There are hundreds of reasons why people may turn to piracy. A financial motive is often mentioned, as well as lacking legal alternatives.

A new study from a group of researchers now suggests that national intelligence can also be added to the list.

The researchers report their findings in a paper titled “Intelligence and Crime: A novel evidence for software piracy,” which offers some intriguing insights.

In a rather straightforward analysis, the research examines the link between national IQ scores and local software piracy rates, which are reported by the Business Software Alliance. As can be seen below, there’s a trend indicating that countries with a higher IQ have lower software rates.

“We find that intelligence has statistically significant negative impact on piracy rates,” the researchers confirm in their paper, drawing a causal conclusion.

National IQ and Piracy rates

There are some notable outliers, such as China, where piracy rates and IQ are both relatively high. On the other end of the spectrum we find South Africa, with a low national IQ as well as low piracy rates.

The general trend, however, shows a direct relation between a country’s average IQ and the local software piracy rates.

“After controlling for the potential effect of outlier nations in the sample, software piracy rate declines by about 5.3 percentage points if national IQ increases by 10 points,” the researchers note.

To rule out the possibility that the link is caused by external factors, the researchers carried out robustness tests with various variables including the strength of IP enforcement, political factors, and economic development. However, even after these controls the link remained intact.

Luckily for copyright holders, ‘dumb’ countries are not ‘doomed’ by definition. If the ruling elite is smart enough, they can still lower piracy rates.

“[The results] should not be taken as universal evidence that society with higher intelligent quotient is a requirement to alleviate software piracy,” the researchers write.

“Our findings indicate that if ruling elite enforces policies to decrease software piracy, intelligence provides a credible proxy of the degree of consent of such policies.”

Interestingly, if these results hold up, with a bit of luck software piracy may solve itself in the long run.

Previous research found that software piracy increases literacy in African countries, which may in turn raise the national IQ, which will then lower piracy rates. Or… will that lower literacy again?

The full paper is available here (pdf).

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

In an effort to keep people away from pirate sites, copyright holders are overloading Google with DMCA takedown notices.

Since 2011 Google has removed more than a billion “pirate” links from its search results, and the two billion mark is only a few months away.

The number of requests from rightsholders has increased dramatically, up to the point where Google now handles around three million “pirate” links every day.

To illustrate this growth, we processed all the weekly takedown requests as reported in the search engine’s Transparency Report. This shows that 5.1 million pirate URLs were reported to Google in first week of June, 2014, a figure that increased to over 22 million two years later.

The weekly numbers fluctuate but the graph below illustrates the upward trend. If the current pattern continues then Google is expected to process over a billion reported links this year alone.

Google search DMCA notices, per week

The surge in takedown notices has also gained the attention of the U.S. Government. A few months ago the Copyright Office launched a public consultation in order to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the current DMCA provisions.

This prompted heavy criticism from copyright groups, but Google itself maintains that the current system is working fine.

“The notice-and-takedown process has been an effective and efficient way to address online infringement,” the company informed the Copyright Office in April.

“The increasing volume of URLs removed from Search each year demonstrates that rightsholders are finding the notice-and-takedown process worthwhile, efficient, and scalable to their needs.”

While Google believes that the millions of reported URLs per day are a sign that the DMCA takedown process is working properly, rightsholders see it as a signal of an unbeatable game of whack-a-mole.

A coalition of hundreds of artists and music group has characterized the DMCA law as obsolete, dysfunctional and harmful.

“The notice-and-takedown system has proved an ineffective tool for the volume of unauthorized digital music available, something akin to bailing out an ocean with a teaspoon,” they wrote.

Together with many other rightsholders they are opting for broad revisions. Among other things they want advanced technologies and processes to ensure that infringing content doesn’t reappear elsewhere once it’s removed, a so-called “notice and stay down” approach.

Until that’s the case, they will probably keep the flood gates wide open.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

In 2013, anti-piracy prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad filed a motion targeting two of The Pirate Bay’s oldest domains, ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se.

Ingblad filed a complaint against Punkt SE (IIS), the organization responsible for Sweden’s top-level .SE domain, arguing that since The Pirate Bay is an illegal site the domains are tools used to infringe copyright. On this basis they should be suspended, Ingblad said.

The case was heard in April 2015 and a month later the Stockholm District Court ruled that The Pirate Bay should forfeit both ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se.

The case went to the Court of Appeal and last month the ruling of the District Court was upheld.

But as is so often the case with Pirate Bay legal action, the show isn’t over yet. Following the ruling, site co-founder Fredrik Neij indicated he would take an appeal to the Supreme Court. That has now been filed.

“Fredrik Neij moves that the Supreme Court, by the modification and elimination of the District Court and Court of Appeal’s decision, should reject the prosecutor’s request for Fredrik Neij’s forfeiture to the right of the domain names piratebay.se and thepiratebay.se,” Neij’s lawyer Jonas Nilsson writes in a translation sent to TF.

The situation is somewhat complex. In 2012, Neij transferred the domains to a person named Supavadee Trakunroek. However, the Court of Appeal found that transaction to be mere ‘paperwork’ and that in real terms Neij had retained control of the domains.

With that in mind the question remained – should the domains be ‘seized’ from Neij or from IIS, the organization responsible for Sweden’s top-level .SE domain?

The Court found that domain names should be considered a type of intellectual property, property that is owned by the person or organization that purchased the domain. Therefore, in this case IIS is not the owner of the Pirate Bay domains, Neij is.

It is this aspect of the ruling that Fredrik Neij is now appealing to the Supreme Court.

“Fredrik Neij argues that the District Court and the Court of Appeal wrongly concluded that a domain name is a type of intellectual property that can be confiscated in accordance with copyright law,” his appeal reads.

With the appeal now filed it is up to the Supreme Court to decide whether to take the case. Domains used for illegal activity have been seized in Sweden before, but none have been fought as actively as this one.

Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay is operating from the .org domain it began with, all those years ago.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

As one of the leading blog platforms, WordPress.com receives thousands of DMCA takedown requests every year.

The company is known to carefully inspect all notices and has a track record of defending its users against DMCA abuse. In addition, it regularly highlights the worst offenders in its own “Hall of Shame.”

This week WordPress.com is facing a challenge of a different kind, as a court-ordered DMCA subpoena requires them to expose the identity of a user following allegations of copyright infringement.

The user in question runs the weblog “The Devil Corp,” which is extremely critical of the marketing and sales company Smart Circle, as well as several related entities.

“This consortium profits by exploiting its employees and they’ll work you like a farm animal and give you nothing for your time,” the blog reads.

“They offer slave hours for slave wages disguised as an opportunity for financial freedom and their ‘owners’ are nothing more than professional dream sellers who’ll do anything to keep you around as long as possible. Drug dealers deserve more respect.”

These are harsh words, no doubt, but freedom of speech goes a long way in the United States. That said, it hasn’t prevented Smart Circle from targeting the blog via another route.

Late December, Smart Circle asked WordPress.com to remove various infringing images, which were copied from the company’s own website. The images in question were photos of some of Smart Circle’s key employees.

The photos were swiftly removed by WordPress, a decision the blog owner didn’t protest. Instead, he uploaded modified versions of the original, portraying the employees in a devilish manner.

“Although the inclusion of those pictures was clearly fair use, I thought it best not to trouble the justice system and instead altered them in a satirical manner,” the blogger notes.

Smart Circle parody/critique

After a few months passed, Smart Circle sent WordPress.com another DMCA takedown request, targeting the modified images. This time, however, WordPress.com left them online.

Not pleased with this decision, Smart Circle asked the court for a DMCA subpoena against the blog owner, which a clerk has now signed off on. This means that the company can compel WordPress.com to hand over the personal details of the blog owner.

TorrentFreak contacted WordPress.com’s parent company Automattic, who inform us that they have yet to be served.

“At the time of writing we have not been served with this subpoena. If and when we are, we’ll assess the available options at that point,” the company says.

Given the fact that WordPress.com didn’t comply with the DMCA request, it’s likely that the company will protest the subpoena.

The present case is relevant considering the recent discussions about DMCA abuse. Many independent content creators and digital rights activists have complained about various forms of abuse and threats in recent weeks.

While Smart Circle hasn’t crossed the line here (from a legal perspective at least), one can doubt whether DMCA subpoenas are meant to expose critics in cases like these, where fair use appears to be a reasonable defense.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Copyright holders have a problem with their content appearing on the Internet without permission. They argue that if they do not remove that content and the links that connect to it, anyone is able to access it for free, thus undermining their business model.

As a result, every week millions of takedown notices are sent to countless platforms demanding that unauthorized movies, music, TV shows, software and images are removed for breaching copyright law.

But regularly, copyright holders say, after being taken down that same content reappears after being re-uploaded or reindexed by offending sites. This results in a circular and never-ending game of whac-a-mole.

To solve this problem entertainment industry groups are suggesting changes to the DMCA that would dictate that once content is taken down, it should never again appear on that same platform. While easily said, the mechanics of that dream are not straightforward.

The latest organization to express concerns is the Wikimedia Foundation, the group behind the ever-popular Wikipedia service. Wikimedia feels that its current handling of copyright issues would only be hindered by changes to the DMCA.

“On the Wikimedia projects, particularly Wikimedia Commons, the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown process plays only a small role in preventing copyright infringement,” says Wikimedia Foundation Legal Counsel, Charles M. Roslof.

“The community members who voluntarily enforce project policies do the heavy lifting by removing files that infringe copyright. As a result, we receive very few valid takedown notices — only 12 in all of 2015.”

Roslof says that the operation’s current processes work well to keep infringement to a minimum, with volunteers taking care of the majority of copyright issues before rightsholders even notice.

“When something does stick around long enough, the notice-and-takedown process is an effective backstop. This system can exist because of the current legal regime,” Roslof notes.

Wikimedia believes that if the DMCA is tightened to include a “takedown, staydown” mandate – effectively a requirement for platforms to proactively filter all uploaded content – that could negatively affect non-profits and the service they provide to the public.

“[It] is costly to implement such systems well — and it would be exceptionally hard on nonprofits like us,” Roslof says.

“First, the variety of content and file types hosted on the Wikimedia projects makes it an incredibly difficult technological challenge to build such a tool that both works effectively and doesn’t over-remove files and chill speech. Second, being forced to monitor for infringement ourselves would reduce the Wikimedia communities’ ability to govern the projects.”

Of course, it will come as no surprise that a major underlying factor with “takedown, staydown” is the fear that by not complying each and every time, platforms such as those operated by Wikimedia could be held liable under copyright law and face stiff penalties.

“[S]tatutory damages — up to $150,000 for a single case of copyright infringement — create strong incentives for platforms to strictly comply with the notice-and-takedown process. Since any mistake in leaving up files that infringe copyright could cost tens of thousands of dollars, the section 512 safe harbors are crucial for platforms’ continued existence,” Roslof adds.

Finally, in the near future the US Copyright Office will again be inviting comments on Section 512 of the DMCA. Wikimedia hopes that its users and the general public will take the time to get involved.

“The fundamental purpose of copyright law is not to benefit authors but to ensure the public is able to enjoy new creative works. It is therefore important to ensure that the voices of the public and public interest are represented in these discussions,” Roslof concludes.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.