As a result of its attitudes towards copyright law, The Pirate Bay is without doubt the most blocked ‘pirate’ site in history.

The notorious torrent index is already the subject of blocking orders in many countries worldwide, and others such as Australia are queuing up to add their names to the growing list. But for many citizens of Austria, where the site was blocked last year, the trend has just been reversed.

Following legal action that had dragged on for years, last year the Commercial Court of Vienna finally ordered local ISPs to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay.

In addition to TPB, the court order also required the Internet providers to block three other “structurally infringing” sites – Isohunt.to, 1337x.to and the now-defunct h33t.to. Soon after, local music rights group LSG sent its lawyers after several other large ISPs urging them to follow suit, or else.

But now, a year on, the blocks appear to be unraveling after the Vienna Higher Regional Court overruled the decision of the Commercial Court. The ruling, which was handed down May 30 but only just made public, means that the ISPs are free to unblock the previously blocked sites.

Text from the unpublished ruling sent to TorrentFreak by FutureZone.at sees the court reference a case from Germany which concluded that ISP blocks are only warranted if copyright holders have exhausted all their options to take action against those actually carrying out the infringement.

In a press release, Maximilian Schubert, Secretary General of industry group Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA), welcomed the decision as “an important milestone” in the fight against entertainment industry blocking demands.

But despite the clearly uncertain legal waters and battles yet to be concluded, rightsholders still aren’t giving up.

ISPA reports that in the days following the judge’s decision yet more blocking requests arrived at several of the country’s ISPs. They contain demands to block streaming platforms movie4k.tv, movie.to, movie2k.pe and kinox.tv.

ISPA is not impressed with these calls and has criticized rightsholders for attempting to force ISPs into the “role of a judge” when deciding whether there’s indeed a sufficient basis for a block.

“A problem in this context is that the offending pages also have legal content and it is no longer possible to access that if barriers are put in place,” Schubert said.

In closing, Schubert also warned that rightsholders are unlikely to accept the decision and will almost certainly appeal to the Supreme Court. Shortly after an appeal from the music industry was confirmed.

“The foundations for site blocking in Austria were clarified legally in a four-year procedure involving the European Court. In the present decision of the Vienna Higher Regional Court, we see the interests of artists and cultural producers ignored,” said IFPI CEO Franz Medwenitsch.

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

The makers of Dallas Buyers Club have sued thousands of BitTorrent users over the past few years.

Many of these cases end up being settled for an undisclosed amount. This usually happens after the filmmakers obtain the identity of the Internet account holder believed to have pirated the movie.

Not all alleged downloaders are eager to pay up though. In fact, many don’t respond to the settlement letters they receive or claim that someone else must have downloaded the film using their connection.

This is also true for the case Dallas Buyers Club (DBC) filed against California resident Michael Amhari.

Earlier this year the filmmakers claimed that Amhari downloaded a pirated copy of the movie after he was linked to a “pirating” IP-address. Dallas Buyers Club’s attorney demanded a settlement of $10,000 and warned that “the price would go up” if he didn’t pay up soon enough.

Amhari, however, denied the allegations and explained that he lived in an apartment residence at San Diego State University with an open Wi-Fi connection. Nevertheless, the movie studio pursued its claim and increased the settlement demand to $14,000.

He continued to deny any involvement and even agreed to take a polygraph test to prove it, as DBC suggested. However, the filmmakers later retracted this offer and moved for a default judgment instead.

This judgment was set aside earlier this month and now the alleged “pirate” is pushing back in court.

Through his lawyer, Amhari is now asking for the case to be dismissed due to lack of evidence, as well as an award of attorney fees and monetary sanctions for DBC’s abuse tactics in these and other cases.

“Plaintiff has utilized extortion tactics by progressively demanding more money from defendant on each successive conversation with defense counsel and through emails, based on plaintiff’s costs and attorney fees,” attorney Clay Renick writes.

In his argument (pdf), Renick cites DBC’s own words, as they previously admitted that “Ahmari may not be the actual infringer as he shared a student apartment with other individuals.”

Despite this knowledge, they continued their case against Amhari.

“Despite the warning from the Court, Plaintiff moved forward to aggressively and maliciously name defendant in a manner that constitutes libel against defendant,” Amhari’s attorney writes.

As a result of the allegations, the accused pirate had to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees. According to the defense lawyer, however, it is clear that DBC doesn’t have any evidence linking his client to the actual download.

“It is uncontroverted that the sole basis of plaintiff’s lawsuit was that defendant was a subscriber to the IP address of which a movie was supposedly downloaded,” Renick writes.

“Plaintiff seems to believe that conflating a subscriber’s IP address to being the actual infringer should shield him from liability for those libelous statements and unethical actions to extort money from defendant,” the attorney adds.

Based on the lack of evidence, Amhari is asking the court to dismiss the case. In addition, he is requesting $12,000 in attorney fees and a monetary penalty of $36,000 for the coercive tactics used in this and other cases.

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

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has won its court case against Usenet providers Eweka and Usenetter.

On behalf of several large book publishers, the group had requested the personal details of two anonymous users who allegedly uploaded more than 2,000 books to newsgroups.

The Usenet providers terminated the accounts but refused to hand over any personal details. Instead, they claimed that they are not allowed to share personal data under e-Privacy regulations if an account is no longer active.

BREIN disagreed and took the matter to court. They argued that the book publishers’ right to protect their content trumps the privacy concerns of the Usenet uploaders in this case.

In an order issued today (pdf) the Court of Haarlem agrees with this assessment. As a result, the two providers are required to hand over the IP-addresses, payment info, and any other personal information they have on file.

If the providers fail to comply within five days they face a penalty of 1,000 euros ($1,130) per day, to a maximum of 100,000 euros, Nu.nl reports.

BREIN director Tim Kuik previously informed TorrentFreak that they are hoping to recover damages from the uploaders, as well as information on other large scale infringers.

“Our primary interest is to stop the infringements, furthermore to settle costs and damages or to sue on behalf of the injured right holders. Possibly the infringers may have information on other persons involved,” Kuik says.

Under Dutch jurisprudence, ISPs can be obliged to hand over personal information of customers if the infringing activity is plausible and the aggrieved party has a legitimate interest.

This could also spell trouble for BitTorrent uploaders, as BREIN could try to request personal information from their ISPs.

This isn’t the first time that BREIN has gone after serial e-book infringers. Last year, a Dutch court ordered Google to hand over the personal details of a user that sold pirated books in the Play Store. In that case the court also concluded that the rights of copyright holders outweigh the user’s rights.

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

Back in April the U.S. Supreme Court approved a rule change that will allow law enforcement to obtain a warrant to hack into computers and even phones anywhere in the world.

The changes affect Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure which determines how the government investigates criminal complaints.

The changes will allow a judge to grant permission to law enforcement agencies enabling them to hack computers anywhere, provided the location of the target computer has been hidden by technical means. That means that users of TOR, VPNs, and proxies etc could all become vulnerable, regardless of why they are using such tools. But it doesn’t stop there.

“It might also extend to people who deny access to location data for smartphone apps because they don’t feel like sharing their location with ad networks,” the EFF previously warned.

“It could even include individuals who change the country setting in an online service, like folks who change the country settings of their Twitter profile in order to read uncensored Tweets.”

Also of concern is the second part of the proposal which would allow judges to issue a search warrant authorizing the hacking or seizing of computers that might be acting as part of a botnet. That means you, if your computer happens to have been infected with a botnet trojan.

Importantly, Congress didn’t vote through the changes to Rule 41, judicial approval was obtained by the Department of Justice instead. This means that unless Congress passes new legislation to block the changes, time will run out December 1, 2016.

With this deadline looming, a fresh push is underway to try and block what many see as a serious danger to computer users’ security worldwide. To that end a broad coalition of 50 organizations including public interest groups, privacy tool providers, and Internet companies have written to Congress opposing the changes.

In their letter, Google, EFF, Demand Progress, FightForTheFuture, TOR, VPN providers Private Internet Access, Golden Frog and Hide My Ass, plus many others, urge Congress to “consider and debate” the implications of the new rule.

“The changes to Rule 41 give federal magistrate judges across the United States new authority to issue warrants for hacking and surveillance in cases where a computer’s location is unknown,” the letter reads.

“This would invite law enforcement to seek warrants authorizing them to hack thousands of computers at once — which it is hard to imagine would not be in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

Noting that the changes would allow for the hacking of innocent computer users, the coalition describes the proposal as dangerously broad.

“It fails to provide appropriate guidelines for safeguarding privacy and security, and it circumvents the legislative process that would provide Congress and the public the critically necessary opportunity to evaluate these issues,” they continue.

But perhaps most importantly, the proposed changes will undermine the security of those who need it most – those who have taken legitimate steps to protect their privacy with anonymizing tools such as VPNs and TOR.

“There are countless reasons people may want to use technology to shield their privacy. From journalists communicating with sources to victims of domestic violence seeking information on legal services, people worldwide depend on privacy tools for privacy, personal safety, and data security,” the letter reads.

“Many businesses even require their employees to use virtual private networks for security, especially during travel. Such tools should be actively promoted as a way to safeguard privacy, not discouraged.”

Finally, the groups encourage Congress to take action.

“The Stopping Mass Hacking Act offers a simple solution: it rejects the changes to Rule 41. Passing this bill by December 1 will ensure that Congress has time to fully consider the issue of government hacking before this practice becomes widespread. We urge you to support this bill and to reject the changes to Rule 41,” their letter concludes.

A petition to stop the changes to Rule 41 can be found here.

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

Last week the local branches of Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI won a default judgment against Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

The Helsinki District Court ordered Sunde to pay $395,000 (350,000 euros) for music shared illegally through the site by its users.

In addition, he faces an additional one million euro fine if the infringements continue in the future, even though he has no control over the site.

The ruling came as a shock to the former Pirate Bay spokesman. Not just because he didn’t share anything himself, but also because he hasn’t been involved with the torrent site for a decade.

Sunde informs TorrentFreak that he wasn’t aware of the Finnish case until after the verdict was handed down, which suggests that he wasn’t served properly. However, he certainly doesn’t plan to let things go. On the contrary, he’s hitting back with a lawsuit of his own, accusing the record labels of defamation

“I’ve decided I’m going to sue them for damage against my good name and stealing a lot of time from me,” Sunde tells TorrentFreak.

“I’m a public person in Finland and they’re calling me a criminal when they KNOW I’m not involved in what they’re suing me for. It’s defamation.”

Turning the tables, Pirate Bay’s co-founder is demanding compensation from the labels instead. Standing idly by is no longer an option and Sunde believes that he has a strong case which will hold up in court.

“It’s getting very obvious the case will be won by me and it’s time to hit them back. Attacking has always been my best defense and I’m going to demand what I’m owed finally.”

With the lawsuit Sunde hopes to put an end to the continued allegations against his person by various entertainment industry outlets. The Finnish case is the first but it’s possible that more defamation suits will follow elsewhere.

Sunde’s lawyer Peter Herkko Hietanen informs TorrentFreak that the default judgment of last week can also be appealed within 30 days, after which a retrial may follow.

After serving a prison sentence for the copyright infringements of others, Sunde has regained his focus with various other projects over the past year.

In addition to several art projects he continues his work for Flattr, as well as various speaking gigs and media projects.

With regard to The Pirate Bay’s current operation the site’s co-founder has been very clear in recent years. Like several others who were involved during the early days, he believes that the site has served its purpose and should have been shut down a long time ago.

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