Andrew Norton (Pirate Party)

Last updated

Andrew Norton
Chairman of the US Pirate Party
In office
28 January 2015 –1 March 2016

Andrew Norton (known also by his pseudonym "K`Tetch"; born 24 June 1980) is a British roboticist, politician and researcher. He is a former Coordinator of Pirate Parties International, a previous [1] Chairman of the United States Pirate Party and a previous Chairman of the Board for Pirate Party UK.

Contents

Early life and education

Norton was born in Liverpool, England. He was educated at Liverpool Blue Coat School from 1991 to 1998 and assisted as an IT technician for four years before studying Robotics at the University of Liverpool. [2]

Professional career

Using his knowledge of robotics, Norton took part in various robot combat competitions in the UK and the US, first as a competitor and later as a safety inspector. His team, Liverdyne Robotics, held the UK Middleweight title from 1998 to 2000. [2] Norton helped run over 70 independent robot combat events around the UK from 1999 to 2003. He also appeared in series 3, 4, and 5 of British robot combat TV show Robot Wars . He also worked on several seasons of Comedy Central's BattleBots , as well as other small TV roles, including an appearance in Spaced both in front of and behind the camera.

In the late 1990s Norton worked as a commercial copyright enforcer for a London-based record label, however he resigned from this role in 1999 over protests with the industry response to Napster and MP3s. [2]

Norton has been employed by the Dutch news website TorrentFreak for several years, and is their lead researcher and Community Manager. He is also currently a P2P systems researcher and was the assistant director of Electronic Frontier Forums, a series of lectures and panels given at Dragon Con each year, before becoming a segment producer and content creator for DragonConTV in 2017.

Political career

Norton was introduced to politics in the late 1990s by current Leader of the Liberal Party, Steve Radford. He joined the Conservative Party, but left when he moved to the United States in 2003. In 2004 he worked on the election campaign for two Libertarian Party candidates for a state house seat in Washington state. However, the campaign was not a success. [2]

Norton became part of the United States Pirate Party in October 2006 shortly after its founding, and was made International Coordinator. In March 2007, Norton became Chairman of the party and served in this role until September 2008, focusing on his expertise in copyright. [3] In September 2008 he stepped down from Chairmanship to become the first Coordinator of the then-fledgling Pirate Parties International. He left this role in July 2009, handing the role over to a team of Pat Mächler and Samir Allioui. [4] [2] He has since criticised the direction of Pirate Parties International. [5]

In 2011, Norton joined the Pirate Party UK as a member, and has worked as part of the press team since then. On 28 April 2013, he became a Governor of Pirate Party UK. On 28 January 2015, Norton became Chairman of the Board of Pirate Party UK. [6]

He rejoined the Board of the US Pirate Party on 14 July 2010 as the party's Legal Officer. In November 2013 he became the Vice Chair of the US Pirate Party, continuing in this role until January 2015, when he resumed the role of Chairman, focusing on topics of accountability, privacy [7] and activism. [8] Since June 2013 he has also been the Vice Chair of the Georgia state Pirate Party. [2] [9]

Notable incidents

In 2007, one of his first jobs for TorrentFreak was researching a claim that Comcast was interfering with the Bittorrent Protocol. He led a research team and discovered [10] that Comcast was using a product called Sandvine to disrupt Bittorrent usage nationwide. Once this research was verified by the Associated Press [11] and EFF [12] it prompted an FCC investigation [13] leading to the imposition of updated Net Neutrality rules. [14]

In 2013, Norton responded to a consultation on collecting societies run by the UK Intellectual Property Office. His response prompted them to delay publication of the responses for 6 weeks, before redacting his response saying he "inappropriately criticised the activities of others in the sector" [15] by providing links to news stories and court rulings, [16] as the consultation had explicitly requested. The IPO later admitted overreach [17] while emails obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request showed that such standards are not applied to larger respondents, only to individuals, for the purposes of amusement. [18]

In 2014 Nominet changed their rules about domain name WHOIS information leading up to the launch of the .uk TLD. Norton, who has used the pseudonym "K`Tetch" since 1996 including on his domain WHOIS, fell foul of these new changes, which required all domains handled by Nominet to have their WHOIS information verified through government databases, or copies of photo ID submitted to Nominet, outraging many including Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. [19] In discussions with the Guardian, Nominet also revealed their inconsistent stance on what constituted a commercial website. [20] Nominet claims to have now changed their policies on what qualifies as a commercial site.[ citation needed ]

Works

Norton was the editor of and contributor to No Safe Harbor, a collection of essays about Pirate politics. [21] He is also an occasional contributor to publications such as TechDirt, [22] ArsTechnica [23] and SERVO Magazine. In April 2017, he announced [24] his next book would focus on analysing the politics and philosophy of the Discworld universe.

Books

Related Research Articles

BitTorrent, also referred to as simply torrent, is a communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a decentralized manner. The protocol is developed and maintained by Rainberry, Inc., and was first released in 2001.

MediaDefender, Inc. was a company that fought copyright infringement that offered services designed to prevent alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution. They used unusual tactics such as flooding peer-to-peer networks with decoy files that tie up users' computers and bandwidth. MediaDefender was based in Los Angeles, California in the United States. As of March 2007, the company had approximately 60 employees and used 2,000 servers hosted in California with contracts for 9 Gbit/s of bandwidth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Pirate Bay</span> Website providing torrent files and magnet links

The Pirate Bay is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer, file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.

This is a timeline of events in the history of networked file sharing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gottfrid Svartholm</span> Swedish computer specialist

Per Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, alias anakata, is a Swedish computer specialist, known as the former co-owner of the web hosting company PRQ and co-founder of the BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay together with Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal issues with BitTorrent</span>

The use of the BitTorrent protocol for the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted content generated a variety of novel legal issues. While the technology and related platforms are legal in many jurisdictions, law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies are attempting to address this avenue of copyright infringement. Notably, the use of BitTorrent in connection with copyrighted material may make the issuers of the BitTorrent file, link or metadata liable as an infringing party under some copyright laws. Similarly, the use of BitTorrent to procure illegal materials could potentially create liability for end users as an accomplice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TorrentFreak</span> Blog on file sharing, copyright infringement, and digital rights

TorrentFreak (TF) is a blog dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing, as well as on copyright infringement and digital rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Sunde</span> Swedish entrepreneur and politician

Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, alias brokep, is a Swedish entrepreneur and politician. He is best known for being a co-founder and ex-spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent search engine. He is an equality advocate and has expressed concerns over issues of centralization of power to the European Union in his blog. Sunde also participates in the Pirate Party of Finland and describes himself as a socialist. In April 2017, Sunde founded Njalla, a privacy oriented domain name registrar, hosting provider and VPN provider.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torrentz</span> BitTorrent metasearch engine

Torrentz was a Finland-based metasearch engine for BitTorrent, run by an individual known as Flippy and founded on 24 July 2003. It indexed torrents from various major torrent websites and offered compilations of various trackers per torrent that were not necessarily present in the default .torrent file, so that when a tracker was down, other trackers could do the work. It was the second most popular torrent website in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Pirate Party</span> American political party

The United States Pirate Party (USPP) is an American political party founded in 2006 by Brent Allison and Alex English. The party's platform is aligned with the global Pirate movement, and supports reform of copyright laws to reflect open source and free culture values, government transparency, protection of privacy and civil liberties. The United States Pirate Party also advocates for evidence-based policy, egalitarianism, meritocracy and the hacker ethic as well as the rolling back of corporate personhood and corporate welfare. The USPP has also made a priority to advocate for changes in the copyright laws and removal of patents. It is the belief of the party that these restrictions greatly hinder the sharing and expansion of knowledge and resources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YourBittorrent</span> BitTorrent metasearch engine

YourBittorrent is a file sharing website founded as myBittorrent in 2003, the new site yourBittorrent is the result of a split in ownership in 2009. The site is a torrent tracking website for the P2P BitTorrent network. As such it does not host files, but hosts information about the location of these files in an indexed torrent file. These torrent files are read by a client located on an individual's computer.

The US Copyright Group (UCSG) is a business registered by the law firm Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver that also operates under the name SaveCinema.org. It is engaged in suing people in the U.S. who have allegedly used the P2P file sharing protocol BitTorrent to download certain movies.

Torrent poisoning is intentionally sharing corrupt data or data with misleading file names using the BitTorrent protocol. This practice of uploading fake torrents is sometimes carried out by anti-infringement organisations as an attempt to prevent the peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing of copyrighted content, and to gather the IP addresses of downloaders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serious Tubes Networks</span>

Serious Tubes Networks is an internet service provider based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company was best known for providing network connectivity for the Pirate Party of Sweden and for hosting The Pirate Bay, a major BitTorrent search engine.

Copyright Alert System (CAS) was a voluntary industry effort to educate and penalize internet users who engage in the unauthorized and unlawful distribution of copyrighted works via peer-to-peer file sharing services. The program was operated by the Center for Copyright Information, a consortium consisting of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and the internet service providers AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EZTV</span> TV torrent distribution group

EZTV is a TV torrent distribution group founded in May 2005 and dissolved in April 2015, after a hostile takeover of their domains and brand by "EZCLOUD LIMITED". It quickly became the most visited torrent site for TV shows.

Rightscorp. Inc is a Los-Angeles based copyright enforcement company, which locates alleged copyright violators and collects money from legal damages as well as out of court settlements on behalf of the copyright holder(s). Rightscorp manages copyrights of videos, music, and video games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Popcorn Time</span> BitTorrent client and media player software

Popcorn Time is a multi-platform, free software BitTorrent client that includes an integrated media player. The application provides a piracy-based alternative to subscription-based video streaming services such as Netflix. Popcorn Time uses sequential downloading to stream video listed by several torrent websites, and third-party trackers can also be added manually. The legality of the software depends on the jurisdiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YIFY</span> Peer-to-peer movies release group

YIFY Torrents or YTS was a peer-to-peer release group known for distributing large numbers of movies as free downloads through BitTorrent. YIFY releases were characterised through their small file size, which attracted many downloaders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KissAnime</span> Anime-focused piracy file streaming site

KissAnime was an anime-focused file streaming website that hosted links and embedded videos, allowing users to stream or download movies and TV shows illegally for free. It was a sister site to a related manga viewing website, KissManga. KissAnime was described as "one of the world’s biggest streaming anime websites". TorrentFreak reported that the sites had audiences of millions and that for a time, KissAnime was "the most visited pirate site in the world".

References

  1. ↑ "Leadership – United States Pirate Party".
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Andrew Norton". Pirate Party UK. Archived from the original on 12 May 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  3. ↑ Attack Of The Show – The Loop: Porn Piracy , retrieved 30 May 2017
  4. ↑ Norton, Andrew. "Signing off". Pirate Parties International. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  5. ↑ Norton, Andrew (13 March 2015). "PPI Became A Pirate Chimera". Pirate Times. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  6. ↑ "The Board". Pirate Party UK. Archived from the original on 26 September 2015. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  7. ↑ "Online Family Safety". Electronic Frontiers Forum. 30 August 2014. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  8. ↑ "Hacktivism". The Stream US, Al Jazeera America. 12 November 2013. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  9. ↑ "Leadership". United States Pirate Party. Archived from the original on 16 July 2015. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  10. ↑ "Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible - TorrentFreak". TorrentFreak. 17 August 2007. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  11. ↑ "The Associated Press: Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic". 21 October 2007. Archived from the original on 21 October 2007. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  12. ↑ "EFF tests agree with AP: Comcast is forging packets to interfere with user traffic". Electronic Frontier Foundation. 19 October 2007. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  13. ↑ "FCC Hearing: Comcast Uses Hacker Techniques - TorrentFreak". TorrentFreak. 26 February 2008. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  14. ↑ "Restoring Net Neutrality: Regulation, Legislation, or Litigation?". Electronic Frontiers Forums. 11 August 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
  15. ↑ "Intellectual Property Office – Response to the 2011 Consultation on proposals to change the UK's copyright system". webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 4 December 2012. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  16. ↑ "UK Government Censors Copyright Consultation Submission About How Awful Collection Societies Are". Techdirt. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  17. ↑ "IPO Admits Censorship Overreach in Consultation Response". Politics & P2P. 28 September 2012. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  18. ↑ "Discussions on redactions in collecting society consultation – a Freedom of Information request to Intellectual Property Office". WhatDoTheyKnow. 21 September 2012. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  19. ↑ Wales, Jimmy (6 June 2014). "Jimmy Wales Twitter". @jimmy_wales. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  20. ↑ Short, Adrian (11 June 2014). "Nominet's new rules on .uk domains could mean the end to users' privacy". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  21. ↑ Masnick, Mike (10 September 2012). "Chat With 'No Safe Harbor' Editor This Week". Techdirt. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  22. ↑ "Article history for Andrew Norton". TechDirt. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  23. ↑ Staff, Ars (22 August 2019). "YouTube flags robot battle videos as "animal fights"". Ars Technica. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  24. ↑ "Andrew "K'Tetch" Norton's Blog – New book started – April 16, 2017 21:11". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
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