After blocking several Pirate Bay clone sites following requests from rightsholders, T-Mobile in Austria has reported itself over a potential net neutrality breach. EU law says that pirate sites can be blocked but the ISP is concerned that doing so without a court order could be a breach of the Telecom Single Market (TSM) Regulation passed in 2015.

For the past eight years, Austria has been struggling with the thorny issue of pirate site blocking. Local ISPs have put up quite a fight but site blocking is now a reality, albeit with a certain amount of confusion.

After a dizzying route through the legal system, last November the Supreme Court finally ruled that The Pirate Bay and other “structurally-infringing” sites including 1337x.to and isohunt.to can be blocked, if rightsholders have exhausted all other options.

The Court based its decision on the now-familiar BREIN v Filmspeler and BREIN v Ziggo and XS4All cases that received European Court of Justice rulings last year. However, there is now an additional complication, this time on the net neutrality front.

After being passed in October 2015 and coming into force in April 2016, the Telecom Single Market (TSM) Regulation established the principle of non-discriminatory traffic management in the EU. The regulation still allows for the blocking of copyright-infringing websites but only where supported by a clear administrative or judicial decision. This is where T-Mobile sees a problem.

In addition to blocking sites named specifically by the court, copyright holders also expect the ISP to block related platforms, such as clones and mirrors, that aren’t specified in the same manner.

So, last week, after blocking several obscure Pirate Bay clones such as proxydl.cf, the ISP reported itself to the Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Telecommunications (RTR) for a potential net neutrality breach.

“It sounds paradoxical, but this should finally bring legal certainty in a long-standing dispute over pirate sites. T-Mobile Austria has filed with regulatory authority RTR a kind of self-report, after blocking several sites on the basis of a warning by rights holders,” T-Mobile said in a statement.

“The background to the communication to the RTR, through which T-Mobile intends to obtain an assessment by the regulator, is a very unsatisfactory legal situation in which operators have no opportunity to behave in conformity with the law.

“The service provider is forced upon notification by the copyright owner to even judge about possible copyright infringements. At the same time, the provider is violating the principle of net neutrality by setting up a ban.”

T-Mobile says the problem is complicated by rightsholders who, after obtaining a blocking order forcing named ISPs to block named pirate sites (as required under EU law), send similar demands to other ISPs that were not party to court proceedings. The rightsholders also send blocking demands when blocked sites disappear and reappear under a new name, despite those new names not being part of the original order.

According to industry body Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA), there is a real need for clarification. It’s hoped that T-Mobile reporting itself for a potential net neutrality breach will have the desired effect.

“For more than two years, we have been trying to find a solution with the involved interest groups and the responsible ministry, which on the one hand protects the rights of the artists and on the other hand does not force the providers into the role of a judge,” complains Maximilian Schubert, Secretary General of the ISPA.

“The willingness of the rights holders to compromise had remained within manageable limits. Now they are massively increasing the pressure and demanding costly measures, which the service providers see as punishment for them providing legal security for their customers for many years.”

ISPA hopes that the telecoms regulator will now help to clear up this uncertainty.

“We now hope that the regulator will give a clear answer here. Because from our point of view, the assessment of legality cannot and should not be outsourced to companies,” Schubert concludes.

Source: Torrentfreak.com

Two broadband providers, BT and sibling EE, have today gone to the Supreme Court in London to appeal two key aspects of an earlier ruling, which forced major UK ISPs to start blocking websites that were found to sell counterfeit goods (i.e. abuse of Trade Mark).

Previously major ISPs like BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband and TalkTalk could only be forced, via a court order, to block websites if they were found to facilitate internet copyright infringement (piracy) under Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. But in 2014 the High Court extended this to include sites that sell counterfeit goods (here) and thus abuse company trademarks (logos).

The providers initially appealed this decision, not least by stating that Cartier and Montblanc (they raised the original case) had provided “no evidence” that their networks were being abused to infringe Trade Marks and that the UK Trade Mark Act did not include a provision for website blocking. Not to mention the unlikely risk that such a law could be applied in an overzealous way (imagine eBay being blocked due to a dodgy seller).

On top of that the providers’ also noted that such sites weren’t heavily used, unlike the major piracy havens that have already been restricted, and thus they felt as if it would not be proportionate for them to suffer the costs involved. As we’ve previously reported, website blocking is anything but cheap and that often goes for both the ISPs and Rights Holders (here).

In April 2016 this case went to the Court of Appeal (London) and the ISPs lost (here) but it now looks as if some of them didn’t completely give up. Today the Supreme Court began hearing a new appeal from BT and EE (Case ID: UKSC 2016/0159), which challenges two aspects of the related blocking order. Once again Cartier International AG, Monblac-Simplo and Richemont Int Ag are opposing.

Case summary

Issue(s)

* The threshold conditions for the imposition of an order requiring internet service providers (“ISPs”) to block or attempt to block access to websites infringing registered trademarks;

* Whether ISPs, as innocent parties, should be required to bear the costs of such blocking orders.

Facts

The appellant ISPs were ordered to block or attempt to block access to certain websites advertising and selling counterfeit copies of goods to which the respondents owned the trademarks. The orders, the first of their kind, were made under s. 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981, Article 11 of Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (which obliges Member States to ensure rightholders are able to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right) not having been implemented in domestic law.

The judge held that although the ISPs were not guilty of any wrongdoing, they were inevitable and essential actors in the infringing activities of the websites in question. The ISPs were also required to bear the costs of implementing the orders. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals of the ISPs in their entirety.

The case appears to be a new approach to fighting an old argument, although given previous rulings we rather suspect that the ISPs may face an uphill struggle. Mind you they do have a very valid point about being “innocent parties” and related costs could easily get out of control, particularly if providers are forced to block lots of relatively minor websites.

Musician and writer Damon Krukowski explains how streaming services are failing artists and listeners, and what we can do to fight back.

In 2012, I wrote a piece for this website breaking down the payments my first band, Galaxie 500, was receiving from streaming services, which were just starting to become a dominant force in the music industry. Spotify had sent songwriting royalties of $1.05 for the 5,960 times our single “Tugboat” was played that quarter—split between the group’s three members, each of us had made 35 cents. Not exactly a promising new source of income.

For years, disruptive digital businesses have countered complaints like mine with assurances that everything will be different in the future, once millions and millions of people around the world adopt their application. Well, here we are. Spotify now claims 140 million active users, 70 million of whom are paid subscribers, and the total consumption of audio streams in the U.S. jumped by an estimated 50 percent last year. But while it’s clear that some are earning significant paychecks from streaming as a result—“Happy days are here again,” Billboard gushed last March, reporting the fastest growth for the industry in decades—most musicians are not.

The basic reason is simple: According to the data trackers at BuzzAngle Music, more than 99 percent of audio streaming is of the top 10 percent most-streamed tracks. Which means less than 1 percent of streams account for all other music. That makes streaming more concentrated at the top than current album or song sales. Of course, the most popular releases have always dominated the music market, but it seems these new services increase that disparity rather than reduce it. The rising tide is lifting only certain boats.

What is to be done? Spotify, Apple Music, and the other corporations seeking to control music consumption aren’t likely to change their trajectory. So what follows are some thoughts about ways we might adjust—as both creators and consumers of all music, not just the top 10 percent of it—in order to counterbalance a system built for the benefit of a small minority. There are no quick fixes, which is also the point: It’s the dream of quick fixes—and fortunes—that got us into this mess. If we’re going to find our way out, it’s going to be through slow collective effort, based on a better understanding of what we’re being offered now and exactly how and why that’s failing us.

An Issue of Scale

Tech startups are always faced with the same question: Will it scale? Digital media provides immediate access to a global set of users—an unimaginable opportunity in the analog era, but one that we now take for granted. However, as venture capitalists have learned, it’s only the rare idea for a product or service that can successfully function at such a huge scale. And it’s precisely those ideas that have come to monopolize our digital environment. It’s survival of the scalable.

But does everything we want from music necessarily scale up?

Consider live music. If you’ve seen the same band in both a small club and a big outdoor festival, you know how different each experience can be. That’s true for the performers’ experience as well. And not all aspects of live music can survive such a shift.

You don’t hear a lot of bands talk about this, but in the final act of the compelling new Grateful Dead documentary, Long Strange Trip, there is a remarkably frank discussion of the band’s experience playing massive shows in the late 1980s and ’90s. “In the stadiums you have no contact with your audience, it’s just not possible,” says bassist Phil Lesh. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann adds, “There were 60,000 people there, but basically you didn’t have any touch with those people—they were hundreds of feet away from you.”

The Grateful Dead—the quintessential live band to its many fans—had slowly scaled up the size of their shows to a point where they could no longer maintain the same connection with their audience. Many of their diehard followers stopped buying tickets to those stadium shows altogether and just gathered in the parking lots outside instead. There, they could continue the rituals they had developed together at a smaller scale.

As a devotee of punk and post-punk in the ’80s, I never thought I would say this, but those Deadheads who partied in the parking lots may have been showing us the way. If what we value in music is lost at the scale it’s being offered to us, we need to find other ways to get what we want from it.

So, on a practical level, you might want to think twice before plunking down big bucks for that next festival ticket. If you want to see the headliner on a huge stage, from hundreds of feet away, together with tens of thousands of others, then, OK—Coachella may be your best bet. But if you want to see those bands in the small type on the poster—who may not get paid much more for a festival performance than they would for their own headlining set at a club, where you could see them better, they could see you, and you would pay a whole lot less to boot—maybe you should just hang in the parking lot.

Adjusting our purchases to the scale that makes sense for what we’re really after is one way to work around the Spotify/Apple Music model. Just as at a big festival, if what you want is what only these huge corporations can offer, then your subscription money is well spent. But if you’re using a streaming service to listen to anything other than the most-streamed tracks, your money isn’t supporting what you’re hearing.

Context Is King

With more and more users, streaming services have access to huge amounts of data, increasing the predictive power of their recommendations. But while streaming media is pitched to us as tailored to our taste, or at least to our browsing history, the business of it is in fact closer to one-size-fits-all. Streaming is so heavily weighted in favor of the most popular tracks because that’s how the model is designed to work: Nearly everyone using the service is meant to use it nearly the same way.

Imagine the opposite—countless different individuals asking to stream countless different albums from different eras, all at the same moment. It’s easy to picture, because this is the image of streaming services that we are sold. But the reality is something else again.

Consider the dominant streaming video service, Netflix, which now has more subscribers than all cable providers combined. While Netflix has grown more popular, it has diminished its content to the point where it recently hosted only 25 movies made before 1950, as Zach Schonfeld pointed out in Newsweek. “It’s the sort of classics selection you’d expect to find in a decrepit video store in 1993,” Schonfeld wrote, “not on a leading entertainment platform that serves some 100 million global subscribers.”

The streaming music catalog is currently in a much better state. But it could only be a matter of time until these companies lose interest in the 90 percent of music that doesn’t return even 1 percent of their gross. It seems likely that they will eventually jettison these less-played tracks for different content—just look at Netflix.

Or look now at how badly their applications already serve entire genres of less popular music. Spotify lists recordings by song title, album title, or featured artist name. But that information is so limited it leaves out even the other performers on a recording, a crucial aspect to classical and jazz. For that matter, performers are kind of important to rock, too! Not to mention songwriters, producers, engineers, publishers, record labels—almost all the labor that goes into making recordings is erased from the databases used by the major streaming services.

Why hide all that information, all that context to each recording? Digital services are so good at handling massive amounts of data—just think how much Spotify knows about each of us. And yet they can’t bring themselves to specify which of the radically different Miles Davis Quintets played on which album—is it the one with John Coltrane and Philly Joe Jones, or the one with Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams?

One reason for this glaring omission of musical data may be a reluctance to acknowledge all the copyright holders actually connected to the recordings they stream. In fact, this is the basis of the lawsuits Spotify has faced (and is facing) from music publishers, including a $1.6 billion filing from Wixen Music this December.

Incredibly, one of Spotify’s existing defenses against such accusations of unpaid royalties has been a lack of information. “Spotify has acknowledged lapses in obtaining mechanical rights due to the difficulty of identifying and locating the co-authors of each of the tens of millions of copyrighted musical works throughout its streaming platform,” The Hollywood Reporter’s Eriq Gardner explained last fall. How the same company building a reputation as the best and biggest at handling music data can claim that they can’t cope with all that music data strains credibility—especially if, as Gardner also reported, their fallback legal argument may be that they don’t owe songwriters any royalties anyway.

But there seems to be another, deeper motive for streaming companies to eliminate existing context for recordings: They want to replace it with their own. The rise of playlists, recently analyzed in a superb piece written for The Baffler by Liz Pelly, makes the platform itself the primary context for any music on it.

Information is so lacking for the individual tracks on playlists, some of the most listened to are by musicians who don’t even exist. (And who therefore won’t be asking for royalties, or suing when they don’t arrive.) These so-called “fake artists”—in reality, commissioned works owned by Spotify—eliminate the problem of researching even the bare bones of identifying data, like artist and title.

When Bill Gates proclaimed in 1996 that, on the internet, “Content Is King,” he didn’t foresee that content creators would be bypassed by the information platforms to come. Indeed the same Gates article goes on to declare, in a much less quoted passage, that, “For the internet to thrive, content providers must be paid for their work.” At the time, Gates predicted that micropayments would eventually solve the practical problem of how to link online users and creators financially. We have that technology now—but we also have massively capitalized platforms monopolizing access to content, with no interest in encouraging those micropayments.

But Bill Gates was right all along—content is king—and what’s more, content belongs to its creators. It’s only the deliberate erasure of context that removes the control we have over our work. And context doesn’t disappear on its own. It’s always there for us to declare, maintain, and restore if removed.

So make noise about context, because when you do, you are valuing the labor that goes into making music. Tell us who played on that track, who wrote it, who produced it, who put it out. Discogs has become a great repository of information like this for existing records. And Bandcamp makes room for all this info in a streaming platform, no less. Music publications and blogs have always been an excellent source for contextual information too.

Can simply sharing information with one another combat the power of companies like Spotify and Apple? I believe it can, and does. There’s no better evidence, perhaps, than the forces that continually rally against it.

The Future of Music Is Free

One of the most telling instances of the threat to power represented by sharing information was the arrest and prosecution of Aaron Swartz, the internet activist who took his own life five years ago. Swartz’s “crime” was downloading academic papers from published journals in the MIT Library and distributing them online for free. His Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, written in 2008, is a clarion call for sharing information as a political act.

“Information is power,” it begins. “But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. [...] Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it—their shareholders would revolt at anything less.” To fight that greed, and free the power of information for use by all, Swartz advocated piracy. Because, he said, “Sharing isn’t immoral—it’s a moral imperative.”

Maybe Swartz sounds hopelessly pie-in-the-sky to you, like an ’80s Deadhead in a stadium parking lot. But the federal government didn’t think so. On the contrary, they took him very, very seriously. And so do I. For that matter, I take those Deadheads in the parking lot seriously too. What they have in common is that they took a stand outside the corporate structure and, from that vantage point, saw it for what it is: a structure. A model. And hardly the only possible one.

The masquerade of streaming services is that they seem like a model of sharing. Spotify is even “free,” if you consider listening to ads and having your tastes monitored as free. And yet, these services are run by large corporations “blinded by greed,” as Swartz put it—the antithesis (and very much the enemy) of truly free sharing.

Streaming services’ surface resemblance to sharing is no coincidence, because they can trace their roots directly to Napster, the original pirate in the field. Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning was never political like Aaron Swartz, but his peer-to-peer software was also revolutionary in its opposition to intellectual property. Fanning was taken to court for it too, though in a civil procedure rather than criminal—as a result, he didn’t face jail time like Swartz. But his creation was destroyed, bankrupted in 2002 through lawsuits brought by the major labels.

Apple stepped into the space Napster created with the launch of its iTunes Store the very next year. And here we are, sharing music much as Fanning envisioned—but with the crucial difference that it is not peer-to-peer, and not truly free. You might say Apple, Spotify, and the major labels who invested in their success have stripped away the context of Napster, leaving us with just its content. A content that they now assert control over. And profit from.

But that content remains ours. It’s created by musicians, and listeners. And we can use it elsewhere. In fact, we can use it to build competing models. We’re doing this already, each time we share music with one another through a different system. Bandcamp is one healthy model, earning money for artists without stripping their music of its context, or their control. And so, I would say, is simply sharing music with one another for free.

I know that sounds pie-in-the-sky again. But consider this: On Bandcamp, I run a page for Galaxie 500, and a page for the records with my current project, Damon & Naomi. On the Galaxie 500 page, we charge a price for all downloads. On the Damon & Naomi page, all downloads are free, or pay-as-you-wish. And even though the Damon & Naomi albums are generally less popular than the Galaxie 500 ones—and have never sold as well in physical formats—guess which Bandcamp page earns more? The free one.

There’s another current model that makes me think musicians might find new solutions to our financial problems by, paradoxically, giving up on earning royalties from streaming. This past year I became something of an accidental podcaster, producing a six-episode series for Radiotopia and PRX called “Ways of Hearing.” And in the podcast world I found a thriving digital audio format, distributed entirely for free; the Radiotopia network’s 16 shows collectively garner 18 million downloads per month.

It’s not that podcasters and podcast producers aren’t concerned with developing sources of income—like musicians, they are constantly engaged with the issue of how to earn a living from their audio files. But unlike music makers and record labels, podcasters have no hesitation sharing their work for free, simply because that’s been a given for their format from the start.

While podcasting makes full use of Apple and Spotify—and any and all other available channels—for distribution, it doesn’t look to them to provide financial solutions for their industry. Because all these downloads are free, podcasters are instead finding multiple other ways to support their work. Not that the specific strategies they hit upon necessarily apply directly to music—nonprofits like Radiotopia use a public radio-style combination of grants, sponsorships, and listener donations, while for-profit podcast networks like Gimlet rely on ads and brand partnerships. But what is striking is how they and so many others in the booming podcast field are dreaming up ways to make digital audio work, without full dependence on these massive companies.

Another World Is Possible

The actions outlined here may seem very small in comparison to the power of a corporation like Spotify, whose upcoming IPO is expected to be valued at as much as $19 billion, much less that of the biggest tech company in the world, Apple.

But small movements can read from the stage if you’re in a small venue; small type on the cover of an LP speaks loud and clear if you’re staring at it while you listen to the record. The small gestures we make directly to one another are real. And sharing is a beautiful gesture. It might be the most fundamental gesture behind all music.

So share your money deliberately when you spend it on music, and it will be a real gesture with a real effect. Share the context of your information online, and its content won’t be stripped from you. And share your music—for free. It’s a powerful action, powerful enough that the biggest corporations in the world feel threatened by it. Let them.

@#$****'s Euterpe Pick

Roy Wood - Boulders [1973]
Rock | Pop Rock | 1970's
Discogs

AMG Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote:

An intricate, deliberately idiosyncratic record, assembled piece by piece, Boulders perfectly captures Roy Wood's peculiar genius, more so than anything else he recorded. All of his obsessions are here -- classical music, psychedelia, pre-Beatles pop, pastoral folk ballads, absurdist humor, studio trickery, and good old-fashioned rock & roll -- assembled in a gracefully eccentric fashion. Some listeners may find that eccentricity a little alienating, but it's the core of Wood's music. He wrote tuneful, accessible songs, but indulged his passions and weird ideas, so even the loveliest melodies and catchiest hooks are dressed in colorful, odd arrangements.

The marvelous thing is, these arrangements never sound self-consciously weird - it's the sound of Wood's music in full bloom. Never before and never again did his quirks sound so charming, even thrilling, as they do on Boulders. As soon as "Songs of Praise" reaches its chorus, a choir of sped-up, multi-tracked Roys kick in, sending it into the stratosphere. All nine tunes unwind in a similar fashion, each blessed with delightfully unpredictable twists.

It's easy to spot the tossed-off jokes on the goofy "When Gran'ma Plays the Banjo," but it may take several spins to realize that the percussion on "Wake Up" is the sound of Roy slapping a bowl of water. Boulders is a sonic mosaic -- you can choose to wonder at the little details or gaze at the glorious whole, enjoying the shape it forms. Wood has an unerring knack for melodies, whether they're in folk ballads, sweet pop or old-fashioned rock & rollers, yet his brilliance is how he turns the hooks 180 degrees until they're gloriously out of sync with his influences and peers. Boulders still sounds wonderfully out of time and it's easy to argue that it's the peak of his career.


My Note:- Album is free-leech. download this as fast a possible to increase ratios..

Nigeria - Sen. Suleiman Adokwe, Chairman Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, says the National Assembly will soon amend the act establishing the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB).

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Adokwe stated this on Tuesday while delivering his goodwill message at the opening of the Consumer Forum of the NFVCB holding in Bauchi State.

He said that the amendment will further strengthen and reposition the board.

The forum with the theme: “The Movie Industry: The case for Peace, Economic Development and Social Engineering”, is holding at the Yankari Games Reserve from Jan. 29 to Feb 1.

According to Adokwe, the NFVCB is a critical agency of government that should be strengthend for it to effectively handle modern realities and challenges in the evolving Nigerian motion picture industry.

“The Senate will give all necessary backing and strengthen the act establishing the NFVCB for it to be more effective in delivering on its mandate.

“Even if it requires amending the act for it to be very effective, we shall do it for the film and video sector to strive.

“Our artistes are struggling because of piracy and other unlawful activities affecting their creativity,” he said.

Adokwe noted that the movie industry was not just an economic venture, but a veritable instrument for peace building and national integration.

He, therefore, urged producers and relevant stakeholders to tell the Nigerian story in good light by promoting what bind Nigerians together.

“The movie is a very crucial tool for social engineering, as it can be used to cause war or promote peace.

However, our movie stakeholders are being called on upon to promote peace and stop war, they should not watch our country fall apart,” he urged.

The Executive Director of the NFVCB, Mr Adedayo Thomas, said that the forum was for stakeholders to brainstorm and chart a common front for the industry in the North-East.

“The Consumer Forum is a flagship program of the board, aimed at sensitising the local population, especially the young and unemployed, entrepreneurs, financiers and government of the enormous potentials available in the film industry.

“This is also a platform to educate participants on how to take advantages of these opportunities for empowerment and building a strong economy and better society.

“We are here to chart a framework that will create a basis for the film and video industry as a tool for economic growth and sustainable peace in the North-East.” he said.

He noted that youths and trained artisans from the region would be exposed to, hitherto, dormant areas of the film industry, get employed and leverage on opportunities.

NAN reports that representative of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), and other industry players, especially from the North were present at the event.

Investors, members of the academia, students and other young talents in film and theatre were also present at the forum.

The NFVCB is a Federal Government body that regulates the films and video industry in Nigeria.

The Board is empowered by law to classify all films and videos whether imported or produced locally.

It is also the duty of the Board to register all films and videos outlet across the country and to keep a register of such registered outlets among other functions. (NAN)

As Bitcoin prices began skyrocketing and more users started investing in the cryptocurrency, more and more Bitcoin apps began popping up.

However, some of these apps, despite having been banned, are still available to users in popular app stores. Security experts discovered over 600 blacklisted Bitcoin apps that were still available for download to users.

Security researchers analysed over 18,000 apps across 20 app stores to find that 661 blacklisted Bitcoin apps were still available to users, leaving users vulnerable to hackers. Researchers at RiskIQ found that three percent of apps with "Bitcoin exchange" in the title, 2.6% with "Bitcoin wallet" in the title and 2.2% with "cryptocurrency" in the title have been blacklisted.

Researchers also found that GooglePlay, which hosted 272 of the blacklisted apps, as well as APKFiles and 9Apps – both of which hosted 54 and 52 blacklisted apps respectively – were the top app stores guilty of making the blacklisted apps available to users.

According to RiskIQ researchers, the cybercriminals behind the banned apps can steal money and data by tricking users that have downloaded the malicious apps into handing over massive sums of money or sensitive and personal details.

"We are seeing threat actors around the world exploiting what is already a hostile currency in a lawless digital world. Before handing over any cash or personal data, investors should carry out thorough research into the exchange and wallet apps they intend to use," RiskIQ EMEA vice president Fabian Libeau said in a statement. "By checking the developer's name, user reviews and the number of app downloads, investors can measure the validity of an app and be more confident in their choice."

Researchers also warned that the rise in unofficial and potentially malicious apps could likely scare off potential investors looking to purchase Bitcoin.

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Innovative ways to view broadcast content such as scripted shows, sporting events, and recently released movies are advancing at breakneck speed. Buyers should beware, however, that not all methods for accessing entertainment content are on the up-and-up. Several devices, for instance, promise extreme "cord-cutting" and incredibly wide access to content at a relatively low, one-time cost.

There's a good reason why these devices are so cheap and offer so much: they provide a gateway to pirated content, facilitating copyright infringement on a massive scale. Unsurprisingly, the sellers of two such "smart TV boxes” are embroiled in copyright litigation.

As explained in the two most recent complaints, Universal City Studio Prod. et al. v. TickBox TV and Netflix Studios, et al. v. Dragon Media Inc., the devices in question, TickBox TV and Dragon Box, don't come with any pre-loaded content. Instead, purchasers plug the devices into their TVs and then download open-sourced software. That software launches a user-friendly TV-screen display allowing users to choose from various general categories of content, such as "Kids," "TV Shows," "Sports," and "Videos." Those categories then break out into more specific "add-ons" such as "Box Office," "In Theaters," and "Live TV."

Clicking on the add-on menus initiates online searches for the desired content. Those searches are unlikely to return offerings such as Amazon Prime, HBO Now, or Hulu. The Dragon Media complaint related how a Dragon Box search last December in the "In Theaters" add-on returned such movie choices as "Thor: Ragnarok" and "The Shape of Water," neither of which have been authorized for outside-theater viewing. Less than a month after it had been released in theaters, a Dragon Box search for the movie "Coco" returned 100 different unauthorized sources. An "In Theaters" choice on TickBox TV last October returned 44 sources for "War for the Planet of the Apes," another movie available only in theaters. Dragon Box and TickBox TV users don't pay a penny to watch these movies or any of the other content the software discovers.

Indeed, the device makers tout such unfettered access in their advertisements, product packaging, and social media. The Dragon Media complaint recites how the company urges consumers to "Get rid of your Premium Channels" and lures buyers in with "You no longer have to pay for PPV [pay-per-view] events." The company's Facebook page promotes "Free movies still in theaters in HD and 3D." The TickBox complaint relates such promotional statement as "enjoy unlimited access to ALL the hottest TV shows, Hollywood blockbusters, and LIVE sporting events ... ABSOLUTELY FREE."

The TV boxes call to mind Napster, Grokster, and other past online piracy facilitators. Like those peer-to-peer file-sharing services, Dragon Box and TickBox TV are capable of accessing unprotected entertainment content. But the vast majority of the content the boxes' software discovers is copyrighted, and that is in fact the type of programming access the box sellers pitch to potential customers.
The makers of Dragon Box and TickBox TV are likely to suffer the same fate as Grokster. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in MGM Studios v. Grokster that the file-sharing service constituted third-party copyright infringement by intentionally inducing others to unlawfully obtain copyrighted material.

In Grokster, when assessing if the service's third-party actions led to others' copyright infringement, Justice Souter wrote that a defendant's actions must be based on "purposeful, culpable expression and conduct," and not on "mere knowledge of ... actual infringing uses." The “classic instance of inducement," the Court explained, "is by advertisement or solicitation that broadcasts a message designed to stimulate others to commit violations.”

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Anyone can download and play Fallout 4 completely free this weekend, and all versions are on sale.


The Fallout 4 free weekend promo is available on PC. It kicks off on Thursday, February 1 and lasts until Sunday, February 4.

The free weekend can be grabbed through Steam. During the free weekend, all versions of the game will be on sale.

The base game will get a 33% discount, the Fallout 4 Game of the Year Edition and all DLC will be 40% off, and the season pass has the highest discount at 50% off.

As is the case with free Steam weekends, any progress you make will carry over to the full version if you buy it. Seeing as you’ll be downloading the full game, expect the download to be big.

The PC version of Metal Gear Survive comes out day and date with consoles, and today, we get an idea of what kind of PC you’re going to need for the job.

Konami revealed the minimum and recommended PC specs for Metal Gear Survive earlier. The specs were published on Steam, and they’re relatively modest.

Considering Survive uses the same engine as Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain – which ran pretty well on most PCs – there was no worry that the upcoming game would require higher specs.

Konami didn’t provide frame-rate or resolution targets for either set, unfortunately. See below for the entire list.

Minimum
 

• OS: Windows 7 x64, Windows 8 x64, Windows 10 x64 (64-bit OS Required)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-4460 (3.40 GHz) or better; Quad-core or better
• Memory: 4GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 (2GB) or better (DirectX 11 card Required)
• DirectX: Version 11
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 20GB available space
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Recommended
 

• OS: Windows 7 x64, Windows 8 x64, Windows 10 x64 (64-bit OS Required)
• Processor: Intel Core i7-4790 (3.60GHz) or better; Quad-core or better
• Memory: 8GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (DirectX 11 graphic card required)
• DirectX: Version 11
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 20GB available space
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card (Surround Sound 5.1)
• It was recently revealed that the game requires a constant internet connection, and includes microtransactions.

Metal Gear Survive is out February 20 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Bluehole and Microsoft will be deploying PUBG Xbox One patch 7, which includes various optimizations, bug fixes, and vehicle gameplay changes.

The biggest changes included with this update are adjustments to the vehicle gameplay mechanics, which modifies the damage players can inflict on vehicles. In addition, the update increases areas of vulnerability on vehicles. We’ve included the full release notes below:

Gameplay

We’ve listened to your feedback and further modified the damage players can inflict on vehicles, increasing areas of vulnerability. This includes:
 

• Increased damage to the vehicle body, and significant damage to the wheels when targeted with gunfire
• Increased vehicle damage when successfully targeted with a grenade
• Both driver and passenger will suffer increased injuries from crashing into objects or other vehicles (Dacia, UAZ, and Buggy)
• Slight reduction to player damage when being struck by a vehicle

Optimization
 

• Continued optimization to controller input lag
• Visual quality of reticle is improved (Red Dot, Holographic, and 2x Sight)

Bug fixes
 

• Resolved issue where inventory may highlight the wrong column when looting
• The sensitivity setting for 4x Scope is now also applied to the permanent scope on the VSS
• Auto-run (double-clicking the left stick) is disabled when aiming down sights
• Players can now use the D-Pad while in the map view without switching melee, pistol, or throwing weapons
• Removing the marker from the map when pressing (Y) will no longer switch primary/secondary weapons
• Fixed issue where the crosshair is not correctly displayed after players reconnect to a game session

According to the PUBG Xbox development team, the new update will be deployed on all Xbox systems at 1AM PST / 10AM CET.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is available now for Xbox One and PC. The game recently surpassed 4 million players on Microsoft’s console since its release back in December of last year, and as reported earlier, PUBG already has more than 30 million players across both Xbox and PC.

There’s a new patch available on test servers for PUBG, and it brings with it some big changes to Miramar.

The patch is out now, and anyone can download the test build of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds to test out the changes for themselves.

This is the first update that changes parts of Miramar, the game’s desert map, based on player feedback. In particular, the update adds new off-road tracks for easier navigation, and improves the loot in certain areas.

The update also adds several bits of cover and buildings to some areas to make engagements more interesting. The map has been the subject of much criticism from the game’s community, with some going as far as removing Miramar from the game’s files.

Like the previous test patch, this one also brings a new anti-cheat measure. Developer PUBG Corp noted that this new solution requires more testing, and stressed that it’s still under development.

Compatibility and stability issues may arise, and PUBG Corp is asking players for screenshots and details of these issues if they do crop up. Outside of that, the patch upgrades the replay feature, but this unfortunately means older replays will no longer be playable.

For the full list of notes, see below:

Miramar improvements
 

• Added more buildings and cover across the map to improve the engagement experience
• Added more off-road routes for easier vehicle navigation
• Upgraded the item spawn level of certain areas for loot balancing (some areas will spawn better loot)

Replay
 

• The replay system has now been updated to a newer version and past replay files cannot be played anymore

Bug fixes
 

• Fixed the issue where heal and boost items could be used underwater
• Fixed the issue where characters would get stuck in certain areas on Miramar
• Fixed the issue where wall textures on some Miramar buildings were not displaying correctly
• Fixed the issue where certain buildings near by Hacienda del Patron were not displaying correctly

Game of Thrones fans can cross out that reported date for season 8 because it’s evidently false. It was reported earlier that Game of Thrones star, Maisie Williams, had stated the highly anticipated final season would begin airing in April 2019 on HBO. According to, the now refuted quote, that was reported by Metro, Game of Thrones would finish filming in December 2018. This would give the show a shocking few amount of months, four to be exact, to bring the final season to air. However, the truth has turned out to be something much different and far less confirmed.

It’s been known for awhile that there would be a long wait between Game of Thrones season 7 and season 8. The fantasy epic is set to return in 2019 but, obviously, an exact month and date has yet to be nailed down just yet. Maisie William’s previous supposed comments did line up with the typical season premieres of Game of Thrones. However, the final season of the series should be anything but typical.

The discrepancy was cleared up by Williams herself. After apparently seeing the story circle around with her “quote,” Williams took to her Twitter account to clarify that the statement, while not a complete manufacture, is far more accurate. It certainly doesn’t reveal the air month of the final season of Game of Thrones. Maisie Williams wrote that it’s from an very old interview was somehow retrofitted to apply to season 8.

It’s unclear what season Williams was referring to exactly in the original interview with Metro. Although it could have been almost any season. Game of Thrones has typically begun airing in April of each year. The notable exception being season 7, which had a later start date of August. This was due to the filming restrictions of the season.

Those filming restrictions occurred because winter had finally arrived in Westeros and the show needed some locations to look decidedly more wintery. It would, therefore, stand to reason that whenever season 8 hits in 2019, it’ll also be later in the year as Westeros will be need to be even further into its long and dangerous winter. The invasion of the White Walkers won’t feel nearly as believable if everything surrounding them in bright and sunny.

Filming for season 8 is already set to be the most ambitious and daunting yet. The year long delay between season 8 and 9 is occurring to give the series the proper time to prepare for all the logistics of the gigantic series. Filming has already been confirmed to go through Summer 2018, after beginning at the end of 2017. So while it’s possible it all might wrap up in December 2018, that’s probably not information that Williams (or any other actor) has at this time.

Of course, the truth does come as a little bit of a blow to fans hoping to get their Game of Thrones fix as soon as possible. Still, April 2019 being the beginning of the end for Game of Thrones always seemed pretty unfeasible, given what is known about the final season.

Maisie Williams clarifying her quote doesn’t mean that Game of Thrones season 8 won’t begin airing in April. It’s certainly still possible. It just means that the actress, nor anyone else has confirmed when Game of Thrones will start to wrap up.

It has become tough to survive in today's times when it comes for a film to sustain itself. Piracy only adds to the bane. A new modus operandi 'Digital Crime Unit' will come into play

India - Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat will be the first film to be dealt by Maharashtra cyber ‘Digital Crime Unit’ to stop piracy.

Makers of Padmaavat approached Maharashtra Cyber ‘Digital Crime Unit’, it's an anti-online piracy unit in association with film industry.

The Cyber Cell of the Maharashtra Police has started a 'Digital Crime Unit' that works towards systematically eliminating websites that upload pirated content.

The makers have approached the new unit after the reports of Padmaavat being heavily pirated on the internet....

Sanjay Leela Bhansali (director) and Viacom 18 (producer) have requested the government to look into this trend of piracy, which has become a menace.Earlier films like Udta Punjab and Toilet Ek Prem Katha had found their way on social media days before their release.

Meanwhile, Padmaavat has done brisk business in its first 5 days; it has garnered about Rs 120 crore.

Coming back to the story of piracy control, Maharashtra Cyber ‘Digital Crime Unit’ is A 4-month old anti-online piracy unit in association with Motion pictures association of India, producers guild & Indian Music Industry.

More clamping down on Kodi is underway as the Premier League has take moves to ward off illegal streaming of matches through Kodi boxes.

The warning comes in the form of a court case brought by the Premier League against internet hosting provider Ecatel and its facilitation of illegal streams of the League’s football games.

A Dutch District Court in The Hague ordered Ecatel to stop providing services that can be used for illegal streaming of Premier League matches or otherwise face a €1.5 million, anti-piracy organisation FACT reports.

The court action was taken by the Premier League after Ecatel apparently ignored warning to stop hosting servers that were being used for illegal streaming which were infringing upon its copyright.

And the action appears to be a shot across the bow to any other internet services that facilitate the illegal streaming of Premier League football.

“This is a crucial judgement for the Premier League, and for other sports and rights holders. It sends a clear message to rogue server and hosting providers that by facilitating illegal streams they themselves can be subject to legal action,” said Kevin Plumb, Premier League director of legal services.

“An injunction and financial penalties of up to €1.5 million is a clear warning to others operating in this area, and provides the basis on which we can now take action against other dedicated server providers or illegal ISPs across Europe as part of our global protection work.”

While Kodi does provide access to legitimate streaming services, there are other parts of its open ecosystem that are more legally grey. And is would appear that some organisations are taking a very dim view on having their content streamed by an illegitimate source.

As such we wouldn’t be surprised to see more companies and organisations like the Premier League take further actions to curtail illegal streaming through Kodi.

Content Creators Coalition urges Congress to investigate YouTube’s ‘non-disparagement agreements’ with artists

American artist-led lobbying group the Content Creators Coalition – aka C3 – has called on the judiciary committees in US Congress to investigate those recent reports that YouTube has included so called ‘non-disparagement agreements’ in partnership deals it has struck up with artists.

Various sources recently told Bloomberg that such clauses have been included in agreements reached between the Google video site and certain specific artists which YouTube is directly supporting by funding video production and/or marketing activities.

The inclusion of such terms is probably not surprising, given how much YouTube dissing there has been within the music community in recent years. The music industry, of course, is hoping to get copyright law reformed to reduce the reach of the so called safe harbour. Many record labels and music publishers – and artists and songwriters – reckon YouTube exploits the safe harbour to pay much lower royalties than other streaming services.

In its report on the ‘non-disparagement agreements’, Bloomberg conceded that such terms “are common in business”, though noted that other streaming platforms directly supporting artists are not generally making similar demands.

Either way, in a letter to the chairs of the Congressional judiciary committees in both the Senate and the House Of Representatives, C3 argues that the ‘don’t-diss-YouTube’ clauses are “clearly aimed at thwarting the Congressional review of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbours as well as the public debate about the issue”.

The US Copyright Office, which sits under the Library Of Congress, has been reviewing the American copyright safe harbour for sometime. Meanwhile in Europe, safe harbour reform is contained with the draft copyright directive that is still going through the motions.

Referencing the Copyright Office review, and the American music industry’s resulting campaign calling for safe harbour reform, the C3 letter goes on: “An unprecedented groundswell of artists have called out Google for gaming outdated laws to facilitate YouTube’s profiteering from rampant music piracy on its service. In filings to the Copyright Office, a cross section of music creators argue that the DMCA’s safe harbours are actually ‘safe havens’ that allow platform monopolies to use the ubiquity of unlicensed free music on their services as a cudgel in negotiations to drive down their own licensing costs”.

On the ‘non-disparagement agreements’, the letter goes on: “We are deeply troubled by recent reports indicating that ‘YouTube has asked musicians to agree not to disparage the streaming-video service in exchange for promotional support, according to people familiar with the matter, a way to quell persistent criticism by artists’. Simply put, Google has abused its monopoly power to give artists pennies on the dollar and appears to be further abusing that power to buy the silence of artists who might otherwise speak out and draw public scrutiny to these practices”.

The letter concludes: “With jurisdiction over copyright and antitrust laws, the judiciary committees are uniquely situated to get to the bottom of these apparent abuses. We ask that you do so swiftly”.

Prominent members of Canada's entertainment industry are calling for a new federal agency to locate and shut down websites that are portals for illegally obtained video and audio content.

Bell Canada, Rogers Communications Inc., Quebecor Inc., Cineplex Inc., the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and several other organizations have banded together to create FairPlay Canada.

They argue that Canadian jobs are at risk because consumers can get access to TV shows, movies and music from websites that don't pay for the content that they stream to consumers.

They want the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to use its power as a regulator to require Canadian internet service providers to shut down access to the pirated material.

They also want the CRTC to set up an independent agency to help locate the pirate websites.

The CRTC is in the final weeks of public consultations about the distribution of music, TV and other content via the internet.

The agency has set Feb. 13 as a deadline for final comments in order to submit its report to the federal cabinet by June 1.

Blockchain technology – the tech at the heart of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin – is being praised all over the world because of its transformative capabilities. The blockchain system keeps an incorruptible record of transactions/procedures dating back to the moment it is first introduced.

Because of its advantages, blockchain tech is finding its way into a growing variety of industries including banking, healthcare, fintech, online music sales, video rendering, ridesharing, and many others.

Now, a team of developers at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has released an update for a Peer to Peer (P2P) BitTorrent client that harnesses the power of blockchain tech. The BitTorrent client is called Tribler. According to its developers, even if all torrent sites get closed down it would still be able to find new content for its users.

Tribler’s latest blockchain innovation helps to improve the client’s performance when providing anonymity for its users.

Better Anonymity

The main driving force behind Tribler’s development has always been to create a decentralized BitTorrent client that preserves the anonymity of its users. Originally launched in 2006, Tribler has been working hard to create a decentralized ecosystem for torrenting. Even back in 2014, lead Tribler researcher Prof. Pouwelse made the claim that:

“Tribler makes BitTorrent anonymous and impossible to shut down.”

Tribler is unique because it doesn’t rely on central servers like sites such as The Pirate Bay. Instead, it uses a P2P system similar to Tor to allow its users to share content without divulging their IP addresses. Tribler also uses end-to-end encryption to help conceal the activities of Tribler users both seeding and sharing files.

The latest blockchain addition permits the software to reward users that share their bandwidth with other users. In turn, developers say it will permit Tribler to more effectively provide anonymity for its users.

How Tribler Works

When people search a regular BitTorrent client, the software looks for torrent files or magnet links stored on a centralized server. This allows governments to close down the servers belonging to popular BitTorrent sites – leaving users unable to find content. Tribler, on the other hand, is a Tor-like network that allows peers to communicate directly. This means that there is no central server for copyright holders or authorities to target.

Tribler users’ traffic is bounced around a network created by fellow users. Each user lends their bandwidth to others as they hop around the network – to conceal their true location. The only nodes that users do not create are entry and exit nodes: the most vulnerable points in the network. Those are handled via automated code based machines that are protected with a VPN. Pouwelse explains how those autonomous nodes work as follows:

“They utilize very primitive genetic evolution to improve survival, buy a VPN for protection, earn credits using our experimental credit mining preview release, and sell our bandwidth tokens on our integrated decentral market for cold hard Bitcoin cash to renew the cycle of life for the next month billing cycle of their VPS provider.”

Faster Speeds

Sharing bandwidth with other users to provide anonymity results in slower torrenting speeds. Pouwelse explains that the blockchain reward system will improve those download speeds, but only for users that truly deserve it:

“With the integrated blockchain release today we think we can start fixing the problem of both underseeded swarms and fast proxies. Our solution is basically very simple, only social people get decent performance on Tribler. This means in a few years we will end up with only users that act nice. Others leave.”

For Tribler users that are in it for the long term, the new blockchain will be a blessing. It will emphasize the social side of the community by giving preference to those that stick around and do the most work. Dr. Johan Pouwelse, the lead developer at Tribler, explains:

“You help other Tribler users by seeding and by enhancing their privacy. In return, you get faster downloads, as your tokens show you contribute to the community.”

Going Forward?

Some people might question the need for Delft University’s ongoing commitment to this decentralized BitTorrent project. However, the team is convinced that it is helping to build an ethical network in which people are rewarded for helping others.

Apparently, they aren’t alone. The new addition got a strong response from academics when it was presented last week at Stanford University. In addition, the Internet Engineering Task Force is considering Tribler’s blockchain implementation as a possible official Internet standard.

A mobile version of Tribler also exists. It aims at helping people to share videos directly with each other without the need for sites like YouTube. In theory, Tribler means that people could avoid problems with receiving recompense for the videos they create, by allowing them to earn cryptocurrency tokens directly for their content.

For anybody who is interested in becoming part of the Tribler community, it is available for free here.

Canada’s largest communication companies including Rogers and Quebecor have joined forces with content creators (CBC, Corus Entertainment, etc.) and unions across the country to stop the illegal download and streaming of movies, TV shows, live sports and music.

Together, they have filed an application to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to block all websites that give access to pirated materials. According to their analysis, piracy accounts for a $55-billion loss in Canada’s cultural industries. In fact, in 2017 alone, over 1 million Canadian households owned Android boxes that allowed them to access pirated materials for free.

Fair Play Canada, the given name for the coalition, urges the CRTC to mandate an “Independent Piracy Review Agency” that would be dedicated to identifying all the websites involved in pirating materials. The CRTC would then order all Canadian internet service providers to block those websites, as well as issue warnings to viewers who are suspected of illegally downloading or streaming from them.

While many people are showing their support for this initiative, others believe it is a violation of net neutrality, which pushes the case that internet providers should treat all content equally. Some fear that providers could end up abusing their power to block websites at their will.

Navdeep Bains, the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minster, spoke on this matter by assuring that Canada remains committed to “maintaining one of the best intellectual property and copyright frameworks int he world to support creativity and innovation to the benefit of artists, creators consumers and all Canadians.”

The CRTC has confirmed it will review the proposal and also assured Canadians of their strong commitment to net neutrality.

Happy 12th Birthday Deathlord! : HBD:









1. For each Torrent, multiply your upload by 12x.




2. All 12 uploaded torrent winners will win!




* Only the correctly uploaded torrents count!




* The game lasts until midnight (until February 5) and starts again at 0:01 the following day!




* If at midnight (or before) a torrent is deleted for some reason, it does not matter to the game !!! (So if the 10th torrents of the day are deleted, then a new torrent 10 needs to be uploaded to have 12)




* If you have the 12th torrent, it's not the 13th, but we're back from the beginning! Eg like: 10, 11, 12, 1, 2 ....




** The torrent (s) of torrent # 12 can choose:




- 12x as many DL points as MB is uploaded torrent




- We will deduct 12GB from downloading

Hi, dear members! If you have free time and you want to help thesacracorona site, you can help us with activity / advertising / coding / maintenance or new function implementations, send a message here.

Microsoft announced today that it has acquired PlayFab, a "complete backend platform for live games" that is used in more than 1200 games, including Killing Floor 2, Pathfinder Adventures, Battletech, and Planetary Annihilation. The company described the move as "an important step forward for gaming at Microsoft" and said that it will help make the creation of connected games more accessible for smaller-scale developers.

PlayFab is a premade platform that provides a range of online services and analytics that enable developers "to focus on building great games instead of backend technology," the company said on its blog. The technology will compliment Microsoft's Azure cloud-based server infrastructure, which currently has servers operating in 42 locations around the world.

"Our platform of scalable game services, game analytics, and LiveOps tools are helping more than 3,000 studios progress from shipping static software to creating games that scale gracefully and evolve over time with new content, live events, and frequent updates," PlayFab co-founder and CEO James Gwertzman said.

"Today we power more than 1200 live games, and have served over 700 million players. We process more than 1.5 billion transactions a day, nearly 20,000 transactions a second. Our technology is used by some of the biggest entertainment companies, including Disney, NBC Universal, Wizards of the Coast, Nickelodeon, Bandai Namco, Rovio, and Capcom, as well as fast-growing indies like Fluffy Fairy, Nvizzio, and Hyper Hippo."

"We’re mobilizing to pursue our extensive opportunity in a 100-plus-billion gaming market," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during a recent shareholder meeting. "This means broadening our approach to how we think about gaming end to end, about starting with games and how they’re creating and distributed, and how they’re played and viewed."

The acquisition also appears to jibe with Microsoft's announcement last week that all of its first-party games will be included in its Xbox Game Pass subscription service. "We’ve only scratched the surface of the opportunity this new model brings to the industry and what we can deliver to our fans," Xbox boss Phil Spencer wrote last week. "We firmly believe Xbox Game Pass will be a catalyst to create new opportunities for game developers and publishers to innovate in the way games are developed and delivered, leading to entirely new ways to play."