It’s been well known for a while that many ISPs around the world have been messing with the flow of BitTorrent traffic in an effort to counter piracy.

It’s also been well known that amongst those ISPs, one of the worst culprits for blocking file sharing traffic is Comcast, one of the largest Internet Service Providers in the US.

However, until now, exact data as to how and when this was being done has been unavailable, and Comcast itself told the FCC in February that it was only done during periods of heavy network traffic.

A new Measuring Tool

Now, thanks to a tool developed by the Max Planck Institute, that data is now available, and the first statistics to be released show that Comcast actually blocks BitTorrent traffic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Continue Reading…

Yesterday, we touched on the issue which seems to be dominating the blogosphere right about now, that of the plans Microsoft seem to be developing for having a copyright cop on the Zune player.

Microsoft, by way of Cesar Menendez, an employee who works on the Zune has since tried to rectify the issue, and on Zune Insider claims that Microsoft do not have any plans to add content filtering to the Zune.

However, Alex Curtis of Public Knowledge has delved deeper in to the issues, and in the following article looks at the legal implications of any such move were it to happen.

Continue Reading…

Yesterday I reported how NBC has decided to get in to bed with Microsoft and offer individual episodes of its shows through the online Zune Store.

When NBC pulled all of its programming from Apple iTunes late last year after an argument with the iPod manufacturer, the two reasons cited for the falling out were pricing, and a lack of stringent filtering measures for pirated material.

The Coupling Becomes Clear

It didn’t immediately seem clear why NBC had now agreed to similar conditions from Microsoft when they wouldn’t accept them from Apple. However, after the New York Times spoke to J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal, things may have become a little clearer.

Continue Reading…

First the good news: TBS, the television network which has been broadcasting episodes of Seinfeld for years, has now starting streaming some episodes online at TBS.com.

Now the bad news: Only Windows users need bother visiting the site, as the Soup Nazi aka DRM has decided to tell Mac users “No Seinfeld for you!”

Continue Reading…

YouTube has gone beyond everybody’s expectations, and become by far the largest online video resource in the world, and one of the most visited sites on the Internet bar none.

So with this in mind, you would think that all is rosy with the world, and the company is in a very enviable position. It is, of course, but this lofty position also comes with its fair share of problems.

10 Hours Of Content A Minute

For starters, there are the sheer logistics involved when dealing with over 10 hours of content being uploaded to the site every minute. And with that comes the responsibility to filter content, both for unsavoury videos such as porn or violence, and copyrighted clips.

Continue Reading…

Last September saw Apple and NBC acrimoniously split over their joint deal to distribute NBC programmes through iTunes.

At the time, NBC blamed Apple for not introducing tougher anti-piracy measures such as DRM, and also not being willing to raise the prices. Basically, it got greedy.

Since then, a lot has happened, with NBC first doing a deal with Amazon to see its programmes distributed via the Unbox service, but how successful that move has been is unclear.

Hulu

Then NBC jointly launched Hulu along with News Corp. as a way to combat piracy - the idea being that if viewers can watch shows legally, they are less likely to turn to YouTube and the like.

However, neither deal has taken away from the fact that iTunes is still a lucrative way of distributing programmes, and it seems that NBC now wants back in.

Continue Reading…

I didn’t see this one coming at all, in fact I thought Demonoid was dead and buried. But no, six months to the day after it disappeared, the Demonoid BitTorrent tracker and site is back.

The trouble for the popular BitTorrent tracker began last June when a Dutch anti-piracy outfit put pressure on the site’s ISP. This lead to it being moved from Holland to Canada, presumed to be a safe haven.

Unfortunately for Demonoid, the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) got the site pulled by its ISP. After attempting to get past the problem by just blocking all incoming traffic from Canada, the site finally went offline, supposedly for good on November 9th.

Continue Reading…