With millions of downloads per episode, Arrow is one of the most pirated TV-series of the year.

Featuring the DC Comic character Green Arrow the show is currently in its fourth season.

Many fans of the show are looking forward to the next episode later this week, where another DC Comic character will make his appearance. After a failed series on NBC, John Constantine will join the Arrow storyline.

Interestingly, not all fans will have to wait this long as thousands just jumped on a leaked copy that appeared online earlier today. Even though TV-show leaks are relatively rare, the fifth episode of Arrow was uploaded to public and private torrent sites a few hours ago.

The source of the leak is unknown but a warning screen at the starts shows that it originates from a preview copy, which was sent out for review by Warner Bros. Television.

The message warns the viewer not to distribute the video to third parties and suggests that the leaked version is not the final cut.

“The episode contained on this DVD is a rough cut and is not final. It may be missing key special visual effects, and additional sound effects and music are temporary,” it reads.

However, judging from the comments online the copy is fairly complete.

“Good copy, great episode, will grab the episode this week to see the changes but it doesn’t look like there will be much,” one commenter notes.

The video quality isn’t particularly great, which is usually the case with these type of leaks. Still, that won’t deter many from having a sneak peek.

Whether the leak will hurt the ratings, or if it will serve as a promotion for the “most important” episode of the season remains up for debate.

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

Two-thirds through September Kim Dotcom’s long-awaited extradition hearing finally got underway.

Expected to last just four weeks, progress was hindered by legal argument, much of it centered around claims that Dotcom and former colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk, weren’t getting a fair hearing.

Attempts to delay the extradition on those grounds ultimately failed last week and today Kim Dotcom’s defense finally got underway. As expected, lawyer Ron Mansfield immediately began painting a negative picture of U.S. prosecutors, highlighting selective use of evidence and subtle attempts at twisting discussion transcripts in their favor.

Much had previously been made of apparently incriminating Skype calls Dotcom had placed with his former business partners, but today Mansfield said the U.S. had knowingly translated those from German to suit their cause.

One, in which Dotcom allegedly said: “At some point a judge will be convinced how evil we are and then we are in trouble,” was corrected by Mansfield to state: “Because at some stage a judge will be talked into how bad we allegedly are – and then we will be a mess.”

Another instance, seen in the 3News image below, shows a Dotcom reference to individuals who uploaded large amounts of content to the site. For both sides in this fight the differences between the two translations are small but significant.

“It’s not only a misrepresentation which was known by the United States, it is one which it has exploited for its own benefit,” Mansfield told the court.

The U.S. had cherry-picked evidence sampled over several years, he said, discarding everything that contradicted their case and retaining anything that didn’t.

“What the United States have done here is simply bundle up years of selective or ‘cherry-picked’ conversations where those conversations [appear to show] an awareness or knowledge of copyright infringement,” Mansfield said.

While actual knowledge of copyright infringement is indeed a serious matter, Mansfield argued that there are limits on how far a company like Megaupload can be held liable for the actions of its users.

He said that in both New Zealand and the United States laws exist to protect people like Dotcom and the service provider companies they create, and the U.S. is attempting to create criminal liability where non exists.

“What the US is effectively saying to Internet service providers is: ‘You need to actively investigate copyright infringement and stop it, because if you don’t you’ll not only be civilly liable but criminally liable’,” Mansfield said.

“Internet giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter are immune from prosecution and to indict them would result in unprecedented public outrage.”

Of course, U.S. prosecutors aren’t placing Megaupload in the same category as the companies listed above. However, Dotcom’s lawyer said that Megaupload was not only legitimate, but also had the backing of some of America’s biggest stars.

To prove his point, Mansfield began playing the controversial ‘Mega Song‘, an advert that gained so much traction late 2011, just weeks before the raid on Dotcom.

Starring P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West, among others, Mega Song showed that Megaupload was mainstream and ‘up front’. Judge Nevin Dawson apparently didn’t see the video’s relevance, however, and ordered it to be switched off part way through.

Dotcom’s defense is expected to run for the remainder of the week. If extradited to the U.S. and subsequently found guilty, both he and his former colleagues face several decades in jail.

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

This week we have two newcomers and one returnee in our chart.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 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 BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(…)	The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (HDRip)	7.5 / trailer
2	(1)	Inside Out	8.4 / trailer
3	(3)	Hitman Agent 47 (HDRip)	5.9 / trailer
4	(2)	Everest (Subbed HDRip)	7.3 / trailer
5	(…)	No Escape	6.9 / trailer
6	(6)	Southpaw	7.6 / trailer
7	(back)	Minions (HDRip)	6.5 / trailer
8	(5)	Jurassic World	7.2 / trailer
9	(7)	Trainwreck (WEB-DL)	6.6 / trailer
10	(9)	Tomorrowland	6.6 / trailer

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

Anti-piracy activities often get plenty of negative press and when they’re overreaching and cynical, why shouldn’t they? However, in much the same way as one might have reluctant admiration for a brilliant but criminal genius, occasionally an anti-piracy strategy is also capable of generating a wry smile.

At first view the purpose of ‘pirate’ domain seizures and blocking seems obvious. Take away or reduce the effectiveness of a site’s most visible asset and that will not only hit its traffic but will also undermine its standing with users. Based on the fact that no site anywhere wants its domain screwed with, the strategy must be at least partially effective.

Nevertheless, the effect of seizures and blockades can be mitigated. Sites can get a new domain in a matter of minutes. Proxies and mirrors can be set up to allow blocked users to access sites again. It’s a never-ending game of whac-a-mole, a never-ending game of cat-and-mouse.

And it’s making a huge mess.

While plenty of people know that The Pirate Bay is still accessible on its .SE domain, fewer will be able to recall the other domains that the site now redirects to. Certainly, .la has less ring than most other TLDs, and by the time one gets to .mn and .gd, the memorable factor almost completely disappears.

Add in the fact that The Pirate Bay now has hundreds of proxies, mirrors and clones, all of which look just like the real site but are operated independently, and it’s clear to see that the real, original Pirate Bay has a branding crisis. What started off as a genuine intent to mitigate anti-piracy measures, has ended up creating a digital quagmire where nothing is quite what it seems.

But The Pirate Bay is not the only ‘victim’. There are copies of almost every key pirate site around today, some with good intentions, some with bad. There are few people out there, experts included, who can quickly and definitively tell the difference in all cases. This means that the brand images of all the major sites are being eroded by shady impostors on a daily basis.

If only there was a mechanism to stop people passing off their fake product or site as the real deal (he said without a hint of irony). Well, there is of course, but trademark protection isn’t a thing that any torrent site is going to invest much time in. Turning up in court for any kind of legal battle is well down their bucket lists, guaranteed.

But in the absence of such protection, users of those sites (or rather their nefarious clones) will suffer.

During the past week, in the wake of the YTS/YIFY closure, TF received a steady stream of emails from people who believed the operation was still running. Some pointed to sites with YIFY in the title, others pointed to dubious Facebook pages. All of them were fake, with each and every one abusing the YTS and YIFY ‘trademarks’ to further their own goals.

And of course, anti-piracy groups love this. They know that when fake sites appear they undermine the brand reputation of the genuine sites. They know that when malware gets offloaded or dodgy signups are required, people lose faith in the sites they’re trying to kill. When one thinks about it, people pirating pirate sites are doing their work for them.

With specialist branding/anti-piracy companies like MarkMonitor onboard, rest assured entertainment industry companies fully understand the value of undermining pirate branding. Their strategy is both cunning and clever too, since pirates are completely unable to protect their trademarks in the way that a normal company might. Popcorn Time tried – it didn’t get them very far.

It’s truly ironic then that if sites themselves could get trademark and copyright protection, they would be in a much stronger position than they are today. Failing that, consumers are left to try and understand which are the fakes sites and which ones are real. And for the layman that is getting more and more difficult every day.

Equally, some unlicensed services (such as Popcorn Time and Stremio covered yesterday) are difficult to tell apart from authorized products such as Netflix. Who would’ve imagined that both sides of the copyright wars would end up having the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities?

…and their respective branding efforts undermined by pirates….

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

It’s no secret that millions of people use VPN services to make sure that their BitTorrent download habits remain private.

This is a valid reason, but since many torrent users share copyrighted material, it also presents problems for VPN providers.

Increasingly, datacenters around the world are banning services with heavy BitTorrent traffic due to the vast amount of copyright infringement notices they trigger.

In response several VPN providers are now only allowing P2P traffic on specific servers. Private Internet Access (PIA) is also presented with this problem, but the solution they chose is different.

Instead of banning torrent traffic, PIA has decided to route it through BitTorrent-friendly regions instead.

“Certain regimes/regions and data centers have strict discriminatory policies towards the BitTorrent protocol. In order to provide a free and open internet to everyone, we were forced to create a technical fix,” the company informs TF.

The policy affects a few servers in Japan, Italy, Australia, Mexico, Singapore and Hong Kong. Subscribers who are connected to these servers may notice that their BitTorrent traffic is rerouted through another region.

PIA doesn’t mention any of the datacenters by name. However, a quick lookup shows that its Australian servers are hosted at SoftLayer Technologies, which strictly prohibits copyright infringement.

The “double VPN” solution doesn’t affect regular browsing but since it’s targeted at a range of ports, other applications including BitCoin, gaming and VoIP may also be affected at times.

PIA believes that routing the traffic is the best solution from a privacy point of view, as it doesn’t require DPI or other invasive techniques.

“Due to the fact that packets were routed in an unidentifiable manner and double hop is a known and accepted technology by privacy advocates, we believe this technical solution adheres to the strongest of privacy ideals.”

Not all users are happy with the change and the initial lack of communication on the issue. However, PIA notes that it has the best interests of its customers in mind.

Unless datacenters are forbidden from banning certain types of traffic, there are few other options than to bypass the block or shutdown the servers altogether.

“We want to make clear, that privacy is in fact our single policy. However, in order to help our users who are censored in certain regions, we needed to find a way to provide close servers while still being able to provide users with true and free/open internet access.

“This was our solution and we still think that using technology to create a solution is better than waiting for politicians to fix this problem,” PIA informs us.

PIA has published the full statement on its website. The company notes that it will try to help users who are experiencing additional latency in the affected regions.

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Note: PIA is one of TorrentFreak’s sponsors but this article was written independently without any form of compensation.

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