Category Archives: Red Hot

Music Industry Destroys Another Powerful Free Download Tool

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If you know how, it is possible within just a few mouse clicks to have free access to one of the world’s largest resources of free music. Millions of tracks are available for free streaming but, with a few tweaks and the right software, they can be easily downloaded. The industry, seemingly powerless to do anything about the powerful source of the music, prefers to destroy the toolmakers – by fair means or foul.

Image is LogoIn September 2010, the Mulve music download tool reached the peak of its popularity. Pulling on the resources of VKontakte – Russia’s Facebook equivalent – it provided instant access to millions of high quality tracks from just about every artist imaginable.

But a few days later it was gone. Undoubtedly prompted by IFPI, BPI and the Big Four labels behind them, the British police arrested the owner of the domain. Despite no charges sticking, the operators pulled the plug on the project. What the labels could not do, however, was anything about the source of the music – VKontakte itself.

This problem was exploited during November by a new and altogether more powerful tool. The Mielophone app truly was Mulve on steroids, not only pulling music from more sources but integrating discovery, last.fm, a playlist and download manager, videos, lyrics and more.

But as history repeated itself, on February 16th the person who registered the Mielophone domain name received an email from EMI and Gala Records, which set in motion the death of this fledgling and promising application.

“As you probably know, our company actively protects its copyright and related rights in the territory of the Russian Federation, including via the courts and law enforcement agencies. The Mielophone software which, obviously, is connected to you (in any case, according to the technical information for your domain name) violates the copyright and related rights of EMI / Gala Records,” the email began.

The email then went on to state that the operation of Mielophone constituted a civil breach of Article 146 (Infringement of Copyright and Related Rights), which allows for imprisonment for up to 6 years.

Secondly, and most strangely, EMI and Gala then indicated that the Mielophone operators’ activities constituted a criminal breach of Article 273 – offenses which carry a maximum sentence of 7 years imprisonment.

Article 273 concerns the “Creation, use and distribution of malicious computer programs” as detailed below.

Creating computer programs or changes to existing programs, which obviously lead to the unauthorized destruction, blocking, modification or copying of information, disruption of computers, computer systems or networks, as well as the use or dissemination of such programs or machine carriers with such programs -shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term of three years with a fine of up to two hundred thousand rubles or the salary or other income for the period up to eighteen months.

The same act which negligently caused grave consequences, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term of three to seven years.

However, since EMI and Gala Records are very fine and reasonable people, something they were keen to point out to in their correspondence, the operators of Mielophone were given the opportunity to “close the issue with a peaceful pre-trial procedure”, i.e stop the Mielophone project and end its distribution.

We have learned that the people behind Mielophone wisely tried to seek legal advice but were met with an unhelpful legal profession – specifically when the lawyers they approached learned they would be going up against EMI. So, with little option, Mielophone is no more. The creators have made it very clear that they want to steer clear of legal action and won’t be reviving or revisiting the project.

In the meantime, the Mielophone.air installer remains available via Google Code and the Google search engine. Oh, and VKontakte is still up and doing its thing but they, of course, are easily able to retain lawyers and as such probably don’t respond to scary emails.

But this is the Internet, and it seems that the demise of this software hasn’t gone unnoticed. Already there is another group promising to bring out a new application to replace Mielophone although at this stage we were unable to get a comment from those behind it to find out more. We’ll persevere, investigate and report back in due course.

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Hosting Company: Anti-Pirates Stole $138,000 In Kit & Hijacked Our Email

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After seizing back equipment wrongfully seized by Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, the owner of the servers which previously housed a huge warez topsite has spoken out. With claims that BREIN ruined his business, the man from Costa Rica says that the anti-piracy group stole $138,000 of his equipment and hijacked his email accounts. He will now pursue the matter with the police.

In January, Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN targeted one of the Internet’s largest warez piracy topsites. The site, known as Swan, was taken down by hosting provider WorldStream and in a cosy arrangement the company handed over the servers to the anti-piracy group with no legal oversight.

This week, with the support of Solv Advocaten, one of The Netherlands’ top law firms, server owner Alejandra Transporte SA, a small South American hosting provider that had nothing to do with the topsite, managed to get their servers back. Unlike BREIN, Alejandra Transporte did so through the legal system, obtaining authorization from the Court of Haarlem.

Now in an interview with Webwereld, Alejandra Transporte boss Craig Salmond has been explaining how the actions of BREIN have “ruined his business” by “stealing” $138,000 worth of his equipment.

“BREIN – with the active participation of WorldStream – effectively killed my business,” said Salmond. “My equipment was stolen and the keys to my reputation.”

Salmond said that Alejandra Transporte is a small ISP that takes the privacy of its users very seriously and says the facilities offered are similar similar to those provided by renowned bullet-proof hoster PRQ in Sweden. The manner in which Alejandra Transporte can accept payments from customers to maintain their privacy is also innovative.

“Customers can transfer money through Western Union but also, for example through a deposit at different poker sites,” Salmond explains. “So we reach people who do not have access to services such as PayPal or for privacy reasons do not want to use it.”

But of course, in January Alejandra Transporte went offline thanks to BREIN and WorldStream. Salmond says that when he called WorldStream, they refused to tell him anything, instead referring him back to BREIN.

“[WorldStream] are actually responsible for this,” Salmond told Webwereld. “WorldStream has a contract with me, I entrusted them to take care of and manage my property. They have grossly violated my trust and given my servers away.”

Disputing BREIN’s claims that they seized 12 of his servers (they took only 8), Salmond says that to know exactly how much capacity they had, BREIN must have gained illegal access to the machines. Furthermore, in correspondence with Salmond, BREIN themselves indicated that they somehow had acquired what is described as “a temporary account” on the servers before they were seized, leading to accusations that BREIN could have easily uploaded any material they liked, thus contaminating the investigation.

And the accusations don’t stop there.

Salmond says that following the seizures he could no longer access some GMail accounts since their passwords had been changed. He attributes this to BREIN having hijacked the accounts.

“What BREIN and WorldStream have done, can not be tolerated,” said Milica Antic of Solv lawfirm who are representing Salmond. “My client sees this as theft of his property. He has also suffered enormous financial and reputational damage.”

This case again appears to highlight the perils of copyright-supporting outfits such as BREIN – who have no official authority – carrying out investigations in a manner more fitting of governmental bodies such as the police or the courts.

Just this week the case against two administrators of the FileSoup BitTorrent site was thrown out. FACT – another Hollywood-backed private anti-piracy group with confusions as to the extent of their powers – had conducted their own investigations into the site but the evidence proved worthless to a criminal case and was dismissed.

ACS:Law and MediaCAT Completely Shut Down Both Their Businesses

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Hot on the heels of the recent announcement in court that ACS:Law will stop chasing alleged file-sharers, comes an even more dramatic development. According to a document seen by us, both ACS:Law and their copyright troll client MediaCAT have just completely shut down their businesses. The news comes just days before a senior judge is due to hand down a ruling on the pair’s activities.

In a statement handed to the Patents County Court earlier this month, ACS:Law owner Andrew Crossley delivered some good news for once. The anti-piracy business had all got too much for Crossley – he would now stop chasing alleged file-sharers.

Crossley, in his usual spin-doctor style, tried his best to blame just about everyone else for his downfall but for those who have followed these cases closely it was clear who was to blame. Crossley and client Lee Bowden, owner of copyright troll MediaCAT, had been the architects of their own doom.

With the Patents County Court hearing adjourned by Judge Birss QC, most observers believed that his ruling, which is now due next week, would be the next significant milestone in this whole sorry affair. But for companies that operate as unusually as ACS:Law and MediaCAT, there’s always a surprise in store.

Since we were the first outlet to report on the activities of ACS:Law back in 2008, it’s perhaps fitting that we should now be the ones to break the news of the company’s ultimate demise.

According to a copy of a document obtained by us, which appears to have been sent out by Crossley during the last week, ACS:Law have not only stopped all file-sharing related work as previously reported, but actually shut down completely 31st January 2011.

Furthermore, the document adds that ACS:Law’s only remaining speculative invoicing client – MediaCAT – has also ceased trading.

“Ahead of Judge Birss’ judgement due on Tuesday, it would seem to some that Mr Crossley and Mr Bowden are attempting to avoid not just ‘judicial scrutiny’ but financial responsibility for the flawed claims that they foolishly decided to issue,” consumer group BeingThreatened told us on hearing the news.

“They perhaps hoped that they might gain a judgement which they could use to threaten future letter recipients, instead their greed has led to the exposure of the significant and manifold flaws in the legal and evidential basis of the speculative invoicing scheme they employed.”

There has been recent speculation that MediaCAT may choose to close their business, particularly since they are now facing an application for “wasted costs” following their recent catastrophic legal venture against 27 alleged file-sharers. But even closure may not save the company’s owner from some hefty payouts.

“MediaCAT’s status as a private limited company may not protect [Bowden] from personal legal liability for the costs that will be demanded by the defendants of the claims MediaCAT brought,” notes Bench. “ACS:Law was not a limited company in any sense. Mr Crossley will remain entirely and personally liable for all the actions of his firm.”

Joe Hickster, the blogger behind the ACS:Bore blog who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes supporting many people who have fallen victim to ACS:Law and similar companies, welcomed the news.

“The news of the pair’s demise is a vindication for the people who stood strong against ACS:LAW/Media C.A.T,” he told us. “The damage they have caused cannot be overestimated, so it’s great news that their campaign of fear against many innocent people seems to be at an end.”

“With Crossley’s upcoming appearance at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, a warning has been sent out to those Solicitors who think they can pick up the poisoned baton of Speculative Invoicing.”

Perhaps the big question now is how the closure of ACS:Law and MediaCAT will affect next Tuesday’s court hearing where Judge Birss QC is due to deliver a ruling on the pair’s activities.

“The timing [of the closures] will be no coincidence, but while these actions may have been conceived as a damage limitation exercise, they will do nothing to appease Judge Birss who is already wise to the ‘twists and turns’ of this scheme and who is unlikely to let the duo’s plan work out quite as they perhaps intend,” concludes BeingThreatened’s James Bench.

So, the show isn’t over yet. Be sure to tune in here on Tuesday to hear what Judge Birss has to say. And bring some popcorn, this should be very interesting indeed.

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