May 30th 2004, Update : piracy of ``Harry Potter 3" still growing up...

In our first press release of May 28th, we evaluated the P2P propagation ``Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban" to 318,592 downloads per hour. Right now, we estimate propagation phase 2 to be completed and observe an amount of transactions that is close to a million per hour.

 

May 28th 2004, P2P - Movie piracy: unprecedented score for ``Harry Potter"...

In 6 days, Warner Bros. will release ``Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban" but the movie is already available through P2P networks. Among the tremendous swapped files, we have identified various qualities and versions (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian...) which now propagate at a rate of 318,592 downloads per hour (minimal values).

While uploaders seem to remain online and active, the number of downloaders is still growing up all around the world. The upcoming propagation might be catastrophic and consequences unpredictable...

Harry Potter III, early propagation (2 hours) on May 28th 2004

 

May 27th 2004, Child Pornography: French Gov sponsors a free software that protects kids...

French secretary of victims rights, Nicole Guedj has announced her support to a team of French Monty and Canadian developers that invented LogProtect. This free software, a one year collaborating project with feds and experts, prevents child from revealing any private details to potential predators while chatting and also can kick off any networked application that tries to send sensitive information through the Internet.

Having tested and reviewed the application, we strongly encourage parents to download the English version which installs smoothly without requiring any experience nor knowledge.

 

A complete documentation is also available in English that explains parents the dangers of child pornography [...] and how to configure this MUST HAVE user friendly tool.

May 26th 2004, Torture at Abu Ghraib: Pictures and movies hit P2P...

After software, games, music, movies, child pornography and terrorism, the worldwide P2P community now puts its hands on the darkest human activity: ``Torture".

Yesterday, US officials said the leaking files (pictures and movies) were seen propagating onto P2P at a rate of 24M downloads a day. For Europe, during our 1 hour observation phase, we identified 387 explicit files and spotted 11,423 users.

Torture materials: European downloads by country

 

 

 

Torture materials: European downloads location

 

 

 

May 25th 2004, French music artists to denounce anti-P2P campaign...

French music artists are now blaming the SNEP (French RIAA) for its last anti P2P campaign. They joined several associations like Adami, Spedidam, UFC, CLCV, Unaf et al to denounce what they believe to be a ``provocation" and ``dangerous campaign that could harm music fans".

 

 

French music artists to denounce May 5th anti-P2P campaign

 

Curiously, the French TV channel TF1 had covered the event and even denounced the P2P as a ``dangerous thing where child pornography resides" [...] This new episode is probably not the last one... Herve Rony (General manager of SNEP) spent last week justifying himself.

Could French music industry die because of unskilled lobbyists rather than piracy?

May 25th 2004, Anonymous P2P: Freenet is now popular...

Our most recent observations on the Freenet (anonymous and encrypted) P2P reveals a worldwide coverage of this network. We do not expect so much common P2P users to switch to Freenet and believe it will become the ``underground" P2P platform where very illegal swaps and early propagations may occur.

Map: The Freenet network		Freenet usage distribution

May 24th 2004, Cyber Criminality and P2P - Cisco code theft: situation under control...

This is the first time ever some stolen digital data do not propagate nor exclusively rely on P2P for dissemination. Hence, the Cisco IOS source code is not available for the mass...

Although we expect very few consequences due to code theft like Denial of Service attacks (DOS, DDOS, stack overflows...) Cisco developers already demonstrated their ability to face such minor issues.

This is an almost encouraging fact since the Windows code leak had triggered an unprecedented hacking activity focusing the OS weaknesses.

 

May 21st 2004, P2P: a new place of choice for terrorism...

P2P could become a place of choice for terrorism propaganda...

A few days after US citizen N. Berg was beheaded, the digital movie is widely available through P2P networks.

Country of uploaders proposing the beheading video.

 

Map: where was the movie located

 

The video has now been duplicated in various file formats and compression ratio. Due to popularity and availability, some of those files can download faster than a regular MP3.

We observe that some thousands of P2P users did not respect M. Berg's dignity, hereby relaying and participating to the campaign of terror...

 

May 12th 2004, Music Piracy: Statistics on P2P population, Piracy and Lawsuits...

Six months ago, RIAA introduced a new kind of anti-piracy strategy: ``mass lawsuits" against copyright infringers. It's now time to withdraw some conclusions by correlating facts and figures.

May 11th 2004, Piracy: most lasting P2P networks among Kazaa, eDonkey...

American P2P users seams to dessert Kazaa while the deployment of eDonkey still goes on (in Europe and worldwide).

Ranking: Most lasting P2P networks

 

Hence, the eDonkey protocol (including eMule and Overnet) is now the most lasting P2P network while the FastTrack protocol (KaZaA...) is just #2.

This ranking was established by evaluating the 9 following criteria against users wishes:

• Internationalization (available in how many languages, quality of translation)

• Graphical User Interface (cleanness, ease of use, functionalities)

• Portability (available for how many architectures, Operating Systems)

• Estimated population (number of active users)

• Deployment trend (more new clients or less new clients each month)

• Content (variety and quantity of files available)

• Performances (how fast downloads are achieving)

• Encryption (are the communications encrypted or in the clear)

• Anonymity (is the infringer stealth or identifiable)

 

May 10th 2004, P2P users now sliding into anonymity...

P2P users migration

Although the population of Kazaa users recently stabilized after a surprising grow up, we observe new trends making it clear that anonymity could become much more popular than ever. As a worrying fact, MP2P deployment increased of +18% within last 30 days.

On February 2004, Pablo SOTO, the maker of MP2P (Piolet, Blubster, RockItNet...) gave an interview in which he detailed the functionalities of his next P2P protocol:

Pablo Soto: Anonymity in MP2P is addressed in several different ways. [...] Transport protocols now implement full encryption. As a third layer of anonymity, the new TCP connections act as proxy'ed negotiators.

If the trend accelerates, (IFPI, RIAA, CRIA...) appointed investigators may have to look for a new job: while monitoring Kazaa with no software / tool was almost feasible, this new anonymity challenge is definitely no more for play...

 

May 7th 2004, US Patent 6,732,180 could defeat P2P piracy...

On May 4th 2004,

The US Patent # 6,732,180 was published, which consist in a software based protected content spoofing suite.

The solution, among various non restrictive functionalities, would be able to generate fake files (decoys) for mp3, movies, books, software...

Although is was not specified if the researchers own a light, reliable and efficient way to decrypt and infiltrate Kazaa networks, this new approach claims to be quite adaptive to common P2P platforms such as Gnutella.

Recording and movie industries now have a new tool to actively and digitally protect copyrighted materials without having to sue P2P users neither blocking P2P platforms... We wish the Tula University project the success they deserve while bringing this technology to market.

A complete technical review of the patent will be published as soon as we have the document ready for public audience.

May 6th 2004, France: music pirates could fight back anti-piracy campaign...

While CD sales for 2004 Q1 in France exceed -20%, the SNEP (French RIAA) is about to launch its new campaign against music piracy. Read our previous press release for more details.

Strategy facts:
At the end of 2003, Claude MC Solaar, a French rapper, released a song disclaiming the consequences of illegal downloads on P2P... The consequences for the sales of his next CD were catastrophic: music pirates had released the CD weeks before official publication while journalists widely covered the drama... (see Warner Music and MC Solaar pirated).

This new provocation is the very same error Solaar did. Because the SNEP is going to reiterate it, we have serious fears that the 5 Majors could be exposed to a new massive fight back from French pirates. FYI, the French P2P community has already demonstrated its ability to swap ~14 Millions files a day, leading to 60,000 illegal copies of distinct titles in less than a week... Moreover, almost any so called educative campaign in France led to new P2P users enrollment...

Such ``make it yourself" decision makers should then consider the following concerns before going on:

• What about money back if next CDs won't be sold within first weeks?

• Will ALPA (private investigation dept.) survey such an amount of piracy by hand? (still no P2P investigation software)

• Will the French Monty be able to face so many evidences to collect? (they must take screenshots)

• And what about artists? Will they keep firing those asking what's done against piracy?

Whatever happens, we will be watching and counting...

 

May 6th 2004, France: Music Industry warns P2P users before prosecutions...

The SNEP (French RIAA) just unveiled its last campaign against music piracy. Herve Rony (CEO of SNEP) and Pascal NEGRE (Chairman of Universal Music France) joined their effort to publicly denounce what they believe to be the only explanation to 2004 Q1 -21.4% on CD sales: ISPs and P2P usage.

 

 

`` Free music  is not for free"

 

This new campaign was said to be the last chance for music downloaders before legal actions would take place in France ``if nothing changes".

 

May 5th 2004, P2P statistics for Apr 2004: piracy still growing up...

Peer to Peer statistics for April 2004.

Kazaa: It looks like the number of ``New KaZaA users'' is now close to zero while most of other P2P networks are likely to confirm the trend.

Piracy: The music piracy grew up (+9.5%) within the last 30 days.

Click on the picture to view the estimated business leakage for the worldwide music industry (last six months).

 

April 27th 2004, France: Majors to face music piracy by downsizing...

Today,

Music majors (Universal, Warner, Sony, BMG, EMI) said to the press they will have to initiate a major downsize in order to face the financial consequences of music piracy. The process will include relocation, significant staff cut off while most contracts with ``less profitable artists" will be simply not renewed or dropped down.

Although it was not official, French decision makers were expecting big results from the ``American way" and such a 180° seems to be the result of recent senatorial debates regarding the future LEN (Law on Digital Economy) which the music industry had unsuccessfully tried to lobby.

Note to the investors: they don't have to worry about next profits since the downsize is huge and not even a Franc had been spent on piracy investigation... Beware: the only two digits grow up in France is for piracy, not for CD sales!

 

April 13th 2004, Music Piracy: IFPI announcement, which effect?

New piracy statistics for March 2004 trend to demonstrate some success. On a worldwide basis, music piracy decreased of 36% since Feb.

See the details here.

 

Although this is a rather encouraging decrease of music piracy, we recommend to wait for the impact of the recent Kazaa population growth before stating that IFPI has definitely got the right approach.

 

April 2nd 2004, KaZaA users: back to the July 2003 population...

A few hours ago,

Our systems started reporting a number of KaZaA users that is now equivalent to what it was on July of 2003. We observe that the KaZaA population is growing up [again] after a long recession.

Moreover,

for the first time ever since RIAA et al started ``mass suing'' infringers the worldwide P2P population grew up from approximately +5% in one month.

 

March 24th 2004, WARNING: The Clif Griffin & Justin X. B. Trojan ...

A few days ago, so called Cliff Griffin and Justin X. B. released two malicious .exe files within p2p networks.

Having tested and observed the behavior of the two Trojans, we conclude that:

• The primary goal is to trap any downloader without its consent / knowledge
• Those (malware) software harvest IP addresses without any consent
• Claiming users are pirates based on those data is a criminal offense in both Europe and Canada

We see in such a stupid campaign nothing else than the natural continuation of some association's anti-piracy speech which fairly misses efficiency and strategy. As a result, kids not understanding the consequences of privacy violation (among other criminal offenses) rather decide to approve of the big's sentences and then engage in a ``war against pirates''.

We do not hope those guys to be jailed even if they deserve it. At least we whish their potential successors to understand anti-piracy is not for play.

 

February 17th 2004, Open letter to the Canadian Federal Court, CRIA, and ISPs...

(I). Quoting from various sources

The organization says Internet file swapping on sites like Kazaa have cost the Canadian industry $425 million since 2000 and led to layoffs of 20 per cent of the staff at music labels across the country.

Canadian Recording Industry Association has ABSOLUTELY no software nor automated tools to investigate the several millions of file swaps that occur every day in Canada. So it is almost not acceptable to retain the business leakage they announce to be the consequence of music piracy.

---

Pfohl said the 29 individuals being pursued each offer "in the high hundreds or thousands of songs," mostly on the popular Kazaa filesharing network.

The FastTrack communication protocol (used onto Kazaa) is always encrypted. As of today, we have seen at least 6 different cryptographic algorithms. Could CRIA name those algorithms and explain how they infiltrate such networks? The concern is no less than the admissibility of the evidences hereby provided...

---

Telus, argued the telecommunications company should not have to hunt down alleged copyright violators for CRIA.

Almost true: The ISPs should not have to pay for the investigation and action processes. But: they have made intensive usage of commercial arguments like ``Unlimited Music download’’ in order to sell their High Speed Internet kits to residential customers. That would be fair to collaborate in quickly identifying the way to re-educate people.

---

"The process is not as simple or as easy as the music industry suggests."

WRONG: Canadian ISPs are particularly efficient in identifying spammers and throwing them out of their networks, arguing they do not respect the Acceptable Use Policy… When someone writes to abuse@whatevercanadianisp.ca to report SPAM, he just provides the IP address of the spammer and Canadian ISPs know how to deal successfully with such information. Most of the time, they call you by telephone before disconnecting you in order to be sure this not a virus acting on your behalf from your infected computer.

---

Dynamic IP addresses are used by more than one customer, making it harder to identify who was on the Internet at a specific time.

Wrong: This is exactly the same kind of argument than the previous one with a technical approach to flood non technically skilled people like CRIA and the justice. Both ADSL and DOCSIS Cable operators use dynamic allocation (DHCP). The leases are generally renewed so that residential customers do not change their IP so often... Moreover, spammers rely on dynamic allocation too and ISPs identify them quickly.

---

Twenty-nine of the providers' clients are "pirates who have been openly and illegally distributing thousands of digital music files over public networks", say CRIA president Brian Robertson and association lawyer Richard Pfohl.

Unacceptable: The Recording Industry Associations will have to understand that only the Canadian justice could decide who is a pirate, a cyber criminal… Unless CRIA provides confessions from Internet users, people they are talking about are just anonymous Canadians, not devil criminals.

---

 

(II). Business leakage

 

The CRIA might have precised that Music incomes essentially rely on a very few artists of each music company. The financial success of investments Labels do on their bestselling artists is tightly bound to the commercial success of the album just after its release.

 

A peer to peer user that shares several files is not ``dangerous'' while another one that focuses on sharing the most recent albums of the Label top 10 artists is THE show stopper. If the sales objectives are not reached within the first month, investments are lost so that the music company loses big money. Advertising campaigns must be paid once again...

 

Then we suggest focusing on stopping some very specific uploaders only, those who make it easier to ``freeload'' than to buy at the nearest music store... Such an approach is crucial: ISPs will have to collaborate efficiently and quickly while CRIA MUST focus on identifying which customers are proposing those new albums while they have a chance to make money.

February 6th 2004, Landmark P2P Case: might be the last chance...

Once again, the American Music and Movie associations are trying to sue the most popular P2P platform: the FastTrack network. This time, Sharman Networks is indirectly affected since three of its licensees will have to convince a court that they are absolutely not responsible nor involved in IP infringement.

Probably with no technical facts, statistics and just complaints, that will be hard for the plaintiff consortium to demonstrate the liability of the defendants since they actually operate one of the most obscure (encrypted) p2p network.

In Oct. 2003, we published a map that no one commented or ask question about. The FastTrack p2p topology as seen on this map was one of the most important technical evidence ever released. One could have clicked... but this evidence was ignored.

Now we estimate the situation to be very critical. P2P developers have withdrawn great experience and lessons from the past. Optisoft just released a new version of its Blubster software that relies on an encryption a la FreeNet. Anonymity is 100% guaranteed and not even IP addresses will be guessable by investigators.

When such crypto + anonymity will be widely democratized and servers will have moved out of range, it will be to late... As a conclusion, we could assist to the last chance for the industry to defeat the P2P networks...

January 26th 2004, The 38^th MIDEM exhibit 2004 rises against music piracy...

The 38^th MIDEM in Cannes (France), is once again the time for the music industry actors to massively denounce the phenomenon they unanimously designate as the source of all their problems: Music Piracy! It is not new, the music industry has observed a constant decreasing of its sales, wherever in Europe or Worldwide.

During various reports or TV shows, some artists devoted to anti-piracy had surprising remarks such as «Fuck to those who downloaded it»... Such remarks look pretty amazing since they insult some music industry people themselves! None would be surprised to learn how often we identify people from an ABC major illegally downloading  music that is owned by an XYZ competitor...

Many are those who expect big results from the next laws and their enforcement. What could the law against technical issues? Whatever the incurred sorrows would be, that will never bring technical solutions in terms of P2P investigation while more and more file swappers protect themselves from investigation services with tools like PeerGuardian. As of today, more than 99% of the worldwide investigation services (including police, law enforcement...) are completely blocked from users having such software. Moreover, most of the P2P platform developers are currently considering cryptography implementation, which would definitely keep them away from investigators whose budgets are still irrelevant... The piracy engineering moves faster than the music industry thinks...

This being said, could the plaintive have the kindness to present us figures, studies or anything else concrete? Our last analysis tends to reveal that the working time , unemployment and a low purchasing power constitute as many good reasons for French people not to pay anymore for certainly diverting but unaffordable music in those recession periods.

To get the picture, bring closer P2P activity ratio, population, unemployment figures and collected taxes for all regions and you will realize that the cause of the music industry misfortunes is almost due to an economic stagnation... More than a moral question, piracy might be considered as the result of a socio-economical situation which is strongly favorable to the digital piracy in France as for any other country from the G10.

Then, dear Parisian decision makers, remember your remarks will be heard from French in prey to the trouble and to financial difficulties. This remark is quite as valid in addition to the Atlantic...

November 5th 2003, The Red October of Piracy !

Summer, the right time as come to announce the yearly and so natural decline of... disc sales ! American, Canadian, French [...] they all denounce an avg. loss of ~ 20% compared to last year. ``It's all about piracy'' claim RIAA, MPAA, ADISQ, SNEP et al. But how do those monsters face the facts when an independent study is released? This is exactly the question this paper tries to answer concretely...

On August 2003 ( shortly before the RIAA / Verizon appeal ) we produced a preliminary study which technology was also used in elaborating the statistics that can be seen among our pages. Those 10 sheets were sent (after 2 phone discussions) to RIAA's attorneys located in DC. At the moment we are writing this article, we have got absolutely NO feedback, even to the mail we have sent directly to RIAA. We concluded that the music industry was defended by very busy and skilled people who do not have any need for what we stat... Fine ! Then let's realize a less ``preview'' study and release it to see if anyone cares.

This diagram classifies the 6497 attendees of the study by industry / activity. As seen on legend, they belong to various industries identified as ``potentially affected by piracy'' such as: Music, Movie, Game, eBook... We also included interesting people such as: Associations, Stock Exchange analysts and reporters from various specialized newspapers / websites.

The study was packed and send. The first deception raised with the ``delivery failure'' notification for 722 addresses. Ok, then Digital diaries may be reliable at ±11%? Next ! As soon as the first mails reached mailboxes we started observing the curve of mail readers (reading time stamped by our own servers). Weak! Too weak would be the result despite  an explicit title, a neat presentation and all the sorrows of the world not to be wrongfully flagged as spamers. An Australian ``anti-piracy'' guy  even succeeded in (temporarily) closing our Web site...

After having ``waited'' 15 days before observing an almost dead curve, here is now how to interpret the final results: the five industries the most impacted by piracy are at the very bottom of the chart among those who made the effort of reading our mail. Their respective situation and results however do not show that they know better than everyone what they are talking about [...] nor that they have the situation under control!

To figure out clearly what happened, we realized a pondered diagram of our data in order to present you a proportional representation for each industry / category of mail reader. This is when the story becomes very weird: Those who are focusing our attention are exactly those who do not care of what you send to them... (the fall is inside the picture). Special thanks to the European journalists, who got the mail [...] and did not fail in positively greeting our initiative.

Conclusion? We leave you sole judge of the facts severity... However, if our opinion were of any interest in such a monologue world, here it is: Digital Piracy will doubtlessly have a great future as long as the Digital Industries will persist in never listening to anybody and not to know what they are talking about. In a few words, Digital may survive to Industries...

PS : For those who are laughing at such conclusions, we can introduce them to the Amiga Industry ``no more laughing at all'' guys.