Although Tele2, Denmark’s largest ISP, was recently forced to block all access to the notorious torrent site The Pirate Bay, it seems once again the admin team over at TPB are having the last laugh.
The access block, from a technical standpoint, is very elementary and the admins even created a site to help Danish file sharers break the block and access the site. A new blog post seems to prove that their method is working and that all the IFPI has done has given more publicity to the already hugely popular site.
“…the number of visits from Denmark has increased by 12% thanks to IFPI,” reads the post. “Our site http://thejesperbay.org is growing more because of the media attention than people actually coming to learn how to bypass the filter - our guess is that alot of the users on the site now run OpenDNS instead of the censoring DNS at Tele2.dk.”
“We also started tracking some stats before and after the block. There’s no noticable difference between the number of users from Tele2.dk before and after,” the post added.
The Jesper Bay site simply teaches those how to use OpenDNS which will connect them to a global DNS instead of the ISP’s DNS server, breaking the access block.
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The ESA(Entertainment Software Association) had filed a new Special 301 Report with the US Trade Representative which shows the growing struggles for growth in the international video game industry thanks to ever increasing piracy.
The report specifically mentions a few countries where piracy is highest, notably Canada, China, Malaysia, Russia and eastern Europe.
Michael Gallagher, CEO of the ESA, explained, “Countries that support computer and video game piracy discourage publishers from establishing viable and legitimate markets. The Special 301 process sends a strong message to them to clean up their act to avoid damaging trade sanctions.”
The ESA even went on to say that in some of the areas listed, piracy exceeded 80 to 90 percent. These included areas in southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central and South America. The ESA defines “piracy” as any “factory production of optical discs (such as CDs and DVDs); CD-R and DVD-R ‘burning’; cartridge counterfeiting; Internet downloading and file trading; as well as Internet cafe piracy.”
The report acknowledges that there are no short term fixes for the major problem areas but hopes that progress can be made in less problem areas such as Canada.
“This year our Special 301 filing highlights countries that urgently need to begin backing up their commitment to creativity and innovation,” added Gallagher.
“We look forward to working with USTR and other supporting government agencies to achieve tangible results and hopefully succeed in lowering piracy in these key countries.”
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The decently popular website Play.com has begun offering high quality, DRM-free MP3 music downloads for the relatively low price of 65p in the UK, and the company says it will start with about one million tracks from EMI and indie labels.
The files, which will be 320kbps, should be playable on most if not all media devices on the market, due to its MP3 format. Apple already offers EMI tracks DRM-free as well but in AAC format which is mainly supported by its iPod line. The price is also cheaper and a Play.com spokesperson has said that “we’re going to be cheaper than [Apple's] iTunes. Whatever price iTunes goes down to, we’ll be looking to go lower.”
In a recent decision, the EU has told Apple it must standardize its prices across Europe and so the tracks are expected to drop from its high 79p current price.
Play.com should also see competition from Amazon MP3 which already undercuts Apple’s track prices and offers DRM-free music from all major labels. So far Amazon MP3 is only in the US but it will hit the UK later this year.
The company says it is talking to the other major labels, “and if one or more had been quicker we might have held off the launch. We think that within the year, the others will be on board.”
