Tuesday 30 June 2009

How popular is Surfthechannel.com?

Surfthechannel.com users come from these countries:

36.9% United States
13.3% United Kingdom
8.2% Canada
4.7% Germany
2.7% Australia
2.4% India
2.3% Ireland 2

Alexa Rank

221 Canada
251 United Kingdom
500 Australia
627 United States

http://alexa.com/siteinfo/surfthechannel.com


2008 Year-End Google Zeitgeist


After a whirlwind year of election news, economy woes, and the lead-up to the showstopping Summer Games in Beijing, we're looking back to see what was on the minds of Americans through it all. One thing's for sure: it was a wild ride.

"Fastest rising" means we looked at the most popular searches conducted for 11 months of 2008 (we compile this list by early December) and ranked them based on how much their frequency increased compared to 2007.

Google.com - Fastest Rising (U.S.)

1. obama
2. facebook
3. att
4. iphone
5. youtube
6. fox news
7. palin
8. beijing 2008
9. david cook
10. surf the channel

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2008/united_states.html

Surfthechannel operator Anton Vickerman ex-Suprnova co-admin FD / TheShadow?

Suprnova.org could never have run without the forum been there, the forum has been run by a few different people in the past, but is now in the hands of a guy called anton Vickerman (FD aka TheShadow)

This is a money driven guy, If the is no cash there, he wont be either.
Over the last few months we have seen a massive change in nova, this is due to methlabs paying slon an extreamly large amount of money to drop Bittorrent and use the mass amount of people that come to nova to promote there new p2p software to, As the forum is the heart of suprnova, everyone from the site can go there and talk to eachother, MY advice to anyone going there still is ask lots of questions,

Its a shame to see so many people sticking up for suprnova when they are unaware of what they are actually sticking up for.

It use to be a very good torrent dump site, now its a cash machine for the owners.

Its time for you guys to wise up and relise that suprnova is dead, now is the time for them to rake in as much money as possible.

I wouldnt be suprised if slon was on the run, someone did put his real home address in the irc channel (he used it when he first registerd suprnova) also i wouldnt be suprised if FD aka the shadow had something coming to him aswell as he made the same misstake when first registering his old sites, i know his real home address was even floating around as a torrent so quite a few people must have it.

So il say it again, suprnova is dead, now is the time of the money makers

by Family Friend on January 29, 2005 at 2:13 pm

http://web.archive.org/web/20070927050134/http://www.carniola.org/2004/11/hunting-slovenias-little-elephant.htm

http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20090625/1757125363#c1019

IS ANDREJ PRESTON VICKERMAN'S SUPRNOVA PARTNER???

So the RIAA and MPAA are celebrating what must seem like a number of glorious victories in their longstanding crusade against public file sharing. Due to a number of raids and repeated threats of severe legal action, many of the most popular file sharing sites decided to shut up shop last week. The most notable of which was the legendary BitTorrent Mecca, Suprnova.org. Sloncek, the owner and creator of suprnova, after seeing what was happening in the community made the brave decision to close the site rather than face a possible prison sentence. But how did the authorities manage to wreak such havoc when they've failed many times before? Simple. They went after the site owners.

Greetings everybody,

As you have probably noticed, we have often had downtimes. This was because it was so hard to keep this site up! But now we are sorry to inform you all, that SuprNova is closing down for good in the way that we all know it. We do not know if SuprNova is going to return, but it is certainly not going to be hosting any more torrent links. We are very sorry for this, but there was no other way, we have tried everything.

Thank you all that helped us, by donating mirrors or something else, by uploading and seeding files, by helping people out on IRC and on forum, by spreading the word about SuprNova.org. It is a sad day for all of us!

Please visit SuprNova.org every once in a while to get the latest news on what is happening and if there is anything new to report on.

As we wish to maintain the nice community that we created, we are keeping forums and irc servers open.

Thank you all and Goodbye!
sloncek & the rest of the SuprNova Team

There was a sudden outpouring of rage and sorrow amongst the many users of the site, but nothing could be done. By the end of the day, several more sites vanished and the BitTorrent scene had been almost obliterated. FD, moderator of the Suprnova forum, formerly the largest Invision Power Board in existence, removed all content relating to BitTorrent and banned any torrent related discussions. This bold move has spread to many more File Sharing boards preventing them from be taken to court.

More http://www.internetdj.com/article.php?storyid=514

Sloncek and Brokep NovaStreamRadio.org Interview Podcast
http://blog.p2pvine.com/sloneck-and-brokep-novastreamradioorg-interview-podcast-22082007/

About me July 30, 2007
Posted by sloncek in Uncategorized.
13 comments
My name is Andrej Preston and I go by the nickname sloncek (little elephant). I used to own SuprNova.org, but I gave it away since I decided to pursue a different career path. I moved to San Francisco to study Producing (Motion Picture & Television). On my blog I write what has happened to me here an what is going on in my life, how school is and what kind of things I have learned. I used to write about personal conflicts with other people here, but it did not end up nice.
http://sloncek.com/?s=suprnova

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrej_Preston

and

http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-about-to-relaunch-suprnovaorg/

and

SuprNova Forums Close - Merges with Snarf-It
by SlyckTom » Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:00 pm

The SuprNova Forums (SNF) was perhaps one of the busiest communities during the latter part of 2004. Although it shared a similar name as the BitTorrent listing site SuprNova.org, it was not owned or operated by administrator Sloncek. This allowed the site to grow in a unique fashion; uninterrupted by any third party influences.

However, those third party influences would come to a head on December 15th, 2004 when SuprNova announced it was closing its doors forever. Initial distraught turned to optimism when it was learned Sloncek was developing a supposed next generation BitTorrent protocol named eXeem. Unfortunately, this turned once again to disappointment as it was learned the program had nothing to do with BitTorrent (labeled as "irrelevant" by Bram Cohen) and included the dreaded cydoor.

All that was left of SuprNova at this point was the SNF. While the community portion of the site continued to exist, the now non-existence BitTorrent aspect became a detriment to its popularity. To regain that BitTorrent fuel that sparked such a diverse community, SuprNovaForums has decided to merge with Snarf-it's forums. Snarf-it has proven to be a quality BitTorrent tracker and listing site since its introduction on the SNF.

"The forum has been seeing an obvious decrease in regulars attending due to the fact of SuprNova closing." explains SuprNovaForum administrator 'FD.' "It was obvious that we needed to do something to preserve the fantastic community we have there, I decided that as snarf-it.org was born in SNF, that it was the logical choice for us to become the snarf-it.org community."

While some forum members undoubtedly expressed concern regarding the loss of SNFs' identity, 'FD' assures its members the spirit that made this community great will still remain.

"Everything will remain, memberships, posts, and all, we have the db and everything backed up, we will be reskinning and removing any links with SuprNova is all. This is a fresh start but with all of the old members, we built up the biggest Invision board in the world so we aren't going to just delete it and start again. I couldn't bring myself to press the button that wiped 330,000 members. The rules will stay the same as well, there will be zero tolerance of people posting direct torrent links or cracks etc on the forum, this policy has kept the SNF safe from harm over the years and I'll be making sure the same happens with Snarf-It forums."

The volume of information being transferred to Snarf-It has proven more time consuming than anticipated. 'FD' states what was supposed to take one hour has turned into a day and-a-half affair.

"Whilst looking through the server and checking a few things it looked in bad shape system wise so I've decided on a re-image to bring it's OS and krnl up to date, this will be done tomorrow morning and we should have the forum up and running by 6pm BST (*crosses fingers.)"

With the emerging prominence of Snarf-It and backup of SuprNova's old community, interesting things may once again flourish in the BitTorrent community. In addition, Snarf-It plans to implement a script that will index "every single live torrent on the net (approximately 110,000) in addition to supporting eMule links." While BitTorrent fans hope Snarf-It resurrects SuprNova’s successful history, many hope to avoid its duplication.

http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10293&hilit=suprnova&sid=f6b9dba686814cf3be3d5fe928716bcd

Nov 17 2004, 11:41 AM Post #2

im preddy sure all advertising is done by a 3'd party. ie, a company is being paid a fee to find people that want to pay a fee to advertise on suprnova.

i may be wrong though. try PM'ing either "FD" or "Sloncek"

http://forum.docusaur.us/index.php?showtopic=24625


Suprnova.org gone forever

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, it seems that it was going to happen sometime, but suprnova.org is finally gone forever. There have been a lot of torrent sites that have closed recently, including Youceff. Even tho suprnova's servers were located in Slovenia, but were shut down despite the fact that foreign laws dont apply there.


Quote:
* Now talking in #suprnova.org
* Topic is 'SuprNova is from today on DOWN. It will not be returning in any way that we know it now. We are very sorry for this, but it is not possible any other way. Thank you all for all your help! SuprNova crew '
* Set by sloncek on Sun Dec 19 16:08:10

This is not a joke either. FD said that suprnova will not be returning.

http://www.dbzsc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24798

Friday 26 June 2009

Court Warns Police Over Private Affairs

Scopelight Limited & others v Northumbria Police and FACT, 19 June 2009 PoliceReview.com

by Nick Peel nick.peel@weightmans.com

BACKGROUND

The claimant, Scopelight Limited, ran a website (Surfthechannel.com) with a video search engine with thousands of links to third-party website videos. The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) represents the interests of the audiovisual industry.
Investigations by FACT suggested the claimant company and its owners, Anton Benjamin Vickerman and Kelly-Anne Vickerman,a married couple from Gateshead, were hosting internet sites from which copyrighted material was being downloaded. Northumbria Police applied for a section 8 warrant under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) to search the claimants' premises, resulting in 31 items of property being seized, including the computer towers and servers. The force handed some items to FACT.
By 12 December 2008, the Crown Prosecution Service had decided not to prosecute. The force notified the claimants of this, indicating that the property could be returned.All property subsequently came into FACT's possession. Following the CPS decision, FACT decided to bring a private criminal prosecution.
On 22 January 2009, the claimants began proceedings for return of the property and damages for conversion. A day later, FACT alerted the force of its decision to bring a private prosecution. On 28 January, the claimant applied for an interim order for delivery of the property, which Mrs Justice Sharp granted. On 12 February, FACT began the private prosecution.

THE DECISION

The defendants argued that once the property was lawfully seized for the purposes of a criminal investigation, it was immaterial whether any subsequent prosecution was undertaken by the CPS or FACT, as long as the material was retained for use as evidence in connection with the alleged offence. The claimants argued that the private actions of people and bodies form no part of the police service's functions. So once the CPS decided not to prosecute, retaining the property to assist FACT in its private prosecution fell outside the scope of PACE.
On 7th May, at the High Court, Mrs Justice Sharp agreed with the claimants. While acknowledging that the force had a duty to prevent crime, those powers were not unlimited. The judge observed that there was 'an obvious distinction between what may be desirable in a particular case, and what is permissible as a matter of law'

COMMENT

While a disappointment for FACT, this decision draws a clear line between interference with private property for public purposes under PACE and the prosecution of private interests.

WWW.POLICEREVIEW.COM
Nick Peel is a sollicitor at Weightmans, specialising in police law

WE WANT IT BACK; Couple's fight for return of computer equipment

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), April 6, 2009

Byline: VICKY ROBSON

A HIGH Court tug of war is being waged by a couple of internet entrepreneurs and a web watchdog.

Police seized property and equipment from Anton and Kelly-Anne Vickerman when they raided their Tyneside home last year.

The couple, who run the video search engine SurfTheChannel.

com, were arrested at their home in Deckham, Gateshead, on suspicion on conspiracy to defraud.

But the decision was taken not to prosecute and the couple are now fighting to get back their computer equipment.

They say it contains confidential information vital to their company Scopelight Ltd.

In a case which raises legal issues never before considered by the courts, they are seeking a judicial ruling that the items, which the police have passed on to the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), should be returned to them.

Their barrister, Donald McCue, accused police of acting as "handmaidens" of FACT , even though it is a private organisation.

This, he said, meant it does not have the "faintest right" to retain any of the property as it is simply a "commercial organisation".

The Vickermans insist their company is legitimate and is a "signpost" website containing links to other internet sites, a bit like a very comprehensive online version of the Radio Times.

But Richard Spearman, QC, representing Northumbria Police and FACT, argued FACT is entitled to hold on to the seized property while it considers a private prosecution.

He described the Vickermans' challenge as "an ambitious and misconceived attempt to stymie a private prosecution".

Mr Spearman went on: "In pursuit of that objective, the claimants have resorted to arguments that are as extravagant as they are novel and which, if right, would have a dramatic affect on many criminal proceedings in this country."

After two days of legal argument, Mrs Justice Sharp recognised the significance of the case by saying she would reserve her judgment to a later date..

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6783/is_2009_April_6/ai_n31505548/

Can Someone Please Tell Us How You Determine What's A 'Legal' Search Engine From An 'Illegal' One?

Can Someone Please Tell Us How You Determine What's A 'Legal' Search Engine From An 'Illegal' One?

from the is-it-like-obscenity? dept
I've had a lot of trouble with courts around the globe pinning blame on search engines for what they find, using a questionable interpretation of the law for "contributory" infringement or "inducing" infringement. Such things leave open such a wide spectrum of questions, it basically puts any search engine at risk. People have questioned in the past why Google isn't targeted the same way The Pirate Bay or Torrentspy were, because functionally they're doing the same thing: they index information and help people find it. Of course, some will say that The Pirate Bay is somehow guilty because of the way it acts towards copyright holders, but since when has attitude changed whether the same action is legal or illegal?

Either way it's beginning to feel like judges are determining what is and what is not contributory infringement in the same way "obscenity" is determined, using Justice Potter Stewart's famous "I know it when I see it" test. This is a bad thing, because while some may claim the extremes are clear (which is certainly questionable) there's a large gray area in the middle that is completely unclear. And having a huge unclear gray area means a lot of potential liability on innovators -- leading fewer people to innovate. And that's undeniably bad.

Take for example, the situation going on in the UK, where Anton Benjamin Vickerman and his wife Kelly-Anne Vickerman decided to do something that makes a lot of sense: create a search engine for videos online, indexing a variety of different sites. This was as a part of their company Scopelight, and the search engine itself was called Surfthechannel. This is certainly a useful product. But, of course, the search engine's algorithm has no way of knowing if that video has been put up by the copyright holder on purpose or if it's unauthorized. Even more tricky, how does it determine fair use? So, it did the reasonable thing: it includes everything. Lots of the videos are legal. Plenty are potentially unauthorized. Apparently that wasn't good enough for a UK-based anti-piracy group UK-FACT, who had Scopelight's premises raided, claiming the site is illegal, since people can find unauthorized content via it. Of course, you can find unauthorized content on Google as well.

But you know who's liable for that? Whoever actually put it online. Not the search engine that pointed you to it.

UK-FACT was unable to get criminal charges filed against SurfTheChannel, but no matter, a civil case has been filed instead. So, once again, a judge is going to have to determine why a third party website can be guilty of others' infringement based on a highly subjective "I know it when I see it" set of reasons. This is a bad deal for everyone.

http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20090625/1757125363&op=sharethis