After years of being branded one of the world’s worst Internet piracy facilitators, social networking giant vKontakte has taken a huge step towards fixing its reputation.

As predicated last week, vKontakte owner Mail.ru has now signed a licensing agreement with Universal Music and United Music Agency which will see music and video content appear legally on the platform.

The deal also covers Mail.ru’s two other social networking platforms, Classmates (Odnoklassniki) and My World. Along with vKontakte, these sites are the three most popular social networking platforms in Russia.

With the agreement now signed, Mail.ru has licensing agreements in place with the three leading music rights groups – Universal Music Group (UMG), Warner Music and Sony Music.

In addition to allowing huge catalogs of music to appear on vKontakte legitimately, the Universal deal also puts to rest all copyright-related legal action between the companies. VKontakte has now settled its differences with all three music giants.

Details on the UMG deal are scarce, but Mail.ru says that its social network platforms will “test various monetization models jointly with other market players” to find the best solution for artists and fans.

Insiders familiar with the negotiations told Russian news outlet Vedomosti that Universal has received a “minimum guarantee” that it will generate around $8m over the next three years.

VKontakte CEO Boris Dobrodeyev welcomed the deal between the companies and expressed optimism for the future.

“Following extensive negotiations, we have agreed terms with all of the major music rights holders, enabling us to draw a line under this process. This is a historic moment and a new milestone in VKontakte’s history,” Dobrodeyev said.

“Our constructive and mutually beneficial collaboration has put an end to earlier disputes with the record companies. Following the removal of legal barriers, we can now create new products based on VKontakte’s music service that users will value.”

Adrian Cheesley, Senior Vice President at Universal Music Group, said that the deal will ensure that artists will now be paid when their content is exploited on social networks.

“Music has tremendous value and we’re gratified to reach a commercial agreement that ensures UMG’s artists are fairly compensated for the use of their music,” Cheesley said.

“Russia is an important, and growing, market for UMG and with this important step we’re looking forward to developing more local artists, investing in growing the music scene and broadly licensing services.”

It is not yet clear how the terms of the licensing deal will affect how music is made available on vKontakte in future, but it’s likely it will be less of a free-for-all than it currently is. Music downloaded from vKontakte is an important fuelling element of the pirate content landscape so this is definitely something to watch in the weeks and months to come.

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

This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

Central Intelligence is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(8)	Central Intelligence	6.9 / trailer
2	(1)	Warcraft (subbed HDRip)	7.7 / trailer
3	(…)	The Purge: Election Year (subbed HDRip)	6.3 / trailer
4	(5)	The Legend of Tarzan (HDTS)	6.9 / trailer
5	(2)	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice	7.0 / trailer
6	(…)	Hardcore Henry	6.9 / trailer
7	(7)	Finding Dory (HDTS)	8.1 / trailer
8	(3)	Me Before You (Subbed Webrip)	7.7 / trailer
9	(4)	Independence Day: Resurgence (HDTS)	5.6 / trailer
10	(9)	X-Men: Apocalypse (HDCam/TC)	7.7 / trailer

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

Music piracy in 2016 is a somewhat curious beast. Streaming platforms are readily accessible and the service provided by outfits like Spotify out-perform the vast majority of pirate sites.

With many legitimate platforms providing an ad-supported free tier, it’s even difficult to complain about the price. Still, some people prefer to pirate and this infuriates the labels, and understandably so. Sadly, however, their response is to blame people that have nothing to do with that infringement.

After being put under intense pressure by copyright holders, Google now feels obliged to let everyone know what measures it’s taking against this kind of piracy. This week it produced a comprehensive report covering every possible angle. Within minutes the record labels had responded, not with thanks, but with intence criticism.

On a personal level I’d like to think that Google is now pretty pissed off, and this is coming from someone who supports artists with subscriptions to Spotify, Deezer and Digitally Imported, and purchases from Beatport and Juno.

For the millionth time, Google does not engage in copyright infringement, yet faced with a problem they can’t solve on their own, the labels have adopted a strategy of painting Google as the villain. The contempt shown by the labels for a company that is already going way beyond what’s required of it under the law is quite unbelievable.

The maddening reality of it all really hits home when one reads a piece penned by the BPI’s Geoff Taylor and published in MBW this week. It begins with complaints that Content ID doesn’t work as well as it should and he invites Google to up its game.

“Despite its amazing innovations in mapping the Earth and inventing driverless cars, Google hasn’t managed to implement a Content ID system that people can’t easily get around,” Taylor complains.

First, Google had no obligation to make Content ID at all but it did and now artists are $2bn better off. Second, people invent systems, people get around them, everyone knows that. But apparently, Google is partly to blame for that too.

“Of course the fact that Google refuses to remove YouTube videos that show you exactly how to circumvent Content ID doesn’t help,” Taylor adds.

No, it’s not helpful, but what it does show is that Google isn’t prepared to stifle free speech, even if it does find it objectionable. Talking about circumventing Content ID is not a crime, nor a breach of YouTube’s terms and conditions. Those videos should stay up, no matter how annoying.

Also, it’s worth bearing in mind that when looking at any industry demands, history shows us that whatever is offered, it will never, ever be enough. Taylor’s piece demonstrates that with flying colors.

“Google should concentrate its formidable resources on making a Content ID system that is genuinely effective in protecting creators; and then apply a similar proactive system to Google search and its other services.”

Proactively censor existence of content on the web. Right. That should be both easy and completely problem free.

To be fair, it’s obvious why the music industry wants Google to go down this route, but the thought of any third party becoming permanent judge and jury over what we can and cannot see online is bewildering. And that’s ignoring the fact that Content ID works for material Google hosts. Applying that to content hosted elsewhere would be a minefield, if not impossible.

But it doesn’t stop there. Also bewildering is how the labels are trying to shame Google into paying them more.

“This isn’t strictly a piracy issue, but we can’t ignore the fact that YouTube pays 1/16th as much for each of its music users as competing services like Spotify,” Taylor writes.

“It’s time that Google started sharing a fair proportion of the value it derives from YouTube with creators.”

In any other marketplace people simply don’t do business with a company if they don’t like the prices being paid, but apparently the labels are being held to ransom.

That being said, since we’re playing this game of “fair proportions”, consider this. YouTube makes pretty much no money. Does the BPI want a share of that?

But the complaint that is perhaps the most frustrating is that the BPI and others are still complaining that pirate sites are turning up in search results for music content.

Let’s be clear, the most popular pirate sites do not turn up in the first results because they’re all being downranked by Google’s anti-piracy algorithm. This means that sites that most people have never heard of get pushed up the list, apparently above legitimate offerings.

That raises the preposterous notion that the people behind many of these bottom tier pirate sites have better SEO skills than the world’s biggest music companies. That being the case, someone needs a kick in the ass – and it’s not Google.

Finally, Taylor criticizes Google for not going after sites that rip audio content from YouTube videos and convert them to MP3s.

“Although such sites breach YouTube’s terms of service and seem to contradict its business model – by turning ad-supported transient streams into permanent copies – Google continues to point to these sites in autocomplete and to host YouTube videos showing how to use them,” he writes.

Again, the BPI is asking for censorship of content that simply isn’t illegal. But more than that it’s yet again demanding action from YouTube when it could take action itself. If these sites are illegal, why aren’t they being added to the UK’s national website blocking list, for example?

The problem with this continual assault on Google is that it’s not only tiresome but it largely misses the point. Google already does way more than the law requires yet it only has control over content hosted on YouTube. No matter what actions it takes, it simply cannot remove illicit content from the web, it can only make it a bit less visible.

Google can look after itself, but copyright holders should be extremely cautious of treating its many overtures with this level of contempt. One volunteer is worth ten pressed men and one can only guess at how much patience Google has left.

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

Copyright holders continue to overload Google with DMCA takedown requests, targeting “pirate links” in the company’s search results.

In recent years the number of notices has exploded, breaking record after record.

Data analyzed by TorrentFreak reveals that Google recently received its 500 millionth takedown request of 2016.

The counter currently displays more than 523,000,000, which is yet another record. For comparison, last year it took almost the entire year to reach the same milestone.

If the numbers continue to go up at the same rate throughout the year, Google will process a billion allegedly infringing links during the whole of 2016, a staggering number.

According to Google roughly 98% of the reported URLs are indeed removed. This means that half a billion links were stripped from search results this year alone. However, according to copyright holders, this is still not enough.

Entertainment industry groups such as the RIAA, BPI and MPAA have pointed out repeatedly that many files simply reappear under new URLs.

“It’s like ‘Groundhog Day’ for takedowns,” RIAA CEO Cary Sherman said previously.

This week Google addressed the issue in its updated “How Google Fights Piracy” report. In it, the company provides an overview of all the efforts it makes to combat piracy while countering some of the entertainment industry complaints.

According to Google, the increase shows that the system is working and the company notes that it takes less than six hours to remove content.

“The growing number of notices sent to Google by an increasing volume of different copyright owners and enforcement agents demonstrates the effectiveness and success of the notice-and-take-
down system.”

“As the internet continues to grow rapidly, and as new technologies make it cheaper and faster for copyright owners and enforcement agents to detect infringements online, we can expect these numbers to continue to increase,” Google adds.

Still, rightsholders are not impressed and continue to demand a tougher stance from Google when it comes to piracy. Shortly after Google released its report this week, BPI CEO Geoff Taylor already dismissed it.

“This report looks a lot like ‘greenwash’. Although we welcome the measures Google has taken so far, it is still one of the key enablers of piracy on the planet,” Taylor said.

By now it has become clear that the entertainment industry groups and Google are not going to reach an agreement anytime soon. The issue has been going on for years now and both sides continue to make the same arguments.

Various industry are now hoping that the Government will intervene at some point. Whether that will happen has yet to be seen but in the meantime, rightsholders will continue to report millions of pirate links per day.

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

When it comes to online piracy most attention usually goes out to music, TV-shows and movies. However, photos are arguably the most-infringed works online.

While most photographers spend little time battling piracy, a few are willing to take the matter to federal court.

Recently we’ve seen a trend emerge on this front. A handful of independent photographers have teamed up with attorney Richard Liebowitz in order to demand damages from a variety of publishers, mostly prominent news outlets.

One of the photographers taking a stand is Christopher Sadowski, who noticed his work being featured on Gizmodo.com and Gawker.com. Sadowski sued Gawker media for using his photo of an UBER car in two articles. In neither case he was rewarded or recognized for his work, the complaint alleges.

“Gawker did not license the Photograph from Plaintiff for its articles, nor did Gawker have Plaintiff’s permission or consent to publish the Photograph on its Websites. Upon information and belief, Gawker removed Sadowski’s gutter credit and did not attribute the Photograph to anyone.”

It’s unclear how the photo ended up on Gawker but the complaint states that it was properly licensed to The New York Post earlier. Gawker has yet to respond to the claims and at the time of writing the photo is still online.

The allegedly infringing image on Gizmodo

Sadowski is not alone as several lawsuits have also been filed on behalf of other photographers in recent weeks. For example, photographer John Mantel sued a variety of news publishers including tech companies Verizon, AOL and Microsoft, for using his work without permission in news articles.

Similarly, Steve Sands launched lawsuits against IGN.com (Ziff Davis) and MTV.com, Steven Hirsch sued Heavy.com, Allesandro Masi took Yahoo.com to court and Angel Chevrestt went after CBS. And that’s just a small selection of the ongoing cases.

Sands vs. Ziff Davis

In all cases, the publishers are accused of copyright infringement and the common theme is that the news outlets use photos in their articles without properly licensing them. Most of the time the photographers in question are not even credited.

None of the accused news outlets have been found liable yet, but it’s very likely that at least some of them are breaking the law. According to the defense attorney, these news outlets are clearly profiting from the work of his clients.

“Copyright infringement is an ongoing issue. Companies are using other people’s hard work and profiting off of it. It is important for photographers and the creative community to unite and stand up for their rights and protect their work,” Liebowitz tells TorrentFreak.

In the complaints the photographers all seek compensation, which could go up to $150,000 in statutory damages per work. It is expected, however, that most will be settled for a lower amount at some stage to avoid expensive litigation.

The costs involved with these cases is also one of the main reasons why photographers typically don’t file lawsuits. Starting a federal case with proper representation is quite costly, while the outcome is rather uncertain.

However, this may change soon. This week, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries introduced a new bill that will give rightsholders a cheaper option to pursue these cases.

The CASE Act, short for Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement, proposes a small claims court to resolve copyright disputes outside the federal courts. This means that legal costs will be significantly reduced.

This is not the first time that a small claims court for copyright issues has been proposed but this time the plan has significant backing from Professional Photographers of America, a trade organization with roughly 30,000 members

For now, however, Liebowitz and his client will have to take their cases to federal court. Considering the stream of new complaints being filed, this strategy may still pay off.

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