Of course you're accepted here @/user/30692-kitbyte/" title="">kitbyte

Welcome!

...and especially for you and our users here I'll post a list of most valuable trackers in the world :D

Seems to be opened these days...dunno precisely, but I'll check...

Moves app changes policy to allow data sharing with new owner Facebook

Activity tracker shares users' information with its parent, despite earlier promise not to 'commingle' data between the companies

Eleven days after being purchased by Facebook, the activity tracking app Moves has changed its privacy policy to allow it to share user data with its parent company.

The new version of the app's privacy policy allows it to "share information, including personally identifying information, with our affiliates (companies that are part of our corporate groups of companies, including but not limited to Facebook)".

Moves uses motion sensors inside Apple and Android phones, as well as GPS information, to track a user's location and activity throughout the day. Not only does its information include someone's whereabouts, down to which building they were in when they started using the service, it even knows if they travelled between locations on foot, bike or bus.

On the day of its acquisition, the company promised users that "the Moves experience will continue to operate as a standalone app, and there are no plans to change that or commingle data with Facebook". A Facebook spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that that remained the case, but that the companies would share data.

The Guardian has asked Facebook to clarify the difference between "share" and "commingle", but has received no reply at press time.

Under its old privacy policy, Moves was committed to notifying users of any change to the policy "through the service, by email, via our Twitter account or otherwise". While a banner at the top of the Moves app does warn users of changes, no emails or tweets have been sent out.

Previously, the Moves privacy policy allowed it to disclose an individual user's data to third parties if "our business or assets, or parts of them, are acquired by a third party".

The change comes after Facebook's F8 developer conference, where the company promoted a new, privacy-friendly version of itself. Users will now be able to log in to apps anonymously, letting them try them out before they need to provide them with personal information.

Piracy study shows illegal downloaders more likely to pay for films than music

People who illegally download movies also love going to the cinema and do not mind paying to watch films, research has shown.

Those who illegally download movies are more likely to be wealthier and less worried about being caught than their music counterparts, concluded the study, thought to be the first to examine the differences between movie and music pirates.

Dr Joe Cox, one of the University of Portsmouth economists involved in the study, said: "It is interesting to see that people who illegally download large quantities of movie files continue to pay for legal movie consumption to a far greater extent than music downloaders."

Movie pirates are also more likely to cut down their piracy if they feel they are harming the industry compared with people who illegally download music, according to Cox and fellow Portsmouth University economist Professor Alan Collins.

Movie pirates are 'early adopters'
The researchers analysed results from a survey of more than 6,000 people aged seven to 84 in Finland to examine the attitudes of those who illegally download movies and music from the internet.

Movie pirates are more likely to live in large cities and be "early adopters" of new technology, according to the study, published in the Journal of Behavioural and Experimental Economics.

"One of the reasons movie pirates are a different breed is downloading and filesharing films is much more technologically demanding," said Cox. "It requires faster internet speeds, greater digital storage capabilities and access to a wider range of devices for playback than pirating music, which has now become relatively simple, fast and cheap.

"However, it came as no surprise to find that the most prolific pirates of either movies or music tend to be younger men," Cox adds. "They have the skills, the motivation and the equipment between them to steal large volumes of music tracks and movies every month."

Pirates have an average 2,900 music files and 90 films
On average, each person involved in the survey had illegally downloaded about 2,900 music files and 90 movie files.

Previous studies have found that people who pirate content are also much more likely to purchase content legally than those who do not illegally download music and movies, often being greater consumers of media.

Illegal filesharers from the US and Germany were found to buy 30% more music than people who did not pirate music, for instance.

Among the reasons given for downloading files illegally were that it saved money, allowed access to material not on general release or before it was released, and that in doing so people could help artists bypass record companies or movie studios. Reasons given for not downloading or for limiting piracy included fear of downloading viruses or malware, that the content did not match the description, or that it was difficult to find and was of poor quality.

Cox said: "These findings are important from a policy perspective, because they suggest campaigns that emphasise the harmful effects on the movie industry of piracy are much more likely to be effective than similar campaigns focusing on the music industry."

Experts say the cost of piracy in the US alone is $12.5bn (£7.4bn) to the music industry and $20.5bn to the movie industry.

Welcome @aliens72 !

@renegade22

Welcome!

How to crack the facade in any copyright monopoly discussion

Most people have not had any reason to question the copyright monopoly and its claimed perfection. Help break the facade and the illusion by making a small crack, to help people start questioning the rest of it for themselves.

In my last column, I explained how the copyright monopoly is fundamentally incompatible with private communications as a concept, and how we must weigh a silly distribution monopoly for one of many entertainment industries against such vital functions of society as whistleblower protection, freedom of the press, and the ability to hold a private conversation in the first place. While this argument is strong, it does require a bit of intelligence and the ability to see how two ideas conflict, so it can be hard to get across to copyright monopoly pundits.

The threat against private communications isn’t the only thing wrong with the copyright monopoly, of course. I have previously argued here on TorrentFreak that there’s really nothing defensible about the monopoly at all. But in order to break the spell of “publishers have always told me that the copyright monopoly is good and I have never had any reason to question their self-interest in the matter”, there are other tricks of honest, effective argumentation.

While it’s possible to attack the copyright monopoly construct from many angles – all of them, in fact – some fruit is more low-hanging than others. One easy angle is to point at the usual (horrible) motivation of the copyright monopoly; that it “enables creators to make money” (which is factually false, misleading, and dishonest). If you’re talking to a monopoly pundit, or just somebody who hasn’t had reason to question the monopoly, this point will come up sooner or later.

Once this point comes up, it’s an open goal. To make sure you understood the point correctly, reiterate back; “So your point is that they should be rewarded with a monopoly to make money, in order to give them an incentive to create more art?” Any monopoly pundit will nod enthusiastically.

Then, score the goal. “So why does the monopoly last 70 years after the author’s death? I don’t know of a single author who keeps writing books after they’re dead and buried. The copyright monopoly term is at least 70 years – a whole lifetime – too long. And if it is that obviously 70 years too long, then it’s absurd in the first place.”

Occasionally, you’ll see some fightback that their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren should inherit the privileges of the author, which you can easily refute by pointing out that the purpose was already agreed to be an incentive for the artist to create more art, not for their children to get privileged at the expense of others.

Once you have established that the copyright monopoly term is indefensively long – at least a lifetime too long – then the facade of pretend perfection is broken. If something as fundamental as that can be questioned, and it can, then everything else is also up in the air.

Have fun making the pennies drop and the facades crack.

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 05/05/14

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. ‘RoboCop’ tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier' 'Pompeii' completes the top three.

This week we have five newcomers in our chart.

RoboCop is the most downloaded movie this week.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.



Ranking (last week) MovieIMDb Rating / Trailer

1.(…) RoboCop 6.5 / trailer
2.(1) Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Cam/TS) 8.3 / trailer
3.(…) Pompeii 6.0 / trailer
4.(…) The Monuments Men 6.2 / trailer
5.(3) Vampire Academy 6.3 / trailer
6.(2) That Awkward Moment 6.2 / trailer
7.(…) I Frankenstein 5.2 / trailer
8.(7) Rio 2 (HDTS) 6.8 / trailer
9.(…) About Last Night 6.2 / trailer
10.(6) Her 8.2 / trailer

Aussie Govt. To Consider Site Blocking, File-Sharing Warnings

As early as this week the Australian Government will consider a pair of measures designed to crack down on the consumption of unauthorized content online. In addition to sending out warning letters to alleged file-sharers, new legislation will allow for 'pirate' sites such as The Pirate Bay to be blocked by local Internet service providers.

For years Australia has wrestled with the thorny issue of online piracy. Citizens have long complained of being treated as second class consumers, in many cases having to wait months or years for new content from the United States to appear Down Under. This has only fueled the uptake of illegal file-sharing.

While there are signs that plans for improved availability of content might be developing, impatient entertainment companies want action now, and talks with ISPs have failed to show significant progress.

The threat that the government could get involved if voluntary agreements can not be reached has always loomed in the background, and now it seems that the government is getting ready to act. According to Fairfax (subscription), as early as this week the federal cabinet will consider two proposals to crack down on illegal file-sharing.

The first proposal, of sending letters to those found infringing copyright online, will already be familiar to Internet users in the United States, France, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea. The idea is that persistent infringers receive subsequent and increasingly threatening letters in order to deter future offending but there is still debate whether such mechanisms are effective.

It will perhaps come as no surprise that the second discussion will center on the blocking or censoring of so-called ‘pirate’ sites by local ISPs, with the effect that their subscribers can no longer access them.

Andrew Maiden, CEO of ASTRA, the industry body for subscription TV, told Mumbrella that the legislative changes required to effect the above could be brought in as early as mid or late June this year.

“They have already made commitments to take action against piracy so I would think they would want to act sooner rather than later,” Maiden said.

While there are few details on the proposed letter-writing scheme, entertainment companies will be hoping that there will be consequences for those who fail to heed advice to stop downloading and sharing copyrighted material. At this stage, however, no punitive measures are being reported for the Aussie scheme.

But even before letter writing begins, there are complex issues for the government to overcome. In the past talks between movie and music companies and Aussie ISPs have deadlocked over, among other things, who should pay for such a program. There are no signs that the parties have reached consensus on this or any other matter.

On site blocking, it is expected that entertainment companies will be allowed to go to court to obtain injunctions against sites such as The Pirate Bay, which will compel local ISPs to block the sites. This same strategy is being used in several countries in Europe, notably the UK, although not in the United States where many of the entertainment companies are based.

However, the big difference with Australia is that as a result of content being made available elsewhere first, Aussie citizens have already become adept at using VPN and proxy services to access legal services such as Netflix. The exact same techniques can be used to access a blocked Pirate Bay, for example.

With the Australian government having previously promised to make “significant” changes to Australia’s copyright laws, the movie and music industries will be hoping that 2014 turns out to be a productive year. In the meantime, companies such as Google will continue to remind the Australian government that piracy is a pricing and availability problem.