A new proposal in Britain, taken up by the House of Commons today, wants to make it law that ISPs are forced to block access to all sites that offer unauthorized movies, music and other pirated content like games and books.
Content holders say the amendment will finally give them “the tools to tackle the piracy problem at the supply and demand levels,” says the NYTimes, but critics see censorship of the Internet and general undermining of the development of England’s digital economy.
The Open Rights Group, which has been fighting against Internet censorship, says the new law will certainly be abused, allowing individuals or companies to “suppress any Web content they find objectionable, under the pretext of protecting their copyright.”
The British government says curbing piracy will bring hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue to the entertainment industry, which accounts for 6 percent of economic output, but critics say the policies will be expensive for the ISPs, and taxpayers will be forced to help pay for the enforcement of policies they couldn’t care less about.
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Greek authorities have taken down the large torrent tracker Gamato.info, accusing the site of facilitating copyright infringement of music, games, movies, and books.
Six admins of the site were also arrested in raids of their homes in Athens, Salonika, Larissa and Aridaia.
The police officials were working on tips from IFPI Greece, the local branch of the industry group.
Gamato.info was a top 20 most visited site in Greece, with an estimated 155,000 daily visitors. The site had around 13,000 movies, 6500 games and over 35,000 music albums available.
Says Jeremy Banks, director of anti-piracy at IFPI: “Gamato.info was facilitating the illegal distribution of music, film, games and books. It is the perfect illustration of how such illegal operations are damaging a wide range of creative industries in Europe. The Hellenic Police swiftly recognized this was not a victimless crime and took action against those who sought to shamelessly profit off the back of others’ creative work. This skilfully executed action by a highly knowledgeable police force should act as a real deterrent to others in Greece considering engaging in online piracy.”
Result for: Group
According to a new survey from security firm Barracuda Labs, 73 percent of Twitter accounts remain “inactive,” with less than 10 total Tweets.
Despite the large numbers, Barracuda says the number is down, from 79 percent in June of last year.
34 percent of Twitter users have never even made one Tweet.
A few of the other stats:
-74 percent of Twitter users have under 10 followers.
-60 percent follow less than 10 people
-34 percent of users have more followers than people they are following
-Growth jumped 21 percent in April 2009, when Ashton Kutcher was on the verge of hitting 1 million followers.
Which group Tweets the most? Let’s check the chart:
