to account for an initial uptick of roughly 8% in global traffic to pirate sites. That’s immense, to say the least. As mentioned before, this traffic boost wasn’t visible on other sites, such as stream-rippers, which are related to music piracy. Sites such as The Pirate Bay did notice a sharp increase in traffic though, as the graph below shows. TorrentFreak spoke to Phil Taylor, an analyst at MUSO, who supports our findings and observed the Game of Thrones boost as well. “The demand for piracy of Game of Thrones is unprecedented. The demand for GOT was so high that it visibly increased traffic for domains such as thepiratebay.org,” Taylor tells us. “We will get a better view of overall traffic and trends for 2019 as the year progresses, however, the impact of Game of Thrones on overall traffic in April and May of 2019 is clear,” he adds. Seeing the visible impact of a single title on overall yearly piracy data is rather unique. At TorrentFreak, we certainly haven’t seen it before. And now that Game of Thrones has come to an end, it’s doubtful we will again. Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. (Comment on this)

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