This coming Tuesday the world will find out who is going to be the President of the United States during the years to come.

During the past several months, news coverage have been dominated by mud-slinging from various sides, while surprisingly little has been said about future policy.

That’s odd considering the fact that the next President has an important say in the direction the country will take going forward.

Today we’ll take a look at which candidate is favored by various entertainment industries. This includes the major movie studios, record labels, and TV-production companies.

While most of these organizations haven’t publicly endorsed a candidate for the presidential election, their publicly listed donations paint a clear picture. Pretty much all copyright industries favor Hillary clinton by a landslide.

Counting all donations that were made during the 2016 election cycle, released publicly by the Federal Election Commission, we see a pattern emerging.

Companies and individuals in the copyright-heavy TV, music and movie sector want Hillary for president. Together they donated $6,835,455 to Hillary Clinton compared to only $139,429 for Donald Trump.

TV / Movies / Music donations

Looking in more detail at the various subsections, we see that the Motion Picture Production & Distribution industry, with players such as Dreamworks, Sony Corp, 21st Century Fox and Time Warner, also favor the democratic candidate. Together, they have donated $2,634,014 to Clinton, and $33,548 to Trump.

The gap is even greater in the TV production category where companies such as CBS, ABC and Walt Disney donated $634,757 to Clinton, versus a measly $3,455 to Trump.

In the music business the same trend emerges. Hillary Clinton received a healthy $737,955 in donations from companies such as Vivendi, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, while Trump got $17,850.

Overall it’s safe to conclude that these copyright industry related companies favor Hillary in the White House.

This, in contrast to copyright industry adversary Kim Dotcom, who’s one of the main critics of the Democratic candidate.

Over the past weeks Dotcom hasn’t spared Clinton his critique on Twitter, to say the least…

That said, the copyright industries are not alone in their financial support for Hillary, who has raised more than twice as much money than Trump. Clinton is the favorite in most sectors.

Many Internet companies which are often positioned against copyright interests, also favor Clinton over Trump.

Is there no-one favoring Donald then? Well… the building materials & equipment companies in the construction sector favor Trump over Clinton, $270,175 vs. $159,441.

So what does this all mean?

As with pretty much all facts and figures discussed in the election campaigns, it’s a matter of spin. Clinton will be pleased to see that these companies and related individuals have so much trust in her, while Trump will see it as a sign of a corrupt system where industries can buy favors. And so the mud-throwing continues.

In any case, don’t shoot the messenger…

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The donation data reported in this article was obtained through the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington D.C. based nonpartisan research group. The industry data includes both donations from the companies directly and related individuals, as explained here.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

While millions of users visit pirate sites directly to get their content fix, others prefer to use the services of search engines.

As a result, companies like Google and Bing are considered major drivers of traffic to torrent and streaming sites, a point not lost on the world’s entertainment industry groups.

In an effort to stem the flow, both get hit with millions of DMCA-style notices every week. The engines comply by removing millions of links.

Over in Russia the situation is more complex and content groups want a change in the law to tip the balance in their favor. They’re demanding that search engines remove links to pirate sites from their results entirely, or face being held liable for third-party infringement.

The proposals from the Association of Film and Television Producers (APKIT) have already been sent to the Ministry of Culture, which is currently drafting a new anti-piracy law. They foresee companies like Google, Yandex and Microsoft being forced to deal with infringement, or else.

“The members of our association believe that search engines are the main problem of piracy,” APKIT’s Sergey Semenov told Izvestia.

“Search engines – this is the best place to stop the infringement. We want direct instructions in the law that search engines themselves become responsible for infringement, if they do not remove the links after they became aware of copyright infringement.”

According to anti-piracy chief Maxim Ryabyko of AZAPO, there is a difference of opinion among lawyers when it comes to search engine liability and whether they need to remove links. It all comes down to whether they can be defined as information brokers, information intermediaries, or something else.

APKIT’s Semenov says that since there is no clarity on what defines an information broker, it is necessary to write into law where search engines stand and from there determine liability. Yandex, on the other hand, believes that clarity already exists.

“Regulation of the activities of search engines in the form offered by the rightsholders – including holding them liable for copyright infringement – is inappropriate and legally incorrect, as existing legislation and judicial practice have a clear understanding of the impossibility of holding search engines liable for violating intellectual property rights,” a Yandex spokesperson said.

“The courts take the position that the search engines are not information intermediaries due to the nature of their work. This position is confirmed by numerous judicial practice.”

Back in August, Eksmo, a publisher responsible for around 30% of all Russian books, filed a complaint with Yandex which demanded it removed links to infringing content indexed by leading Russian torrent site, RuTracker.

Yandex was given 48 hours to “cease publishing any information necessary to access the forbidden resource rutracker.org.” Yandex refused to comply and the case went to court, with rightsholders demanding that the search engine should be blocked by ISPs. The Moscow Court rejected the application.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Copyright is a double-edged sword. Those who sharpen one side often get cut by the other, with all the painful consequences that come with it.

That’s exactly what’s happening to the Business Software Alliance (BSA) this week.

Representing major software companies, the BSA uses Facebook ads to encourage people to report businesses that use unlicensed software. If one of these reports results in a successful court case, the pirate snitch can look forward to a cash reward.

While BSA’s original “No Piracy” page is no longer active, they do support a new campaign which is operating under the “Australia Cybercrime Watch” name. This group only appears to exist on Facebook and is running paid ads to convince people to snitch on software pirates.

Below is an ad that ran during Halloween, promising people thousands of dollars in rewards in return for their cooperation.

What’s just as creepy…?

There’s plenty to say about these kind of tactics, and by taking a glance through the Facebook comments it’s clear that many people are not fans, to say the least.

However, it’s not just the advertising ethics that’s raising eyebrows. If we visit the linked BSA page where people can report unlicensed software, we can’t help but notice that it violates the license of some of the jQuery code.

Looking at the source of the page we see that it includes custom builds of both jQuery and jQuery mobile. The files in question both use jQuery in their name and despite the modifications, they show plenty of similarities with the original code.

BSA (left) – Original (right)

In theory, this shouldn’t be a problem. Millions of websites all around the world use jQuery, which is free software as long as you adhere to the license. Ironically, BSA appears to be using it ‘unlicensed.’

jQuery doesn’t mind people copying, modifying or even selling their code on the condition that that the original license is included. This requirement is spelled out in every copy of the code, something all developers should know.

“The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software,” it clearly reads.

jQuery license

However, we have combed through both modified jQuery files on BSA’s servers but none of them includes or references the license. Admittingly, this type of “offense” is very common, but for an anti-piracy outfit it’s quite painful to say the least.

The license was probably omitted by mistake, as the original site also includes properly licensed files. However, BSA usually doesn’t show any mercy to the organizations that “forget” to license their Windows copies.

This isn’t the first time that one of the BSA’s anti-piracy campaigns has exposed its own wrongdoings. Previously, the group ‘stole’ a photograph for an advertisement, which they have quietly since removed.

Perhaps someone should report the BSA to the BSA for their infringing actions? Apparently you can get an award up to $20,000!

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Many countries around the EU have taken a hostile stance towards those sharing content without permission. However, evidence suggests that the further east a pirate operates, the less likely he is to get in trouble.

As a result, pirates have free reign in a number of countries but as of this week, Croatia can be crossed off that list. Authorities there have just arrested their very first Internet pirate and it’s all over local media.

According to reports, police swooped on a 31-year-old resident of Rijeka, Croatia’s principal seaport and its third-largest city. Matej Kalanj was arrested following claims he’d been operating pirate site Filmovita since 2014.

While Filmovita may not be a huge player on the world stage, the site is extremely popular locally and is currently Croatia’s 47th most popular overall. The site’s Facebook page has more than 165,000 members.

Local authorities claim that Kalanj published more than 1,250 movies with subtitles online. Via his site and promotion via Facebook, he earned around $89,000 in ad revenue, mainly from foreign companies.

Overall it’s claimed that the 31-year-old caused damages of more than $592,000 to local rights holders, although no evidence to back that up has been released. Vlaho Hrdalo, a lawyer from Zagreb, informs TF that despite the large numbers involved, a prosecution may not be straightforward.

“Croatia has a very special formulation in its Criminal Code which regulates that the prerequisite of an existence of a piracy-related felony is that there was excessive damage to the copyright holders,” Hrdalo explains.

“However, the prosecution will have problems proving that since they are claiming damage was done to local distributors. Furthermore, the site was not on a Croatian domain (.hr) but an international one (.com), which is why they will have to go to extreme lengths to prove it.”

In addition to the infringement charges, Kalanj is also accused of unlawfully accessing the Internet via a modem operated by a third person, believed to be a neighbor with insecure WiFi. Hrdalo says that this too could be on shaky ground.

“The site operator supposedly used his neighbor’s internet connection so that his IP address wouldn’t show up. Even if that is so, this doesn’t fall within the scope of Article 266 [Croatian Criminal Code] which says that a felony exists if someone gains unauthorized access to a ‘computer system or computer data’. Using other people’s WiFi does not represent the use of a ‘computer system or computer data’ and connecting to other people’s routers is certainly not a felony,” he explains.

Also under investigation is a woman in her late twenties, believed to be Kalanj’s wife. She stands accused by the District Attorney of money laundering offenses. It’s alleged that together with Kalanj, the woman tried to hide the source of the site’s advertising revenue by shifting money between bank accounts.

Perhaps surprisingly given Croatia’s previous lack of interest in prosecuting pirates, authorities have chosen to detain Kalanj in advance of his trial.

The detention was ordered to stop potential witnesses being influenced and further infringement, a move that has prompted local media to compare Kalanj with alleged KickassTorrents founder, Artem Vaulin. The woman, on the other hand, has been released.

For reasons that have not been made public, the arrest of the Filmovita’s alleged operator hasn’t affected the site itself. Despite being targeted by Croatia’s hi-tech crime unit, it remains operational through its usual URL.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

As one of the largest online file-sharing services, 4shared is closely watched by copyright holders whose work is made available on the site.

The site itself has a DMCA takedown procedure in place so rightholders can remove files directly, but Google also receives its fair share of takedown notices for the site.

Over the past several years the search engine has received a mind-boggling 50 million takedown requests for 4shared URLs. Most of these, 35 million, were submitted during the past year alone.

The popular file-hosting site tops Google’s list of most reported domain names at the moment, way out in front of rapidgator.net and uploaded.net, which are in second and third place respectively.

Over 50 million takedown requests

While it may look like 4shared is the piracy kingpin of the Internet, over the years the service has taken various measures to decrease infringing activity.

For example, the site uses advanced fingerprinting technology to scan for pirated music files based on a unique audio watermark. When infringing files are found they are removed from public view.

Interestingly, leading music industry groups RIAA and IFPI haven’t shown much interest in this tool thus far.

“We tried communicating with RIAA and IFPI, especially because of their possible participation in our music identification system,” 4shared’s Mike Wilson previously told TorrentFreak.

“We did not receive any assistance, so we started with music ID by ourselves and in just one year it helped to reduce the number of copyright complaints by 16 times, while the volume of stored information is actually still growing.”

Instead of working with 4shared directly the music industry group are taking their complaints to Google, resulting in the 50 million milestone this week.

On top of that, the RIAA also reported 4shared to the U.S. Government, listing it as one of the prime pirate sites on the Internet, and scolding the fingerprinting system they apparently aren’t using themselves.

“4shared remains one of the most popular cyberlocker sites in the world. It is also the source of a staggering volume of infringing files,” RIAA wrote adding: “Clearly their audio fingerprinting is at the very least ineffective.”

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.