# articles

feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=86901
title: High Court: Kim Dotcom Can Have His Cars, Millions in Cash Returned
uri: High-Court-Kim-Dotcom-Can-Have-His-Cars-Millions-in-Cash-Returned
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/jOfANOPOAaU/
content:
<p>When Kim Dotcom&#8217;s New Zealand mansion was raided in 2012, some of the most memorable images were of his luxury car collection being loaded onto trailers and taken away. The authorities hoped the pictures would help to symbolize Dotcom&#8217;s fall from &#8216;power&#8217; but two years later he might be burning rubber in them once again.</p>
<p>Just two days before the raid on Dotcom&#8217;s home, foreign restraining orders were granted to enable the seizure of the entrepreneur&#8217;s assets. As they are set to run out on Friday, the Crown applied to the High Court yesterday to have them extended.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for United States and local authorities, the application was turned down, which means that Dotcom&#8217;s assets including his car collection, substantial quantities of cash, artwork and other equipment, could soon be returned.</p>
<p>Shortly after the news broke, Dotcom took to his beloved Twitter to celebrate.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/0a961b18.carstwitter.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/carstwitter.png" alt="CarsTwitter"></center></p>
<p>Dotcom added that when his cars are returned he will be treating member of his newly formed Internet Party to a day out racing.</p>
<p>&#8220;I will rent the Taupo race track for a track day with #InternetParty members when my cars are returned!&#8221; he tweeted.</p>
<p>While Dotcom is understandably excited, the Crown has two weeks to file an appeal. That is almost certain to happen.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=86858
title: Spotify Starts Shutting Down Its Massive P2P Network
uri: Spotify-Starts-Shutting-Down-Its-Massive-P2P-Network
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/M_w7PTmn6H8/
content:
<p><a href="media/062c4cca.spotify-black.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/spotify-black.png"><img src="media/062c4cca.spotify-black.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/spotify-black.png" alt="spotify-black" width="250" height="131" class="alignright size-full wp-image-86874"></a>When Spotify launched its first beta in the fall of 2008, we branded it “<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/spotify-an-alternative-to-music-piracy-090102/">an alternative to music piracy.</a>”</p>
<p>With the option to stream millions of tracks supported by an occasional ad, or free of ads for a small subscription fee, Spotify appeared to be a serious competitor to music piracy.</p>
<p>In the years that followed Spotify conquered the hearts and minds of many music fans. Currently available in 61 countries, the service has amassed dozens of millions of users. A true success story, one that was in part made possible due to Spotify&#8217;s heavy reliance on P2P technology.</p>
<p>In fact, Spotify has long been one of the largest P2P networks on the Internet. When Spotify subscribers play a track in the desktop client, this could come from three sources: a cached file on the computer, one of Spotify&#8217;s servers, or from other subscribers through P2P.</p>
<p>In 2011 we reported that of all tracks that were not accessed over the Internet, roughly <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/spotify-a-massive-p2p-network-blessed-by-record-labels-110617/">80% went through the P2P network</a>. This allowed Spotify to reduced server resources and associated costs, which is a pretty big deal for a startup.</p>
<p>However, the end of the road is coming soon for this massive private sharing network. TorrentFreak has learned that Spotify plans to discontinue its P2P technology altogether, to rely solely on central servers instead.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re gradually phasing out the use of our desktop P2P technology which has helped our users enjoy their music both speedily and seamlessly,&#8221; Spotify&#8217;s Alison Bonny informs TF.</p>
<p>Where Spotify previously needed P2P to guarantee that all tracks could be played with the lowest lag possible, this is no longer needed. During the months to come Spotify will effectively shut down its P2P servers. </p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re now at a stage where we can power music delivery through our growing number of servers and ensure our users continue to receive a best-in-class service,&#8221; Bonny says.</p>
<p>P2P has been central to Spotify&#8217;s success for a variety of reasons. For one, it allowed the service to scale up quickly without having to invest heavily in servers and bandwidth. This must have saved the company millions of dollars per year. </p>
<p>Also, one of the lead engineers since the start is none other than Ludvig Strigeus, the original creator of the BitTorrent client uTorrent. Strigeus sold uTorrent to BitTorrent Inc. in 2006, and some believe that part of this money went into the development of Spotify. </p>
<p>Spotify&#8217;s departure from P2P technology marks the end of an era, but to most people the change will simply go unnoticed, just like the fact that they have been sharing tracks with thousands of people from all over the world for years, with permission from the major record labels.</p>
<p><center><strong>Spotify&#8217;s (former) distribution setup</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/f6cb21a5.spotify-distribution-2011.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/spotify-distribution-2011.jpg"><img src="media/f6cb21a5.spotify-distribution-2011.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/spotify-distribution-2011.jpg" alt="spotify-distribution-2011" width="628" height="484" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-86880"></a></center></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=86906
title: Pirate Video Streaming Sites Exploit Google’s Servers
uri: Pirate-Video-Streaming-Sites-Exploit-Google-s-Servers
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/lpofijDLyGM/
content:
<p><img src="media/14c362bb.google-logo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/google-logo.png" alt="google-logo" width="250" height="85" class="alignright size-full wp-image-86918">Google has been in the crosshairs of the entertainment industries for a while now. These companies believe that Google is <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-wants-google-end-piracy-whack-mole-140314/">not doing enough</a> to prevent pirate sites from showing up in search results.</p>
<p>However, there is another less visible problem that cropped up in recent months. Increasingly, streaming portals with a focus on the latest pirated copies and TV-shows are using Google as a source.</p>
<p>A German anti-piracy outfit has identified more than 18,000 pirated videos that are featured on more than a dozen large sites. All these streaming sites use the same movie sources without charge, and the bandwidth bill goes to Google. </p>
<p>The list of sites includes Movie4k.to, hdmoviezone.net, viooc.co, viooz.be, viooz.cc, vioozmovies.me, watch32.com, putlocker.bz, putocker.to, putlocker.tw, megashare.info, megashare.sh, megashare.ca, afdah.com, yify.tv, watch32.com.</p>
<p>Together these streaming portals are good for several million daily visitors, which means that Google must be seeing a lot of traffic originating from these sites. The screenshot below shows a copy of The Wolf of Wall Street on YIFY.tv, available in several video qualities and with subtitles if needed.</p>
<p><center><strong>YIFY.tv Using Google</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/21db288c.yifytvgoogle.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/yifytvgoogle.jpg"><img src="media/21db288c.yifytvgoogle.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/yifytvgoogle.jpg" alt="yifytvgoogle" width="664" height="630" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-86909"></a></center></p>
<p>It&#8217;s unclear where the videos are hosted, but the URL above shows the googlevideo.com domain. In addition, it includes a &#8220;source=picasa&#8221; string, suggesting Google&#8217;s <a href="http://picasa.google.com/">image hosting service</a> has something to do with it. </p>
<p>While the site owners are benefiting from the free storage, copyright holders are less excited. A German media outfit, which remains unnamed, <a href="http://tarnkappe.info/movie4k-google-als-helfershelfer-illegaler-streamingportale/">reportedly</a> sent requests to Google last month hoping to take down the files, but without success. </p>
<p>Since the files remain online, the lawyers of the media company have now applied for an injunction against Google at a local court. </p>
<p>Two weeks ago Warner Bros. also asked Google to remove several of these URLs from its search engine. These <a href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/requests/1112441/">requests were denied</a>, most likely because the videos can&#8217;t be accessed directly through the link Warner provided. </p>
<p>In a comment to TorrentFreak, Google stresses that users are not permitted to distribute copyrighted content without permission. The company is actively trying to stop these kinds of abuses and also responds swiftly to takedown notices.</p>
<p>&#8220;Use of Google platforms to host infringing materials is a violation of our terms of use, and we design features into our systems to make them unattractive for this kind of abuse,&#8221; a Google spokesperson told TF. </p>
<p>&#8220;We also respond quickly to disable access to any materials on our platforms identified to us by copyright owners as infringing,&#8221; Google adds. </p>
<p>Why the thousands of Google-hosted videos on these streaming portals remain online is unclear. It could be that Google indeed removed the files in question, but that they were re-uploaded. Another possibility is that the copyright holder didn&#8217;t correctly identify the source file, as Warner Bros&#8217; takedown notice suggests.</p>
<p>One of the additional problems copyright holders face is that the URLs of the videos are harder to identify. Automated takedown tools can&#8217;t easily spot where the files are coming from, which makes it more complicated to send takedown requests.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how this issue will be dealt with in the future. It&#8217;s clear that neither Google not the copyright holders are happy with the current situation. For now, the only ones benefiting are the streaming portals and their millions of users.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=86938
title: Landmark Case Sees Pirate Bay User Hit With 5 Year Sentence
uri: Landmark-Case-Sees-Pirate-Bay-User-Hit-With-5-Year-Sentence
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/YiWLG3lcRnY/
content:
<p><a href="media/fd06f581.pirate-bay.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg"><img src="media/2a43984f.pirate-bay.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg" alt="pirate bay" width="200" height="207" class="alignright size-full wp-image-53470"></a>In a blaze of publicity mid December 2013 it was revealed that South Africa had netted its very first Internet pirate. SAFACT, the Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft, said it had caught a man uploading a high-profile movie to The Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>The case had unusual hallmarks from the start, not least since SAFACT admitted it had engaged the services of a &#8220;certified ethical hacker” to identify, profile and trace the uploader. Adding to the intrigue, SAFACT also refused to name the uploaded movie, although it was later revealed to be Four Corners, a local gangland film that was yet to be officially released.</p>
<p>Initially, the identity of the uploader was also shrouded in mystery but he was later revealed to be 29-year-old Majedien Norton. The IT engineer was reported to have uploaded the movie on November 21, 2013, although there is no sign of it now, which suggests that the father of two later deleted the file. Norton later admitted to buying a &#8216;screener&#8217; copy of the movie off the streets and uploading it to Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>As in many countries, relatively minor and non-commercial instances of copyright infringement are dealt with via the civil courts in South Africa, but from fairly early on it was clear that this case would be different. The overall anti-piracy tone was that an example needed to be made and a precedent set for those tempted to make the same kind of mistake in future.</p>
<p>Today the case concluded in the Commercial Crimes Court in Cape Town and it seems that SAFACT largely achieved its aims. After being arrested under the Counterfeit Goods Act and facing a fine plus up to three years in jail, Norton came to an arrangement with the state, pleaded guilty, and was handed a five-year suspended jail sentence.</p>
<p>“It’s a huge relief for me and my wife,” Norton told local news outlet <a href="http://www.htxt.co.za">htxt.africa</a>. “I’m just glad we can put this behind us now and move on.”</p>
<p>But while SAFACT and the rest of the anti-piracy lobby will be pleased with the harsh albeit suspended sentence, in a recent interview the director of Four Corners was philosophical over the piracy of his movie.</p>
<p>“I think the way people think now ­ digitally ­they don’t see piracy as piracy any more. They see it as sharing. We will definitely not get as many people to the cinemas as we would have if the film were not pirated,” Ian Gabriel <a href="http://www.htxt.co.za/2014/04/08/exclusive-four-corners-director-says-hes-philosophical-about-piracy/">said</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;At the same time, there are people who have seen the film who would never have got to the cinema. I’m pleased the film is reaching those people because there’s a message of pride and self recognition and of choice for ordinary people that the film is delivering and its important that message be heard.”</p>
<p>And while SAFACT clearly believe that the threat of criminal punishments will help solve the piracy problem, Gabriel sees things from a different angle. Noting that movies cannot exist without money, the director says a more considered approach to piracy is required.</p>
<p>&#8220;I suggest in order to continue to enhance our quality of life, creative rights of origination need to be secured on some consensual level, probably not through aggressive policing, but rather through a common sense approach to the protection of creative endeavour for the benefit of all,” the director concludes.</p>
<p>SAFACT are yet to comment on the conclusion of the case.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=86961
title: Five Years Before Any New U.S. Anti-Piracy Laws, MP Predicts
uri: Five-Years-Before-Any-New-U-S-Anti-Piracy-Laws-MP-Predicts
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ilmNs2cYEmU/
content:
<p><a href="media/f7575503.sam-pirate.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/sam-pirate.jpg"><img src="media/1d6334cc.sam-pirate.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/sam-pirate.jpg" alt="sam-pirate" width="230" height="130" class="alignright size-full wp-image-50542"></a>Under immense pressure from powerful entertainment companies, in 2011 it looked almost inevitable that the United States would introduce powerful new legislation to massively undermine Internet piracy.</p>
<p>Championed by Hollywood and the world&#8217;s leading record labels, the Stop Online Piracy Act made headlines around the world for putting super-aggressive tools into the government&#8217;s arsenal. At the same time, however, proper consideration wasn&#8217;t given to their potential impact on innovation.</p>
<p>As a result, citizens and technology companies teamed up to stage the biggest protest the Internet has ever seen resulting in a back-down by the government &#8211; and Hollywood in particular &#8211; on an unprecedented scale.</p>
<p>The fallout became obvious in the months that followed. The usual anti-piracy rhetoric from the MPAA and RIAA was massively toned down, at times becoming non-existent. In its place emerged a new and softer approach, one aimed at making peace with the very technology companies that had stood in their way.</p>
<p>This week an intellectual property enforcement leader very familiar with the big studios and record labels revealed just how much damage the SOPA defeat is responsible for.</p>
<p>Speaking in Los Angeles at an event hosted by the Motion Picture Licensing Corp., UK MP and Prime Minister&#8217;s Intellectual Property Advisor Mike Weatherley said that it would be a very long time before anyone dared to push for new legislation in the United States.</p>
<p><a href="media/2f6ed3b1.weatherley.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/weatherley.jpg"><img src="media/b4135d59.weatherley.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/weatherley.jpg" alt="weatherley" width="190" height="192" class="alignright size-full wp-image-76624"></a>“It’s going to be five years before anybody puts his head above the parapet again,” Weatherley <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/business/media/sopa-defeat-haunts-efforts-to-rein-in-illegal-copying-british-official-says.html?hpw&#038;rref=technology&#038;_r=0">told</a> executives.</p>
<p>If Weatherley&#8217;s predictions are correct, that takes us beyond 2020 before any new legislation gets put in place, a comparative lifetime online and a timescale during which almost anything can happen.</p>
<p>But Hollywood and the labels aren&#8217;t sitting still in this apparent &#8216;quiet&#8217; period. A new strategy has been adopted, one that seeks voluntary cooperation with technology-based companies, the &#8220;<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/?s=six+strikes">six-strikes</a>&#8221; deal with United States ISPs being a prime example.</p>
<p>Cooperation has also been sought from <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/city-of-london-police-launches-pirate-site-blacklist-for-advertisers-140331/">advertising companies</a> in an attempt to strangle the revenues of so-called pirate sites, a move that has been gathering momentum in recent months. Weatherley told the meeting that existing laws might need to be &#8220;beefed up&#8221; a little, but from his overall tone those tweaks seem unlikely to provoke any SOPA-like backlash.</p>
<p>Also generating interest is Weatherley&#8217;s attitude towards Google. The world&#8217;s leading search engine has been under intense pressure to do something about the infringing results that appear in its listings. At times the rhetoric, especially from the music industry, has been intense, and could&#8217;ve easily spilled over into aggression if Google had decided to bite back. However, the UK Prime Minister&#8217;s IP advisor says he sees things differently.</p>
<p>&#8220;I know in America [Google] are considered much more of a pariah than they are perhaps in the U.K. But I have to say they are engaging with me and they recognize that something has got to be done,&#8221; Weatherley <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-british-mp-piracy-20140416,0,2131572.story">told</a> the meeting.</p>
<p>But while Weatherley talks peace and cooperation and the MPAA and RIAA keep their heads down in the States, much anti-piracy work is being conducted through their proxies FACT and the BPI in the UK. Instead of tackling the world&#8217;s leading file-sharing sites from U.S. soil, the job has been transferred to the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Not only does it keep the controversy down at home, it also costs much less, with the British taxpayer footing much of the bill.</p>
<p>TorrentFreak has learned that only last week a new batch of letters went out to file-sharing related sites, with yet more demands for them to shut down or face the consequences. Things might appear quiet in the United States, but that doesn&#8217;t meant things aren&#8217;t happening.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=86982
title: MPAA and RIAA Members Uploaded Over 2,000 Gigabytes to Megaupload
uri: MPAA-and-RIAA-Members-Uploaded-Over-2-000-Gigabytes-to-Megaupload
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/MU2nrSpLLFw/
content:
<p><a href="media/818b6dbe.megaupload.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/megaupload.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-30407" alt="megaupload" src="media/5fd37436.megaupload.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/megaupload.jpg" width="180" height="154"></a>Following in the footsteps of the U.S. Government, this month the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/now-the-riaa-sues-megaupload-for-massive-copyright-theft-140411/">major record labels</a> and Hollywood&#8217;s <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-demand-millions-megaupload-new-lawsuit-140408/">top movie studios</a> filed lawsuits against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom.</p>
<p>While the legal action doesn&#8217;t come as a surprise, there is a double standard that has not been addressed thus far.</p>
<p>The entertainment industry groups have always been quick to brand Megaupload as a pirate haven, designed to profit from massive copyright infringement. The comment below from MPAA&#8217;s general counsel Steve Fabrizio is a good example.</p>
<p>“Megaupload was built on an incentive system that rewarded users for uploading the most popular content to the site, which was almost always stolen movies, TV shows and other commercial entertainment content,&#8221; Fabrizio commented when the MPAA filed its suit.</p>
<p>However, data from Megaupload&#8217;s database shared with TorrentFreak shows that employees of MPAA and RIAA member companies had hundreds of accounts at the file-storage site. This includes people working at Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal Music Group, Sony, and Warner Music.</p>
<p>In total, there were 490 Megaupload accounts that were connected to MPAA and RIAA members, who sent 181 premium payments in total. Together, these users uploaded 16,455 files which are good for more than 2,097 gigabytes in storage.</p>
<p>Remember, those are only from addresses that could be easily identified as belonging to a major movie studio or record label, so the real numbers should be much higher.</p>
<p><center><strong>MPAA / RIAA member accounts</strong></center><center><a href="media/55850505.mega-mpaariaa.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mega-mpaariaa.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-86987" alt="mega-mpaariaa" src="media/55850505.mega-mpaariaa.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mega-mpaariaa.png" width="512" height="136"></a></center></p>
<p>But there&#8217;s more. The same companies that are now asking for millions of dollars in damages due to massive copyright infringement were previously eager to work with Megaupload and Megavideo.</p>
<p>As we <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/entertainment-industry-was-eager-to-work-with-megaupload-120326/">noted previously</a>, Disney, Warner Brothers, Fox and others contacted Kim Dotcom&#8217;s companies to discuss advertising and distribution deals.</p>
<p>For example, Shelina Sayani, Digital Marketing Coordinator for Warner Bros, offered a deal to syndicate &#8220;exciting&#8221; Warner content to Megaupload&#8217;s Megavideo site.</p>
<blockquote class="pullquote"><p>Subject: Warner Bros. &#8211; Looking for Content Manager<br>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:55:50 -0800<br>
From: Sayani, Shelina<br>
To: demand@megavideo.com</p>
<p>Dear Megavideo,</p>
<p>I&#8217;m writing from Warner Bros., offering opportunities to syndicate our exciting entertainment content (e.g. Dark Knight, Harry Potter, Sex and the City clips and trailer) for your users. Could you please pass on my information to the appropriate content manager or forward me to them? Thanks so much for your time.</p>
<p>Shelina Sayani<br>
WB Advanced Digital Services<br>
3300 W Olive Ave, Bldg 168 Room 4-023<br>
Burbank, CA 91505<br>
818.977.4668</p></blockquote>
<p>Similarly, Disney attorney Gregg Pendola reached out to Megaupload, not to threaten or sue the company, but to set up a deal to have Disney content posted on the Megavideo site.</p>
<blockquote class="pullquote"><p>Subject: Posting on Megavideo.com<br>
From: &#8220;Pendola, Gregg&#8221;<br>
Date: 8/13/2008 10:06 AM<br>
To: love@megavideo.com</p>
<p>My name is Gregg Pendola. I am Executive Counsel for The Walt Disney Company. Certain properties of The Walt Disney Company have content that they would like to post on your site.</p>
<p>However, we are uncomfortable with a couple of the provisions of your Terms of Use that we feel may jeopardize our rights in our content. We were hoping that you would be amenable to reviewing a 1-page agreement we have drafted that we would like to use in place of your Terms of Use.</p>
<p>Is there someone I can contact to discuss this? Or someone I can email the Agreement to for review?</p>
<p>Thanks. Gregg</p>
<p>Gregg Pendola<br>
Executive Counsel<br>
The Walt Disney Company</p></blockquote>
<p>For Fox, the interest in Megaupload wasn&#8217;t necessarily aimed at spreading studio content, but to utilize Megaupload&#8217;s considerable reach by setting up an advertising deal. In this email former Senior Director Matt Barash touts FAN, the Fox Audience Network.</p>
<blockquote class="pullquote"><p>Subject: Fox Ad Partnership<br>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:09:14 -0800<br>
From: Matt Barash<br>
To: sales@megaupload.com</p>
<p>I&#8217;m reaching out to see if you have a few minutes to discuss the recently launched Fox Audience Network.</p>
<p>FAN is now up and running and fully operational, utilizing best of breed optimization technology to bring cutting edge relevancy to the ad network landscape.<br>
We are scaling rapidly and seeking the right 3rd party publishers to add as partners to our portfolio.</p>
<p>Please let me know if you have some time to chat this week about how we can work together to better monetize your inventory.</p>
<p>Best,<br>
Matt</p>
<p>Matt Barash<br>
Director, Publisher Development<br>
Fox Audience Network</p></blockquote>
<p>The above are just a few examples of major industry players who wanted to team up with Kim Dotcom. Now, several years later, the same companies accuse the site of being one of the largest piracy vehicles the Internet has ever seen.</p>
<p>If the MPAA and RIAA cases proceed, Megaupload&#8217;s defense will probably present some of these examples to highlight the apparent double standard. That will be an interesting narrative to follow, for sure.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=86980
title: ‘Notorious Market’ Blocks Piracy in its P2P Streaming Player
uri: Notorious-Market-Blocks-Piracy-in-its-P2P-Streaming-Player
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/C0oFdOHDgGY/
content:
<p><a href="media/cf86e20d.ustr.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/ustr.jpg"><img src="media/09fa6d0a.ustr.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ustr.jpg" alt="ustr" width="175" height="175" class="alignright size-full wp-image-44005"></a>Every year the United States Trade Representative calls out countries, companies and services that step over the line when it comes to copyright enforcement. Year after year the same core players appear and China is one of the countries regularly subjected to criticism.</p>
<p>Chinese companies such as Baidu  have been fixtures in the USTR&#8217;s reporting for many years, but changes to its operations in 2011 meant that it was able to stay off the list, although at home it is still the subject of various legal clashes. Now, just two months after the USTR published its 2013 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets, another Chinese company is hoping to please both local and US interests by ditching its pirate reputation.</p>
<p>In its last publication, sandwiched between KickassTorrents and MP3Skull, the USTR called out a site called Kuaibo. The company behind that site is the Shenzhen QVOD Technology Co. It&#8217;s the creator of QVOD, a technology originally designed to enable small and medium sized business to distribute their content online using BitTorrent, P2P, and streaming technology.</p>
<p>With an estimated userbase of 25 million (100 million on its mobile app) the company&#8217;s player software is undoubtedly popular. However, many of its users are now using QVOD to share unauthorized content via what appears to be a Popcorn Time-style P2P streaming feature.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/336bb83c.qvod.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/qvod.png" alt="QVOD"></center></p>
<p>&#8220;QVOD has become a leading facilitator of wide-scale distribution of copyright-infringing content and of other content considered illicit in China,&#8221; the USTR wrote, referring to pirate movies/music and pornography.</p>
<p>However, in an announcement this week, Shenzhen QVOD Technology Co reported that it had taken steps to stop the unlawful distribution of both copyright-infringing and adult content via its software. All illegal content will be blocked and the company will move to a commercial and fully-licensed footing.</p>
<p>&#8220;From now on, the previous &#8216;fast play mode&#8217; [of QVOD&#8217;s Nora Player) will come to an end,&#8221; a company spokesman <a href="http://tech.ifeng.com/internet/detail_2014_04/17/35844878_0.shtml">said</a>.  &#8220;Nora is willing to work with counterparts to jointly promote the development of the genuine video industry.&#8221;</p>
<p>The motivation for &#8220;going legal&#8221; appears to be financial. Analysts quoted in Chinese media say that its become increasingly difficult for QVOD to get advertisers who are happy for their brands to appear alongside infringing content. Since the company is pledging to spend more than $16m on licenses it needs money quickly, but whether its millions of pirates are ready to spend is far from clear.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=86939
title: Is Your VPN / Proxy Working? Check Your Torrent IP-Address
uri: Is-Your-VPN-Proxy-Working-Check-Your-Torrent-IP-Address
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/JQHkM85eNKc/
content:
<p><a href="media/29b4878c.boxed.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/boxed.jpg"><img src="media/70f2a6a6.boxed.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/boxed.jpg" alt="boxed" width="222" height="178" class="alignright size-full wp-image-36576"></a>Every day dozens of millions of people share files using BitTorrent, willingly exposing their IP-addresses to the rest of the world. </p>
<p>For those who value their privacy this is a problem, so many sign up with a VPN provider or torrent proxy service. This is fine, but some people then forget to check whether their setup is actually working. </p>
<p>While it&#8217;s easy enough to test your web IP-address through one of the many IP-checking services, checking the IP-address that&#8217;s broadcasted via your torrent client is more complex.</p>
<p>There are a few services that offer a &#8220;torrent IP check&#8221; tool, but for the truly paranoid there&#8217;s now an Open Source solution as well.</p>
<p>The developer, who goes by the nickname &#8220;cbdev&#8221;, found most of the existing tools to be somewhat &#8220;fishy,&#8221; so he coded one for himself and those who want to run their own torrent IP checkers.  </p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d rather have something I can control entirely,&#8221; cbdev tells TF.</p>
<p>&#8220;So, I wrote a tool people can install on their own servers, with the added bonus of it using magnet links, so &#8216;Tracking torrent&#8217; files are required,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://dev.cbcdn.com/ipmagnet/">ipMagnet tool</a> allows BitTorrent users to download a magnet link which they can then load into their BitTorrent client. When the magnet link connects to the tracker, the user&#8217;s IP-address will be displayed on the site, alongside a time-stamp and the torrent client version. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/390b454e.ip-magnet.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ip-magnet.png"><img src="media/390b454e.ip-magnet.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ip-magnet.png" alt="ip-magnet" width="591" height="362" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-86944"></a></center></p>
<p>Alternatively, users can check out the tracker tab in their torrent clients, where the IP-address will be displayed as well. </p>
<p>For users who are connected to a VPN, the IP-address should be the same as the one they see in their web browser, and different from the IP-address that&#8217;s displayed when the VPN is disconnected. </p>
<p>Proxy users, on the other hand, should see a different IP-address than their browser displays, since torrent proxies only work through the torrent client.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/c8363a05.torrent-ip.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/torrent-ip.png"><img src="media/c8363a05.torrent-ip.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/torrent-ip.png" alt="torrent-ip" width="597" height="266" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-86958"></a></center></p>
<p>People are free to use the ipMagnet tool <a href="http://dev.cbcdn.com/ipmagnet/">demo here</a>, but are encouraged to run a copy on their own server. The whole project is <a href="https://github.com/cbdevnet/ipmagnet">less than 500 lines of code</a>, so those with basic knowledge of PHP, JavaScript and HTML can verify that it&#8217;s not doing anything nefarious.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re setting up a copy of your own, feel free to promote it in the comments below. Those who want more tips can read up on how to make a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-make-vpns-even-more-secure-120419/">VPN more secure</a>, and which VPN providers and torrent proxies really <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">take anonymity seriously</a>. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87046
title: Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies, But No One Will Talk
uri: Popcorn-Time-Devs-Drop-Like-Flies-But-No-One-Will-Talk
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ED6ucTkaDqM/
content:
<p><a href="media/efc3d7b7.popcorncensor.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/popcorncensor.jpg"><img src="media/efc3d7b7.popcorncensor.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/popcorncensor.jpg" alt="popcorncensor" width="228" height="99" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87053"></a>The Popcorn Time phenomenon hardly needs an introduction but it&#8217;s safe to say this application really shook things up <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/open-source-torrent-streaming-a-netflix-for-pirates-140308/">after its launch</a> in March.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, Popcorn Time delivered no new content whatsoever. What it did present was existing movies in an incredibly simple and elegant way, making it an extremely attractive proposition to file-sharing veterans and newcomers alike. But very quickly the honeymoon period was over. In mid-March the original developers said they would cease their operations.</p>
<p>&#8220;Popcorn Time is shutting down today. Not because we ran out of energy, commitment, focus or allies. But because we need to move on with our lives,&#8221; they announced.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our experiment has put us at the doors of endless debates about piracy and copyright, legal threats and the shady machinery that makes us feel in danger for doing what we love. And that’s not a battle we want a place in.&#8221;</p>
<p>It has proven impossible to get definitive proof as to who was behind the legal threats, since no one wants to talk either on or off the record. However, if one adds two and two (while calling on history) all fingers point to the owners of the content Popcorn Time exploits &#8211; Hollywood.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/a3b24d82.popcornTV.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/popcornTV.png" alt="Popcorn"></center></p>
<p>Since it was open source, Popcorn Time had the strength to recover and it didn&#8217;t take long for numerous alternative forks of the popular software began to appear. The first main contender <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/popcorn-time-shuts-down-then-gets-resurrected-by-yts-yify-140315/">was created</a> by a developer from YTS/YIFY, although it later transpired that it would be a lone project rather than one backed by the site.</p>
<p>It continued for a while with several supporting contributors, including some who had worked on the original project. Then, after releasing a new version of the client in late March, things got strange. Suddenly the app was deleted from its Github repository and a previously <em>very</em> enthusiastic developer went completely silent. From being super-chatty, not a single email or instant message was returned.</p>
<p>Something had definitely changed. People don&#8217;t flip like that in a matter of a few hours unless there has been some kind of event. Information subsequently received by TF that everything was absolutely fine and normal simply did not match reality.</p>
<p>In the weeks that followed, TorrentFreak <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/popcorn-time-rivals-prep-tv-android-and-chromecast-support-140406/">chatted with other developers</a>, each working on their own version of the software. The main developer behind Popcorn-Time.tv told us that he&#8217;d created his site after the one detailed above had disappeared.</p>
<p>“A few days ago..[..]..the other developer went missing, the main repository and its website were shutdown as well,&#8221; he explained.</p>
<p>Then, just a few days after setting up to replace a mysteriously discontinued fork of Popcorn Time, this new developer also had a dramatic change of heart. Suddenly his version of Popcorn Time also disappeared from Github. He followed the first guy and dropped off the radar.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/227ec185.gitgone.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gitgone.png" alt="Gitgone"></center></p>
<p>Efforts at contact failed. Emails from TorrentFreak went unanswered. Then, a day ago, there was a surprise reappearance in a discussion thread on Reddit.</p>
<p>&#8220;All you need to know is that I&#8217;m still alive and moved on to others projects,&#8221; <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/230fhq/what_do_we_know_about_isra17/cgt7buw">he wrote</a>. &#8220;I can&#8217;t really tell you anything more than that and I won&#8217;t contribute anymore to popcorn-time.&#8221;</p>
<p>Somewhere in the middle of all this we were contacted by another developer of yet another fork of Popcorn Time. Just like the others, he approached us with much enthusiasm. Then, just a couple of days later, he too had gone, with rapid email exchanges being replaced by complete silence.</p>
<p>We have no definite proof as to what has caused all of these developers to close down their work and refuse to talk, but the circumstances are suspicious to say the least. What they all had in common was their talent, enthusiasm, eloquence and a willingness to push their projects forward. They were all happy to talk too, then all of a sudden no one wanted to say anything.</p>
<p>Why everything should change almost overnight may never be officially revealed, but if it walks like a duck&#8230;.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87034
title: Google Asked to Censor Two Million Pirate Bay URLs
uri: Google-Asked-to-Censor-Two-Million-Pirate-Bay-URLs
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/vbz_VxjXfV4/
content:
<p><a href="media/7c6b9504.google-bay.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/google-bay.jpg"><img src="media/3a6fa524.google-bay.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/google-bay.jpg" alt="google-bay" width="200" height="177" class="alignright size-full wp-image-21875"></a>In an effort to make it difficult for the public to find pirated content, copyright holders send millions of takedown notices to Google every week.</p>
<p>One of the top domains listed in these notices is thepiratebay.se. Since the notorious torrent site doesn&#8217;t accept takedown requests itself, copyright holders have to turn to Google to do something about the appearance of their work on the infamous torrent site.</p>
<p>This week the number of thepiratebay.se URLs <a href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/thepiratebay.se/">submitted to Google</a> reached the two million mark. Nearly all of these links have been removed and can no longer be accessed through search results. </p>
<p>The chart below shows the number of links that have been submitted per week. There is a sharp decline towards the end of 2013 when The Pirate Bay used another domain name. The requests increased again in December when the torrent site switched back.</p>
<p></center><center><a href="media/1912d987.Google-removed-tpb.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/Google-removed-tpb.png"><img src="media/1912d987.Google-removed-tpb.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/Google-removed-tpb.png" alt="Google-removed-tpb" width="428" height="218" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87036"></a></center></p>
<p>In total, the two million URLs were submitted in 93,070 separate takedown notices, averaging more than 20 links per takedown request. A staggering number, but one that pales in comparison to other sites. </p>
<p>Looking at the <a href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/?r=all-time">list of domains</a> that received the most URLs removal requests, The Pirate Bay ends up in 29th place. The top spot goes to filestube.com with more than 11 million URLs, followed by dilandau.eu, rapidgator.net, zippyshare.com and 4shared.com.Torrentz.eu, the first torrent site in the list, comes in 8th with 4.4 million URLs. </p>
<p>The million dollar question is of course whether all these takedown requests have had a significant impact on the availability of pirated content.</p>
<p>According to Google, the two million URLs represent between one and five percent of all links that are indexed, so it&#8217;s safe to say that there&#8217;s still plenty of Pirate Bay content available via Google. Similarly, removing the search results doesn&#8217;t hinder people from going to the notorious torrent site directly.</p>
<p>The Pirate Bay itself isn&#8217;t particularly concerned about this development. The site&#8217;s traffic has <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-fails-to-halt-u-s-pirate-bay-growth-130903/">increased steadily</a> over the past few years, and so has <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-uploads-surge-50-in-a-year-despite-anti-piracy-efforts-131230/">the number of files</a> being uploaded to the site.</p>
<p>In common with the many ISP blockades of The Pirate Bay, it&#8217;s safe to conclude that people can find plenty of alternative routes to end up where they want to be&#8230;</p>
<p><center><a href="http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2014/04/18/blocking-access-to-the-pirate-bay-has-proven-to-be-effective/"><img src="media/1675c052.blocktpb1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/blocktpb1.jpg" alt="blocktpb1" width="614" height="459" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87047"></a></center></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87084
title: The Copyright Monopoly’s Fundamental Problem Remains The Same…
uri: The-Copyright-Monopoly-s-Fundamental-Problem-Remains-The-Same
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/bkjIYiwofkM/
content:
<p><img src="media/db7b975c.copyright-branded.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/copyright-branded.jpg" alt="copyright-branded" width="250" height="164" class="alignright size-full wp-image-56211">When we share knowledge and culture in order to manufacture our own copies of it, this happens in private communications &#8211; it happens as part of the ones and zeroes that arrive at and are transmitted from our computers. </p>
<p>However, some part of these transmissions may be in violation of the copyright monopoly. The only way to find if any are is to listen to them and break the postal secret; to open all the digital letters and violate the privacy of correspondence.</p>
<p>There is no way to enforce the copyright monopoly without reading all the private communications in transit &#8211; mass eavesdropping and mass surveillance. There is no magic way to just wiretap the violations and ignore the rest; the act of finding which communications may violate the copyright monopoly requires that you sort all correspondence into legal and illegal. The act of sorting requires observation; you cannot determine if something is legal or illegal without looking at it. At that point, the postal secret and the privacy of correspondence have been broken.</p>
<p>(Some proponents of the copyright monopoly would argue that the act of sharing knowledge and culture wouldn&#8217;t classify as private correspondence. This is irrelevant, as in any case, it is intermixed with private correspondence that must still be unpacked and looked at in the sorting process.)</p>
<p><strong>So we&#8217;re at a crossroads where we as a society must determine which is more important &#8211; the right to communicate in private at all, or the obsolete distribution and manufacturing monopoly of an entertainment industry. These two are completely mutually exclusive and cannot coexist. This is, and has been, the problem since the cassette tape.</strong></p>
<p>The copyright industry understands this perfectly, which is why they have been working hard, long, and tenaciously to eliminate the concept of private correspondence online and introduce ubiquitous mass surveillance. A few examples:</p>
<p>In Ireland, the copyright industry (in the shape of the big four record labels) <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/ifpi-isp-must-end-music-piracy-080310/">sued</a> the country&#8217;s largest ISP, Eircom, for the right to install wiretapping and censorship equipment in the deepest of their core Internet switches: they demanded the ability to detect and prevent communications they didn&#8217;t like. Yes, you read that right: a private industry full-out demanded the right to examine all (and prevent any) private correspondence in the entire country.</p>
<p>In Sweden, the copyright industry did a two-pronged approach to get their own access to ISP access logs through a ridiculous over-implementation of the IPRED directive, along with working feverently to get mandatory ISP logging in the shape of Data Retention passed (the mass surveillance mechanism that was just now declared in violation of basic human rights by the highest EU court). The copyright industry (in the shape of IFPI) even <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080501104906/http://www.frendo.se/ifpi080320.html">demanded</a> independent, extrajudicial access to the mass surveillance data from the Data Retention mechanisms. Yes, you read that right: a private industry demanded independent and unfiltered access to surveillance records of practically every footstep and every correspondence you make in your everyday life.</p>
<p>The copyright industry is very much a part of the mass surveillance industry. Mass surveillance is the only way they can maintain their crumbling monopoly on manufacturing copies.</p>
<p><strong>At the end of the day, these two mechanisms must be weighed against one another: do we prefer the ability to communicate in private at all, or do we prefer the distribution and manufacturing monopoly of an entertainment industry? As is today, they can&#8217;t coexist, and this has always been and still remains the key point of contention.</strong></p>
<p>One of the reasons that we&#8217;ve gotten to this point is that these two mechanisms are usually handled by different departments. The copyright monopoly tends to be under the Department of Commerce, whereas the fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and privacy of correspondence falls under the Department of Justice in most countries. This means that there has never been anybody with the responsibility of weighing them against each other, and coming to the obvious conclusion that the right to private correspondence far outweighs the distribution and manufacturing monopoly of an entertainment industry.</p>
<p>We need to keep kicking politicians out of office until they realize this enormous blind spot of theirs.</p>
<p><center>
<div class="alignfull" style="border:2px solid #3F3F3F;width:100%;padding:15px;padding-top:8px;padding-bottom:4px;margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:10px;border-radius:10px">
<h3 style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:10px">
<div style="float:right;height:130px;width:39px;margin-left:20px;margin-right:10px"><img src="media/98818a80.Rick_Falkvinge_39x130.jpg" data-original-source="http://falkvinge.net/wp-content/themes/WpNewspaper/images/falkvinge/Rick_Falkvinge_39x130.jpg" style="border:none;-moz-box-shadow:none;-webkit-box-shadow:none" class="quimby_search_image"></div>
<p><span style="color:#3F3F3F;font-size:125%">About The</span> <span style="color:#FF3C78;font-size:125%">Author</span></p>
</h3>
<p style="font-family:PTSansRegular,Arial,Sans-Serif;font-weight:400;line-height:150%;margin-bottom:14px"><small>Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at <a href="http://falkvinge.net">falkvinge.net</a> focuses on information policy.</small></p>
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<p><small>Book Falkvinge <a href="http://falkvinge.net/keynotes/">as speaker</a>?</small></p>
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<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87078
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 04/21/14
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-04-21-14
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/irzXryIOBGY/
content:
<p><a href="media/84bbc1d5.sonofbat.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/sonofbat.jpg"><img src="media/84bbc1d5.sonofbat.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/sonofbat.jpg" alt="sonofbat" width="300" height="206" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87082"></a>This week we have four newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Son of Batman is the most downloaded movie this week.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><a href="http://TorrentFreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/"><strong>RSS feed</strong></a> for the weekly movie download chart.</p>
<table class="css hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="12%"><strong>Ranking</strong></th>
<th width="15%"><strong>(<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-140414/">last week</a>)</strong></th>
<th><strong>Movie</strong></th>
<th width="18%"><strong>IMDb Rating / Trailer</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">torrentfreak.com</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dcu_son_of_batman_2014/">Son of Batman</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3139072/">6.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bis7XOu0Xms">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_machine_2013/">The Machine</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2317225/">6.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIuT4HT8IMg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_physician_2013/">The Physician</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2101473/">7.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOj-Pn5WJkw">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ride_along_2014/">Ride Along</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408253/?">6.4</a> / <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5klp6rkHIks">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/captain_america_the_winter_soldier_2014/">Captain America: The Winter Soldier</a> (CAM/R5)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843866/">8.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SlILk2WMTI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/47_ronin/">47 Ronin</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1335975/">6.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwYhrgDc1uE">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/need_for_speed/">Need For Speed</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2369135/">7.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e73J71RZRn8">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_nut_job/">The Nut Job</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821658/">5.7</a> / <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYZfr06HDdM">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(10)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/frozen_2013/">Frozen</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/">8.1</a> / <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQm5doF_Uc">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(back)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/300_rise_of_an_empire/">300: Rise of an Empire</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1253863/">6.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zqy21Z29ps">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87094
title: UK Police Force Shutdown of Sports Torrent Network
uri: UK-Police-Force-Shutdown-of-Sports-Torrent-Network
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/-MkkUbtzsXY/
content:
<p><a href="media/bc6e239e.cityoflondonpolice.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/cityoflondonpolice.jpg"><img src="media/31176dbb.cityoflondonpolice.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cityoflondonpolice.jpg" alt="cityoflondonpolice" width="200" height="82" class="alignright size-full wp-image-71397"></a>After obtaining government funding to protect the rights of mainstream music and movie companies, last year UK police began a campaign aimed at closing dozens of torrent and other file-sharing sites.</p>
<p>Many sites subsequently reported receiving letters from PIPCU, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, warning that their operations had been scouted and deemed to be infringing.</p>
<p>While most sites ignored the warnings, some inevitably felt the pressure and decided to quit while they were ahead. In the months that followed direct pressure on sites reduced when police began to concentrate on indirect measures, such as pressuring registrars to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-orders-registrars-to-suspend-domains-of-major-torrent-sites-131009/">retract domains</a> and advertisers to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/city-of-london-police-launches-pirate-site-blacklist-for-advertisers-140331/">stop supporting</a> sharing sites.</p>
<p>However, earlier this month police restarted their direct approach, sending threat letters out to the operators of torrent sites in an attempt to close them down directly. In at least one case the police have been successful.</p>
<p>Due to its coverage of sports including the NHL, NBA, soccer and Formula 1, The Sports Torrent Network (TSTN) was a site popular with fans on both sides of the Atlantic. With an estimated 20,000 userbase and its own &#8216;capping&#8217; team, the site was certainly a fan favorite and possibly the largest site of its type. But now, after an unwelcome warning, the party is over.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/c7751acd.TSTN-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/TSTN-logo.jpg" alt="TSTN"></center></p>
<p>Along with other sites, a little under two weeks ago TSTN received communications from the police which stated that the site&#8217;s operators could be committing crimes with serious penalties attached.</p>
<p>&#8220;Such activity is an indictable offense under the Serious Crime Act 2007 and is punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment (two years for encouraging/assisting communication to the public; and ten years for encouraging/assisting distribution to the public),&#8221; the police explained.</p>
<p>&#8220;PIPCU has the lawful right to pursue action against you and against the thesportstorrentnetwork.co.uk website in order to prevent, detect and disrupt criminal activity.&#8221;  </p>
<p>While the threats looked official enough, a more detailed examination of the correspondence sent to TSTN raised questions over its authenticity. As can be seen from the screenshot below, a clear spelling error was present in the title of the mail, which lead to concerns this may have been some kind of fake.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/b7afc780.pipcu-tstn.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pipcu-tstn.jpg" alt="PIPCU-TSTN"></center></p>
<p>However, an additional error later in the email suggested that it was probably genuine. As can be seen under the highlight, it appears that police neglected to fill in a precise date instead of the placeholder text.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/6b463725.TSTN-error.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/TSTN-error.jpg" alt="TSTN-error"></center></p>
<p>But errors aside, TSTN decided that while it had been a good run, now was the time to thrown in the towel. The site is now permanently closed.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are sad the site had to go but feel it was the only option,&#8221; a staff member told TF.</p>
<p>With calls from the UK Prime Minister&#8217;s IP advisor to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-prime-minister-asked-for-permanent-police-anti-piracy-unit-funding-140414/">permanently fund</a> the Intellectual Property Crime Unit, the shutdown of TSTN will certainly not be the last.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87135
title: Megashare to Shutdown Over Hosting Problem, Users Panic
uri: Megashare-to-Shutdown-Over-Hosting-Problem-Users-Panic
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/fXTPCQgHqXg/
content:
<p><img src="media/304e9913.rvWp7PA.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/rvWp7PA.png" alt="rvWp7PA" width="248" height="78" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87136">With over a million visitors a day, <a href="http://megashare.info/">Megashare</a> is one of the largest video streaming portals on the Internet. </p>
<p>The site operates from .sh and .info domains and has enjoyed steady growth since its launch in 2010. </p>
<p>However, out of nowhere, visitors were welcomed by a rather shocking notice on the site&#8217;s homepage this morning. Apparently, Megashare has plans to shut down due to trouble with its video hosting provider. </p>
<p>&#8220;Because there are problems with video hosting company, MEGASHARE is closing and not updaing new movies in future. Thank you for your support!&#8221; the announcement reads.</p>
<p><center></center><center><a href="media/9e2caae3.megashare.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/megashare.jpg"><img src="media/9e2caae3.megashare.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/megashare.jpg" alt="megashare" width="565" height="358" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87137"></a></center></p>
<p>The abrupt decision comes as a surprise, and seems illogical for a site of its nature. Megashare doesn&#8217;t host any of the videos itself but relies on files from third-party sites such as Google, Putlocker and Sockshare.</p>
<p>Interestingly, a few days ago we published an article which revealed that Megashare was one of the streaming portals that used <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-video-streaming-sites-exploit-googles-servers-140417/">Google as video hosting provider</a>. Whether this is related to the &#8220;video hosting troubles&#8221; is unknown.</p>
<p>In any case, users are not happy with the site&#8217;s decision and the site&#8217;s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/megashare.info1?filter=2">Facebook page</a> and Twitter are filling up with people begging the site not to throw in the towel. Whether this will have any effect remains to be seen.</p>
<p><center></center><center></center></p>
<p><center><a class="twitter-timeline" data-dnt="true" href="https://twitter.com/search?q=megashare" data-widget-id="372056248763437057">Tweets about &#8220;megashare&#8221;</a><br>
<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");</script></center></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87109
title: Pirate Bay Hits Historic 10 Million Torrent Milestone
uri: Pirate-Bay-Hits-Historic-10-Million-Torrent-Milestone
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/fHVJry__8sQ/
content:
<p><img src="media/2a43984f.pirate-bay.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg" alt="pirate bay" width="200" height="207" class="alignright size-full wp-image-53470">Last summer The Pirate Bay celebrated its tenth anniversary, and today the site reached another noteworthy milestone. </p>
<p>Just a few hours ago the 10 millionth torrent was uploaded to the notorious torrent site. Considering all the legal trouble and outside pressure the site has been subjected to, this is quite an achievement. </p>
<p>The torrent in question is a pirated copy of a video from the &#8220;IntimateLesbians&#8221; series, and was uploaded to the site by VIP uploader &#8220;Drarbg.&#8221; The 9,999,999th upload, the extended remix of Calvin Harris&#8217; Summer, <a href="media/ffa97e79.It5bKYa.png" data-original-source="http://i.imgur.com/It5bKYa.png">didn&#8217;t go unnoticed</a> either.</p>
<p><center><strong>TPB&#8217;s 10 millionth torrent</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/902a9e7f.tpb10million.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb10million.png"><img src="media/902a9e7f.tpb10million.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb10million.png" alt="tpb10million" width="631" height="142" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87113"></a></center></p>
<p>The Pirate Bay team told TF that the milestone came as a surprise to them and they quickly had to patch a few things to make sure that the backend was ready for the extra decimal. Among other things, the rules to fetch the .torrent files needed an update. </p>
<p>While The Pirate Bay has processed 10 million uploads, not all torrents are still online today. </p>
<p>In fact, the majority have been deleted for a variety of reasons. The Pirate Bay team informs TF that their database currently holds roughly 3,050,000 torrents. All the other torrents have been removed.</p>
<p>One of the main reasons why torrents disappear from the site is because they are fake. For example, many scammers upload viruses or video files that link people to malware. In addition, anti-piracy outfits have been known to flood The Pirate Bay with fake content. </p>
<p>The Pirate Bay has a policy in place to deal with this abuse, which prescribes that all torrents where the content doesn&#8217;t match the description should be deleted. A team of moderators works around the clock to enforce this golden rule.</p>
<p>Right now, nearly 10,000 daily uploads are added to The Pirate Bay. This means that if The Pirate Bay continues to grow, the next 10 million milestone will probably be reached in a year or two. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87148
title: Record Labels: Used MP3s Too Good and Convenient to Resell
uri: Record-Labels-Used-MP3s-Too-Good-and-Convenient-to-Resell
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/pJ_mxDS7Fu4/
content:
<p><img src="media/7abb2d22.cassette.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cassette.jpg" alt="cassette" width="200" height="150" class="alignright size-full wp-image-84245">To gather the opinions of the public and other stakeholders on copyright reform, the EU Commission launched <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/eu-offers-public-a-chance-to-fix-copyright-law-140113/">a consultation</a> a few months ago. </p>
<p>The call resulted in hundreds of submissions, which were <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2013/copyright-rules/index_en.htm">made public</a> recently. One of the topics being covered is the issue of &#8220;digital resales.&#8221; In other words, whether consumers should be allowed to sell digital music files, videos and software they purchased previously. </p>
<p>In the United States the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReDigi">ReDigi case</a> has been the center of this debate, with a federal court ruling in favor of Capitol Records last year. In the EU, however, the Court of Justice <a href="media/6eda9a8f.cp120094en.pdf" data-original-source="http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-07/cp120094en.pdf">previously ruled</a> that consumers are free to resell games and software, even when there&#8217;s no physical copy. </p>
<p>In the submissions to the EU Commission consultation numerous parties weigh in on the subject. Interestingly, the UK Government takes a rather progressive stance by stating that people should be allowed to sell &#8220;used&#8221; tracks bought in the iTunes store, or used videos they&#8217;ve downloaded from Amazon.</p>
<p>&#8220;As regards the resale of copies, the UK notes that traditional secondary markets for goods can encourage both initial purchase and adoption of technologies, and the prospect of sale on the secondary market may be factored in to an initial decision to buy and to market prices,&#8221; the UK response reads</p>
<p>&#8220;There seems to be no reason why this should not be the case for digital copies, except for the &#8216;forward and delete&#8217; issue noted by the consultation,&#8221; it adds. </p>
<p>In other words, according to the UK Government people have the right to sell any digital files they have bought, as long as the original copy is deleted. This stands in sharp contrast to the various record label groups who warn that digital resales may crush the industry.</p>
<p>IFPI, for example, notes in its submission that allowing digital resales would hurt the entire music industry, and threaten the livelihoods of many artists.</p>
<p>&#8220;In the recorded music sector, the consequences of enabling the resale of digital content would have very harmful consequences for the entire music market,&#8221; IFPI writes.</p>
<p>&#8220;The notion that the exhaustion principle should apply to copies acquired by means of digital transmissions in the same way that it applies to physical copies ignores the many differences between the two kinds of copies and between the two distribution processes,&#8221; the music group adds. </p>
<p>IFPI signals three main differences between digital and physical distribution that warrant a ban on digital resales. According to them, physical music is different because: </p>
<ul>
<li>the quality of these deteriorates with time, and often due to wear and tear or mishandling </li>
<li>purchasing an item at a used record store requires traveling to the store and searching for a copy of the phonograph record
</li>
<li>the resale only concerns the original recording, not copies of that recording</li>
</ul>
<p>In other words, people shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to resell digital music because it&#8217;s too convenient, and because the copies don&#8217;t lose their quality. </p>
<p>While it&#8217;s no surprise that the labels are against digital resales, these arguments do raise some eyebrows. After all, there are also many physical products that are easy to ship and keep their value over time, which are perfectly fine to resell.</p>
<p>IFPI is not alone in their restrictive view on selling used digital files. The UK-based music group BPI also submitted a response to the consultation, using similar arguments, as did individual labels such as Universal Music and Sony Music.</p>
<p>&#8220;The  consequences  of  allowing  resale  of  previously  purchased  digital  content  would  be devastating to the music industry.  It  would compete directly with  the sale of original digital files as they would be entirely substitutional,&#8221; Universal notes, for example.  </p>
<p>It is now up to the EU Commission to sift through all the submissions to see what the ideas of various stakeholders and the public are on the matter, and how this should impact future legislation.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87172
title: HBO Demands Takedown of Game of Thrones Screenshots
uri: HBO-Demands-Takedown-of-Game-of-Thrones-Screenshots
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/0eVOsuYN1SE/
content:
<p><a href="media/1f1339e8.gotcensored.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gotcensored.jpg"><img src="media/1f1339e8.gotcensored.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gotcensored.jpg" alt="gotcensored" width="229" height="131" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87185"></a>If one had to single out a current TV show that is most-often related with Internet piracy it would have to be Game of Thrones. The show has been shared by millions of people and just last week broke yet another swarm record with 193,418 <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/game-of-thrones-sets-new-torrent-swarm-record-140415/">simultaneous sharers</a>.</p>
<p>There has been much discussion over HBO&#8217;s stance to this massive piracy. Last year, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo described the unauthorized downloading as &#8220;<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-game-of-thrones-piracy-is-a-compliment-doesnt-hurt-sales-130401/">a compliment</a>&#8220;, a statement that was followed up <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-plans-to-combat-game-of-thrones-piracy-130305/">by plans</a> to smarten up release schedules.</p>
<p>The theory at HBO parent Time Warner is that while piracy is largely undesirable, it helps to generate buzz and reduces advertising expenditure. The company also believes that when fans enthuse over Game of Thrones it&#8217;s excellent word-of-mouth promotion, so that makes today&#8217;s news even more unusual.</p>
<p>The developing situation involves fan site <a href="http://screencapped.net/">ScreenCapped.net</a>. The site hosts user-uploaded screenshots of popular movies and TV shows which its users transform into fan-created artwork. The piece below is based on the The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/bdb4aa53.screencapped1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/screencapped1.jpg" alt="screencapped1"></center></p>
<p>The site has a pretty large archive of screenshots from dozens of movies and TV shows, which until recently included HBO&#8217;s Game of Thrones and True Blood. But in a surprise move HBO has now accused the site of engaging in copyright infringement and ordered it to remove screenshots of these key titles. Screenshots from both shows no longer appear on the site.</p>
<p>Worried at the implications of the HBO DMCA notice, <a href="http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/home-box-office-inc-removing-dmca-against-screencapped-net">a petition</a> has been launched on Change.org in support of the site and requesting that HBO reconsiders its move. In the petition, which at the time of writing has already received more than 2,000 signatures, ScreenCapped operator Raina Stephens lays out her request to HBO&#8217;s anti-piracy director Jake Snyder.</p>
<p>&#8220;The fans and staff of Screencapped.net ask that you remove the DMCA against Screencapped.net so that the site may continue to provide HBO fans with high quality screencaps for non-profit use,&#8221; Stephens writes.</p>
<p>Users of the site have been expressing their disappointment on Change.org.</p>
<p><a href="media/9303358c.screencapped2.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/screencapped2.png"><img src="media/9303358c.screencapped2.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/screencapped2.png" alt="screencapped2" width="200" height="187" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87188"></a>&#8220;Come on, guys. You&#8217;re going to slap a DMCA claim on ONE site out of HUNDREDS for hosting screen captures?! It&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re hosting downloads of your episodes!&#8221; user Mandi S writes.</p>
<p>&#8220;Drop the claim so I can get my favorite screencap gallery back! How do you think we fan artists make those amazing arts that you KNOW you love. Get real and drop the suit, PLEASE.&#8221;</p>
<p>Another user, Alessia Colognesi from Italy, questions whether the move makes financial sense to HBO.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s ludicrous to think that watching/having screencaps will take away from the income of money that you might have. The only reasons why screencaps exist is to let creative people share their love for something making graphics, designs and such; and that&#8217;s a good thing because that way other people can take a look at a show and maybe start watching it. Go do something better with your time,&#8221; Colognesi concludes.</p>
<p>While the precise motivation behind the takedown remains unclear, it&#8217;s difficult to argue with the two key points above. ScreenCapped isn&#8217;t offering the actual shows for download and discouraging fans from getting even more invested in a show via innocuous-looking screenshots seems to run counter to Time Warner/HBO&#8217;s &#8220;buzz is good&#8221; plan.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87211
title: Megaupload Sues Hong Kong Over Unlawful Shutdown
uri: Megaupload-Sues-Hong-Kong-Over-Unlawful-Shutdown
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/w106mjRYWg0/
content:
<p><img src="media/5fd37436.megaupload.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/megaupload.jpg" alt="megaupload" width="180" height="154" class="alignright size-full wp-image-30407">Well over two years have passed since Megaupload <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-shut-down-120119/">was taken offline</a>, and the U.S. Government still hasn&#8217;t found a way to serve the Hong Kong based company.</p>
<p>During all this time the Hong Kong authorities have kept Megaupload&#8217;s assets locked up, as part of a restraint order the U.S. Government had demanded. </p>
<p>In a move to unfreeze these assets, Megaupload has now filed an application in a Hong Kong court. Through this application Megaupload wants the local Department of Justice to set aside the restraint order.</p>
<p>According to Megaupload, the company should no longer be held hostage based on an order that was issued after a seemingly unlawful request by U.S. authorities. The restraint order has basically shut down the company by freezing all its bank accounts and other assets. </p>
<p>Among other things, Megaupload says it wants to use the assets to reunite former users with the personal files they lost access to after the raid.</p>
<p>“Over two years later, the US DOJ has yet to serve Megaupload or initiate substantive criminal proceedings against it, trapping Megaupload in a state of criminal limbo,&#8221; Megaupload&#8217;s global litigation counsel Ira Rothken says in a comment. </p>
<p>&#8220;During that time, the restraint order has prevented Megaupload from conducting business or paying bandwidth expenses needed to return cloud storage data to users. Needless to say, Megaupload and its cloud storage users have been severely prejudiced by the US Department of Justice’s conduct,&#8221; he adds. </p>
<p>Megaupload believes that the restraint order was issued unlawfully, in part because the U.S. Government failed to disclose how the Hong Kong company would be served. </p>
<p>&#8220;As further argued in Megaupload’s application, the US DOJ’s inability to prosecute Megaupload over this long period of time is grounds to discharge the injunction independent from the US Department of Justice’s nondisclosure,” Rothken says.</p>
<p>To back up its request, Megaupload has submitted affidavits from two criminal law experts. Richard Davis, who is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and member of the Watergate Prosecution Force, and Stanford Law School professor Robert Weisberg.</p>
<p>Earlier today, the High Court of Hong Kong ordered the local Department of Justice to respond to Megaupload&#8217;s allegation. This response has to be filed early June, after which the court will decide on the issue. </p>
<p>If Megaupload wins its case the door will be open for a multi-billion dollar civil claim. Megaupload was previously valued at two billion dollars and before the raid was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-worked-on-a-multi-billion-dollar-ipo-120417/">planning a listing</a> on the U.S. stock market.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87240
title: “Rogue” Video Site Goes Straight, Immediately Gets Raided By Police
uri: Rogue-Video-Site-Goes-Straight-Immediately-Gets-Raided-By-Polic
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/DBF2kxOUf54/
content:
<p><img src="media/09fa6d0a.ustr.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ustr.jpg" width="175" height="175" class="alignright">Last week, just two months after the USTR published its 2013 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets, a Chinese online video company hoped to please local and US authorities by ditching its pirate reputation.</p>
<p>Shenzhen QVOD Technology, the company behind Kuaibo.com, made the 2013 USTR report and also incurred the displeasure of the Chinese with its alleged facilitation of online piracy. Aiming to make amends, a few days ago the company <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/notorious-market-blocks-piracy-in-its-p2p-streaming-player-140419/">announced</a> that it would block piracy in its software tools and invest in licensed content.</p>
<p>By yesterday, however, Kuaibo/QVOD&#8217;s overtures were being brushed aside when police in Shenzhen raided its offices. The photograph below, published by <a href="http://www.91shouce.com/">91shouce.com</a>, claims to show the raid in progress.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/546f6782.qvod-raid.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/qvod-raid.jpg" alt="QVOD"></center></p>
<p>Details on what happened during the raid are unclear, but local news reports suggest that police isolated employees and told them not to use phones or computers.</p>
<p>In a statement the company rejected claims that people had been arrested and equipment seized, adding that it was operating as usual.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87225
title: Viewing Pirated Material Is Not Direct Copyright Infringement, Judge Tells Tarantino
uri: Viewing-Pirated-Material-Is-Not-Direct-Copyright-Infringement-Judge-T
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/aXhoT794K-o/
content:
<p><img src="media/9f219c2f.tarantino2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tarantino2.jpg" width="275" height="164" class="alignright">Back in January, Quentin Tarantino <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/tarantino-google-140201/">discovered</a> that a copy of an unreleased screenplay to potential future movie The Hateful Eight had been made available to the public without his permission. He&#8217;d shared the document with six individuals and either one of them &#8211; or someone linked to them &#8211; had leaked it.  </p>
<p>Shortly after dozens of news articles appeared online, news site Gawker reported that following a &#8220;temper tantrum&#8221; Tarantino had decided that he would no longer make a Hateful Eight movie. The next day The Wrap reported it had obtained a copy of the script and within hours it was being made available by the AnonFiles.com file-hosting site. From there it appeared on Scribd.com, viewable to millions of visitors.</p>
<p>But while people would have to find the script themselves if they were interested, Gawker later made the process significantly easier by publishing an article titled &#8220;Here is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script&#8221; containing links to both AnonFiles and Scribd. Gawker refused to take down the links when asked, although both AnonFiles and Scribd both removed the file.</p>
<p>Through his legal team an enraged Tarantino accused Gawker of encouraging copyright infringement, but Gawker fought back saying that in the course of its reporting the links were protected under &#8220;fair use&#8221; doctrine. On January 27, Tarantino&#8217;s lawyers filed a complaint alleging copyright infringement against 10 &#8216;Doe&#8217; defendants and contributory copyright infringement against Gawker.</p>
<p>Yesterday, however, the lawsuit received a substantial setback.</p>
<p>In order for a defendant to be found liable for contributory copyright infringement there must first be evidence of direct infringement carried out by others. In other words, to proceed against Gawker, Tarantino&#8217;s lawyers needed to show that visitors to Gawker&#8217;s site who read the article in question actually clicked the links to AnonFiles or Scribd and went on to commit direct infringement on the script.</p>
<p>&#8220;However, nowhere in these paragraphs or anywhere else in the Complaint does Plaintiff allege a single act of direct infringement committed by any member of the general public that would support Plaintiff’s claim for contributory infringement. Instead, Plaintiff merely speculates that some direct infringement must have taken place,&#8221; wrote U.S. District Judge John F. Walter in his ruling.</p>
<p>Adding more problems for Tarantino, the Judge said that even if there were allegations that individuals had accessed the links in the Gawker article in order to read the script, that would still not support Tarantino&#8217;s claim for contributory infringement. Citing a previous case involving adult magazine publisher Perfect 10, Judge Walter said that simply viewing the script would not be enough.</p>
<p>&#8220;Even if Plaintiff alleged that individuals accessed the links contained in Defendant’s article in order to read Plaintiff’s script, such an allegation would still not support Plaintiff’s contributory infringement claim against Defendant. Simply viewing a copy of allegedly infringing work on one’s own computer does not constitute the direct infringement necessary to support Plaintiff’s contributory infringement claim,&#8221; the Judge wrote.</p>
<p>&#8220;In addition, based on the allegations of the Complaint, there can be little doubt that Plaintiff has a strong claim for direct infringement against Doe 1, a/k/a AnonFiles.com. However, Plaintiff has not alleged and it is highly unlikely that Plaintiff will be able to plead facts demonstrating that Defendant somehow induced, caused, or materially contributed to the infringing conduct by publishing a link to the screenplay after it was wrongfully posted on AnonFiles.com.&#8221;</p>
<p>In light of the above, Gawker&#8217;s &#8216;fair use&#8217; defense was not addressed.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Court concludes that the fair use arguments, albeit persuasive and potentially dispositive, are premature and the Court declines to consider those arguments until Plaintiff has had an opportunity to demonstrate that he can state a viable claim for contributory copyright infringement,&#8221; the decision reads.</p>
<p>While round one goes to Gawker, Tarantino&#8217;s legal team now has until May 1 to submit its amended complaint and stage a comeback.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87277
title: Internet Blocking Protests Force Mexico Government Retreat
uri: Internet-Blocking-Protests-Force-Mexico-Government-Retreat
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/aXqfsImvVwQ/
content:
<p><a href="media/193011ca.data.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/data.jpg"><img src="media/bf089152.data.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/data.jpg" alt="data" width="180" height="120" class="alignright size-full wp-image-75303"></a>An attempt to introduce laws that would have given the Mexican government the power to block the Internet and other telecommunications appears to have failed.</p>
<p>The government earlier said it wanted to introduce legislation to combat illegal activities on the Internet, including child pornography. But after drilling down into the details of the text, activists say that the draft law being debated by the Senate would allow the government to censor the Internet whenever it liked.</p>
<p>One of the articles, which states that the government could force Internet service providers to &#8220;temporarily block, inhibit or annul telecommunications signals at events and places deemed critical for the public safety&#8221; sparked protests both on and offline, with hundreds <a href="http://www.latintimes.com/epnvsinternet-news-hundreds-march-mexico-city-against-telecom-laws-167531">taking to the streets</a> on Tuesday.</p>
<p>While the government insists that the measures are only intended for dealing with serious crime, activists are concerned that the proposals go too far, threatening both privacy and economic development.</p>
<p>But by yesterday the tone of the government had changed, with Sen. Emilio Gamboa, leader of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in the Senate, announcing that the proposals would be scaled back.</p>
<p>&#8220;Any other additional power, like the blocking of signals for national or public safety will be excluded from the reform,&#8221; Gamboa <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/hundreds-mexico-protest-telecommunications-law-23432532">said</a>.</p>
<p>In attempt to calm the situation further, Gamboa added that new measures to force ISPs to hand over information on their subscribers would not be expanded.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87257
title: 106,000 Signatures in Support of Pirate Bay Founder Delivered to Danish Govt.
uri: 106-000-Signatures-in-Support-of-Pirate-Bay-Founder-Delivered-to-Dani
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/9S8I0JOUcvY/
content:
<p><img src="media/2c059aef.gottfrid1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gottfrid1.jpg" width="200" height="248" class="alignright">Last year following a failed appeal to the Supreme Court in Sweden, Gottfrid Svartholm was extradited to Denmark. There he stands accused of hacking into computers belonging to IT company CSC.</p>
<p>The nature of the Pirate Bay founder&#8217;s detention has been highly controversial. His reputation as a master hacker led authorities to treat him with fear, placing him in solitary confinement, severely restricting his interaction with other inmates and limiting his access to books. Magazines sent in from outside were also off-limits, since prison authorities feared they may contain encrypted messages.</p>
<p>These extraordinary conditions prompted the creation of a petition by the Free Anakata Campaign. After a gentle start the protest gathered momentum hitting 50,000 and then 100,000 signatures. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Gottfrid&#8217;s mother Kristina said that the petition had put <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-gets-access-to-his-books-after-public-outcry-140113/">tremendous pressure</a> on the authorities, leading them to ease her son&#8217;s book restrictions and interactions with other inmates.</p>
<p>After exceeding 106,000 signatures the petition was delivered to the Danish government yesterday. The Danish Pirate Party had the honor of handing it over to Minister of Justice Karen Hækkerup.</p>
<p>The Internet petition, which reached 106,538 signatures, was printed out onto 2,600 sheets of paper and presented to the minister in a box covered in pirate wrapping paper.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/10212d19.petitionppG.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/petitionppG.png" alt="PetitionG"></center></p>
<p>&#8220;In my eyes he is in solitary confinement for no reason. I mean, he is being treated worse than a serial killer,&#8221; <a href="http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2014/04/23/122340.htm">said</a> Rolf Bjerre from the Pirate Party after the handover.</p>
<p>DR.DK legal correspondent Claus Buhr said that Svartholm&#8217;s adverse conditions are a product of the authorities&#8217; lack of experience of dealing with someone with the Swede&#8217;s capabilities.</p>
<p>&#8220;If he was a killer or suspected of drug crime, they are accustomed to those kind of suspects and know what they&#8217;re capable of. However, a possible super-hacker is someone the Danish police very rarely have to deal with,&#8221; Buhr said.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is probably the reason why he is being held under the strictest lock and key, simply because it&#8217;s not fully understood what he can do, and whether he&#8217;s able to get information in and out of jail.&#8221;</p>
<p>Even though Gottfrid has been held in Denmark for more than five months, the investigation against him is still underway with no immediate end in sight. In the meantime he&#8217;s being allowed just one hour a day outside and a single controlled visit with his mother, who travels from Sweden to Denmark each week to see him.</p>
<p>The case is expected to go to trial in the early days of September 2014 and it&#8217;s hoped the petition will ease his conditions before then.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87174
title: US Copyright Law Doesn’t Apply Worldwide,”DVD Ripper” Tells Court
uri: US-Copyright-Law-Doesn-t-Apply-Worldwide-DVD-Ripper-Tells-Cour
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/B20Hpxf1lsk/
content:
<p><img src="media/d2a9a2a0.dvdfablogo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dvdfablogo.jpg" alt="dvdfablogo" width="200" height="189" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85044"></a><a href="http://www.aacsla.com/founders/">AACS</a>, the decryption licensing outfit founded by a group of movie studios and technology partners including Warner Bros, Disney, Microsoft and Intel, launched a crackdown on DRM-circumvention software earlier this year.</p>
<p>In the most prominent action AACS sued the makers of popular DVD ripping software DVDFab. Last month it <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/u-s-court-orders-seizure-dvdfab-domain-names-funds-140310/">won a preliminary injunction</a> based on the argument that the &#8220;DVDFab Group&#8221; violates the DMCA&#8217;s anti-circumvention clause, since their software that can bypass DVD encryption. </p>
<p>The injunction barred the Chinese-based DVDFab from distributing its software in public, by allowing AACS to order the seizure of its domain names. In addition, the company&#8217;s social media accounts were blocked and bank funds frozen.</p>
<p>DVDFab initially did not respond to the court, so the order was entered by default. However, after the injunction was issued the company responded in the name of Feng Tao, with a request for the court to revise its earlier judgment. </p>
<p>The company informed the court that the injunction is too broad, as it basically shuts down the entire operation based on U.S. law. The anti-circumvention provisions the injunction is based on don&#8217;t apply worldwide, they argue.  </p>
<p>&#8220;It is well-established that the Copyright Act doesn&#8217;t apply extra-territorially,&#8221; the company notes. </p>
<p class="alignfull"><a href="media/5cc7fabf.dvdfab.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dvdfab.jpg"><img src="media/5cc7fabf.dvdfab.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dvdfab.jpg" alt="dvdfab" width="700" height="508" size-full wp-image-85045"></a></p>
<p>Since DVDFab&#8217;s domain names and bank accounts were seized the injunction also blocks DVDFab&#8217;s business in other countries, which goes too far according to the lawyers.</p>
<p>&#8220;For example, shutting down the DVDFab domain names and enjoining the payment processors prevents defendant Feng Tao from using such domain names and payment processors for sales of unrelated products, and for sales of DVDFab products outside the United States,&#8221; they note.</p>
<p>For this reason DVDFab asks the court to amend the injunction so it only applies to the United States. This would require the return of seized domain names and social media accounts, plus the lifting of payment processing restrictions.</p>
<p>In a response, AACS <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/220024013/Dvd-Fab-Amend-Rep">points out</a> that DVDFab has violated the preliminary injunction from the start. The company immediately registered several new domain names that are not under U.S. control, and continued business as usual. DVDFab also allegedly launched a new &#8220;BluFab&#8221; brand under which it sells copies of its DVD ripping software. </p>
<p><img src="media/48860713.dvdfabchange.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dvdfabchange.jpg" alt="dvdfabchange" width="600" height="472" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87263"></p>
<p>Even more controversially, AACS claims that a DVDFab representative threatened them in an attempt to settle the issue. A person named &#8220;Frank&#8221; contacted an AACS lawyer and offered an &#8220;exclusivity delay&#8221; with all major circumvention software makers, if AACS agreed to lift the domain name seizures. If AACS declined this offer, DVDFab would give away its software for free, the company allegedly said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Frank said that DVDFab was the largest circumvention software maker and it could align all other major circumvention software makers to allow AACS LA a one to three weeks exclusivity delay on introducing circumvention software in exchange for AACS LA restoring the DVDFab Websites and business.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Frank stated that if AACS LA refused the deal, DVDFab Defendants would distribute the software for free, thereby rendering AACS LA irrelevant,&#8221; AACS lawyers adds.</p>
<p>AACS further points out that the scope of the injunction isn&#8217;t too broad at all. According to the company, the Copyright Act allows for such measures in cases where the actions of a foreign business are “felt within the United States.”</p>
<p>It&#8217;s now up to the court to decide who&#8217;s right in this case. </p>
<p>For the time being, all U.S.-controlled DVDFab domain names, social media accounts and payment processing services remain unavailable. However, the software maker is still operational through several new domains, which can be easily found <a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ncr#q=dvdfab">through Google</a> and other search engines.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87326
title: New Download Ban Won’t Work, Politicians Say
uri: New-Download-Ban-Won-t-Work-Politicians-Say
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/MQlrDzrB8EA/
content:
<p><img src="media/b2da810a.amsterdam.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/amsterdam.jpg" width="222" height="185" class="alignright">Just like other citizens around the globe, for years the Dutch have enjoyed downloading their favorite music, movies and TV shows from the Internet. However, while people in most other countries do so while breaking the law, residents of the Netherlands had no fear of being fined, or worse.</p>
<p>This position was made possible by the introduction of a levy on writable media such as blank DVDs and CDs, and other storage-capable devices such as hard drives, media players and smart phones. A portion of the sales revenues on these devices went to the rightsholders in an attempt to compensate them for their perceived losses.</p>
<p>But despite years of operation, earlier this month the system came to an abrupt halt. Following complaints from electronics manufacturers upset that their products were being made more expensive by the levy, a landmark ruling from the European Court of Justice declared the system illegal. The Dutch government responded by declaring that downloading from illegal sources <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-netherlands-must-outlaw-downloading-eu-court-rules-140410/">was banned</a> with immediate effect.</p>
<p>But while downloading of copyrighted content was outlawed (uploading was already illegal), few people believed that a handful of words from the government was likely to change the position on the ground. Furthermore, since the ban was hastily introduced on April 10, members of parliament have begun calling for a debate on its consequences.</p>
<p>&#8220;We do not want a ban, but would rather have a broad discussion focused on ways to reduce unpaid downloading,&#8221; D66 MP Kees Verhoeven <a href="http://www.nutech.nl/internet/3757798/kamermeerderheid-debat-downloadverbod.html">told</a> NU.nl.</p>
<p>&#8220;The aim of the download ban is to reduce the amount of unpaid material being downloaded, but experience shows that bans do not help in such cases.&#8221;</p>
<p>Labour MP Astrid Oosenbrug also called for debate on the download ban, which she first heard about through the media.</p>
<p>&#8220;I read about this new measure in the news,&#8221; she said, adding that soon after consumers began asking questions about how it would affect the private copying levy.</p>
<p>&#8220;Therefore, both MPs and citizens are unclear about the implications of this prohibition,&#8221; she said.</p>
<p>Calling for a debate with the Secretary of State in May, D66 MP Kees Verhoeven said that his party doesn&#8217;t want prohibition, but would prefer to see entertainment companies work on better legal offerings instead.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is important that the legal supply of music, films and series, is both accessible and of a high quality,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We do not want a ban, but a larger legal offer.&#8221; </p>
<p>Separately, in comments reported by <a href="http://tweakers.net/nieuws/95471/kabinet-aanpakken-illegale-websites-makkelijker-door-downloadverbod.html">Tweakers</a>, Wiebe Alkema, spokesperson for the Ministry of Security and Justice, said the download ban would make it easier for entertainment companies to go after &#8216;pirate&#8217; sites, since there is no longer a legal gray area.</p>
<p>&#8220;The burden of proof is easier,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87308
title: Hulu Blocks VPN Users Over Piracy Concerns
uri: Hulu-Blocks-VPN-Users-Over-Piracy-Concerns
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ApLkgtXp6QM/
content:
<p><img src="media/f487049f.hulu-barbed.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hulu-barbed.png" alt="hulu-barbed" width="275" height="182" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87311">Free and legal streaming services such as Hulu have been proven to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/foxs-8-day-delay-on-hulu-triggers-piracy-surge-110822/">slow down piracy rates</a> in the United States. </p>
<p>At the same time, however, they also created a new problem. With a relatively cheap VPN subscription, people from all over the world can connect to the site via a U.S.-based IP-address and bypass its geographical restrictions. </p>
<p>In an effort to deal with these unauthorized users, <a href="http://www.hulu.com/">Hulu</a> has started to block visitors who access the site through an IP-address that&#8217;s linked to a VPN service. This blockade also applies to hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens.</p>
<p>Hulu&#8217;s blocklist was implemented this week and currently covers the IP-ranges of all major VPN services. People who try to access the site through one of these IPs are not allowed to view any content on the site, and receive the following notice instead.</p>
<p>&#8220;Based on your IP-address, we noticed that you are trying to access Hulu through an anonymous proxy tool. Hulu is not currently available outside the U.S. If you&#8217;re in the U.S. you&#8217;ll need to disable your anonymizer to access videos on Hulu,&#8221; the notice reads.</p>
<p><center><strong>Hulu Blocked for VPN users<br></br></strong></center><center><a href="media/b6933aef.hulu-vpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hulu-vpn.png"><img src="media/b6933aef.hulu-vpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hulu-vpn.png" alt="hulu-vpn" width="966" height="593" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87310"></a></center></p>
<p>The sudden blockade hasn&#8217;t been announced publicly by Hulu, but it&#8217;s clear that the service wants to lock out all foreign users. The main reason for this is most likely to please TV networks and movie outlets.</p>
<p>Previously, entertainment industry sources in Australia <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-users-pirating-netflix-scare-tv-networks-140303/">complained bitterly</a> that &#8220;VPN-pirates&#8221; were hurting their business, as tens of thousands of potential subscribers were using the U.S. version of Netflix. </p>
<p>However, the problem with Hulu&#8217;s blanket ban on VPN services is that U.S. citizens are forced to give up their privacy as well. They can still watch Hulu, but not securely. TorrentFreak has contacted several providers, who dealt with dozens of complaints on this issue yesterday.</p>
<p><a href="https://vikingvpn.com">VikingVPN</a> was one of the first to notice the change, and <a href="http://torguard.net/">TorGuard</a> and <a href="https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/">Private Internet Access</a> have been dealing with the fallout too. The latter is currently engaged in discussion with Hulu hoping to find a solution.</p>
<p>&#8220;Private Internet Access exists to protect the privacy of netizens everywhere.  Many of our customers leave their Private Internet Access accounts enabled 24/7/365.  It is unfortunate that Hulu is blocking VPN service IPs,&#8221; Andrew Lee, CEO of Private Internet Access told TF.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have an existing relationship with Hulu and are reaching out to them directly to see what we can do about fixing this issue,&#8221; Lee adds.</p>
<p>VikingVPN is disappointed with Hulu&#8217;s decision as well, and rightfully points out that the streaming service could at least implement SSL to protect the privacy of its visitors.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re upset that our users would have to disconnect from our service in order to access Hulu. We encourage users to remain connected in order to guard their privacy, 24/7.  Hulu could mitigate a small portion of this concern if they would at least implement SSL on their website,&#8221; VikingVPN&#8217;s Micah Greene tells TorrentFreak.</p>
<p>TorGuard informs us that not all of their shared IP-addresses have been blocked yet. When this happens, they plan to role out more dedicated IPs which are likely to remain undetected. </p>
<p>&#8220;In the event of wide-spread IP blocking a quick fix for the problem is to use a dedicated VPN IP. This ensures that no other user on the network has registered an account under that same IP address,&#8221; TorGuard’s CEO Ben Van Pelt informs TF. </p>
<p>&#8220;TorGuard has thousands of dedicated IPs on hand in our US locations and we&#8217;ve already seen an increase in purchases for this add-on today,&#8221; Van Pelt adds.</p>
<p>The above makes it clear that there may be ways to circumvent the Hulu blockade, so U.S. citizens can still keep their VPN connection alive while watching.</p>
<p>However, it&#8217;s clear that Hulu is taking a stand against foreign &#8220;pirates&#8221; who use their service without permission. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87338
title: Zona is a Popcorn Time Beater and a Pirate’s Dream
uri: Zona-is-a-Popcorn-Time-Beater-and-a-Pirate-s-Dream
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/hEI7hfpdf8s/
content:
<p><a href="media/8801a79f.zonalogo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/zonalogo.png"><img src="media/8801a79f.zonalogo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/zonalogo.png" alt="zonalogo" width="220" height="165" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87359"></a>Popcorn Time has had more than its fair share of press since it appeared earlier this year. The tale has enjoyed twists and turns in buckets, not to mention controversy and mystery. </p>
<p>The software was undoubtedly a game changer and the most simple and elegant way of downloading and viewing content using torrents. Nothing came close.</p>
<p>Except all along something else did &#8211; and then some.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s not take anything away from it, Popcorn Time is pretty neat, but the software just introduced to TorrentFreak goes much, much further. It&#8217;s called Zona and could very well ignite an even bigger storm.</p>
<p>Zona hails from Russia but fear not, its 27mb installer appears in standard English. Getting the thing working is child&#8217;s play too, just make sure it&#8217;s being allowed through your firewall after setup. If users want it to become their standard torrent downloader that option is available too, but advanced users will probably prefer the flexibility of their regular client.</p>
<p>Once setup is complete, users are presented with the following screen, movies up first. Much of the artwork depicted is pulled from Russian sources, so for non-speakers a reliance on movie covers will be required. If that fails, directly under each movie is the title in clear English.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/13749481.zona1movies.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/zona1movies.png" alt="Zona1movies"></center></p>
<p>Click those titles and new page will appear, detailing everything people might want to know about the movie including its date of production, iMDb rating, genre, actors (including photos), runtime, and other sundry details. Here&#8217;s the page for the Creative Commons movie, Big Buck Bunny.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/1375520c.zonabigbuck.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/zonabigbuck.png" alt="BigBuck"></center></p>
<p>When selecting a movie a choice can be made &#8211; to stream Popcorn Time-style, or to download to the PC like a regular torrent client. If the former is chosen there is a wait of between a few seconds and a minute while enough buffering takes place. The movie is first presented in a small non-intrusive window in the left corner of the app, but this can be expanded to any size, including full screen.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/e4bb2297.zonaplayer.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/zonaplayer.png" alt="Zonaplayer"></center></p>
<p>Eagle-eyed viewers will note the &#8216;audio and subtitles&#8217; text on the bottom right of the window above. This enables switching between English and often Russian audio, plus the toggling of various subtitles.</p>
<p>While Popcorn Time was restricted to content indexed on YTS, Zona has no such limitation. The app appears to have access to many, many thousands of movies pulled from torrent sites around the web. It is not clear where, but random searches hardly ever fail to turn up the required content although sometimes playback can hesitate, possibly due to lack of seeds. That said, a database of 500,000 torrents should be more than enough.</p>
<p>Zona is no slouch on the movie front, but it isn&#8217;t done yet. The software also caters to the TV fan and does it with never-seen-before flair. After selecting &#8216;TV&#8217; from the list on the left, Zona presents TV shows in the same way as it does movies. However, when clicking through to the details screen one can see how it excels, with options to select any series and any episode. Since it&#8217;s topical, here&#8217;s how the page looks for Game of Thrones.</p>
<p><Center><img src="media/68e8c2a5.zona-got.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/zona-got.png" alt="zona-got"></center></p>
<p>Just below the recommended additional viewing graphics, one can see options to select a series and episode. Clicking on those brings up all of the sources, usefully filtered by video quality. Also on offer is a &#8220;subscription&#8221; feature, which allows people to subscribe to a series &#8216;Tivo-style&#8217;, leave the software running, and have the content appear when a new episode is released.</p>
<p>Another trick up Zona&#8217;s sleeve is its ability to steam live TV from a selection of built in channels. While many are Russian, there are plenty of English language channels too. Covering everything from news, to light entertainment to documentaries, it&#8217;s also particularly strong in sport, with free access to UK premium channels including all Sky Sports and BT Sport channels.</p>
<p>After ticking every box on the video front, Zona goes one step further by streaming music too. Users need to quickly sign up for a VK.com social networking account first, but after that almost every track one can think of will become available in the software.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
<p>Overall, it&#8217;s hard to fault Zona. It looks great and works nearly as well. There&#8217;s a huge range of content spanning movies, TV shows and music, and no other app that we&#8217;re aware of has as many options and features. It&#8217;s not open source, at least that we can see, so one up for Popcorn Time there. But it can stream to DLNA-enabled TVs, so that might balance things up a bit.</p>
<p>Oh, and you can filter out the adult content if kids are around. We did mention it does porn as well, didn&#8217;t we? No? That means we probably forgot to mention the Android version too.</p>
<p>Zona can be downloaded from its <a href="http://zona.ru">homepage</a>, or directly <a href="http://dl3.getz.tv/ZonaSetup_latest.exe">here</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87396
title: Netflix Considers P2P-Powered Streaming Technology
uri: Netflix-Considers-P2P-Powered-Streaming-Technology
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/qvoskx1Yvos/
content:
<p><a href="media/b310fc7c.netflix-logo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/netflix-logo.png"><img src="media/b310fc7c.netflix-logo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/netflix-logo.png" alt="netflix-logo" width="200" height="121" class="alignright size-full wp-image-69714"></a>With over 33 million streaming subscribers in the U.S. alone, Netflix is one the major providers of online video entertainment.</p>
<p>The company claims to be a piracy killer, and previously noted that <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/netflix-says-its-killing-bittorrent-traffic-130504/">unauthorized P2P traffic reduced</a> in countries where their services were rolled out. </p>
<p>Interestingly enough, the streaming service also has a lot to gain from file-sharing technologies. A recent Netflix job ad spotted by Ars Technica, <a href="http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/netflix-researching-large-scale-peer-to-peer-technology-for-streaming/">reveals </a> that they are considering using P2P technology to improve their streaming services.</p>
<p>&#8220;Netflix seeks a seasoned Senior Software Engineer with a special focus in peer-to-peer networks,&#8221; <a href="http://jobs.netflix.com/jobs.php?id=NFX00928">the company writes</a>. The description of the new position has a clear focus on researching the possibility to allow users to stream videos via peer-to-peer technology. </p>
<blockquote class="pullquote"><p>- Research and architecture of large-scale peer-to-peer network technology as applicable to Netflix streaming.<br>
- Liaise with internal client and toolkit teams to integrate P2P as an additional delivery mechanism.<br>
- Design and develop tools for the operation of peer-to-peer enabled clients in a production environment.
</p></blockquote>
<p>Netflix mentions that the company is currently responsible for over 30% of all downstream traffic. Should it move towards P2P streaming, Netflix will also be the number one in terms of upstream bandwidth, a position currently <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-accounts-for-35-of-all-upload-traffic-vpns-are-booming-130518/">dominated by</a> BitTorrent traffic. </p>
<p><center><strong>Netflix&#8217; job ad</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/fb19b95e.netflix-job.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/netflix-job.jpg"><img src="media/fb19b95e.netflix-job.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/netflix-job.jpg" alt="netflix-job" width="600" height="554" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87399"></a></center></p>
<p>The option of P2P-assisted streaming became of interest again this year, after Netflix signed a deal with Comcast to pay for direct access to its network. With P2P technology, Netflix has the option to increase its streaming capabilities without additional bandwidth costs.</p>
<p>In fact, not only could the company achieve superior streaming quality by using P2P technology, its bandwidth bills could even decrease.</p>
<p>Bram Cohen, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Cohen">inventor of BitTorrent</a>, would welcome a P2P-powered Netflix. He previously said that video delivery via P2P is far superior to the systems currently used by Netflix and other video services.</p>
<p>&#8220;The fact is that by using BitTorrent it&#8217;s possible to give customers a much better experience with much less cost than has ever been possible before. It&#8217;s really not being utilized properly and that&#8217;s really unfortunate,&#8221; Cohen said.</p>
<p>According to Cohen, Netflix&#8217;s video streaming quality is currently less than acceptable. &#8220;I actually don&#8217;t have a TV at home myself, but I do watch stuff on Netflix and I find it very frustrating because the video quality is really terrible,&#8221; he noted. </p>
<p>With P2P-assisted streaming it will be possible to stream videos in a higher quality than is currently possible, but whether Netflix will use a BitTorrent-inspired technology or something different is unknown at this point. </p>
<p>In any case, it&#8217;s an interesting development to watch.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87296
title: How To Make Pirate Bay Users Pay For Content
uri: How-To-Make-Pirate-Bay-Users-Pay-For-Content
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/JWfPvOKxv30/
content:
<p><img src="media/4e243e8b.tpb-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-logo.jpg" alt="tpb-logo" width="222" height="198" class="alignright size-full wp-image-67837">Over the past several years, numerous studies have shown that &#8220;pirates&#8221; are <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-pirates-are-bigger-music-fans-than-average-consumers-121113/">more engaged consumers</a> than their non-sharing counterparts.</p>
<p>They not only consume more media, but also <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/0-more-on-content-than-honest-consumers-130510/">pay more for legal content</a>. While the average visit to The Pirate Bay doesn&#8217;t cost anything, the above suggests that it&#8217;s a good venue for indie creators to advertise their work. </p>
<p>This is exactly what a group of indie sci-fi creators thought, so last weekend they teamed up with VODO to promote their work on The Pirate Bay. The end result is the <a href="http://vodo.net/otherworlds">&#8220;Otherworlds&#8221; sci-fi bundle</a>, which includes a wide variety of content, such as books, games, music, comics and videos. </p>
<p>The Pirate Bay was kind enough to promote the bundle for nearly three days, replacing the site&#8217;s iconic logo with a prominent banner. Those who clicked on the banner could download a torrent with free sample content, but those who wanted more had to pay up. </p>
<p><center><strong>Pay for content???</strong> <br></br></center><center><a href="media/42be5140.vodo-offer.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vodo-offer.jpg"><img src="media/42be5140.vodo-offer.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vodo-offer.jpg" alt="vodo-offer" width="876" height="698" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87297"></a></center></p>
<p>TorrentFreak reached out to VODO&#8217;s Jamie King, who organized the campaign, to learn more about the results. As expected, the Pirate Bay promotion generated a ton of traffic, over 100,000 visitors. Not all of this traffic resulted in sales, but overall results turned out quite well.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Pirate Bay helped us to make about $5,000 of sales from 375 customers. The simple immensity of the traffic really helped to move some bundles,&#8221; King tells us. </p>
<p>The &#8220;Otherworlds&#8221; bundle presents people with three payment options. A &#8220;pay what you want&#8221; option for five titles, a &#8220;beat the average&#8221; option with seven extra pieces of content, and a &#8220;beat the premium&#8221; option for the high rollers.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Pirate Bay users mostly picked the latter option. In total, 232 Pirate Bay visitors chose the most expensive &#8220;beat the premium&#8221; option, paying $18.11 on average. Another 72 visitors went for the cheapest option with an average payment of $1.78, and 67 people ended up in the middle with an $10.61 average.</p>
<p>Across all paying Pirate Bay visitors the average payment was $13.52. Interestingly enough, this is more than the average paid by people who came from other sites, or social media. That said, King notes that the ratio of incoming visitors to buying visitors was relatively low, about a tenth of that from other sites.</p>
<p>Those who have been reading TorrentFreak for a while may remember that VODO has been around for a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/massive-p2p-conglomerate-backs-new-tv-series-100616/">few years already</a>. Initially it started out by sharing torrents for free, and asking the public for donations. While some people were happy to donate, this model wasn&#8217;t very sustainable. </p>
<p>&#8220;To really create a success for a filmmaker, we&#8217;d have to generate literally millions of downloads. But it wasn&#8217;t do-able on a regular basis,&#8221; King tells us.  </p>
<p>&#8220;So for us, putting up a &#8216;pay what you want&#8217;-wall has been a really simple and successful move. We still offer free sample torrents / mini-bundles, but basically, if you want the proper bundle, you have to choose to pay something,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>Conversions increased after the switch as more and more people started to contribute. The other advantage was that more creators were willing to join, as they were guaranteed a payment, while keeping control over how long their content remains available.</p>
<p>&#8220;Particularly,  we can get much better content than if we were using torrents. The truth is most creators don&#8217;t have the rights to share their work freely, even if they wanted to,&#8221; King says. </p>
<p>In other words, if you want Pirate Bay users to contribute, the paywall system is a better way to do so than giving away everything for free in return for an optional donation. Perhaps this sounds counter-intuitive, but it&#8217;s how it works. </p>
<p>Finally, it&#8217;s worth noting that VODO has built-in an option for those who are not happy with the suggested payments. Beneath each offer is a &#8220;that&#8217;s too much for me&#8221; button where people can suggest the price they are willing to pay. Interestingly, hundreds of Pirate Bay users suggested their alternative price. In a week or so VODO plans to honor most of these offers, generating thousands of dollars in aftersales. </p>
<p>All in all the above shows that sites such as The Pirate Bay and <a href="http://eztv.it/">EZTV</a>, where it was promoted as well, can certainly help to finance indie creators. However, simply giving away content for free is not always the best option. As is often the case, people sometimes need a small incentive to contribute. </p>
<p>The &#8220;Otherworlds&#8221; bundle is still available today, and those who are interested <a href="http://vodo.net/otherworlds">can check out the offer</a> here. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87373
title: Buy a Fully Loaded Movie and TV Show Piracy Site for Just $200
uri: Buy-a-Fully-Loaded-Movie-and-TV-Show-Piracy-Site-for-Just-200
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/bc6MCZsn36k/
content:
<p><a href="media/0cfab1f0.TVStream.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/TVStream.png"><img src="media/0cfab1f0.TVStream.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/TVStream.png" alt="TVStream" width="200" height="113" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87380"></a>During the past few years, streaming portals such as Movie2K/4K, Primewire, and other similar sites have gathered huge momentum. Offering movies directly in the browser after just a couple of clicks has opened these sites to even the least tech-savvy Internet user.</p>
<p>With bandwidth costs reducing and apparently good money to be made from streaming video, dozens of streaming sites have appeared hoping to take a piece of the pie. In some cases this has led to confusion, with the appearance of sites <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/unaware-millions-flood-to-hijacked-cloned-and-fake-movie-streaming-sites-130608/">deliberately designed</a> to look like those operated by competitors in order to steal traffic.</p>
<p>Those tired of such antics need to brace themselves, because thanks to a new service things are about to get a whole lot worse. Or better, depending on perspective.</p>
<p><strong>See important update at the end of post</strong></p>
<p>TVStreamCMS is a system designed to take the sting out of setting up a video streaming site like Movie4K or Primewire. When we say take out the sting, what we really mean is make it ridiculously simple.</p>
<p>This content management system claims to condense months and years of hard work into a setup taking just a few minutes. Buyers get all the code they need to launch their own site, and movies and TV shows are added automatically by the suppliers.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/db96d1aa.script.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/script.png" alt="script"></center></p>
<p>The operators of TVStreamCMS told TF that their motivations for creating the tool were simple.</p>
<p>&#8220;The reason why we made this is not just to make it possible for everyone to have their own streaming site, but also to make it easy for all TV Shows and Movie webmasters, who have for some time waited and only dreamed of making an automated website,&#8221; they explained.</p>
<p>&#8220;Webmasters no longer have to manually update the episodes daily nor update the movies as they come out in theaters because TVStreamCMS has it done automatically with the use of just their server.&#8221;</p>
<p>Looking around the TVStreamCMS site the system seems fairly self explanatory. In exchange for a minimum payment of around $200, users can walk away with a script that creates a site <a href="http://xyzflix.com/">just like XYZFLIX</a>, a demo site that shows what the system can do.</p>
<p>But is it really that simple? To find out, TorrentFreak spoke to &#8216;M&#8217;, the operator of a streaming portal built with TVStreamCMS.</p>
<p>&#8220;It took me about 5-10 minutes to set up and then the best thing about the script is that it is all automatic so movies and episodes are added to the site automatically,&#8221; M explains.</p>
<p>In addition to the basic package there are also some bolt-ons available. &#8216;M&#8217; bought the &#8216;Primewire&#8217; package for $400, which enables the user to make a site that looks and operates just like Primewire, such as the example <a href="http://1quicktv.com">shown here</a>. TVStreamCMS claims it will add &#8220;50,000 movies from sources added to your site daily&#8221; and grab content from iwatchonline, SeriesGate, Project Free TV, Vodly and Primewire.</p>
<p>So are many people taking advantage of the offer? At the moment there appears to be quite a few sites being indexed by Google and as illustrated by the image below, completely unsurprisingly they look very similar indeed.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/c812381c.CMS-sites.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/CMS-sites.png" alt="CMS-sites"></center></p>
<p>With the people behind the site selling packages to clone not only Primewire but also Sidereel, the potential for confusion among users is pretty high, and no doubt some buyers will attempt to maximize on that by operating domain names similar to already popular sites.</p>
<p>If this cookie-cutter approach to site building really takes off theres the potential for dozens or even hundreds of similar looking streaming sites to appear. However, since each site will be relying on the same central sources for their support and content, they will all be vulnerable to the fortunes of others.</p>
<p>It therefore seems reasonable to presume that one day buyers could wake up and find that nothing works anymore, but for $200 they might be prepared to take the risk. After all, it won&#8217;t take long to recoup with the dozens of popups and fake download buttons many streaming sites seem to enjoy.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Emails received by TorrentFreak have reported many issues with TVStreamCMS including:</p>
<p>- The site was ripped from another project (TVSS)<br>
- The scripts don&#8217;t work correctly<br>
- That money paid for broken content was not refunded<br>
- Work carried out by others was never paid<br>
- The site template was taken from <a href="http://trakt.tv/">Trakt.tv</a></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87415
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 04/28/14
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-04-28-14
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/j56KpP5HT4s/
content:
<p><img src="media/cd11c89f.capt-america.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/capt-america.jpg" alt="capt-america" width="300" height="169" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87416">This week we have four newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the most downloaded movie this week.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><a href="http://TorrentFreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/"><strong>RSS feed</strong></a> for the weekly movie download chart.</p>
<table class="css hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="12%"><strong>Ranking</strong></th>
<th width="15%"><strong>(<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-140421/">last week</a>)</strong></th>
<th><strong>Movie</strong></th>
<th width="18%"><strong>IMDb Rating / Trailer</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">torrentfreak.com</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/captain_america_the_winter_soldier_2014/">Captain America: The Winter Soldier</a> (Cam/TS)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843866/">8.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SlILk2WMTI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/that_awkward_moment/">That Awkward Moment</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1800246/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRcVgJjnFLo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vampire_academy/">Vampire Academy</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1686821/">6.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ERrnYunBg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dcu_son_of_batman_2014/">Son of Batman</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3139072/">6.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bis7XOu0Xms">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_machine_2013/">The Machine</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2317225/">6.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIuT4HT8IMg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/her/">Her</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/">8.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/rio_2/">Rio 2</a> (HDTS)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2357291/">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkZM1Zc0mBU">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_physician_2013/">The Physician</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2101473/">7.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOj-Pn5WJkw">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ride_along_2014/">Ride Along</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408253/?">6.4</a> / <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5klp6rkHIks">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(9)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/frozen_2013/">Frozen</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/">8.1</a> / <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQm5doF_Uc">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87429
title: Danish Police “Threaten” Former Colleague of Pirate Bay Founder in Cambodia
uri: Danish-Police-Threatens-Former-Colleague-of-Pirate-Bay-Founder-i
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/3SVMWqAnLjw/
content:
<p><img src="media/2c059aef.gottfrid1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gottfrid1.jpg" width="200" height="248" class="alignright">At this very moment alleged &#8220;super hacker&#8221; Gottfrid Svartholm is being held in a Danish prison on suspicion of hacking into the computers of IT company CSC.</p>
<p>The trial is expected to begin in the early days of September, more than four months from today and close to ten months since he was extradited to Denmark from Sweden in 2013. But while one might presume that the authorities already have everything they need to prosecute Svartholm, it appears that their investigation is still very much a work in progress.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s no secret that Gottfrid&#8217;s last days of freedom were spent in Cambodia, a country that he came to call home and where he&#8217;d built a life and found work. Now, some 20 months since he left the country, the police investigation into his activities there have been revived. And, according to one of their targets, the manner in which it&#8217;s being carried out is a cause for concern.</p>
<p>John, who has asked us not to use his full real name, is a former colleague of Gottfrid who lives and works in Cambodia. TorrentFreak has confirmed his identity and the fact that he and Gottfrid did business together. On April 2 he received an unexpected telephone call about someone he hasn&#8217;t seen for years.</p>
<p><strong>Mysterious police threats</strong></p>
<p>&#8220;The person who spoke to me on the phone was threatening and aggressive. He spoke with a thick European accent and initially said he was &#8216;with Nordic police&#8217;,&#8221; John explains.</p>
<p>&#8220;At that point I didn&#8217;t think I was speaking to an actual policeman because really, &#8216;Nordic police&#8217; is about as evasive as an introduction can possibly be. After I repeatedly asked for more details, he only specified &#8216;Swedish police&#8217;. No name, no badge number.&#8221;</p>
<p>John was told he needed to go to a meeting to discuss Gottfrid but with such a mysterious introduction he was concerned at what might be waiting for him, including this not being genuine police business.</p>
<p>&#8220;I felt uncomfortable with the situation, and due to the way the call had been handled up to that point, I didn&#8217;t want to meet them. I had no idea whether I was even speaking to a real policeman,&#8221; John explains. &#8220;I asked if this meeting was voluntary, and he specifically said that they would &#8216;use local police to force&#8217; me into meeting them.&#8221;</p>
<p>John was informed that the meeting would consist of him, the mystery Swedish policeman, a local Cambodian policeman, and a Danish policeman. </p>
<p>&#8220;They allowed me to choose the location, but said it had to be the same day. I chose a very public cafe for my own safety,&#8221; he says. Due to the apparent urgency of the situation, John had no time to arrange for a lawyer to be present.</p>
<p>Once the call had ended, John contacted his embassy but was informed that there was little they could do to help. Although apprehensive he decided to attend the meeting, set for the <a href="http://www.hotelcambodiana.com.kh/dinning/lobby-bar/">lobby bar</a> in the Hotel Cambodiana.</p>
<p><strong>Meeting in the hotel</strong></p>
<p>&#8220;When I turned up to the meeting, the guy who threatened me on the phone wasn&#8217;t there, and instead there was Jens Jorgensen from the Danish police and Anders Riisager [pictured right, different occasion], who introduced himself as &#8216;Copenhagen Deputy District Attorney&#8217;,&#8221; John explains, adding that neither would reveal the identity of the person who made the earlier threats.</p>
<p><a href="media/7c96252d.ag-pic.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ag-pic.jpg"><img src="media/7c96252d.ag-pic.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ag-pic.jpg" alt="ag-pic" width="180" height="137" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87468"></a>With the meeting underway, John reports that Anders was being &#8220;nice&#8221; and apologized for the earlier telephone threats while clarifying it was neither of them. Most of their questions were &#8220;unanswerable&#8221;, as they were  &#8220;based on the type of thing that one wouldn&#8217;t remember from three years ago, such as what kind of computer Gottfrid used, etc.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>The million-dollar PC-access question</strong></p>
<p>However, police also showed an interest in who had access to Gottfrid&#8217;s computer in Cambodia. This is of particular interest because it was on this point that Gottfrid had his Swedish &#8216;Logica&#8217; conviction overturned after the Court of Appeal <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-hacking-sentence-slashed-in-half-on-appeal-130925/">couldn&#8217;t rule out</a> that someone else accessed his computer to commit crimes.</p>
<p>&#8220;I was threatened and bullied into attending this questioning, and yet they completely ignored the answers when it wasn&#8217;t what they wanted to hear. A good example is that they asked if anyone else had access to [Gottfrid's] computer. When I said yes, they didn&#8217;t even ask for a full detailed list of people, not that I&#8217;d have one though, it was years ago,&#8221; John explains.</p>
<p>&#8220;The simple fact is that there were 50+ people with direct physical access to [Gottfrid's] computer at the time that the police were asking about. They were visibly pissed off [when  I told them that], and given the threats that had already been made, it was an uncomfortable situation for me to say the least.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Why has it taken so long?</strong></p>
<p>Considering how closely John worked with Gottfrid it seems extremely unlikely that the police had no interest in him before this month, especially in respect of providing information in the crucial days leading up to and after Gottfrid&#8217;s arrest in August/September 2012. Yet this was the first time police had asked him anything.</p>
<p>&#8220;The implication that this isn&#8217;t something they had already looked into earlier on is just bizarre. This was the first time I&#8217;ve ever been questioned by police in relation to anything concerning Gottfrid,&#8221; John says.</p>
<p>&#8220;The most shocking part of the whole thing was just how ridiculous their questions were. These people are traveling around to third world countries refusing to identify themselves, making threats that border on being criminal, all so they can ask about rumors and hearsay that dates back over three years.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Desperate times?</strong></p>
<p>&#8220;You can all say what you want about Gottfrid, but the fact is, the actions of the people investigating this case are clearly the actions of desperate people who are grasping at straws. If they had any evidence, they wouldn&#8217;t need to go around behaving the way they are,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>Describing the whole episode as &#8220;shocking and outrageous&#8221;, John says that he hopes some good will come out of making his experiences public.</p>
<p>&#8220;Gottfrid isn&#8217;t someone I feel I owe anything to, but this whole investigation is clearly ridiculous and without merit. It could have been any one of a whole bunch of people [with access to Gottfrid's computer] and they know it. I don&#8217;t want to cause problems for myself, but I&#8217;d like to see Gottfrid get treated like a human being.&#8221;</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87451
title: UK Police Suspend 2,500 “Counterfeit” Domain Names
uri: UK-Police-Suspend-2-500-Counterfeit-Domain-Names
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/_6j1YW8iT8U/
content:
<p><img src="media/31176dbb.cityoflondonpolice.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cityoflondonpolice.jpg" alt="cityoflondonpolice" width="200" height="82" class="alignright size-full wp-image-71397">Over the past few months <a href="http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/Pages/default.aspx">City of London Police</a> have been working together with copyright holders to topple sites that provide pirated or counterfeit content.</p>
<p>The police started by sending <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-launch-campaign-to-shut-down-torrent-sites-130604/">warning letters</a> to site owners, asking them to go legit or shut down. Late last year this was followed by a campaign targeted at domain registrars, asking them to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-orders-registrars-to-suspend-domains-of-major-torrent-sites-131009/">suspend the domain names</a> of several &#8220;illegal&#8221; sites. </p>
<p>In celebration of World Intellectual Property Day, the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has today announced the first results of their anti-counterfeiting campaign. According to PIPCU more than 2,500 domains names have been suspended thus far. </p>
<p>The domain names are not listed, but all offered counterfeit products of major brands such as UGG boots, Abercrombie, Hollister, and Gucci.</p>
<p>“The fact PIPCU can announce on World IP Day that in the eight months since launching we have suspended more than 2,500 infringing websites is further evidence of the expertise of our officers and the level of their commitment to clamp down on IP crime,&#8221; Andy Fyfe commented on today&#8217;s news.</p>
<p>“Consumers also need to be aware that by accessing websites like this they are running the risk of their personal details being compromised and being used for other fraudulent scams, as well as the exposing their computer to malicious malware,” Fyfe adds</p>
<p>There&#8217;s little doubt that 2,500 domain names is a significant number. Interestingly however, the Police have had less success with domains names linked to &#8220;pirate&#8221; websites. When TorrentFreak asked the police about the suspension of pirate domains, we were told that this is still work in progress.</p>
<p>&#8220;With regards to digital piracy, that falls under Operation Creative which is still an ongoing investigation in its early days. Therefore at this moment in time we cannot release any figures,&#8221; a PIPCU spokeswoman said. </p>
<p>Previously PIPCU <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-orders-registrars-to-suspend-domains-of-major-torrent-sites-131009/">managed to suspend</a> the domain name of ExtraTorrent and a handful of other sites, which continued operating under a new domain. </p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="media/f5457042.FileWikimedia_Foundation_Servers-8055_23.jpg" data-original-source="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Servers-8055_23.jpg">Photo Credit</a></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87424
title: House of Cards Popular in India ‘Thanks’ to Piracy
uri: House-of-Cards-Popular-in-India-Thanks-to-Piracy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/RxVCPZtPN88/
content:
<p><img src="media/32870ed3.netflix.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/netflix.jpg" alt="netflix" width="200" height="150" class="alignright size-full wp-image-26772">Every day millions of people download TV-shows without getting permission from rightsholders. </p>
<p>While some do so because they find the legal alternatives too expensive, there&#8217;s a large group that simply has no legal options available to them. </p>
<p>The latter is the case in India, where the Netflix original series &#8220;House of Cards&#8221; can&#8217;t be seen legally since the movie streaming service hasn&#8217;t rolled out there yet. As a result, Indians can only watch the popular series on demand through unauthorized channels. </p>
<p>According to House of Card&#8217;s Kevin Spacey, the Indians are turning to these pirate sources in large numbers. During the <a href="http://www.iifa.com/">International Indian Film Academy Awards</a> in Tampa, Florida, he noted that the TV-show is suspiciously popular in India.</p>
<p>&#8220;House of Cards is really big in India, I discovered,&#8221; Spacey said at the red carpet event on Saturday.</p>
<p>The actor isn&#8217;t all too happy about this popularity, and accuses the Indians of thievery. Since Netflix&#8217; streaming services aren&#8217;t available in India yet, they literally don&#8217;t have the &#8220;right&#8221; to see it. </p>
<p>&#8220;Except isn&#8217;t it funny that Netflix doesn&#8217;t exist there yet. Which means that you&#8217;re stealing it,&#8221; Spacey added.</p>
<p>Whether Spacey is unhappy with the show&#8217;s fans in India, or the fact that they have no legal options is not entirely clear. However, the only real solution to the problem is to ensure that Indians can watch the show too, without breaking the law.</p>
<p>The problem that&#8217;s highlighted by the House of Cards actor remains one of the major challenges for the TV-studios. For decades, the industry has gotten used to delaying international premieres for month or years, something that fans no longer accept. </p>
<p>Luckily, a lot of progress has been made in recent years, with most popular U.S. TV-series premiering on the same day in dozens of countries around the world. </p>
<p>While &#8220;availability&#8221; is no silver bullet that can stop piracy altogether, it&#8217;s a crucial first step to take. </p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Perhaps Spacey was a bit too quick with his &#8220;stealing&#8221; allegations. House of Cards is available on Zee Cafe in India, although not on demand. This means that there is a legal option for those who have access to the channel via cable or satellite.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87593
title: Accused of Movie Piracy, Senior Citizen Kicked Out of Theater
uri: Accused-of-Movie-Piracy-Senior-Citizen-Kicked-Out-of-Theater
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/8LYaKcjIhHg/
content:
<p><img src="media/bfbc3855.cammer1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cammer1.jpg" width="210" height="122" class="alignright">While recording a movie strictly for personal use is entirely legal in UK cinemas, the same definitely cannot be said about the United States. Recording or &#8216;camming&#8217; a movie in the U.S. can result in jail-time, particularly if the activity is connected to subsequent bootlegging or illegal online distribution.</p>
<p>This strict approach is the result of intense Hollywood lobbying during the last decade, and there can be few cinema-goers today who haven&#8217;t been touched by the results. Bag searches and night-vision goggles are now used to deter &#8216;cammers&#8217;, coupled with industry-funded rewards programs aimed at vigilant theater workers.</p>
<p>This climate of fear hasn&#8217;t stopped cammed copies of movies turning up online, but it has sucked in a few innocent victims over the years. If a new report from Utah is to be believed, another one can now be added to the list.</p>
<p>According to Provo resident Enos Ledezma, his elderly parents go to the movies several times a week. They find it both entertaining and practical, since it allows them to brush up on their English.</p>
<p>However, this past weekend things weren&#8217;t so enjoyable when Ledezma&#8217;s mother stood accused of illegally camming a movie in a Cinemark theater.</p>
<p>Ledezma says that part-way through the movie his father had to leave, but before doing so handed his wife a &#8220;brick, slider-type&#8221; cellphone. She apparently put the device in her pocket, but shortly after was confronted by not only a Cinemark employee, but also two police officers.</p>
<p>The trio reportedly informed the woman she had been seen recording the movie and would therefore have to leave, but due to her poor grasp of English the woman didn&#8217;t fully understand what was going on. Attempting to hand over her phone for inspection didn&#8217;t ease the situation either.</p>
<p>The woman was eventually ejected from the theater and not allowed to watch the remainder of the film, even after the false allegations were withdrawn.</p>
<p>Ledezma <a href="http://www.ksl.com/?sid=29676333">told</a> KSL that it&#8217;s possible that another cinema-goer saw the theater-provided closed-captioning device next to his mother and presumed it was a bootlegging tool, but that was still no excuse for mistreating a regular customer.</p>
<p>While it seems unlikely that the woman broke the law (the police officers would have seen any footage by accessing her cellphone), it occurred to us that she may have broken Cinemark&#8217;s policy on using cellphones in the theater.</p>
<p>However, this somewhat amusing footage, filmed in a Cinemark theater by someone using a Nintendo DS, seems to clear up that cellphones are allowed, as long as they&#8217;re silent.</p>
<p><center><iframe width="600" height="338" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ole-cpFwNsQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center></p>
<p>And here&#8217;s the thing. If anything, the footage from the DS in the clip above is likely to be better than that obtained from what appears to be an old cellphone. This kind of end result is definitely not a threat to the movie industry, even if the woman had been recording, which it appears she was not.</p>
<p>Interestingly and this case aside, Cinemark actually approaches the cellphone-in-theater problem in an innovative way. If visitors have a smartphone with the Cinemark app installed, switching over to CineMode darkens the screen for the duration of the movie. If that state is maintained right to the end, users can pick up rewards, such as a free drink.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/f3df1bc3.cinemode.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cinemode.jpg" alt="Cinemode"></center></p>
<p>But even in the event Ledezma&#8217;s mother upgrades to an iPhone, it&#8217;s unlikely she&#8217;ll be taking advantage of the offer.</p>
<p>“At the moment, I have no intention of going back to that Cinemark. I’d rather drive 45 minutes to the Megaplex,&#8221; Ledezma concludes.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87571
title: Kim Dotcom Faces Appeal in Seized Property Battle
uri: Kim-Dotcom-Faces-Appeal-in-Seized-Property-Battle
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/dequrdCwuR8/
content:
<p><a href="media/57d13949.dotcom-laptop.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/dotcom-laptop.jpg"><img src="media/5b2669f1.dotcom-laptop.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dotcom-laptop.jpg" alt="dotcom-laptop" width="233" height="170" class="alignright size-full wp-image-76556"></a>While today Kim Dotcom appears to be doing well financially, a little over two years ago the flamboyant businessman was enjoying an even more lavish lifestyle. In January 2012, however, the bulk of his millions in cash and assets were seized following a raid on his New Zealand mansion.</p>
<p>Two days before the raid on Dotcom’s home, foreign restraining orders were granted to enable the seizure of the entrepreneur’s assets. Those orders ran out earlier this month and fortunately for Dotcom an attempt by the Crown to have them extended was <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/high-court-kim-dotcom-can-have-his-cars-millions-in-cash-returned-140416/">rejected</a> by the High Court.</p>
<p>Within minutes Dotcom took to Twitter to celebrate the upcoming return of his property but now, just two weeks later and on the final day the Crown could launch an appeal, the Megaupload founder is being met with renewed resistance.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/9cad3a27.dotcomtt.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dotcomtt.jpg" alt="dotcomtweet"></center></p>
<p>This fresh appeal by the Crown will almost certainly delay if not considerably hamper the return of Dotcom&#8217;s property. It also means that the fledgling politician&#8217;s supporters will have to wait for the return of his performance and classic car collection before he can <a href="https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/456325148811862016">make good on a promise</a> to hire a local racetrack.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87507
title: Pirate Sites Are Rife With Malware and Scams, Report Claims
uri: Pirate-Sites-Are-Rife-With-Malware-and-Scams-Report-Claims
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/BaO0J42O12E/
content:
<p><img src="media/5f33ed04.scam1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/scam1.jpg" alt="scam" width="225" height="152" class="alignright size-full wp-image-76894">Most seasoned visitors of torrent sites and streaming portals know that many of the &#8220;download&#8221; and &#8220;play&#8221; buttons present are non-functional, at least in the regular sense. </p>
<p>In fact, many of these buttons link to advertisements of some sort, ranging from relatively harmless download managers to dubious services that ask for one&#8217;s credit card details. </p>
<p>A new report backed by the UK entertainment industry has looked into the prevalence of these threats. The study, carried out by the anti-piracy analysts of <a href="http://www.intelligentcontentprotection.com/">Intelligent Content Protection</a> (Incopro), found that only 1 of the 30 most-visited pirate sites didn&#8217;t link to unwanted software or credit card scams. </p>
<p>According to a press release released this morning, the research found that of the 30 top pirate sites, &#8220;90% contained malware and other &#8216;Potentially Unwanted Programmes&#8217; designed to deceive or defraud unwitting viewers.&#8221;</p>
<p>The &#8220;Potentially Unwanted Programmes&#8221; category is rather broad, and includes popups and ads that link to download managers. In addition, the report links one-third of the sites to credit card fraud. </p>
<p>&#8220;The rogue sites are also rife with credit card scams, with over two-thirds (67%) of the 30 sites containing credit card fraud,&#8221; the press release states. </p>
<p>While it&#8217;s true that many pirate sites link to malware and other dubious products, the sites themselves don&#8217;t host any of the material. For example, none of the top pirate sites TorrentFreak tested were flagged by <a href="http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=thepiratebay.se">Google&#8217;s Safebrowsing tool</a>. </p>
<p>This nuance is left out of the official announcement, but the executive summary of the report does make this distinction. </p>
<p>&#8220;We did not encounter the automatic injection of any malicious program on the sites that we scanned. In all instances, the user must be tricked into opening a downloaded executable file or in the case of credit card fraud, the user needs to actively enter credit card details,&#8221; Incopro writes.</p>
<p><a href="media/fb68c0e2.downloadnow.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/downloadnow.png"><img src="media/fb68c0e2.downloadnow.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/downloadnow.png" alt="downloadnow" width="306" height="454" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87520"></a></p>
<p>Most of the malware and &#8220;potentially&#8221; unwanted software ends up on users&#8217; computers after they click on the wrong &#8220;download&#8221; button and then install the presented software. In many cases these are installers that may contain relatively harmless adware. However, the researchers also found links to rootkits and ransomware.</p>
<p>The allegation of &#8220;credit card fraud&#8221; also requires some clarification. Incopro told TorrentFreak that most of these cases involve links to services where users have to pay for access. </p>
<p>&#8220;There were 17 separate credit card schemes that were detected through our scanning, with many appearing to be similar or possibly related. Five of the sites had instances of two credit card fraud/scam sites, with the remaining 15 containing one credit card fraud/scam site,&#8221; Incopro told us. </p>
<p>&#8220;An example is someone visits one of the pirate sites and clicks a &#8216;Download&#8217; or &#8216;Play now&#8217; button, which is actually an advert appearing on the page, which then asks for payment details to access the content.&#8221;  </p>
<p>This is characterized as &#8220;fraud&#8221; because these &#8220;premium&#8221; streaming or download services can result in recurring credit card charges of up to $50 per month, without an option to cancel. </p>
<p>The report, which isn&#8217;t available to the public, was commissioned by the UK film service FindAnyFilm and backed by several industry groups. Commenting on the findings, FACT&#8217;s Kieron Sharp noted that those who fall for these scams are inadvertently funding organized crime.  </p>
<p>&#8220;Not only are you putting your personal security at risk, by using pirate websites you could be helping fund the organised criminal gangs who run these sites as a front for other cyber scams,&#8221; Sharp says.</p>
<p>It is clear that the research is used for scaremongering. Regular users of these sites know all too well what buttons not to click, so they are not affected by any of the threats. </p>
<p>However, there&#8217;s no denying that some pirate sites deliberately place these &#8220;ads&#8221; to confuse novice and unsuspecting visitors. Those visitors may indeed end up with adware, malware or run into scam services.  </p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t in any way a new phenomenon though, it has been going on for more than a decade already. Ironically, the same anti-piracy groups who now warn of these threats are making them worse by cutting pirate sites off from legitimate advertisers.  </p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/huskyte/7512877940/">Michael Theis</a></em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87394
title: Accused Movie Pirate Wins Extortion Case Against Copyright Trolls
uri: Accused-Movie-Pirate-Wins-Extortion-Case-Against-Copyright-Trolls
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/LPMshavtlbQ/
content:
<p><img src="media/c3b78589.far-cry.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/far-cry.jpg" alt="far-cry" width="190" height="210" class="alignright size-full wp-image-28936">Early 2010 the law firm <a href="http://www.dunlapweaver.com/">Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver</a> brought mass-piracy lawsuits to the United States. The law firm teamed up with several film studios and sued tens of thousands of alleged BitTorrent users. </p>
<p>A few months after the first cases were started the tables were turned. One of the alleged pirates sued the lawyers for <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-lawyers-sued-for-fraud-abuse-and-extortion-101129/">fraud, abuse and extortion</a>, due to their role in the &#8220;copyright troll&#8221; scheme. </p>
<p>Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver were named in a class-action lawsuit together with movie studio Achte/Neunte and the German tracking company GuardaLey, who together went after thousands of people who allegedly downloaded and shared the movie ‘Far Cry’ using BitTorrent.</p>
<p>Through the lawsuit, spearheaded by Dmitriy Shirokov, the troll victims were seeking relief based on 25 counts including extortion, fraudulent omissions, mail fraud, wire fraud, computer fraud and abuse, racketeering, fraud upon the court, fraud on the Copyright Office, copyright misuse and unjust enrichment.</p>
<p>Among other things, the &#8220;copyright trolls&#8221; were accused of building their case on shoddy evidence and a false copyright registration. </p>
<p>Last year the Massachusetts District Court denied the class action, which meant the case continued with Shirokov as the only plaintiff. This severely limited the scope of the verdict. However, after more than three years Shirokov did win his case. </p>
<p>During the proceedings, where the law firm remained as the only defendant, it became clear that Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver could not present critical pieces of evidence. The company claimed that the requested documents were lost in a computer crash. </p>
<p>As a result, the law firm had no other option than to concede defeat, which it did through an offer of judgement. In a recent ruling Judge George O&#8217;Toole <a href="media/8c77069a.gov.uscourts.mad.132951.140.0.pdf" data-original-source="http://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.mad.132951/gov.uscourts.mad.132951.140.0.pdf">ordered</a> Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver to pay $39,909.95, which <a href="http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2014/04/24/copyright-troll-victim-prevails-in-the-first-action-against-trolls/">includes attorney fees</a>. </p>
<p>TorrentFreak spoke with Jason Sweet, whose firm <a href="http://boothsweet.com/attorney-profiles/">Booth Sweet</a> represented Shirokov. Sweet notes that the outcome is a &#8220;bittersweet victory,&#8221; as the class action status was denied earlier. Also, the awarded fees are a far cry from those requested. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Shrirokov and his legal team are happy with the outcome. Their main goal was to make it harder for copyright trolls to operate in Massachusetts, and they believe that was achieved. </p>
<p>&#8220;The case did accomplish what we wanted it to. That is, to deter others from starting similar cases in Massachusetts. It served its purpose,&#8221; Sweet tells TF. While the case does not mark the end of copyright trolling schemes in the United States, it won&#8217;t make them any easier either. </p>
<p>As for Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, they will now have to pay their dues. The law firm has left the copyright trolling trade already, and the recent verdict makes it unlikely that they will ever return. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87524
title: VKontakte Signs Memo to Combat Movie Piracy
uri: VKontakte-Signs-Memo-to-Combat-Movie-Piracy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/H5xulsRjOD4/
content:
<p><a href="media/3e3f1f7f.vk.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/vk.jpg"><img src="media/2dca634d.vk.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vk.jpg" alt="vk" width="180" height="180" class="alignright size-full wp-image-72276"></a>VKontakte (VK) has long been criticized for its approach to piracy. The site is awash with unauthorized content including movies and music, all uploaded by the social network&#8217;s millions of users.</p>
<p>As a result the United States Trade Representative labels VK a &#8220;notorious market&#8221;, a particularly unhelpful label for an operation with big ambitions.</p>
<p>But now, in a move designed to allow the company to move forward, VK has reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding with Roskomnadzor, Russia&#8217;s telecoms watchdog.</p>
<p>The memorandum, which represents a consensus of how Internet companies should deal with pirated movies and offer legal alternatives, has already been signed by representatives of 36 Internet sites. Until now, however, VK has refused to sign.</p>
<p>According to the document, reported by <a href="http://izvestia.ru/">Izvestia</a>, VK has agreed to block infringing content &#8220;within a reasonable time&#8221; and look towards the introduction of fingerprinting technology. This will enable the site to effectively deal with the reappearance of content already taken down by rightsholders.</p>
<p>A source in Roskomnadzor said that VK will sign up before the start of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on May 22.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87496
title: Police Raid “Miniature Pirate Bay” Run on Home Connection
uri: Police-Raid-Miniature-Pirate-Bay-Run-on-Home-Connection
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Qms_fpeEqRQ/
content:
<p><a href="media/d3342a61.dreamfilm.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dreamfilm.jpg"><img src="media/d3342a61.dreamfilm.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dreamfilm.jpg" alt="dreamfilm" width="200" height="150" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87511"></a>The raids against Kim Dotcom&#8217;s Megaupload back in 2012 were an extravagant affair, with dozens of armed police swooping on his New Zealand mansion. In 2006, Swedish police turned up en masse in their failed attempt to shut down The Pirate Bay but there are now signs that even the smallest of sites are attracting big responses from the authorities.</p>
<p>Dreamfilm.nu is a tiny site by any standards. This torrent-focused project, not to to be confused with Dreamfilm.se, one of the country&#8217;s largest streaming sites, is today ranked by Alexa as the 2,794,493rd most popular domain in the world. The Pirate Bay this is definitely not.</p>
<p>Dreamfilm&#8217;s size is further underlined by the fact it was being run not from a dedicated webhost, but from a home Internet connection in Sweden. Nevertheless, this relative minnow with just over 900 Facebook likes managed to attract the attention of some of the world&#8217;s biggest entertainment companies.</p>
<p>Last Thursday at 7:00am, a total of <a href="http://www.nyhetsdatabasen.se/artikel/3033116/-jag-driver-en-sokmotor-.htm">eight Swedish police officers</a> raided the home of the Dreamfilm admin, who calls himself &#8220;Napster&#8221;.</p>
<p>&#8220;When I asked to see the search warrant I was told in response: &#8216;This is not a Hollywood movie&#8217;,&#8221; Napster explained.</p>
<p>Police did not have endless server racks to seize. Dreamfilm.nu was being run on a home computer and once that was taken away, the site came to an end.</p>
<p>&#8220;The computer is currently seized and therefore Dreamfilm is down,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>The complaint against the site was initiated by Rights Alliance, the anti-piracy group previously known as Antipiratbyran. The organization told police that the site was offering torrents to 25 movies, three of which were pre-release.</p>
<p>&#8220;The site is the Pirate Bay in miniature,&#8221; Rights Alliance lawyer Sara Lindebäck <a href="http://nyheter24.se/nyheter/internet/767541-rattighetsalliansen-darfor-slog-vi-till-mot-dreamfilmnu">told</a> Nyheter24.</p>
<p>Prosecutor Henrik Rasmusson said that the man who was raided confessed to being the Dreamfilm admin, but maintained that his site was completely legal.</p>
<p>&#8220;The suspect has admitted that he has been running this site, but says that he has not done anything punishable, Rasmusson said.</p>
<p>In response, the 23-year-old clarified his position, maintaining that no illegal content had ever touched his server. It didn&#8217;t even store torrent files, only linked to them.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hopeless for the police to take a search engine so seriously, confiscate my stuff, and put me in detention for around eight hours. They can stare at the server until their eyes start to bleed, dreamfilm.nu has never committed a crime and therefore there is nothing to download,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Dreamfilm.nu is a SEARCH ENGINE like Google . Google gets its information automatically using bots / spiders while Dreamfilm.nu must retrieve information manually and store it in a database.&#8221;</p>
<p>While Napster&#8217;s fate will be revealed in due course, other longer-standing Swedish cases have been progressing to their closing stages in recent weeks.</p>
<p>Last week the suspected operator of Tankaner.com was prosecuted for copyright infringement related to the illegal distribution of 32 movies in 2012 and 2013. Prosecutor Fredrik Inglad <a href="http://www.metro.se/nyheter/riskerar-fangelse-for-fildelning/">added</a> that since there were ads on the site, he would be pushing for a prison sentence.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, four men were prosecuted for copyright infringement related to the unlawful distribution of 28 Hollywood and local movies in 2009 and 2010. The men, all in their forties, are suspected of being the operators of the warez-scene servers known as &#8216;<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/three-arrested-in-connection-with-darkside-file-sharing-server-100619/">Darkside</a>&#8216;. The men admit to having downloaded movies but deny distribution.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87612
title: Pirate Bay Uploader Hit With $32m Lawsuit
uri: Pirate-Bay-Uploader-Hit-With-32m-Lawsuit
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/kzVLvZ5-j-0/
content:
<p><a href="media/5562a043.ufc.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/ufc.jpg"><img src="media/c7b122d2.ufc.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ufc.jpg" alt="ufc" width="200" height="146" class="alignright size-full wp-image-25323"></a>For quite some time a releaser known as Secludedly was one of the most reliable sources of UFC events on file-sharing sites around the world. But after a strong run, a release in January would prove to be his last.</p>
<p>After <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirates-debut-super-smooth-video-torrents-130428/">interviewing Secludedly</a> in April 2013 and subsequently hearing he was in considerable trouble, earlier this year TorrentFreak tried to reach the ripper/uploader through previously-established channels. All attempts failed and now it&#8217;s clear why.</p>
<p>UFC parent company Zuffa have caught up with Secludedly in a very big way indeed. In a lawsuit filed at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Secludedly is revealed as Steven A. Messina, a 27-year-old from Staten Island, New York.</p>
<p>The lawsuit, which includes two other doe defendants and an unknown company Zuffa refers to as XYZ Corp (&#8220;a business entity, the exact nature of  which is  unknown&#8221;), centers around the unlawful recording (&#8220;capping&#8221;), uploading and distribution of more than 120 UFC events via two of the world&#8217;s biggest torrent sites.</p>
<p>&#8220;Defendants  have,  on  over  124  occasions,  used the torrent websites known as http://kickass.to and http://thepiratebay.se to upload, distribute and publicly display the Broadcasts to the users of said websites,&#8221; the lawsuit reads.</p>
<p>Also receiving a prominent mention from Zuffa is the fact that Secludedly allowed people to donate via a PayPal in order to help with the financing of future ripping and uploading activities.</p>
<p>Secludedly, who TF understood to be just one person, is repeatedly referred to as a group in the lawsuit, such as when it&#8217;s claimed that &#8220;their&#8221; aim was to become &#8220;the most well-known pirates and infringers on the internet&#8221; who were &#8220;content to profit handsomely from user payments and donations to fund their rampant piracy and copyright infringement.&#8221; </p>
<p><center><strong>Secludedly&#8217;s profile at Kickass.to</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/402693de.secludedly.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/secludedly.png"><img src="media/402693de.secludedly.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/secludedly.png" alt="secludedly" width="832" height="495" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87635"></a></center></p>
<p>While it&#8217;s no surprise that Zuffa is claiming statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the alleged 124 infringements (a cool $18.6m), the MMA organization is definitely not stopping there. In a second count, Zuffa goes on to claim that Secludedly violated the Federal Communications Act.</p>
<p>&#8220;Defendants,  wishing  to  use  Plaintiff’s  Broadcasts  for  their  own commercial  gain, surreptitiously   gained  access  to  Plaintiff’s  Broadcasts  by  purchasing  the  programming  through  their satellite TV provider, without proper authorization, at residential rates, and subsequently copying the  Broadcasts and uploading  them  to  the  users  of  the  websites  known  as  http://kickass.to  and http://thepiratebay.se,&#8221; the lawsuit reads.</p>
<p>For these &#8220;willful violations&#8221;, Zuffa is claiming up to the maximum of $110,000 for each of the alleged 124 offenses, potentially another $13.64m in damages. In a third count, Zuffa seeks up to $60,000 after Secludedly &#8220;willfully and unlawfully accessed, received and subsequently re-transmitted the Broadcasts over a cableTV or internet system.&#8221;</p>
<p>Not content with the millions already on offer, Zuffa throw in an additional claim for breach of contact after Secludedly legally purchased PPV events but went on to step over the terms and conditions.</p>
<p>&#8220;Upon information and belief, Defendants purchased the Broadcasts through Plaintiff’s<br>
authorized websites or via Pay-Per-View purchase for private, residential viewing&#8230;[but then]&#8230;willfully and unlawfully copied, uploaded and distributed the Broadcasts..&#8221;</p>
<p>Zuffa further alleges a &#8220;civil conspiracy&#8221; in which &#8220;members&#8221; of Secludedly supposedly worked together to infringe the company&#8217;s rights and went on to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.</p>
<p>&#8220;[Defendants],  without  authorization  or  by  exceeding  such authorization  as  was  granted,  accessed  a  protected  computer  containing  Plaintiff’s  live  internet streams of the  Broadcasts knowingly   and  with intent  to  defraud, and unlawfully  copied, distributed and publicly displayed said Broadcasts,&#8221; the lawsuit reads.</p>
<p>It seems that Zuffa has left no stone unturned in its attempts to make life as difficult as possible for Secludedly. The company is seeking statutory damages of $18.6m for copyright infringement, up to $13.64m plus $60,000 for breaches of the Federal Communications Act, plus sundry damages on the remaining counts.</p>
<p>That all adds up to at least $32.2m and it could get much worse, but there&#8217;s not a chance in the world that Zuffa will see that kind of money from a 27-year-old reportedly living with parents. The company will settle for big anti-piracy headlines instead, in the hope of deterring others.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87640
title: Dotcom Thanks RIAA and MPAA for Mega’s Massive Growth
uri: Dotcom-Thanks-RIAA-and-MPAA-for-Mega-s-Massive-Growth
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Aa8eYcViLp4/
content:
<p><a href="media/859efa71.mega4.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mega4.png"><img src="media/859efa71.mega4.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mega4.png" alt="mega" width="240" height="85" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87644"></a>Acting on a lead from the entertainment industry, the U.S. Government <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-shut-down-120119/">shut down Megaupload</a> early 2012. </p>
<p>Exactly a year later Kim Dotcom made a comeback with a new file-storage venture. Together with several old colleagues and new investors, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/dotcoms-mega-launches-to-unprecedented-demand-130120/">Mega was launched</a>. The new service, which has a heavy focus on privacy and security, has expanded ever since. </p>
<p>This morning Dotcom <a href="https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/461772198319890433">posted an image</a> showing how user uploads have increased more than 300% over the past six months. The graph doesn&#8217;t specify the scale, but the New Zealand-based entrepreneur told TF that the service now processes over half a billion uploads per month. </p>
<p>That&#8217;s more than 10,000 files per minute&#8230;.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are experiencing massive growth. We can&#8217;t add new servers and bandwidth fast enough,&#8221; Dotcom tells us. </p>
<p>According to Mega&#8217;s founder there are several factors that have contributed to the increasing interest in the service. <a href="media/2a92392e.monthly-uploads.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/monthly-uploads.png"><img src="media/dd932833.monthly-uploads.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/monthly-uploads.png" alt="monthly-uploads" width="199" height="282" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-87641"></a>Ironically, Dotcom believes that the same people who destroyed Megaupload are now partly responsible for the success of Mega. </p>
<p>&#8220;There are several growth factors. People spend more time at the computer due to the cold weather, the lawsuits by MPAA and RIAA which advertised Mega, and the ongoing advertising from the dumbest ever U.S. Department of Justice case,&#8221; Dotcom says. </p>
<p>&#8220;Some users get pleasure from the fact that the US government and Hollywood hate Mega&#8217;s success and that I continue to expose them. The more people use Mega the more powerful our defense becomes. So, why wouldn&#8217;t Mega grow like crazy?&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>The continuing debate about the NSA&#8217;s mass-surveillance is also likely to have helped Mega. Unlike other popular cloud hosting services, Mega encrypts all stored files so they can&#8217;t be snooped on. Similarly, the fact that former U.S. Secretary of State <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26987980">Condoleezza Rice joined Dropbox</a> may have also had an impact according to Dotcom.</p>
<p>During the months to come Mega will work on their <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mega-eyes-stock-market-as-secret-dotcom-extradition-hearing-gets-underway-130305/">recently announced backdoor stock market listing</a>, which the company hopes to complete next year. In addition, the cloud hosting service will roll out many new features, all focused on counter surveillance.  </p>
<p>&#8220;The people of the Internet love us. And we haven&#8217;t even launched our encrypted communication suite yet. That&#8217;s like a point-to-point encrypted Skype on steroids, running in your browser,&#8221; Dotcom tells us, teasing Mega&#8217;s upcoming tools. </p>
<p>With the ongoing legal battle against the U.S. Government and civil cases against the MPAA and RIAA, Mega is guaranteed a regular place in the spotlight. In any case, we certainly haven&#8217;t heard the last of Dotcom and his team yet. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87679
title: Tarantino is Back, Now Claiming Gawker is an Illegal Downloader
uri: Tarantino-is-Back-Now-Claiming-Gawker-is-an-Illegal-Downloader
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/_Pl_N7gNQnk/
content:
<p><img src="media/9f219c2f.tarantino2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tarantino2.jpg" width="275" height="164" class="alignright">Earlier this month, news publication Gawker and Quentin Tarantino traded early blows in their dispute over the the leak of a screenplay to Tarantino&#8217;s potential upcoming movie The Hateful Eight.</p>
<p>The background is relatively straightforward. Someone leaked the script &#8220;within Hollywood circles&#8221; without Tarantino&#8217;s permission, Gawker asked its readers for a link to a copy and was told where to find it on a file-hosting site. The publication grabbed a copy itself to ensure it was the real deal, and then wrote an article titled “Here is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script” which contained links to the infringing file.</p>
<p>Tarantino&#8217;s legal team asked Gawker to take down the links so that others wouldn&#8217;t be tempted to download the script, Gawker refused, and an enraged Tarantino launched legal action. Last week, however, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/viewing-pirated-material-is-not-direct-copyright-infringement-judge-tells-tarantino-140423/">kicked out</a> Tarantino&#8217;s lawsuit which alleged contributory infringement against Gawker after the director failed to allege a supporting and necessary claim for direct infringement.</p>
<p>Now Tarantino is back with an amended complaint that supplements allegations of contributory infringement by going straight after Gawker as a direct infringer, claiming that the publication made use of Tarantino&#8217;s script after illegally downloading it from a file-hosting site.</p>
<p>&#8220;Gawker&#8230;utilized the unauthorized infringing PDF copy of the Screenplay to disseminate portions of and/or content from the unpublished work. Accordingly, Gawker is liable to Tarantino for direct copyright infringement,&#8221; it reads.</p>
<p>The complaint also reiterates claims that having heard of the initial leak (apparently at this point restricted to Hollywood insiders), Gawker called out to its &#8220;47 million monthly United States readers&#8221; in an attempt to find someone willing &#8220;to infringe Tarantino’s copyright&#8221; by &#8220;asking and inducing anyone to leak and provide Gawker with an unauthorized infringing copy of the Screenplay.&#8221;</p>
<p>Tarantino&#8217;s legal team adds that &#8220;Gawker&#8217;s solicitation and direct inducement for copyright infringement worked, as, by the next day, Gawker itself obtained a PDF of the Screenplay&#8221; which had been stored on the Anonfiles.com site. The new claims of direct infringement in this amended complaint rest on the moment Gawker accessed this file and confirmed its authenticity.</p>
<p>&#8220;Gawker itself illegally downloaded to its computers an unauthorized infringing PDF copy of the Screenplay &#8212; read it and learned that the PDF download document was 146 pages &#8212; directly infringing Tarantino’s copyright,&#8221; the complaint reads.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Tarantino&#8217;s legal team also suggest that the while the script had been stored &#8220;privately&#8221; on Anonfiles by another direct infringer, Gawker went on to make up a story claiming that the file had already been made public.</p>
<p>Gawker &#8220;&#8230;fabricated a &#8216;story&#8217; that the script had been made publicly available online so that Gawker could then trumpet to the world and begin promoting itself as the very first source for the public to be able to obtain the entire Screenplay,&#8221; the complaint reads.</p>
<p>As a direct result of Gawker&#8217;s actions several other people illegally downloaded the script, Tarantino&#8217;s legal team claim, adding that even after the file had been removed from Anonfiles after a DMCA complaint (rendering the link in the Gawker article useless), the publication re-published links to the same script that had been uploaded elsewhere.</p>
<p>In their prayer for relief Tarantino&#8217;s legal team seek damages in excess of $1m plus statutory damages, plus an injunction against Gawker forbidding the unauthorized use of the leaked script.</p>
<p>Gawker is yet to comment on the amended complaint.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87555
title: HBO Demands Takedown of “Pirated” Game of Thrones Trailers
uri: HBO-Demands-Takedown-of-Pirated-Game-of-Thrones-Trailers
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/jjd9Y-qsMVs/
content:
<p><img src="media/0f671074.thrones.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/thrones.jpg" alt="thrones" width="248" height="131" class="alignright size-full wp-image-51268">Game of Thrones is without a doubt the most pirated TV-show on the Internet. </p>
<p>The popular series entered its fourth season early April and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/game-of-thrones-sets-new-torrent-swarm-record-140415/">broke the record</a> of most people sharing a pirated copy simultaneously. While several people connected to Game of Thrones have noted that piracy might actually <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/game-of-thrones-piracy-better-than-an-emmy-time-warner-ceo-says-130808/">benefit the show</a>, HBO executives are clamping down on widespread piracy nonetheless. </p>
<p>Over the past few weeks the TV-network has sent dozens of takedown requests to Google, listing thousands of allegedly pirated copies of their work. Many of these are links to torrent sites and streaming portals where recent episodes can be downloaded for free. </p>
<p>With these takedown requests HBO hopes to make it harder for people to find unauthorized copies. However, a careful inspection of the notices by TorrentFreak reveals that promotional material such as trailers are also being censored. </p>
<p>Unfortunately for HBO, Google happily processed these requests and removed the &#8220;infringing&#8221; trailers from their search results. As can be seen below, a search for &#8220;Game of Thrones trailer torrent&#8221; includes a notice that several results have been removed on copyright grounds.</p>
<p><center><strong>GoT trailer torrent search results</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/c8ac8f65.gottrailertorrent.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gottrailertorrent.png"><img src="media/c8ac8f65.gottrailertorrent.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gottrailertorrent.png" alt="gottrailertorrent" width="595" height="581" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87557"></a></center></p>
<p>Looking at the individual notices, it becomes clear that these are indeed links to promotional trailers which should be freely available to the public. The <a href="http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=1633600">DMCA notice</a> pictured in the screenshot below lists several of these URLs, but it&#8217;s just the <a href="http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=1641842">tip</a> <a href="http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=1648367">of the</a> <a href="http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=1641842">iceberg</a>. </p>
<p><center><strong>GoT trailer takedowns</strong><br></br></center><center><img src="media/d74e4243.gotdmca.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gotdmca.png" alt="gotdmca" width="601" height="98" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87556"></center></p>
<p>The current crackdown on Game of Thrones runs counter to comments from director David Petrarca who said that piracy generates much-needed “<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-doesnt-hurt-game-of-thrones-director-says-130227/">cultural buzz</a>.” These dubious takedowns may create a buzz as well, but probably not the kind HBO is hoping for. </p>
<p>As for the trailer takedowns, we expect that these have been taken down in error. That wouldn&#8217;t be HBO&#8217;s first mistake either, as the company previously tried to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-wants-google-to-censor-hbo-com-130203/">censor their own website HBO.com</a> because it apparently contained infringing content. </p>
<p>Perhaps their automated takedown tools need some further adjustments?</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87546
title: Pirate Bay Blockade Dismissed By Icelandic Supreme Court
uri: Pirate-Bay-Blockade-Dismissed-By-Icelandic-Supreme-Court
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/zynOhIZ22Hw/
content:
<p><img src="media/4e243e8b.tpb-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-logo.jpg" width="222" height="198" class="alignright">Following in the footsteps of copyright groups around Europe, last year representatives of the music and movie industry in Iceland decided to take action against The Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>Several copyright groups, including the local RIAA equivalent &#8216;STEF&#8217; and MPAA equivalent &#8216;SMAIS&#8217;, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/copyright-groups-demand-pirate-bay-blockade-in-iceland-131007/">filed a complaint</a> with the police last October. Their aim was to obtain an injunction compelling local Internet service providers to block not only TPB, but also the largest Iceland-focused private BitTorrent tracker, Deildu.net.</p>
<p>“Blocking access to websites that offer a wide range of entertainment without permission of the copyright holders has been proven effective in neighboring countries, and has a strong foundation in EU legislation,” the groups said.</p>
<p>The request for an injunction, filed by four entertainment industry groups against five local ISPs including Vodafone, was initially rejected by a Reykjavík magistrate. As a result the case ended up in the District Court of Reykjavik in March but was dismissed when the Court decided that only music group STEF had the rights to claim injunctive relief.</p>
<p>The case was appealed to the Supreme Court which handed down its decision this week. Affirming the decision of the District Court, the Supreme Court highlighted problems in two key areas.</p>
<p>Firstly, it appears that once the district magistrate rejected the original blocking request, the matter should have been referred to the District Court within a week. It took the entertainment groups <a href="http://www.ruv.is/frett/ekkert-logbann-a-deildu-og-pirate-bay">twelve days</a>, well outside the requirements prescribed by law.</p>
<p>Furthermore, while the complaint was filed in the names of four organizations, only one was recognized by the Supreme Court as having the right to bring this kind of complaint. While it was agreed that music group STEF has lawful standing to fight in court, the others had only local distribution rights.</p>
<p>&#8220;The fact remains that STEF can make these injunction requests. But not all of these groups together,&#8221; lawyer Tómas Jónsson <a href="http://www.visir.is/stef-getur-gert-logbannskrofur-a-fjarskiptafyrirtaeki/article/2014140429006">told</a> local media. </p>
<p>After the Supreme Court&#8217;s rejection the case can now return to the District Court where it&#8217;s likely that STEF will continue the process alone. If it succeeds the net result will be no different than if all parties had obtained an injunction.</p>
<p>Whether the Court will subsequently grant a blockade of The Pirate Bay remains to be seen though, as this type of injunction is yet to be tested under Icelandic copyright law.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87661
title: Accused Pirate Slams BitTorrent Tracking Outfit in Court
uri: Accused-Pirate-Slams-BitTorrent-Tracking-Outfit-in-Court
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/JLvkVpt4dhQ/
content:
<p><a href="media/15b9faae.elf-man.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/elf-man.jpg"><img src="media/137ce7ec.elf-man.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/elf-man.jpg" alt="elf-man" width="225" height="157" class="alignright size-full wp-image-66771"></a>Mass-piracy lawsuits have been dragging on for years in the US, involving hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders.</p>
<p>All of these cases are initiated with an IP address as the main piece of evidence. This address is usually collected by a file-sharing monitoring company using software to connect to the BitTorrent swarm where the infringing files are shared. </p>
<p>A common problem with this evidence is that it generally can’t identify a movie pirate. In fact, some evidence gathering techniques are so sloppy that it&#8217;s not even possible to confirm whether the ISP account connected to the IP-address was actively sharing the pirated file in question.</p>
<p>This issue has also been brought to the attention of the court in the ongoing case between the &#8220;Elf-Man&#8221; movie studio and Ryan Lamberson. The counsel of Lamberson has been trying to get more information on how the &#8220;investigators&#8221; gathered their evidence, but thus far without result. </p>
<p>This week the attorney submitted a <a href="http://pdf.yt/d/vupVLj2MoUFjijZc">motion to compel</a>, hoping that the court would order the movie studio to have the German-based Michael Patzer and Daniel Macek testify in Spokane, Washington, so they can answer crucial questions about evidence collection. </p>
<p>Among other things, the defendant would like to know how the tracking outfit can be so sure that the IP-address wasn&#8217;t spoofed, and how they know that the defendant was the one who used the IP-address to share the film. The defendant&#8217;s attorneys doubt that the tracking software is capable of doing this. </p>
<p>&#8220;Apparently,  Mr.  Patzer&#8217;s  software  does  not  account  for  the  numerous &#8216;false  positive&#8217; possibilities, including the accuracy of the harvested IP addresses, even though the person in the swarm may be &#8216;spoofing&#8217; his or her IP address, since certain bit torrent software allows for IP address spoofing,&#8221; defendant&#8217;s attorneys write. </p>
<p>&#8220;Apparently, the  software  has  no  way  to  verify  the  actual  person  who might be in the swarm, even if the IP address is accurate. The software does not engage the person in the swarm to inquire as to the reason for the activity, including fair use reasons for being in the swarm. Indeed, there are no corroborating witnesses at  all&#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>In addition, the defendant&#8217;s legal team doubts that the &#8220;investigators,&#8221; who are closely involved with numerous lawsuits in the United States, have a proper license. </p>
<p>&#8220;The investigators  are  engaged  in  activity  which  is  covered  by  the  Washington  State Private Investigator statutory provisions, but there is no evidence that Messrs. Patzer or Macek are licensed or bonded [under theState’s regulatory scheme governing private investigators],&#8221; they write.   </p>
<p>The Washington State legislature <a href="http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=18.165">defines</a> a &#8220;private investigator agency&#8221; as an entity &#8220;engaged in the business of detecting, discovering, or revealing&#8221; &#8220;evidence to be used before a court,&#8221; which appears to be exactly what they are doing.</p>
<p>It wouldn&#8217;t be the first time that the PI angle has caused trouble for a file-sharing monitoring firm. Several years ago the RIAA&#8217;s technology partner MediaSentry was found to have acted illegally in several states because it operated without the appropriate and required paperwork. </p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how this angle is played out in the current case. Generally speaking these tracking outfits, which are often the main drivers of these types of lawsuits, are not too eager to talk. </p>
<p>Whether they have something to hide remains to be seen. A recent presentation from the &#8220;Anti-Piracy Management Company,&#8221; which is believed to be spinoff of the same tracking outfit Michael Patzer and Daniel Macek are connected to, <a href="http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2014/04/21/devils-cookbook-guardaleys-presentation/">is telling</a>. </p>
<p>&#8220;Paragraph 2 in regards to software consultant (i.e., he can talk about software issues), &#038; we&#8217;re hoping the judge won&#8217;t question his qualifications too much,&#8221; the leaked presentation reads, seemingly referring to Macek.  </p>
<p>To be continued. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87688
title: ‘Skidrow’ Pirates Get Pirated After Removing Their Own ‘DRM’
uri: Skidrow-Pirates-Get-Pirated-After-Removing-Their-Own-DRM
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/5O7-fcELguw/
content:
<p><a href="media/db6dafe8.warez.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/warez.jpg"><img src="media/0fdc72be.warez.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/warez.jpg" alt="warez" width="200" height="139" class="alignright size-full wp-image-45883"></a>It&#8217;s very common for the entertainment industries to get their collective undergarments in a twist over piracy, so it makes an interesting change to see the same kinds of emotions spill over onto the other side of the piracy fence.</p>
<p>It all began a couple of weeks ago with the release of the Redlynx / Ubisoft motorcross game Trials Fusion. Released on all the top platforms mid April, the race was immediately on for a so-called &#8216;Scene&#8217; group to remove its copy protection and release a pirated version. On April 16 the group &#8216;MoNGoLS&#8217; released the game on XBox 360 and eight days later a group called &#8216;CODEX&#8217; released the Windows version.</p>
<p>Scene records show that CODEX have only been around since February this year yet they managed to beat other leading groups on this particular release. Was that due to them being clever and working hard, or was there another explanation? According to one of the most famous cracking/piracy groups on the Internet, CODEX cheated their way to the win.</p>
<p>Skidrow is one of the most famous groups around and is responsible for the cracking and release of hundreds of games over the years. On April 27, three days after the CODEX release of Trials Fusion, Skidrow released their own version. Then, the day after, revealed why that had been necessary.</p>
<p>According to Skidrow, CODEX had &#8211; shock, horror &#8211; PIRATED Skidrow&#8217;s work.</p>
<p>&#8220;While looking inside their emulation code, we discovered something that was about to shock us completely,&#8221; Skidrow explained in an announcement this week.</p>
<p>&#8220;It was OUR work, OUR emulator.&#8221;</p>
<p>But how could Skidrow be so sure? Apparently the group employs rudimentary watermarking.</p>
<p>&#8220;CODEX must be stupid to think that we don&#8217;t mark our code, but we had it clean on our screens, that CODEX are thieves of our Ubisoft emu. 99 percent of all their API calls in the code are identical with ours.&#8221;</p>
<p>Just to be sure, Skidrow say they also plant &#8220;several stealth API calls, that identify and tag&#8221; their work. Those were apparently found inside CODEX emulation DLLs. For those who understand it, the proof is apparently revealed in the image below.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/8871c32b.codex1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/codex1.png" alt="CODEX"></center></p>
<p>&#8220;[The image] shows the original function written by the coder, using a global variable for another function. Basically, the way the coder wrote the API to set the flag is unique, and [this is] simply copy and paste of our code by CODEX,&#8221; Skidrow say.</p>
<p>But while the irony of one group complaining about the pirating (or plagiarizing) of another&#8217;s work is pretty obvious, this week Skidrow revealed something else of interest. The group said that while previously it had taken measures to protect its cracks and emulators and obfuscate their code, it had decided to stop doing so when the code got in the way of enjoying the release.</p>
<p>&#8220;In the past we used to protect our creations, but lately we have found out that even the most functional [encryption] tools have certain limits when it comes to preventing them from stealing CPU resources,&#8221; Skidrow revealed.</p>
<p>&#8220;Furthermore we have noticed that some people that use our releases, sometimes have issues with our work being notified as dangerous, when they run them on machines with certain antivirus, spam, spyware programs etc. Therefore we have decided to let our work, which is OUR work, be as clean and direct as you can get it.&#8221;</p>
<p>So there you have it. Even the swarthiest of game pirates get upset when people &#8220;steal&#8221; their code, and not even leading experts in consumer DRM cracking can get their own &#8216;DRM&#8217; working without negatively affecting the gaming experience. Intriguing indeed&#8230;..</p>
<p><font SIZE="2"><em>Note: For clarity some of Skidrow&#8217;s English translation errors have been tidied up.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87711
title: How To Crack The Facade In Any Copyright Monopoly Discussion
uri: How-To-Crack-The-Facade-In-Any-Copyright-Monopoly-Discussion
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/fsyyJfyp2lM/
content:
<p><a href="media/b997f7ba.copyright-branded.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/copyright-branded.jpg"><img src="media/db7b975c.copyright-branded.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/copyright-branded.jpg" alt="copyright-branded" width="250" height="164" class="alignright size-full wp-image-56211"></a>In my <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-fundamental-problem-with-the-copyright-monopoly-140420/">last column</a>, I explained how the copyright monopoly is fundamentally incompatible with private communications as a concept, and how we must weigh a silly distribution monopoly for one of many entertainment industries against such vital functions of society as whistleblower protection, freedom of the press, and the ability to hold a private conversation in the first place. While this argument is strong, it does require a bit of intelligence and the ability to see how two ideas conflict, so it can be hard to get across to copyright monopoly pundits.</p>
<p>The threat against private communications isn&#8217;t the only thing wrong with the copyright monopoly, of course. I have previously <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/copyright-monopoly-necessary-anyway-140223/">argued</a> here on TorrentFreak that there&#8217;s really nothing defensible about the monopoly at all. But in order to break the spell of &#8220;publishers have always told me that the copyright monopoly is good and I have never had any reason to question their self-interest in the matter&#8221;, there are other tricks of honest, effective argumentation.</p>
<p>While it&#8217;s possible to attack the copyright monopoly construct from many angles &#8211; all of them, in fact &#8211; some fruit is more low-hanging than others. One easy angle is to point at the usual (horrible) motivation of the copyright monopoly; that it &#8220;enables creators to make money&#8221; (which is factually false, misleading, and dishonest). If you&#8217;re talking to a monopoly pundit, or just somebody who hasn&#8217;t had reason to question the monopoly, this point will come up sooner or later.</p>
<p>Once this point comes up, it&#8217;s an open goal. To make sure you understood the point correctly, reiterate back; &#8220;So your point is that they should be rewarded with a monopoly to make money, in order to give them an incentive to create more art?&#8221; Any monopoly pundit will nod enthusiastically.</p>
<p><strong>Then, score the goal. &#8220;So why does the monopoly last 70 years after the author&#8217;s death? I don&#8217;t know of a single author who keeps writing books after they&#8217;re dead and buried. The copyright monopoly term is at least 70 years &#8211; a whole lifetime &#8211; too long. And if it is that obviously 70 years too long, then it&#8217;s absurd in the first place.&#8221;</strong> </p>
<p>Occasionally, you&#8217;ll see some fightback that their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren should inherit the privileges of the author, which you can easily refute by pointing out that the purpose was already agreed to be an incentive for the artist to create more art, not for their children to get privileged at the expense of others.</p>
<p>Once you have established that the copyright monopoly term is indefensively long &#8211; at least a lifetime too long &#8211; then the facade of pretend perfection is broken. If something as fundamental as that can be questioned, and it can, then everything else is also up in the air.</p>
<p>Have fun making the pennies drop and the facades crack.</p>
<div style="border:2px solid #3F3F3F;width:521px;padding:15px;padding-top:8px;padding-bottom:4px;margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:10px;border-radius:10px">
<h3 style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:10px">
<div style="float:right;height:130px;width:39px;margin-left:20px;margin-right:10px"><img src="media/98818a80.Rick_Falkvinge_39x130.jpg" data-original-source="http://falkvinge.net/wp-content/themes/WpNewspaper/images/falkvinge/Rick_Falkvinge_39x130.jpg" style="border:none;-moz-box-shadow:none;-webkit-box-shadow:none" class="quimby_search_image"></div>
<p><span style="color:#3F3F3F;font-size:125%">About The</span> <span style="color:#FF3C78;font-size:125%">Author</span></p>
</h3>
<p style="font-family:PTSansRegular,Arial,Sans-Serif;font-weight:400;line-height:150%;margin-bottom:14px"><small>Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at <a href="http://falkvinge.net">falkvinge.net</a> focuses on information policy.</small></p>
<div style="float:right;position:relative;top:-12px">
<p><small>Book Falkvinge <a href="http://falkvinge.net/keynotes/">as speaker</a>?</small></p>
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<p><a href="http://twitter.com/Falkvinge" class="twitter-follow-button">Follow @Falkvinge</a></p>
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<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87719
title: Aussie Govt. To Consider Site Blocking, File-Sharing Warnings
uri: Aussie-Govt-To-Consider-Site-Blocking-File-Sharing-Warnings
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/FSA-3Wpn_Zs/
content:
<p><a href="media/bf524f61.pirate-running.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-running.jpg"><img src="media/f2bfe741.pirate-running.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-running.jpg" alt="pirate-running" width="222" height="204" class="alignright size-full wp-image-78717"></a>For years Australia has wrestled with the thorny issue of online piracy. Citizens have long complained of being treated as <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/australia-breeds-pirates-game-thrones-140203/">second class consumers</a>, in many cases having to wait months or years for new content from the United States to appear Down Under. This has only fueled the uptake of illegal file-sharing.</p>
<p>While there are signs that plans for improved availability of content might be developing, impatient entertainment companies want action now, and talks with ISPs have failed to show significant progress.</p>
<p>The threat that the government could get involved if voluntary agreements can not be reached has always loomed in the background, and now it seems that the government is getting ready to act. According to Fairfax (<a href="http://www.afr.com/p/business/marketing_media/file_sharing_site_ban_to_go_before_qaslzvv0QqKquAI9WUJvgP">subscription</a>), as early as this week the federal cabinet will consider two proposals to crack down on illegal file-sharing.</p>
<p>The first proposal, of sending letters to those found infringing copyright online, will already be familiar to Internet users in the United States, France, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea. The idea is that persistent infringers receive subsequent and increasingly threatening letters in order to deter future offending but there is <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/three-strikes-law-does-nothing-to-curb-piracy-research-finds-140122/">still debate</a> whether such mechanisms are effective.</p>
<p>It will perhaps come as no surprise that the second discussion will center on the blocking or censoring of so-called &#8216;pirate&#8217; sites by local ISPs, with the effect that their subscribers can no longer access them.</p>
<p>Andrew Maiden, CEO of ASTRA, the industry body for subscription TV, <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/cabinet-consider-ban-file-sharing-sites-warning-system-combat-internet-piracy-224366?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cabinet-consider-ban-file-sharing-sites-warning-system-combat-internet-piracy">told</a> Mumbrella that the legislative changes required to effect the above could be brought in as early as mid or late June this year.</p>
<p>“They have already made commitments to take action against piracy so I would think they would want to act sooner rather than later,” Maiden said.</p>
<p>While there are few details on the proposed letter-writing scheme, entertainment companies will be hoping that there will be consequences for those who fail to heed advice to stop downloading and sharing copyrighted material. At this stage, however, no punitive measures are being reported for the Aussie scheme.</p>
<p>But even before letter writing begins, there are complex issues for the government to overcome. In the past talks between movie and music companies and Aussie ISPs have <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/isp-walks-out-of-piracy-talks-were-not-the-internet-police-121217/">deadlocked</a> over, among other things, who should pay for such a program. There are no signs that the parties have reached consensus on this or any other matter.</p>
<p>On site blocking, it is expected that entertainment companies will be allowed to go to court to obtain injunctions against sites such as The Pirate Bay, which will compel local ISPs to block the sites. This same strategy is being used in several countries in Europe, notably the UK, although not in the United States where many of the entertainment companies are based.</p>
<p><a href="media/e8c727cd.blocktpb1.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/blocktpb1.jpg"><img src="media/a43d1629.blocktpb1-150x150.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/blocktpb1-150x150.jpg" alt="blocktpb1" width="150" height="150" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-87047"></a>However, the big difference with Australia is that as a result of content being made available elsewhere first, Aussie citizens have already become adept at <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-users-pirating-netflix-scare-tv-networks-140303/">using VPN and proxy services</a> to access legal services such as Netflix. The exact <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">same techniques</a> can be used to access a blocked Pirate Bay, for example.</p>
<p>With the Australian government having previously promised to make &#8220;significant&#8221; changes to Australia’s copyright laws, the movie and music industries will be hoping that 2014 turns out to be a productive year. In the meantime, companies such as Google will continue to remind the Australian government that piracy is a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/google-piracy-availability-pricing-problem-140310/">pricing and availability</a> problem.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87714
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 05/05/14
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-05-05-14
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/9GI6nnwdRRE/
content:
<p><a href="media/143c96ea.robocop.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/robocop.jpg"><img src="media/143c96ea.robocop.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/robocop.jpg" alt="robocop" width="300" height="169" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87716"></a>This week we have five newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>RoboCop is the most downloaded movie this week.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><a href="http://TorrentFreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/"><strong>RSS feed</strong></a> for the weekly movie download chart.</p>
<table class="css hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="12%"><strong>Ranking</strong></th>
<th width="15%"><strong>(<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-140428/">last week</a>)</strong></th>
<th><strong>Movie</strong></th>
<th width="18%"><strong>IMDb Rating / Trailer</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">torrentfreak.com</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1200731-robocop/">RoboCop</a></td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234721/">6.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnRJ0r0eivk">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/captain_america_the_winter_soldier_2014/">Captain America: The Winter Soldier</a> (Cam/TS)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843866/">8.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SlILk2WMTI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pompeii_2013/">Pompeii</a></td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1921064/">6.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-ijDxsw5cE">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_monuments_men/">The Monuments Men</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2177771/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8tz8YeCz1s">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vampire_academy/">Vampire Academy</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1686821/">6.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ERrnYunBg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/that_awkward_moment/">That Awkward Moment</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1800246/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRcVgJjnFLo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_frankenstein/">I Frankenstein</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1418377/">5.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ri9NtxIf4g">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(7)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/rio_2/">Rio 2</a> (HDTS)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2357291/">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkZM1Zc0mBU">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/about_last_night_2014/">About Last Night</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1826590/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNZFE3z0T7E">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(6)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/her/">Her</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/">8.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87482
title: Google Asked to Remove 100 Million Pirate Search Results in 2014
uri: Google-Asked-to-Remove-100-Million-Pirate-Search-Results-in-2014
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/xIPd-mwMdX4/
content:
<p><img src="media/3a6fa524.google-bay.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/google-bay.jpg" alt="google-bay" width="200" height="177" class="alignright size-full wp-image-21875">In the hope of steering prospective customers away from pirate sites, copyright holders are overloading Google with DMCA takedown notices.</p>
<p>These requests have increased dramatically over the years. In 2008, the search engine received <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/google-takedown-notices-surge-140325/">only a few dozen</a> takedown notices during the entire year, but today it can process in excess of a million in a single day.</p>
<p>Adding up the numbers reported in Google&#8217;s <a href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/">Transparency Report</a>, we found that since January 2014 Google has been asked to remove over 100,000,000 links to infringing webpages. </p>
<p>Most of the reported webpages have indeed been removed and no longer appear in Google&#8217;s search results.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/9ef1a563.google1001.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/google1001.png"><img src="media/2a70e242.google1001.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/google1001.png" alt="google100" width="594" height="302" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87734"></a></center></p>
<p>The massive surge in removal requests is controversial. It&#8217;s been reported that some pages contain no copyrighted material, due to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/sony-claims-hulu-hosting-pirated-tv-shows-140202/">mistakes</a> or <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/time-to-punish-dmca-takedown-abusers-wordpress-owners-say-140313/">abuse</a>, but are deleted nonetheless. Google has a pretty good track record of catching these errors, but since manual review of all links is undoable, some URLs are <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/rapidgator-wiped-from-google-by-false-dmca-notices-131223/">removed in error</a>.  </p>
<p>On the other end of the spectrum, copyright holders are also far from satisfied. While Google does its best to comply with its obligations under current law, some industry groups claim that the search giant can and should do more. </p>
<p>For the RIAA the staggering amount of takedown requests only confirms the notion that the process isn&#8217;t very effective. Brad Buckles, RIAA executive vice president of anti-piracy, previously suggested that Google should start banning <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-20-million-piracy-takedowns-sent-to-google-still-no-end-in-sight-130522/">entire domains</a> from its search results.</p>
<p>“Every day produces more results and there is no end in sight. We are using a bucket to deal with an ocean of illegal downloading,”  Buckles said.</p>
<p>“Isn’t it simply logical and fair at some point to conclude that such links are infringing without requiring content owners to keep expending time and resources to have the link taken down?”</p>
<p>Google is doing its best to address the concerns of copyright holders. A few months ago the company released a report detailing the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/how-google-helps-copyright-holders-to-fight-piracy-130911/">various anti-piracy measures</a> it uses. However, the company also stressed that copyright holders can do more to prevent piracy themselves. </p>
<p>Without legal options it’s hard to beat unauthorized copying, Google argues.</p>
<p>“Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply. As services ranging from Netflix to Spotify to iTunes have demonstrated, the best way to combat piracy is with better and more convenient legitimate services,&#8221; the company explained.</p>
<p>&#8220;The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.”</p>
<p>The apparent standoff has also piqued the interest of U.S. lawmakers. Earlier this year the House Judiciary Subcommittee had a hearing on the DMCA takedown issue, and both copyright holders, Internet service providers, and other parties are examining what they can do to optimize the process.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the avalanche of removal requests is expected to continue, at an increasing rate.  </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87752
title: Pirate Party Launches Senate Petition to Fight Site Blocking
uri: Pirate-Party-Launches-Senate-Petition-to-Fight-Site-Blocking
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/vMWyqCx8Nvw/
content:
<p><a href="media/11ab50f1.us-aus.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/us-aus.jpg"><img src="media/37afc61d.us-aus.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/us-aus.jpg" alt="us-aus" width="200" height="172" class="alignright size-full wp-image-45442"></a>Seeking to crack down on the rise and rise of online file-sharing, governments in countries all around the world continually come under US pressure to do something about infringement.</p>
<p>Just a few days ago Vice President Joe Biden questioned <a href="http://variety.com/2014/biz/news/biden-promotes-trade-pacts-as-a-way-to-curb-piracy-1201170217/">how</a> a country could consider itself “a law abiding nation”, “when they are stealing the most valuable intellectual ideas of our country.”</p>
<p>Few civilized country&#8217;s escape the wrath of Biden and his friends in Hollywood and yesterday <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/aussie-govt-to-consider-site-blocking-file-sharing-warnings-140505/">news broke</a> that after continuous pressure from the studios, the Australian government will soon consider the introduction of two new anti-piracy mechanisms. </p>
<p>The first, the graduated response, has been documented many times before and is already present in several countries. Site blocking is more controversial though, since despite being demanded by Hollywood abroad, the same is not practiced at home.</p>
<p>Today the Australian Pirate Party says that it will do all it can to ensure that neither mechanism lands on Aussie soil. With the launch of a petition resting on the notion that neither technique has been shown to be effective against piracy, the Pirates hope to stop the juggernaut in its tracks.</p>
<p>&#8220;There has been no evidence advanced that graduated response regimes are effective. In fact, academic literature on the matter has been skeptical that they have any measurable impact on reducing file-sharing,&#8221; Brendan Molloy, Councillor of <a href="http://pirateparty.org.au/">Pirate Party Australia</a>, told TorrentFreak in a statement.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our petition is intended to remind the Senate of its obligations as the House of Review. It lays out detailed reasons for opposition to the proposals — including that neither will work — and calls on the Senate to reject any legislation instituting either a graduated response scheme or website blocking.&#8221;</p>
<p>Research is available to back up the Party&#8217;s stance. A paper published in January 2014 by U.S. and French researchers found that three-strikes-style regimes <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/three-strikes-law-does-nothing-to-curb-piracy-research-finds-140122/">did little to reduce piracy</a>. Also in January, the Court of The Hague ruled that the web blockade previously ordered against The Pirate Bay was not only disproportionate, but also <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/isps-no-longer-have-to-block-the-pirate-bay-dutch-court-rules-140128/">ineffective</a>.</p>
<p>Like many before him, Molloy says that something needs to be done about Australians being treated as second-class citizens when it comes availability and reasonable pricing of content. Dealing with these key areas will go somewhere towards solving the piracy conundrum.</p>
<p>&#8220;Geographical market segmentation is causing Australians to pay more for digital content. Is it any wonder Australians are called &#8216;the world&#8217;s worst pirates&#8217; when we are paying significantly more than everyone else? Surely these issues are more deserving of attention than attempting to introduce schemes that have been proven to be ineffective?&#8221;</p>
<p>The Pirate Party petition can be found <a href="https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/stop-blaming-consumers-for-the-outdated-business-models-of-the-media-industry">on Change.org</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87743
title: Game of Thrones Makes History With 200,000 Strong Torrent Swarm
uri: Game-of-Thrones-Makes-History-With-200-000-Strong-Torrent-Swarm
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ouBjFlLTPaA/
content:
<p><img src="media/0f671074.thrones.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/thrones.jpg" alt="thrones" width="248" height="131" class="alignright size-full wp-image-51268">Game of Thrones has been the focus of many piracy discussions in recent years, and for good reason. </p>
<p>The HBO hit series has a following of millions of &#8220;pirates&#8221; who prefer to watch the show through unauthorized channels instead of paid subscriptions. </p>
<p>Some TV-industry insiders closely connected to the show see it as <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-game-of-thrones-piracy-is-a-compliment-doesnt-hurt-sales-130401/">a compliment</a>, or believe the show may even <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-doesnt-hurt-game-of-thrones-director-says-130227/">benefit</a> from these rogue followers. On the other hand, however, HBO is <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-demands-takedown-pirated-game-thrones-trailers-140502/">cracking down</a> on fans and sites who spread the show without permission.</p>
<p>The pirates themselves are also divided in the reasons why they pirate. Some have no other option, as Game of Thrones is not available where they live, while others simply find the legal options <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/why-people-pirate-game-of-thrones-a-global-cost-breakdown-140413/">too expensive</a>.</p>
<p>In the midst of all these different view points there is one stable factor. The demand among pirates is growing year after year. During the first season in 2011 the most popular episode was shared 3.4 million times during the entire year, a number that&#8217;s now reached in just a few days.  </p>
<p>Game of Thrones is particularly popular on torrent sites and this week BitTorrent pirates broke the magical record of 200,000 simultaneous sharers. </p>
<p>A few hours after the first torrent of the show appeared on torrent sites, the Demonii tracker reported that 207,054 people were sharing one single torrent at the same time. 163,496 were sharing a complete copy of that particular torrent while 43,558 were still downloading.</p>
<p>These are mind-boggling numbers that we’ve never seen before. The latest record was set <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/game-of-thrones-sets-new-torrent-swarm-record-140415/">just a few weeks ago</a>, also for a Game of Thrones episode.</p>
<p><center><strong>Record-breaking 200,000+ simultaneous sharers</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/86639f06.got-200k-record.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/got-200k-record.png"><img src="media/86639f06.got-200k-record.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/got-200k-record.png" alt="got-200k-record" width="554" height="157" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87746"></a></center></p>
<p>This Game of Thrones torrent isn&#8217;t the only one that is widely shared. There are several copies of the show available in varying qualities which also have thousands of people downloading. </p>
<p>Counting all the different releases it’s estimated that the latest Game of Thrones episode was downloaded more than 1.5 million times during the first day. This makes the show the likely candidate to be crowned the most-downloaded TV-show at the end of the year.</p>
<p>As previously revealed, Game of Thrones downloaders come from all over the world. Data gathered by TorrentFreak previously revealed that most downloaders came from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see if the current record will be broken again later this year. For now, however, there are no signs that the pirates&#8217; interest is waning. This means that, unless a miracle happens, Game of Thrones will be crowned the most torrented show for the third consecutive year. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87764
title: Dotcom Heads to Supreme Court to Appeal Raid Decision
uri: Dotcom-Heads-to-Supreme-Court-to-Appeal-Raid-Decision
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/yhmXuo0EL3A/
content:
<p><img src="media/ee28886a.dotcom-prez.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dotcom-prez.jpg" width="250" height="250" class="alignright">Following the huge raid on Kim Dotcom&#8217;s mansion in January 2012, questions started to be asked about the legality of the warrants used to launch the operation.</p>
<p>In mid 2012 a High Court judge found that the warrants were not only overbroad but also illegal, providing a big boost to Dotcom&#8217;s extradition battle prospects with the United States.</p>
<p>However, this February the Megaupload founder suffered a setback when the Court of Appeal overturned the earlier High Court ruling. While it was agreed the warrants contained flaws, the judges found that overall the warrants were legal.</p>
<p>But it&#8217;s not over yet.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court has now granted Dotcom leave to appeal the Court of Appeal ruling from February.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Supreme Court granted us permission to argue the validity of search warrants used in this raid,&#8221; Dotcom <a href="https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/463254188219043840">announced</a> on Twitter.</p>
<p>The hearing is set for June 11 to June 12.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87797
title: Alleged $32 Million UFC Pirate Speaks Out
uri: Alleged-32-Million-UFC-Pirate-Speaks-Out
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/VxWkmOkNt_Q/
content:
<p><img src="media/c7b122d2.ufc.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ufc.jpg" width="200" height="146" class="alignright">As detailed <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-uploader-hit-with-32m-lawsuit-140501/">in our article</a> last week, the UFC has launched its biggest legal action to date against an individual said to have uploaded its events to the Internet without authorization.</p>
<p>Late last month UFC parent company Zuffa filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York targeting Steven A. Messina from New York, someone they believe to be the combat sports releaser &#8216;Secludedly&#8217;. The news was broken by the <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/04/30/ufc-web-pirate-owes-32m-for-stealing-live-mma-events/">New York Post</a> who reported that the 27-year-old lives in his parent&#8217;s basement, but on the day of the news they knew an awful lot more than Messina did.</p>
<p><strong>Last to know</strong></p>
<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t know any of this was even happening,&#8221; Messina told TorrentFreak in an interview conducted on restricted terms for legal reasons.</p>
<p>&#8220;A relative recognized my name in the New York Post and word got to me through phone, and people were wondering if it was me. Now, I&#8217;m rarely out of my house, ever. I&#8217;m sick. So I am like, &#8216;How the hell can I be in the Post?&#8217; I decided to look it up, and hello, there I am. Then the Internet started going crazy about it, and everyone is getting all this information that I have no clue how they are getting, most of it totally wrong!&#8221;</p>
<p>It took two full days for the UFC to send the papers to Messina after he learned about them in the media but once he read them the seriousness of the situation began to sink in. The claims from the UFC are for just over $32 million but Messina&#8217;s estimations vary from $35m to as much as $40m.</p>
<p>&#8220;There were no police involved, no criminal actions taken. I&#8217;ll be honest, I don&#8217;t understand the laws and all that around this type of thing, so I&#8217;m a little lost here and overwhelmed. I don&#8217;t even know what is going on. I think people on the Internet know more than me.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Five months ago, there were signs</strong></p>
<p>As our discussions progressed it became clear that while last week&#8217;s legal sledgehammer from Zuffa came as a surprise, this was not the first time that the company had shown an interest in Messina. Several months ago Messina was informed by PayPal that his account had been frozen after he had accepted donations from people who were helping him buy UFC PPV events. Messina said any surplus was spent on medication.</p>
<p>&#8220;PayPal told me that the UFC filed a claim of some sort on my account and limited it, so I could never use it again. I am assuming UFC subpoenaed PayPal or something for my information and then just caved without even defending me or my rights. That was five months ago. Then last week is when I suddenly saw the news, got the letter, etc etc. I never even had an opportunity to tell them I didn&#8217;t do whatever it was they claimed I did.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Poor health</strong></p>
<p>Messina, who says he suffers from a range of psychiatric conditions including agoraphobia, panic, anxiety and bipolar disorders, claims to rarely go outside and spent an entire four-year unbroken stretch in his New York bedroom. Add to that an arthritic spine and a herniated stomach, he hasn&#8217;t been able to work for three years. When PayPal froze his account he was cut off from his medication.</p>
<p>&#8220;When PayPal closed my account, I was low on money and needed medication that week, and I still had $50 or so in my account, but I wasn&#8217;t allowed to use it, making my life that much more difficult.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Making bank?</strong></p>
<p>Zuffa claim that Messina was making a small fortune from donations, even adding &#8220;XYZ Corp&#8221; as a defendant (along with a John and Jane Doe) in their lawsuit against Messina.</p>
<p>&#8220;I do not know myself what this XYZ Corp or John and Jane Doe is. I think they are assuming &#8216;Secludedly&#8217; was a group, rather than just a person, but at the same time, &#8216;Secludedly&#8217; is mentioned as a single person as well. None of it makes sense.&#8221;</p>
<p>But was Messina making anything from people donating to his event-viewing fund?</p>
<p>&#8220;Most of the time I barely had enough to cover an event&#8217;s cost after donations and would use my own money saved for medication and doctors. In total, I&#8217;ve probably made no more in a year than $450-$550 in donations. But just that helped me pay for a few months of medical expenses, as well as maybe four or five fight cards. I always ended up paying out of my own pocket though, as I&#8217;ve had money from my previous job saved in my checking account.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Big UFC fan</strong></p>
<p>While Zuffa are portraying Messina as their nemesis, the 27-year-old says he has spent years supporting the company as a dedicated fan.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s always the one you love the most that can hurt you the most. I love the UFC. I love MMA. I want the world to know of it and acknowledge it as a legitimate sport and I want it to be famous. I don&#8217;t want myself to be famous. That&#8217;s an oxymoron for me, don&#8217;t you think? An agoraphobe seeking attention? I want to be left alone and continue living my horrible life with what little I have, and that&#8217;s my family and MMA.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>David v Goliath</strong></p>
<p>So where now? Messina, who says he&#8217;s worth just about nothing, informs TorrentFreak he has a little under three weeks to respond to the <a href="http://www.mmamania.com/2014/3/25/5544524/how-much-ufc-worth-dana-white-3-5-billion-or-more-financial-times-mma">$3.5 billion-valued</a> Zuffa or suffer a default judgment. He&#8217;s found a lawyer prepared to take on the case pre-trial and pending settlement but needs $5,000 to get things going, an amount he doesn&#8217;t have. To that end Messina has set up a <a href="http://www.gofundme.com/8xkid8">GoFundMe campaign</a> in the hope that those sympathetic to his situation might donate a few dollars. Those who prefer anonymity can make the same gesture <a href="https://coinbase.com/checkouts/be3524c823d3c5f26fec40d9ffd6924d ">via Bitcoin</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;I did not, will not, never did, never will, ever make money off of another&#8217;s work, and that&#8217;s that,&#8221; Messina says. &#8220;Also, [to the New York Post] I do not live in a god damn basement. Leave my basement out of this! It&#8217;s done nothing to you!&#8221;</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87779
title: Dad Faces Massive Fine for Pirating Bambi, Lion King, and More
uri: Dad-Faces-Massive-Fine-for-Pirating-Bambi-Lion-King-and-More
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/StpIOSGnLvA/
content:
<p><img src="media/4f6f21d0.piracy-crime.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/piracy-crime.jpg" alt="piracy-crime" width="222" height="140" class="alignright size-full wp-image-80208">The Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) is demanding tens of thousands of euros from six men who shared copyrighted material on two local file-sharing sites.</p>
<p>The file-sharers all appeared in court this week. Among them is a 39-year old bus driver who pirated several Disney movies such as Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians and The Lion King. The man reportedly shared the films to entertain his three kids, and wasn&#8217;t aware of any wrongdoing. </p>
<p>&#8220;I did not think I did anything wrong, because many of these children&#8217;s films are available in full on YouTube,&#8221; he <a href="http://www.nieuwsblad.be/article/detail.aspx?articleid=dmf20140505_01093357">said in a comment</a>.</p>
<p>The man&#8217;s actions <a href="http://datanews.knack.be/ict/nieuws/baf-geen-klacht-tegen-downloaders-wel-tegen-verspreiders/article-4000614957951.htm#">weren&#8217;t limited</a> to Disney classics alone though. According to the anti-piracy watchdog he was one of the most prolific sharers on the &#8220;Belgium-scene&#8221; forum. </p>
<p>In total, the father is accused of sharing 253 films, 64 computer games and 22,000 music files, for which BAF demands 37,714 euros ($52,550) in damages. The amount is based on the number of files that were shared, with a music track costing 1 euro and a movie 15 euros.</p>
<p>Another member of the same file-sharing forum shared even more files than the dad and he risks damages totaling 60,000 euros ($83,600). &#8220;I did it because it was cheaper than buying a CD or DVD,&#8221; the man said in a comment. </p>
<p>In addition to the damages demanded by BAF, the prosecutor has also requested an additional 4,500 euro fine for each of the six members.</p>
<p>Belgium-scene was a private forum where users could share links to a wide variety of pirated content. The site was <a href="http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/5403/Internet/article/detail/1601362/2013/03/22/Belgium-scene-gesloten-wegens-miljoenen-illegale-downloads.dhtml">closed last year</a> and nine homes of people connected to the site and another forum were raided at the time. </p>
<p>Several of the founders avoided prosecution by paying settlements of between 10,000 and 25,000 euros. The pirating dad, however, lacked the funds to pay a settlement. His case and those of the five others will be decided by the court later this year. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87838
title: Google Blocks Demonoid for Spreading Malicious Software
uri: Google-Blocks-Demonoid-for-Spreading-Malicious-Software
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/RJQMlR_LfQE/
content:
<p><img src="media/24f1ba2b.demonoid.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/demonoid.jpg" class="alignright" alt="demonoid">In recent months, entertainment industry bodies have been working hard to ensure that companies become more aware of where their ads are being placed, with the aim of strangling site finances and eliminating any idea that brands are in partnership with pirates.</p>
<p>Just recently the tactic branched out into describing most leading pirate sites as <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-sites-rife-malware-credit-card-fraud-report-claims-140430/">malware havens</a>, a claim that some described as exaggerated. However, during the past few hours a pretty big and related drama hit semi-private torrent site Demonoid.</p>
<p>After being off-air for 20 months after hosting trouble in Ukraine, the site <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/demonoid-back-140330/">relaunched this March</a>. Former members of the site were pleased to find that their old logins worked and ever since the site has been trying to get back to its former glory. Yesterday, however, problems with third party adds provoked a harsh response from Google, one that continues today.</p>
<p>Those searching for Demonoid are currently warned in search listings that &#8220;This site may harm your computer&#8221; and even those who choose to ignore the warnings aren&#8217;t allowed to access the site via Google. Instead they are diverted to the following page:</p>
<p><center><img src="media/1d4847ec.demon-google.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/demon-google.png" alt="Google-demon"></center></p>
<p>Google&#8217;s advisory reports that after checking 59 pages on the site during the past 90 days, 7 pages resulted in &#8220;malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent&#8221;, something likely to worry most users.</p>
<p>Google goes on to report that the malicious software in question was hosted on another domain &#8211; adv-inv-net.com &#8211; and further investigation reveals that the site is the source of a huge number of problems.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://google.cn/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=adv-inc-net.com">malware analysis</a> the Romanian-hosted domain carries 177 exploits and 2 trojans, which together have led to the infection of not only Demonoid, but more than 2,000 other sites.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/c73fe9e8.adv-attack.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/adv-attack.png" alt="adv-attack"></center></p>
<p>Aware that Demonoid along with thousands of other sites had been blacklisted by most search engines and web browsers, Demonoid&#8217;s operators announced that all advertisements would be removed from the site until the problem could be identified.</p>
<p>&#8220;We run content from a lot of ad networks in our ad banners, and a lot of banners from each,&#8221; the management team said in an announcement.</p>
<p>&#8220;One of those banners started serving malware, so we disabled all ads until we are 100% sure of the culprit and get it removed. We are also taking the proper steps to get us out of all the blacklists.&#8221;</p>
<p>This latest advertising controversy comes just a week after the publication <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-sites-rife-malware-credit-card-fraud-report-claims-140430/">of a report </a>which claimed that 90% of the Internet&#8217;s top 30 &#8220;pirate&#8221; sites contain malware, &#8220;potentially unwanted programs&#8221;, or items designed to deceive.</p>
<p>While seemingly not Demonoid&#8217;s fault in this instance, one has to question if these kinds of malware events will become more prevalent in the months to come. With entertainment industry companies scaring away advertisers, options for torrent and streaming site operators to do business with &#8216;up-front&#8217; ad networks are likely to narrow, forcing them further into the arms of those who carry the kind of junk experienced in the past 24 hours.</p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/huskyte/7512877940/">Michael Theis</a></em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87809
title: Pirate Bay Founder Launches Election Campaign For European Parliament
uri: Pirate-Bay-Founder-Launches-Election-Campaign-For-European-Parliament
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/WhpN2Gnkk4g/
content:
<p><a href="media/faf17427.peter-sunde2.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/peter-sunde2.jpg"><img src="media/1ceafd41.peter-sunde2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/peter-sunde2.jpg" alt="peter-sunde" width="225" height="225" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85601"></a>Born in Sweden but with Finnish roots, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sunde">Peter Sunde</a> will run as candidate for Finland’s Pirate Party in the European Parliament elections next year.</p>
<p>The Pirate Party movement currently has two Swedish Members of the European Parliament. In the 2014 elections the Pirates are participating in many countries, hoping to expand the success story. </p>
<p>With Sunde the <a href="http://piraattipuolue.fi/english">Finnish party</a> definitely has one of the most prominent candidates on the ballot.</p>
<p>As an Internet entrepreneur and the former spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, Sunde&#8217;s subversive work is already known to millions of people across Europe. Despite a pending prison term for his involvement with The Pirate Bay, he is determined to disrupt the European Parliament in Brussels.  </p>
<p>Today, Sunde launches his run for the European Parliament elections with a rather <a href="http://sundekolmisoppi.fi/">unusual video</a>. Instead of scolding the competition, the campaign will highlight several personality traits of the Pirate Bay co-founder, starting with his romantic side.</p>
<p>&#8220;Most politicians are boring and unromantic. Romance is needed because it means you have a heart and a soul,&#8221; Sunde told TF commenting on the relevance of romance in politics.</p>
<p><center><iframe width="600" height="338" src="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/fModmx3U8HI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center></p>
<p>Most of all, however, Sunde wants to bring back ideology to modern-day politics. Instead of taking notes from powerful lobbyists and bashing other politicians, he wants to let people know what he believes in, and how that should be accomplished.  </p>
<p>&#8220;I’m tired of careerists in politics who rather talk about what the other guys are doing wrong instead of talking about what our future should be. I see no ideology in politics anymore, but we never needed it more than today,&#8221; Sunde tells TF.</p>
<p>&#8220;Politicians in general, EU-politicians in particular, are prone to listening to lobbyists and afraid of not getting re-elected. I am clear with what I want, and I will fight for those no matter what lobbyists will say,&#8221; he adds.  </p>
<p>Running for the Pirate Party, Sunde is in favor of decriminalizing file-sharing for personal use. In addition, he wants to keep the Internet free and open, without needless censorship and restrictions.  </p>
<p>&#8220;We need a free Internet, an open democratic society, more transparency in governments,&#8221; he says. </p>
<p>The Pirate Bay co-founder is well aware of the fact that he is not the typical Parliament member, but that may be a strength rather than a weakness. In any case, he definitely stands out.  </p>
<p>&#8220;I might be a weird fit for the EU but that’s exactly why I think I’m needed. My campaign videos are probably quite weird too, just for the same reason,&#8221; Sunde concludes.  </p>
<p>In a few weeks we will know if the Finns agree that Sunde is the right choice to represent them in Brussels. </p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mpd01605/6755068753/in/photostream/">Photo credit</a></em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87900
title: UK ISPs Agree to Send Out Music & Movie Piracy Warnings
uri: UK-ISPs-Agree-to-Send-Out-Music-Movie-Piracy-Warnings
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/VdK5VZ_gF1k/
content:
<p><a href="media/db3bd45e.pirate-card.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-card.jpg"><img src="media/c579e316.pirate-card.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-card.jpg" alt="pirate-card" width="250" height="210" class="alignright size-full wp-image-86520"></a>The introduction of the controversial Digital Economy Act in 2010 was supposed to significantly reduce online piracy but four years on just about nothing has changed. The legislation envisioned repeat infringers being cut off from the Internet, but that deterrent has never come to pass.</p>
<p>Instead, frustrated rightsholders &#8211; who believe that doing nothing against unauthorized file-sharing just isn&#8217;t an option &#8211; have been channeled into talks with ISPs to try and find a voluntary solution to the problem.</p>
<p>Today, and after years of wrangling, it now appears the sides have agreed terms on what will be known as Vcap &#8211; the Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme.</p>
<p>The system will see the music and movie industries monitor BitTorrent file-sharing networks for infringement, logging pirates&#8217; IP addresses as they go. These will be tracked back to ISPs who will send out a warning letter to the subscriber account associated with the alleged deed.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27330150">BBC</a>, only four ISPs &#8211; BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media &#8211; are currently signed up to the BPI and MPA scheme. Users of other ISPs won&#8217;t receive any letters for now but that could change in the future.</p>
<p>Unlike other &#8220;graduated response&#8221; schemes elsewhere in the world, the UK&#8217;s Vcap has no real &#8220;teeth&#8221;. Even though the language used in the letters will reportedly increase in tone, there will be no punishments, and after receipt of a fourth warning no account will receive a fifth.</p>
<p>On the privacy front subscribers will be pleased to know that within Vcap, ISPs won&#8217;t be handing their identities over to the music and movie companies. Rightsholder access to Vcap data will be limited to how many alerts have been sent out but since they are the ones generating the data for the warnings, the IP addresses of the alleged infringers will already be known to them.</p>
<p>The BPI and MPA will be pleased that a deal has been reached, but it has come at a cost. While the language used in the warnings will increase, threats or suggestions of consequences for continued infringement have been replaced by messages designed to educate. Also, warnings sent will be capped at 2.5 million over three years.</p>
<p>It will also come at a financial cost. The BBC reports that rightsholders will pay each ISP £750,000 to set up the system, or 75% of the costs, whichever is smaller. On top of this initial outlay the BPI and MPA will pay each ISP an additional annual sum of £75,000 to cover administration costs.</p>
<p>While the ISPs and industry groups have agreed terms, Vcap is not quite a done deal yet. As part of the scheme, ISPs hope to keep records for up to a year detailing which subscribers have received warning letters and how many each has received. On this issue they are awaiting approval from the Information Commissioner&#8217;s Office.</p>
<p>In the right circumstances and armed with a court order its certainly conceivable that not only the BPI and MPA could gain access to this data, but also outside companies with similar interests.</p>
<p>Finally, and despite the &#8216;gentle&#8217; tone of Vcap, there is a sting in the tail. In the agreement seen by the BBC, rightsholders say that if Vcap doesn&#8217;t achieve results, they will call for the &#8220;rapid implementation&#8221; of the harsh measures promised by the Digital Economy Act.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87862
title: Anti-Piracy Law Boosted Music Sales , Plunged Internet Traffic
uri: Anti-Piracy-Law-Boosted-Music-Sales-Plunged-Internet-Traffic
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/FXMNNitPU4A/
content:
<p><a href="media/15e2b1a1.cassette.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/cassette.jpg"><img src="media/7abb2d22.cassette.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cassette.jpg" alt="cassette" width="200" height="150" class="alignright size-full wp-image-84245"></a>It&#8217;s been five years since Sweden implemented the controversial anti-piracy legislation, IPRED. </p>
<p>The law, which gives rights holders the authority to request the personal details of alleged copyright infringers, was met with fierce resistance from ISPs and the public at large.</p>
<p>At the same time, however, there were plenty of signs that the law stopped people from pirating. A day after it went into effect, Netnod Internet Exchange reported <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-law-causes-drop-in-swedish-internet-traffic-090402/">a significant drop</a> in Swedish Internet traffic.</p>
<p>Inspired by the anecdote, the effectiveness of IPRED has become a topic of interest for economists at Uppsala University in Sweden. In a new paper they report their findings on the effect of the anti-piracy law on Internet traffic and music sales.</p>
<p>The main goal of the research is to examine whether the anti-piracy law did indeed have an effect, and to what extent. To make sure that the effect is unique to Sweden, both Norway and Finland were chosen as control groups.</p>
<p>The results, which will be <a href="http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:714420">published</a> in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, confirm that Internet traffic decreased quite a bit after IPRED went into effect, beginning abruptly the very same day.</p>
<p><center><strong>IPRED&#8217;s apparent effect on Internet traffic</strong></center><center><a href="media/76fbd173.internet-effect.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/internet-effect.png"><img src="media/76fbd173.internet-effect.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/internet-effect.png" alt="internet effect" width="517" height="383" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87870"></a></center> </p>
<p>Perhaps even more surprisingly, music sales also skyrocketed compared to the other two Scandinavian countries.</p>
<p>&#8220;We find that the reform decreased Internet traffic by 16% and increased music sales by 36% during the first six months. Pirated music therefore seems to be a strong substitute to legal music,&#8221; the researchers write, summarizing the results.</p>
<p><center><strong>IPRED&#8217;s apparent effect on digital music sales</strong></center><center><a href="media/e40b18bf.digsales.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/digsales.png"><img src="media/e40b18bf.digsales.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/digsales.png" alt="digsales" width="526" height="223" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87871"></a></center> </p>
<p>Interestingly, however, the overall effect on Internet traffic and music sales vanished after half a year. The only effect that remained was the increase in digital sales. Internet traffic and physical music sales returned to normal, in part because the chance of getting caught is quite low.</p>
<p>&#8220;The deterrent effect decreased quickly, possibly because of the few and slow legal processes. Law enforcement through convictions therefore seems to be a necessary ingredient for the long-run success of a copyright protection law,&#8221; the researchers note. </p>
<p>The researchers suggest that if more people are convicted, the effects may last longer. During the first few years only a handful of file-sharers were brought to justice, while <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/young-file-sharers-respond-to-tough-laws-by-buying-a-vpn-120501/">hundreds of thousands</a> took steps to circumvent the law.</p>
<p>&#8220;As the first court cases were only settled recently, it is still possible that further convictions would restore an effect that is more long-lasting,&#8221; they write in their conclusion. </p>
<p>The question remains, however, whether bankrupting people or throwing them in jail is the ideal strategy in the long run&#8230; </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87915
title: Quentin Tarantino Dumps Gawker Script-Leak Lawsuit
uri: Quentin-Tarantino-Dumps-Gawker-Script-Leak-Lawsuit
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/f70IzwZXRgg/
content:
<p><img src="media/9f219c2f.tarantino2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tarantino2.jpg" width="275" height="164" class="alignright">Just when it seemed that Tarantino and his legal team were in for the long haul against Gawker, things have taken a turn for the unusual.</p>
<p>After his initial lawsuit over the leak of his script &#8216;The Hateful Eight&#8217; was <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/viewing-pirated-material-is-not-direct-copyright-infringement-judge-tells-tarantino-140423/">kicked out</a> by a judge due to a lack of evidence, just last week Tarantino filed an <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/tarantino-is-back-now-claiming-gawker-is-an-illegal-downloader-140502/">amended complaint</a>.</p>
<p>But now, and without even waiting for Gawker to respond to his revised allegations, Tarantino has withdrawn the lawsuit attacking Gawker&#8217;s conduct as it reported the leak, or as the writer/director previously claimed, actually encouraged its distribution.</p>
<p>&#8220;This dismissal is made without prejudice, whereby Plaintiff may later advance an action and refile a complaint after further investigations to ascertain and plead the identities of additional infringers resulting from Gawker Media’s contributory copyright infringement, by its promotion, aiding and abetting and materially contributing to the dissemination to third-parties of unauthorized copies of Plaintiff’s copyrighted work,&#8221; the <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/quentin-tarantino-withdraws-lawsuit-gawker-702249">dismissal motion</a> reads.</p>
<p>The details were covered in our earlier <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/tarantino-is-back-now-claiming-gawker-is-an-illegal-downloader-140502/">article</a>, but this means that Tarantino may later decide to refile his complaint if he can come up with a way to identify third parties that infringed his copyrights after being encouraged to do so by Gawker. No easy feat.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s also possible this is a convenient way to back out of a battle that&#8217;s looked less solid after each step. Tarantino loves making films, and it&#8217;s doubtful he likes legal battles to the same degree. After spending a considerable sum on lawyers already, swapping one for the other may have been too great a temptation.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87926
title: Off US Blacklist, Italy Begins Torrent Site Blackout, No Trials Needed
uri: Off-US-Blacklist-Italy-Begins-Torrent-Site-Blackout-No-Trials-Needed
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/fh3zAYCSrEU/
content:
<p><a href="media/7dabb3f0.censored.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/censored.jpg"><img src="media/f05b8357.censored.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/censored.jpg" alt="censored" width="199" height="173" class="alignright size-full wp-image-35000"></a>After coming under intense and sustained US-pressure to change its attitudes to online piracy, earlier this month it became clear there had been an Italian breakthrough. After being firmly planted on the USTR&#8217;s Watch List in the Special 301 Report, Italy was notably absent from the USTR&#8217;s 2014 edition.</p>
<p>&#8220;Italy’s removal from the Special 301 List reflects the significant steps the Government of Italy has taken to address the problem of online piracy, and the continued U.S. commitment to meaningful and sustained engagement with our critical partner Italy,&#8221; the USTR said in a special announcement earlier this month.</p>
<p>What Italy had done to deserve these compliments was fairly extraordinary. Instead of legislating to make a piracy crackdown easier or more effective, the government handed AGCOM, the Italian Communications Regulatory Authority, the power to deal with infringement.</p>
<p>Without need for costly and drawn out legal cases and court-ordered injunctions, from March 31, 2014, AGCOM had the power to order the removal of infringing content or the blocking of allegedly copyright-infringing domains. Remember, these are regulations calling the shots &#8211; not legislation.</p>
<p>Now, a little over two months since the start of the new system, AGCOM has been flexing its muscles against what many people believed to be the framework&#8217;s primary targets &#8211; torrent sites.</p>
<p>In four decisions made public this week by AGCOM, LimeTorrents, TorrentDownload.ws, Torrentz.pro and TorrentDownloads.me were all deemed to be infringing and as a result will end up blocked by the country&#8217;s ISPs. The decisions, published on AGCOM.it, also reveal who made the complaints and when.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.agcom.it/default.aspx?DocID=13125">LimeTorrents case</a> was reported to AGCOM by local anti-piracy group FPM representing Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music. In their evidence the labels provided links to torrents that linked to their works. After a review AGCOM agreed that the labels&#8217; complaints were genuine. Attempts to contact LimeTorrents&#8217; owners failed so they were disallowed from involvement in the process.</p>
<p>In conclusion, and &#8220;in compliance with the principles of proportionality&#8221;, on May 5 Italian ISPs were given just two days to block subscriber access to LimeTorrents. In general terms the complaints against the other sites were similar and featured both music and video focused anti-piracy groups working on behalf of several movie studios. Those sites will also be blocked.</p>
<p>Notable is the streamlined nature of the process. All complaints were filed mid-April and today, less than three weeks later, the blocks should already be in place. Little wonder the USTR is pleased.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87289
title: How VPN Services Responded to Heartbleed
uri: How-VPN-Services-Responded-to-Heartbleed
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/CB99B0s9U6k/
content:
<p><img src="media/04a878f9.heartbleed.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/heartbleed.png" alt="heartbleed" width="200" height="239" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87539">A month has passed since the Heartbleed security bug was first disclosed. At that time, hundreds of thousands of &#8220;secure&#8221; webservers were at risk of leaking personal information, including many popular websites. </p>
<p>Heartbleed is a bug in the open-source OpenSSL library that allows outsiders to read and dump encrypted data. When it was first made public it caused widespread panic with many experts describing it as &#8220;catastrophic.&#8221;</p>
<p>Among the affected services were a great number of VPN providers. At least momentarily, users of those affected services risked having their passwords and usernames intercepted, as well as other data they sent over a secure connection. </p>
<p>Perhaps even more worrying, successful hackers could have gotten their hands on private keys and certificates of VPN servers. For network adminstrators this was nearly undetectable before the bug was disclosed, and with the information the hacker could potentially decrypt users&#8217; traffic. </p>
<p>With the keys and certificates in hand, hackers can still target live sessions of individual VPN users after the OpenSSL vulnerabilities are patched. That is, in cases where OpenVPN is used without ephemeral keys.</p>
<p>While not everyone agrees on the likelihood that these exploits are being used in the wild, they certainly are possible. For this reason, it&#8217;s important for VPN providers to take several steps. To the best of our knowledge the most crucial ones are the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Update all vulnerable software components using OpenSSL (if statically linked) or OpenSSL itself.</li>
<li>Replace all SSL certificates for all affected components and properly revoke the old certificates </li>
<li>Generate new private keys for all affected components.</li>
</ul>
<p>TorrentFreak inquired among the companies listed in our <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">VPN provider overview</a> to see how they responded to Heartbleed, and how this was communicated to their users. They all agreed that Heartbleed posed a significant threat but the countermeasures, posted at the bottom of this article, vary from provider to provider. </p>
<p>As for the future, more should be done to prevent these critical bugs from putting millions of Internet users at risk. </p>
<p>Heartbleed has shown that more in-depth peer reviews are needed to ensure that critical infrastructure software such as OpenSSL is built on clean and secure code. In addition, it might not be a bad idea to move away from the OpenSSL monoculture, and look at alternative such as PolarSSL, LibreSSL, or GnuTLS. Of course, these alternatives have to be carefully reviewed as well.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>Below is the list of responses we received from various VPN providers, between April 22 and early May. The fact that these answers are posted here is not an endorsement, nor is it an indication that the steps taken were the rights ones. That&#8217;s not up to us to judge, we merely strive to get as much information out to the public as possible. </p>
<p>All VPN services answered the following questions.</p>
<p>1. What steps has your company taken in response to Heartbleed?<br>
2. In your opinion, what were the risks users faced before these steps were taken?<br>
3. How did you communicate the above to your users?</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<h2><a href="http://bit.ly/privateinternet">Private Internet Access</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/d2a1e068.pia.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pia.png"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-41039" title="torrentprivacy" src="media/d2a1e068.pia.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pia.png" alt="" width="180" height="40"></a>1. Heartbleed was an eye opener which helped to make the public more aware of the insecurities that exist in un-audited code.  Regardless of being open or closed source, there will always be insecurities in systems.  However, the best that companies can do is to strive to achieve 100% security.  In our case, when the Heartbleed exploit was announced, we reacted immediately.  It was publicly disclosed at or about UTC 19:00:00 on April 7, 2014.  We patched our VPN gateways within 4 hours at or about UTC 23:17:15 on April 7, 2014 by upgrading our OpenSSL libraries to version 1.0.1g from 1.0.1f.</p>
<p>Our website was not exploitable given that we use a hardware load balancer that is not using a vulnerable version of OpenSSL.</p>
<p>Immediately after patching our VPN gateways, we then setup a non-production gateway that we attempted to exploit using the Heartbleed exploit POCs (proof of concepts).  While it was recently announced that OpenVPN is exploitable, it is our best belief that our private keys were never leaked given that we have systems in place that make the exploitation of our servers very unlikely.</p>
<p>That being said, within 24 hours we are rolling out updates to our clients as well, even though it is highly unlikely that our keys were ever leaked.</p>
<p>2. The likeliness of our gateways being exploited prior to us rolling out these patches are extremely low.  However, as stated earlier, at Private Internet Access, we strive to achieve 100% security, so we went through the motions as it is our policy to do so in best practice.</p>
<p>3. We waited to announce anything to our users until we were 100% certain of everything we were stating.  That said, we <a href="https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2014/04/heartbleed-post-mortem/">posted on our blog</a> after we performed our patches.</p>
<p>Additionally, we will be sending out a mass e-mail within 24 hours to our clients as certain users (DD-WRT, stock OpenVPN, etc.) will need to manually apply updates in order to connect to our service.</p>
<h2><a href="http://bit.ly/torguardvpn">TorGuard</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/b1060a22.torguard.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/torguard.png"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-50163" title="torguard" src="media/b1060a22.torguard.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/torguard.png" alt="" width="180" height="59"></a>1. Upon hearing of the OpenSSL vulnerability our staff took immediate action to preserve the integrity and security of TorGuard services. This included a full audit of our VPN network, software, and websites. All VPN servers have now been updated to a non vulnerable version of OpenSSL and these new connections have been automatically downloaded in all TG VPN clients. TorGuard&#8217;s Pro VPN client software has also been updated to the latest patched OpenVPN version and pushed to all users. Our company&#8217;s website infrastructure, client area, and email services were not vulnerable even in the months prior when this bug was out in the wild.</p>
<p>2. While the threats posed by the OpenSSL HeartBleed vulnerability are wide reaching and potentially very serious, our team can confidently say this development had no impact on the security of TorGuard&#8217;s users. Rest assured, we won&#8217;t let your heart bleed.</p>
<p>3. TorGuard <a href="https://torguard.net/blog/torguard-vpn-audit-results-heartbleed-ssl-bug/">posted the findings of the network audit</a> on our blog and immediately emailed all clients a direct link.</p>
<h2><a href="https://ipredator.se/">Ipredator</a></h2>
<p><img src="media/9770b40e.ipredatorvpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ipredatorvpn.png" alt="ipredatorvpn" width="180" height="144" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87858">1. Once the vulnerability was made public we instantly started to patch all affected systems.  This particular bug was present on our IPv6 VPN machines, a subset of the IPv4 VPN servers that were using OpenSSL 1.0.1 and all of our external SSL services like the website, the tor exit node, or jabber server.</p>
<p>After the upgrade to the latest OpenSSL version was finished we decided to replace the private keys from all affected components because the confidentiality of those keys could not be guaranteed anymore. The window of opportunity for an attacker who had this bug as a 0day up his/her/its sleeve was simply too long. Due to the nature of the bug it is very difficult to say retrospectively if it was used to gain access to possibly sensitive memory contents of the affected machines.</p>
<p>Since we had to replace all affected VPN server certificates we decided to deploy a new key management scheme for those machines. Each OpenVPN instance now uses one time private keys, cert and DH keys that are cycled on process restart.</p>
<p>In the same way we have seen the emergence of special purpose hardware for Bitcoin mining we should also assume that the entities that have the means to compromise cryptography also possess special hardware to deal with encryption. As an additional precaution against this scenario we deployed server and DH keys with variable lengths instead of sticking to the &#8220;well known&#8221; lengths/constants of 2048 and 4096 bit.</p>
<p>We are still working on making sure that all OpenSSL 1.0.1 components support the EC curve 25519 from DJB since any EC constants put forth by the NIST (or NSA) should be considered compromised.</p>
<p>2. Total exposure.</p>
<p>3. Users were informed through the usual channels (Twitter, blog, IRC).</p>
<h2><a href="http://mullvad.net/en">Mullvad</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/032a295b.mullvad.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mullvad.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-41059" title="mullvad" src="media/032a295b.mullvad.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mullvad.jpg" alt="" width="180" height="37"></a> 1. We upgraded OpenSSL on all servers and client downloads. We created new keys on all servers. We revoked all old keys. We released a new client program with the revocation list that also creates new client keys. For those not using our client program we published new OpenVPN configuration files with the revocation list and new client keys for all users.</p>
<p>2. It was unknown how vulnerable OpenVPN was in practice so we decided to find out by trying to exploit the bug on a test server. We repeatedly succeeded in extracting the server&#8217;s private key. These findings were sent in full detail to the OpenVPN team and published in less harmful form e.g. <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/VPN/comments/236vsr/successful_private_key_extraction_from_openvpn/">here</a>.</p>
<p>The conclusion is that before the fixes above all OpenVPN communication were at risk of decryption by anyone knowing about the bug *at the time*. Due to perfect forward secrecy they can&#8217;t be decrypted with a key leaked at a later time. So anyone who did not know about the bug but managed to snatch a key after the bug was published can&#8217;t go back and decrypt traffic they may have stored.</p>
<p> 3. We put a big red warning banner on our website that is still there and published a news item explaining the situation and <a href="https://mullvad.net/en/news/#n34">urging all users to upgrade</a>.</p>
<h2><a href="http://vikingvpn.com/">VikingVPN</a></h2>
<p><img src="media/345cb436.vikingvpn.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vikingvpn.jpg" alt="vikingvpn" width="180" height="203" class="alignright size-full wp-image-74962">1. We learned about the vulnerability at 9:17PM CST on April 7th. From that point forward, we did not sleep until the vulnerability was closed and every server was penetration tested against all known forms of the exploit to ensure that the vulnerability was closed.</p>
<p>At the time we found out about the vulnerability, there wasn&#8217;t even a CVE entry in the database explaining the nature of the vulnerability or the attack. We knew that because of the integration of OpenSSL into the Windows OpenVPN open-source client, and the default builds of OpenSSL installed into almost all distros of Linux/BSD that this was going to be huge.</p>
<p>As more information unfolded and the OpenSSL updates hit the verified repositories, we began the patching process on our servers. After the main vulnerability was closed and a rolling restart was issued to the server clusters, we went to work with notifying clients of the bug and advising them to update their clients to current.</p>
<p>The servers were patched and confirmed safe by 7:00AM CST on April 8th. This is when we released our transparency post advising our users on the situation, and how they can respond to close the bug client-side. A mass email was sent shortly after advising our clients to read the post, and had instructions on updating their clients.</p>
<p>2. The bug is catastrophic in scale. We avoided disaster by having a very strong security model and not allowing clients to change security settings. During the vulnerable period where the bug was unknown publicly, there was no way for a VPN provider to detect if they were attacked. It is possible that server keys and certs were lost although we have had no evidence of this. Our root CA was not exposed. Our website was unaffected. Our load-balancers were unaffected.</p>
<p>The worst case scenario for our security topology is that keys and certs and the tls-auth server key were lost to a nefarious attacker who was subscribed to the service. (because of TLS-Auth, there was no way to exploit heartbleed from outside of the network, only inside). If this were to occur, an attacker could attempt to impersonate a VPN server. In order for the attack to work they would have to take many specific steps to circumvent various load-balancing and routing steps that place during the connection process. We think that this is highly unlikely to have happened, but is not impossible, so we are disclosing it to be as open and transparent as possible.</p>
<p>Note that a VPN service that claims zero exposure to Heartbleed is almost certainly lying or has so little knowledge about network security that they should not be in the business. Heartbleed hit everyone, it is a matter of how badly.</p>
<p>3. We responded publicly <a href="https://vikingvpn.com/blogs/transparency/emergency-patching-applied-to-all-servers-to-combat-heartbleed">here</a>, and also also had a Heartbleed <a href="https://vikingvpn.com/blogs/security/the-openssl-heartbleed-vulnerability">article here</a>. We also made informational posts to the community at /r/VPN on Reddit and reached out to other VPN services we are close to in order to discuss countermeasures and implementations. We also made an effort <a href="https://pay.reddit.com/r/VPN/comments/22jzse/openvpn_has_been_updated_to_close_the_heartbleed/">to educate the /r/VPN community</a> on proper countermeasures. </p>
<h2><a href="http://www.ivpn.net/">IVPN</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/a656cf52.ivpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ivpn.png"><img src="media/a656cf52.ivpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ivpn.png" alt="ivpn" width="150" height="69" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85390"></a>1. We revoked all VPN server certificates and generated new 4096 bit certificates within a few hours of the announcement. We&#8217;ve also had our websites EV certificate reissued. Most of our client software was not using a vulnerable version of OpenVPN but where necessary we patched the client software as well.</p>
<p>2. A successful attack could reveal the server&#8217;s private key which could be used to impersonate the server in a MITM attack or to passively decrypt the session keys during SSL negotiation. Although we implement tls-auth this doesn&#8217;t mitigate the risk substantially since the auth keys are visible to all customers. Its important to understand that a successful attack prior to the announcement would likely only be possible from a very sophisticated and well funded adversary targeting a specific individual. Such adversaries almost certainly continue to possess undisclosed vulnerabilities that they can use to exploit targets.</p>
<p>3. We sent out a tweet immediately after installing the new certificates. We then emailed all our customers with information about the vulnerability and instructions on how to update the client software where required. We also <a href="https://www.ivpn.net/blog/heartbleed-passwords-change">made an infographic</a> to help customers understand what passwords to change on other services. </p>
<p><a href="media/3f4973e2.privatvpn.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/privatvpn.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-41044" title="privatvpn" src="media/3f4973e2.privatvpn.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/privatvpn.jpg" alt="" width="180" height="53"></a></p>
<p>1. Yes, we have updated OpenSSL on both OpenVPN servers and the website. The certificate for the VPN server has been updated as well.</p>
<p>2. Hard to say. Worst case is that information has been leaked when we had the old version of OpenSSL.</p>
<p>3. We <a href="https://privatevpn.com/blog/vpn-service/8/heartbleed-update-1">posted</a> two <a href="https://privatevpn.com/blog/website/9/heartbleed-update-2">updates</a> on our website. </p>
<h2><a href="http://www.tigervpn.com/en/home">tigerVPN</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/7a985cb0.tigervpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tigervpn.png"><img src="media/7a985cb0.tigervpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tigervpn.png" alt="tigervpn" width="180" height="73" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85421"></a>1. We constantly monitor all upstream software providers and keep current with the upgrades they provide. As such, as soon as a fix was made available that would suit our platform as well as our internal security standards, we took all steps necessary to upgrade our systems. </p>
<p>Following a routine audit we&#8217;ve concluded that none of our critical systems were affected during the period between the public release of the proof of concept and the date at which the necessary fixes were applied.</p>
<p>2. As our systems are being actively monitored there is no reason to believe that our customers were affected by the Heartbleed attack in any way. Since the exploit seems to work on both server software and client software, there is a slight chance that, if some of our users are also using other providers, they would be affected in case a malicious provider &#8211; by choice or having been affected themselves &#8211; were to attempt to extract information from them.</p>
<p>The information &#8211; from what we&#8217;ve seen in the behavioral analysis of the exploit by various security professionals &#8211; that they would be able to obtain would be pertinent only to their specific connection to that provider. Also, from a client&#8217;s perspective, running a Windows machine the only service potentially affected by this bug would be OpenVPN as the others are key services provided by Microsoft in the core OS and do not share anything in common with the OpenSSL library.</p>
<p>3. We constantly run security audits, monitor our network and improve TigerVPN. Although the incident was hyped on a big scale, we did a lot of upgrades, fixes and improvements throughout the month. If we would inform our customers about every single time we work on our software or hardware, they’d unsubscribe and report us as spam :-). We understand this is in the nature of our responsibility to pro-actively react to events such as Heartbleed. In case we ever noticed any kind of breach, all our customers would get notified immediately as with a single click.</p>
<h2><a href="https://www.blackvpn.com/">BlackVPN</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/67c6712f.blackvpn.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/blackvpn.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-41043" title="blackvpn" src="media/67c6712f.blackvpn.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/blackvpn.jpg" alt="" width="180" height="61"></a>1. Our website was running an unaffected version of OpenSSL (0.9.8g) however we updated OpenSSL there anyway.</p>
<p>Some VPN servers were vulnerable so we updated all servers on April 8th to protect against further attacks.</p>
<p>On April 17 we issued new VPN configs with new 4096 bit certificates.  We were working on this after we found out about Heartbleed but as soon as it was proven that the bug can be used against OpenVPN we immediately made the new configs + certificates available to everyone. On the VPN server side all the certificates, keys and DH keys have been replaced.</p>
<p>2. It has been proven that Heartbleed can be used to steal the private key and impersonate a VPN server (if the VPN server was running a vulnerable version of OpenSSL). People connecting to what they thought was their real VPN provider could actually be connecting to a fake VPN server or honeypot &#8211; although this would take the resources of a powerful government agency or similar.</p>
<p>3. In order to be as open and transparent as possible we <a href="https://medium.com/@blackVPN">started a new blog</a> to warn people of the potential dangers and to update them of the changes we made. We echoed this message on all our social media channels (<Twitter (<a href="https://twitter.com/blackVPN/status/454236310778441729">1</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/blackVPN/status/456899841109803008">2</a>), Facebook (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/blackvpn/posts/744660682233204">1</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/blackvpn/posts/747018411997431">2</a>), <a href="https://plus.google.com/+GoblackVPNForPrivacy/posts">Google+</a> and Reddit (<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/VPN/comments/22os1x/blackvpn_audit_and_response_to_the_critical">1</a>, <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/VPN/comments/23avtw/blackvpn_openvpn_users_need_to_update_now/ ">2</a>) ) as well as emailing all our current and previous customers (in case a previous customer renewed without being aware that they should update).</p>
<h2><a href="https://anonymizer.com/index.html">Anonymizer</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/9bcd5f14.anonimizer.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/anonimizer.png"><img src="media/9bcd5f14.anonimizer.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/anonimizer.png" alt="anonimizer" width="180" height="54" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85321"></a>1. The website itself was not vulnerable at all, at any time. Our OpenVPN servers though, were changed to a different version of OpenSSL that was vulnerable on 2/27/2014. So, a vulnerability existed on our servers from 2/27/2014 through 4/8/2014, for a total of 39 days. We replaced/regenerated the certs on all clients and servers, since they were potentially exposed, within the day.</p>
<p>2. Small, but of course possible. We use HMAC-based TLS authentication at both ends of the connection, using separate halves of a shared key, as recommended by OpenVPN. This creates a signature of each packet which is attached to the packet. The server drops any packets that are unsigned or incorrectly signed. In the past, this has primarily been used to prevent / slow down a DDoS attack, since the attacker would need to securely hash each packet using the right half of the shared key in the way that the OpenVPN client does.</p>
<p>Even with the suggestion from OpenVPN that TLS auth could form a kind of protection against Heartbleed, it isn&#8217;t foolproof, given that we have to distribute the key with each client or no one would be able to connect to our servers. As the researcher who created the OpenVPN penetration test earlier this week noted, it wouldn&#8217;t be that difficult for a determined hacker to discover the TLS auth key and modify his attack to use it. It does, however, prevent a drive-by attack where we are hit more or less randomly as a VPN services provider. </p>
<p>The worst case scenario is that someone obtained our older server private key and was able to decrypt live data and create a man-in-the-middle attack against our users during the 39 days we were using OpenVPN 2.3.2. Account credentials could have been compromised, and the private key could have conceivably been as well. Once we replaced OpenVPN to a non-vulnerable version and the server certificate was replaced, that vector was closed.</p>
<p>3. We sent out an email notice to our customers.</p>
<h2><a href="http://bolehvpn.net/">BolehVPN</a></h2>
<p><img src="media/3266372e.bolehvpn.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/bolehvpn.jpg" alt="bolehvpn" width="182" height="61" class="alignright size-full wp-image-66056">When the Heartbleed announcement first broke, on the 7th April, we reviewed our servers and customer portal system and found that they did not utilize the affected OpenSSL versions. When OpenVPN released their patch to fix HeartBleed, we immediately implemented this in our own client and released this on the 10th April 2014. Moving forward, our next client release will use OpenVPN 2.3.3 which we hope to release in the coming week.</p>
<p>We are also in the midst of an entire customer portal revamp to improve security and usability which we hope to release in a month or so and are considering a complete reissue of all keys when this is released. The revamp was initiated many months ago and was not as a result of the HeartBleed bug but is in line in our continuing efforts to improve our system&#8217;s security.</p>
<p>Our OpenVPN implementation implements tls-auth with Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) would protect past communications from retrospective decryption so the risk is mitigated. In this scenario an attacker can not attack OpenVPN instances without the TLS-auth key. Our customer portal processing system never used the affected OpenSSL versions and remained with the older OpenSSL 0.9.8. Users may request for a manual regeneration of their keys if they wish to be overly cautious by opening a ticket with us.</p>
<p>We sent out an email announcement to all users immediately, as well as a Facebook and <a href="https://www.bolehvpn.net/blog/2014/04/serious-bug-in-openssl-heartbleed-and-implications/">Blog post</a> on the 8th April 2014 3.22 PM GMT+8. We then pushed an update to our VPN clients on the 10th April with the patched OpenVPN version as well.</p>
<h2><a href="http://www.nordvpn.com/">NordVPN</a></h2>
<p><img src="media/6e93ade5.nordvpn.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/nordvpn.jpg" alt="nordvpn" width="180" height="55" class="alignright size-full wp-image-66059">1. In a response to Heartbleed, NordVPN has changed private keys for all servers. Also, the main NordVPN&#8217;s certificate has been revoked and a new one has been added. Our OpenSSL libraries have been upgraded from version 1.0.1e to a safe 1.0.1g.</p>
<p>2. For users: potential user detail leaks such as user names and passwords, but this is very unlikely as data that malicious people could get was in random locations in a server memory and user details are not kept in the memory for an entire session. </p>
<p>For servers: Private SSL certificate keys are used to encrypt and decrypt data communications between user and a VPN server. If anyone could have received a certificate and perform a man in the middle attack, all data which was sent from a VPN server to the user could have been decrypted.</p>
<p>3. The information was constantly shared to our users via our live chat and e-mails. Also the pop-up, an announcement line and the blog records were used to inform the steps we were taking in a response to Heartbleed. Here was the latest blog record about Heartbleed: https://nordvpn.com/blog/heartbleed-vulnerability-has-been-removed/</p>
<h2><a href="http://proxy.sh">Proxy.sh</a></h2>
<p><img src="media/485b170e.proxy.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/proxy.png" alt="proxy" width="185" height="60" class="alignright size-full wp-image-66630">1. When the Heartbleed security news broke, our engineering unit immediately scanned all our servers and upgraded to latest version the few servers (about 4% of our infrastructure) that were using vulnerable versions of OpenSSL. Our team then progressively patched absolutely all our servers in an attempt to enjoy other bugfixes (unrelated to security) accompanied with the successive new versions of OpenSSL. Vulnerable servers were patched within less than one hour and the non-vulnerable ones progressively got all upgraded within 24 hours.</p>
<p>We then researched about the implication of this bug and with the security community, we came to the conclusion that it was beyond reasonable doubt, even though most of our servers were non-vulnerable, that a new re-generation of private keys was indeed necessary. Indeed, extraction of private keys on vulnerable servers proved possible.</p>
<p>Since re-generating complete new sets of private and public keys undeniably involves a downtime and reconfiguration on user end, we also took this &#8216;opportunity&#8217; to completely upgrade our encryption scheme, now leading the industry with CBC mode of AES with 256-bit as cipher, hash algorithm of 512-bit SHA (SHA512) and control channel of 4096-bit RSA through TLSv1/SSLv3 and with 256-bit AES, enforced to all customers by default.</p>
<p>The latest move does not necessarily respond to Heartbleed, but at least it makes it 100% theoretically impossible that the Heartbleed bug has any implication on the current VPN network, as the latter is using not only new private and public keys, but also completely new encryption algorithms.</p>
<p>2. It is very complex to answer with certainty what truly happened. But basically, a hacker who knew about this security hole before it went public (or within the few minutes between the time the news broke and the time we patched vulnerability), could have hacked the 4% of our servers infected with the vulnerable version of OpenSSL. They could have retrieved our private keys, and thus would potentially be able to decrypt the traffic that has been generated by our services before they have been updated with new private keys.</p>
<p>Any service that did not either re-generated new private keys (and offered new certificate files to customers) or upgraded completely its encryption scheme (or optimally having done both), is at risk of being exposed to full decryption because the keys could have been stolen at anytime before the patch was enforced on vulnerable servers, and vulnerability across any network of more than a hundred servers built over the course of several months or years was undeniably present at sporadic levels.</p>
<p>Now, factually, only a very close circle of white hat hackers were aware of this security hole and exploiting it in relation to keys vulnerability took us or anyone with security experience several days to figure out (wisely we applied precautionary principle and upgraded the keys well before). That means it would take at least some hours for most experienced hackers to have been able to exploit Heartbleed, hence the keys have had a thin chance of being compromised since the vulnerable servers were patched few minutes after 0day news.</p>
<p>3. We offered a public blog article within less than 24 hours after OpenSSL released new version and Heartbleed bug came out to public. This article can be found <a href="https://proxy.sh/panel/announcements/138/The-Heartbleed-Bug-OpenSSL-OpenVPN-and-Proxysh.html">here</a> and we explain in it that we successfully updated our OpenSSL software to latest version, even though most of our servers were using non-vulnerable versions of OpenSSL. The upgrade itself started few minutes after the security news broke.</p>
<p>Twenty four hours later, we <a href="https://proxy.sh/panel/announcements/139/Scheduled-complete-downtime-for-a-better-future.html">published another article</a> to warn customers that we will be shutting down the entire network for less than 5 minutes (with downtimes of few seconds for each server) as we will be both re-generating new private and public keys, as well as upgrading our cipher and authentification encryption.</p>
<p>Seventy eight hours later, we published a <a href="https://proxy.sh/panel/announcements/140/Network-upgraded-re-download-ovpnorcrt-please.html">final article</a> to explain that the upgrade has now been undertaken and that all users should download again the new configuration and certificate files in order to be able to connect to our network.</p>
<p>All these articles were advertised on our Twitter account. Finally, we sent a mass e-mail (the first time in our history) to all our customers to explain again to them that they should download new configuration and certificate files, as well as preferably change their passwords.</p>
<h2><a href="http://www.hideipvpn.com/">HideIPVPN</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/c4783f6f.hideipvpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hideipvpn.png"><img src="media/c4783f6f.hideipvpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hideipvpn.png" alt="hideipvpn" width="180" height="68" class="alignright size-full wp-image-83070"></a>1. We are using Ubuntu on all servers. We have updated all our 12.04 Ubuntu versions next day, we are also using older Ubuntu where we use unaffected OpenSSL version. </p>
<p>2. We think the only risk is that it was possible to steal the username and passwords for the client area. We think that getting these details from the memory would be very complicated.</p>
<p>3. We <a href="http://www.hideipvpn.com/2014/04/hideipvpn-heartbleed-safe-openssl-bug/">published an article here</a>.</p>
<h2><a href="http://www.slickvpn.com/">SlickVPN</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/99f09611.slickvpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/slickvpn.png"><img src="media/99f09611.slickvpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/slickvpn.png" alt="slickvpn" width="191" height="96" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85301"></a>All of the gateway servers were updated to a non-exploitable version of OpenSSL as soon as we heard about the issue, within hours of the initial public notice. We do not believe any of our key information could have been exploited in such a short amount of time, but we’re still planning to re-issue keys with the next client version, which should be updated by this weekend.  We are also issuing new .ovpn files on our website.  Once the updated client has been issued, we will be creating a blog post informing our clients about the changes.fanon</p>
<h2><a href="http://www.octanevpn.com/">OctaneVPN</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/c041b3ba.octane.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/octane.png"><img src="media/c041b3ba.octane.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/octane.png" alt="octane" width="180" height="52" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85308"></a>1. What steps has your company taken in response to Heartbleed (website, servers etc)?</p>
<p>1. In summary, our website was running on an older server with OpenSSL libraries that pre-dated the introduction of the Heartbleed bug into OpenSSL, so we feel our customer confidential information was not at risk due to Heartbleed.  Among our VPN network gateways, many were on a vulnerable version of OpenSSL or a vulnerable build of OpenVPN server.  Those that were vulnerable were updated and restarted within hours of the public announcement.  Due to the short time between public announcement and our updates, we feel the risk of key disclosure was very small, but as a precaution the next release of Octane OpenVPN client will update the client keys.</p>
<p>In addition, this vulnerability in a key internet platform spurred us to consider a number of other scenarios which has resulted in us adding some cool new features and options in our OctaneVPN client which will be released soon.</p>
<p>2. Straight up, this was a serious bug in a major internet platform.  The risk and vulnerability is same for all websites and services that relied on OpenSSL for encryption.  In general, based on research others have posted, it appears the worst case would be that a private encryption key could be obtained by an untrusted third party.  In addition, it appears this would leave no traces.  </p>
<p>Assuming others were not exploiting the Heartbleed vulnerability before its public announcement, we feel the risk of a private key release was very small due to the short time window between public announcement and us applying patches to our gateway servers.  There is no evidence or unusual patterns that would lead us to suspect our gateways were targeted.  Our website was not vulnerable to Heartbleed since it was running an older OpenSSL version prior to when the Heartbleed bug first entered the OpenSSL code.  </p>
<p>Remember, most sensitive web traffic is already encrypted by the end website/browser via SSL before it is encrypted again by a VPN network, so an attacker would need both a VPN private key and also the end website&#8217;s private key (say Amazon.com or gmail.com keys) to even start to have a chance.  The possibility of obtaining one key through Heartbleed is remote, but doing it for two keys and the correct two keys for a given data packet before those sites were patched or new keys issued is that much harder.</p>
<p>3. How we communicated the above to our users.</p>
<p>a) We developed a <a href=" https://www.octanevpn.com/heartbleed">dedicated web page</a><br>
b) We have worked with individual customers through our support channel to answer specific questions<br>
c) Our OctaneVPN client will notify customers automatically as new releases are available<br>
d) A comprehensive email will be pushed to customers once the new client features are placed in production</p>
<h2><a href="http://www.ipvanish.com/index.php">IPVanish</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/1d1c9f64.ipvarnish.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/ipvarnish.png"><img src="media/9e68bf44.ipvarnish.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ipvarnish.png" alt="ipvarnish" width="152" height="82" class="alignright size-full wp-image-51008"></a>1. The Heartbleed bug potentially exposed data being passed over the OpenSSL encryption protocol using TLS extension 15.  IPVanish did not and continues not to support the TLS extension 15, meaning all IPVanish users were and are safe from this bug.</p>
<p>2. In addition to our point above, our entire Network Operations team conducted a deep dive to verify and confirm that no steps were needed in response to Heartbleed.  We also continue to monitor the situation and will take the necessary steps if and when necessary.   </p>
<p>3. We proactively communicated to our users via our <a href="https://ipvanish.com/">homepage</a>, <a href="http://blog.ipvanish.com/ipvanish-unaffected-heartbleed/">blog</a>, social media handles (including Twitter, Facebook and Google+), and affiliate network, that all IPVanish users have been and continue to be safe from Heartbleed.  We additionally notified users that even though IPVanish itself never had a breach of security, we recommend they update their passwords if they use the same credentials across different services. </p>
<h2><a href="http://www.liquidvpn.com/">LiquidVPN</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/423e344b.liquid.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/liquid.png"><img src="media/423e344b.liquid.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/liquid.png" alt="liquid" width="160" height="65" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85312"></a>1. The first step was taken almost immediately. Our intrusion prevention system was  updated with the Heartbleed signature within 2 hours of the announcement. We performed an audit and identified the vulnerable systems. The last vulnerable VPN node was patched at 9:00 AM on 4/7/2014.</p>
<p>The affected servers had new keys created from an unaffected CA. We used to use two CA’s. 1 for our shared only server clusters and the 2nd one for our shared, dynamic and modulating server clusters. Our Shared IP CA had their certificates revoked and is no longer used anywhere.</p>
<p>We already had a plan in progress to do an overhaul of our OpenVPN configurations that will include a standardized configuration across the three different VPN server builds we use.  It includes an update to our network security, lowers our key re-negotiation time from 60 minutes to 30 minutes or less and uses a dedicated offline server purchased recently to serve as our air-gapped CA. When this rolls out we will issue new certificates across the network for the final time.</p>
<p>Our webserver was patched later that morning. We requested a new SSL certificate on 4/8/2014 and it was applied on 4/9/2014. We use Viscosity by Sparklabs as our VPN client. As soon as they released their OpenSSL patch it was pushed out to the clients.</p>
<p>2. This was a major vulnerability. No matter how much some providers downplayed it. For LiquidVPN an attacker could have signed up to our service and got their hands on our shared TLS-Auth key. With that in hand they could decipher portions of user VPN session data but every 60 minutes keys are re-negotiated so their access would be limited.</p>
<p>Website usernames and passwords could be compromised. Users were susceptible to man in the middle attacks. VPN usernames/passwords could be stolen.</p>
<p>3. We wanted to take a very proactive and transparent approach to this problem. However we had to secure users session data first. So we issued several updates beginning on April 7th. There is a handful of twitter posts they can be found @liquidvpn.</p>
<p>Our basic announcements (there were several) can be found <a href="https://www.liquidvpn.com/billing/announcements/89/LiquidVPN-VPN-Servers-have-been-patched-for-heartbleed-bug.html">on the website</a>. The <a href="https://www.liquidvpn.com/billing/serverstatus.php?view=resolved">network status section</a> has more information than the announcements. Finally after everything was secured and our updates were complete we <a href="https://www.liquidvpn.com/heartbleed-bug-update/">published a blog post</a>. </p>
<h2><a href="https://airvpn.org/">AirVPN</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/fb6bdebe.airvpn.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/airvpn.png"><img src="media/8e86e5a7.airvpn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/airvpn.png" alt="airvpn" width="180" height="48" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85470"></a>As soon as the vulnerability became known to us, between late night of April the 7th and early morning of April the 8th in Italy, we immediately started to get documentation. We began to work on the system minutes after we fully understood the problem and how the buffer over-read could be provoked and exploited. </p>
<p>Luckily our setup which involves Perfect Forward Secrecy both with OpenVPN and on the web server and the fact that our VPN servers do not keep any database or other data pertaining to users made the vulnerability not very risky for our VPN users.</p>
<p>Most of our VPN servers already were running non-vulnerable OpenSSL branches, as well as the various backend servers (a vital part of our infrastructure). On top of that VPN servers, web server and clients never contact directly backend servers, so we found ourselves in a very favorable situation. Our frontend web servers on the contrary were vulnerable.</p>
<p>We proceeded to make sure that OpenSSL version on the VPN servers was not vulnerable, patch OpenSSL in our web sites and revoke the SSL certificate, reboot all the web servers to make sure that no vulnerable in-memory OpenSSL was still loaded, install new key and new SSL certificate on every frontend web server, change internal use keys and certificates, change every administrative password on every server, patch OpenSSL on the couple of VPN servers which ran OpenSSL 1.0.1f and reboot them. </p>
<p>We performed attacks against all of our own servers to make sure that the vulnerability was not there. For this we must thank very much external, trusted reviewers who with dedication and passion continuously search for vulnerabilities in our servers and report to us the results &#8211; you know who you are, thanks again! All of the above was completed between 11.00 AM and 11.00 PM April the 8th CEST.</p>
<p>However, we soon realized that we had to keep into account that the vulnerability is client-side too, so the fact that our servers were &#8220;secured&#8221; could not be considered sufficient. Therefore we had to face the non-trivial problem to reach and inform our users, which was solved with a &#8220;dramatic&#8221; decision about a radical upgrade to the system which would have been performed after only a few days.</p>
<p>The upgrade would have forced users to get informed because from a certain point in time they could not connect anymore to VPN servers until they upgraded. Under a marketing point of view it appeared as an extremely risky decision, but now that two weeks have passed by we can say that this decision was wise, and anyway it was the right thing to do regardless of any marketing consideration. And it was also a good chance to switch to bigger keys and perform some radical optimizations that we could not perform without disconnecting users for several minutes.</p>
<p>About information to the public, we started with a <a href="https://airvpn.org/topic/11298-openssl-heartbleed-bug-tlsssl-vulnerability/#entry16461">public announcement</a> on April the 8th, as soon as we had clear ideas on what users needed to do. This was linked also through Twitter and Facebook. The post was updated in real time while we were working on the system.</p>
<p>The final steps were to renew the users keys. We needed first to find an effective way to &#8220;encourage&#8221; users to upgrade their systems. We decided to switch to 4096 bit RSA and DH keys, with new certificates, in a precise moment in the future (after just few days), to maximize the probability that when a user was forced to regenerate configurations, keys and certificates, he/she would have been brought more easily to upgrade any possible vulnerable part of his/her system. This was <a href="https://airvpn.org/topic/11319-major-system-upgrade-completed/#entry16533">announced here</a>.</p>
<p>And we sent via PM and e-mail (to those users who entered a valid e-mail address in their account data) a link to the announcement. At the same time we powered up the customer service for any clarification and to face any possible, massive wave of support requests. Since we do not outsource the customer service we did not need to impart lessons to customer care personnel in order to make them understand the problem, saving us many hours and allowing us to be confident that customers were correctly supported in case of need. Additionally we could count on our competent, supporting and very active community in our forums.</p>
<h2><a href="https://www.vpnsecure.me/">VPN.S</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/b00bd1fd.vpns.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vpns.png"><img src="media/b00bd1fd.vpns.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vpns.png" alt="vpns" width="180" height="68" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85300"></a>1. We have scanned all services and devices, our web servers and OpenVPN server installations do not use the vulnerable version of OpenSSL affected by Heartbleed. </p>
<p>The tools we used:<br>
OpenVPN: https://github.com/falstaff84/heartbleed_test_openvpn<br>
Webserver installations:https://sslabs.com <https://sslabs.com/></p>
<p>Manual checks were done on all other equipment such as Cisco routers. We have opened a internal review on the possibility of switching our SSL solution to PolarSSL.</p>
<p>2. Risk is only associated with users sharing passwords between VPNsecure accounts on services that were affected. We have advised users to change the password on the account which automatically regenerates the openvpn keys.</p>
<p>3. Facebook notifications were sent out, along with a <a href="http://support.vpnsecure.me/news/heartbleed-bug">news article</a> and email.</p>
<h2><a href="http://vpn.ac">VPN.ac</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/bcec9486.vpnac.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vpnac.png"><img src="media/bcec9486.vpnac.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vpnac.png" alt="vpnac" width="180" height="63" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85315"></a>1. We&#8217;ve been very quick addressing the issue, and we started patching everything immediately after the public vulnerability disclosure (<a href="https://twitter.com/vpnac/status/453299049219645440">Twitter announcement</a>).</p>
<p>- First we added a firewall rule to temporarily block and log all Heartbleed probes against our servers, allowing us to run the upgrades and issue new encryption keys while not being exposed<br>
- Website&#8217;s SSL certificate has been changed and we asked the issuer of the old certificate to revoke it; it was revoked one day later<br>
- The upgrade process of all affected servers running the vulnerable OpenSSL libraries was completed and all services restarted in the next few hours<br>
- After finishing the updates, we generated new encryption keys for our OpenVPN service and pushed them on all servers<br>
- Our Client Software has been updated on April 8 to include the non-vulnerable OpenVPN binaries</p>
<p>2. We don&#8217;t believe that the risks our users faced were of high importance until then, but once the vulnerability became public &#8211; taking all necessary measures to mitigate the risks and protect our infrastructure was obviously the best thing a responsible company would do. </p>
<p>3. We announced on Twitter minutes after the vulnerability public disclosure that we&#8217;re already updating the servers. Once everything was secure on April 8, we issued a <a href="https://vpn.ac/announcements/7/IMPORTANT-OpenSSL-TLS-Vulnerability.html">detailed statement on our website</a> and it was sent by email to all our customers.</p>
<h2><a href="http://www.unspyable.com/index.htm">Unspyable</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/8a3fd9f0.unspyable.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/unspyable.png"><img src="media/8a3fd9f0.unspyable.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/unspyable.png" alt="unspyable" width="180" height="53" class="alignright size-full wp-image-85323"></a>1. Our servers operate under versions of Linux that were not affected by this. Our OpenVPN servers use a custom build of OpenVPN that use non affected versions of OpenSSL. We use TLS which also minimizes the risk</p>
<p>2. The risks were minimal, since on the server side nothing was vulnerable.</p>
<p>3. Other than advising customers to upgrade their OpenVPN there was nothing else to be done.</p>
<h2><a href="http://seed4.me">Seed4.me</a></h2>
<p><img src="media/9e130b50.seed4me.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/seed4me.jpg" alt="seed4me" width="180" height="83" class="alignright size-full wp-image-86263">1. Our experts evaluated possible risks, replaced the certificate and <a href="https://seed4.me/blog/heartbleed-bug-we-are-not-affected/">published a blog post</a>.</p>
<p>2. Fortunately we are not severely affected. Possible men-in-the-middle attacks, the same as all other websites on the web. VPN services are not affected and we could not expose any private user information. More details are in the blog post.</p>
<p>3. We published a blog post, notified all our followers in Facebook and Twitter, asking to change password for other affected services. There is no need to change passwords for Seed4.Me accounts.</p>
<h2><a href="http://www.goldenfrog.com/vyprvpn">VyprVPN</a></h2>
<p><a href="media/f180fe7c.vypr.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vypr.png"><img src="media/f180fe7c.vypr.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vypr.png" alt="vypr" width="176" height="72" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87998"></a>1. As soon as news of the Heartbleed bug became public, we gathered our technical team together to determine the potential risks to our customers. We determined VyprVPN and the Golden Frog website have not ever used SSL libraries vulnerable to the TLS heartbeat exploit. For our secure online storage service, Dump Trunk, SSL libraries were patched as soon as possible and new ssl keys for the service were generated and deployed successfully. Due to the seriousness of the Heartbleed bug, we did recommend customers change their password as part of a sound security strategy.</p>
<p>2. Fortunately users were not at risk. Our apps use OpenSSL 1.0.1e, which is vulnerable to the Heartbleed Bug, for OpenVPN connections. However, even though the apps use a vulnerable version of OpenSSL, customer information was not at risk. To be compromised, the apps would need to connect to servers that send malicious heartbeat packets. Our apps only connect to VyprVPN servers, which do not send malicious packets. Even if the VyprVPN apps were somehow tricked into establishing a connection with a malicious server, the apps do not possess any information they are not already sending to the server. There is nothing a malicious server could gather from the client that it wouldn’t receive anyway.</p>
<p>3. We published a blog post and linked to it via our social media channels. We also immediately sent an email to all customers. Our support team was kept informed of potential risks and   answered customer questions that came in from customers.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87948
title: Music Distributor Claims Right to Monetize JFK Speech
uri: Music-Distributor-Claims-Right-to-Monetize-JFK-Speech
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/M1mhS6cxTCc/
content:
<p>Earlier this week, TorrentFreak reader &#8216;Homer&#8217; wrote in to complain about problems he&#8217;d been experiencing on YouTube. On April 8, 2014, Homer uploaded a five minute clip of JFK&#8217;s famous &#8220;The President and the Press&#8221; speech, given at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on April 27, 1961.</p>
<p><center><iframe width="650" height="366" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/xg1malLof88" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center></p>
<p>When TF was alerted to the issue this week the video had received under 10 views, yet someone already had their eye on it.</p>
<p>&#8220;A company called Believe Digital has made what I believe to be a fraudulent copyright claim against me for [the speech] I posted on YouTube,&#8221; Homer explained. &#8220;They&#8217;ve threatened no legal action, but have merely asserted ownership for the purpose of monetizing the video via advertising.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.believedigital.com/">Believe Digital</a>, a digital distributor for independent labels and artists, looks like a professional outfit. However, taking over the monetization rights of what should be a public domain speech and then on top refusing to respond to Homer&#8217;s dispute encouraged us to dig deeper. It would prove an interesting exercise, even though we already suspected there had been a monumental screw-up.</p>
<p>After Believe Digital ignored TF&#8217;s attempts to discuss the issue, we spoke with <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/aholland">Adam Holland</a>, a Project Coordinator at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, where he works on projects including the DMCA &#8216;clearing house&#8217; Chilling Effects.</p>
<p>&#8220;Works produced by the Federal government are public domain. So the text of the speech itself is in the public domain,&#8221; Holland told TF.</p>
<p>&#8220;If the federal government made a recording of the speech, then that recording is public domain. The JFK Presidential library <a href="http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHA-025-001.aspx">confirms</a> that that at least one version of the recording is still public domain.&#8221;</p>
<p>Drilling down into Believe Digital&#8217;s repertoire we see that they represent a pair of artists called Harley &#038; Muscle. Their track, Open Society, features something of interest throughout most of the track.</p>
<p><iframe width="650" height="366" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/snEC7MSk2f0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Were Believe Digital really trying to suggest that the original JFK speech infringes their rights, or could there be another explanation?</p>
<p>As pointed out by Adam Holland, a government audio recording of the speech would be in the public domain, meaning that Harley &#038; Muscle could have simply sampled that. However, their use of a separate and private recording would be a different matter.</p>
<p>&#8220;It’s possible that someone else, a private individual, made a recording of the speech in question, and the copyright status of that sound recording or A/V work would be more complex, but it’s likely the individual would have a valid copyright in that exact recording,&#8221; Holland explains.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is only germane to the issue at hand if Harley &#038; Muscle own that original recording, of course, and if it is that recording that was used to create their YouTube video. Otherwise, there’s a 3rd party involved who has rights that may or may not be infringed here by both parties.&#8221; </p>
<p>Adding yet more complexity to the mix, Holland goes on to explore another potential, albeit hugely unlikely scenario, but one in which Believe Digital could have a legitimate claim.</p>
<p>&#8220;It seems extraordinarily unlikely, if not impossible, that the speech excerpt on YouTube [uploaded by Homer] was made by copying the samples within the [Harley &#038; Muscle] song and pasting them together. It may well be impossible, I haven’t listened to the full extent of both. What seems likely is that both of the parties involved had access to another, more complete recording of the speech,&#8221; Holland adds. </p>
<p>Which would be, of course, the original public domain work. With that established and a fun detour into the public domain and back again, all roads branched back to what we initially believed to be the source of the problem &#8211; YouTube&#8217;s ContentID.</p>
<p>Somehow the system has &#8216;awarded&#8217; Believe Digital and Harley &#038; Muscle &#8220;the rights&#8221; to go around monetizing this particular JFK speech based on their remix of the work more than 50 years later. That may have happened because speeches themselves <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311402">don&#8217;t qualify</a> for ContentID, potentially designating Harley &#038; Muscle as the original publisher. However, those very same rules could also exclude their track from ContentID, but clearly didn&#8217;t.</p>
<p>&#8220;Generally, [these kinds of mismatches are] unquestionably the downside of ContentID, and the extent to which it streamlines procedures for content holders. It&#8217;s certainly a shame that Believe Digital won&#8217;t engage, but this is really a place where YouTube needs to step in,&#8221; Holland concludes.</p>
<p>While Believe Digital did not engage with either Homer or TorrentFreak on the matter whatsoever, during the week came a development.</p>
<p>&#8220;Thanks to your intervention this claim has indeed been silently dropped, just as I suspected, without an apology or even so much as an explanation, and I presume also without any consequence to the opportunistic claimant,&#8221; Homer told TF.</p>
<p>With Homer&#8217;s &#8216;strike&#8217; gone he can relax again once more, but something clearly needs to be done about the one-sided nature of the YouTube complaints process.</p>
<p>Companies like Believe Digital should be made to stand and engage once they have made a claim, not ignore the issue until they come under pressure. In this instance it was &#8216;just&#8217; a claim against the original speech, but a claim against another artist remixing the same content could mean loss of earnings &#8211; or the loss of his YouTube account entirely with a third strike.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=85813
title: These Pirate Parties Plan to Enter The European Parliament
uri: These-Pirate-Parties-Plan-to-Enter-The-European-Parliament
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/uj4DluDB9yA/
content:
<figure id="attachment_87892" style="width: 400px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/european-pirates-elections-2014_8072#4/57.11/22.94" target="_blank"><img class="size-full wp-image-87892" src="media/2b629479.eu-pirates.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eu-pirates.jpg" alt="Where you can vote pirate (click to open map)" width="400" height="383"></a><figcaption id="figcaption_attachment_87892" class="wp-caption-text">Where you can vote pirate (<em>click to open map</em>)</figcaption></figure>
<p>In roughly two weeks time, people all over the European Union will be going to the polls to elect the next European Parliament. Five years ago, the Swedish Pirate Party had a substantial victory with over 7% of the vote, and while the German Pirates didn&#8217;t get a seat, they did claim over <a href="http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/de/europawahlen/EU_BUND_09/ergebnisse/bundesergebnisse/" target="_blank">two hundred thousand votes</a>.</p>
<p>Now, five years later, more Pirate parties are now in a position to contest the election.</p>
<p>Today we provide a quick run-down of the Pirate candidates in the various countries, sorted by incumbency and seat apportionment (<em>Note: many links are to non-English language websites)</em></p>
<h2>Sweden (20 seats)</h2>
<p>The only country with incumbent MEPs, the order of Sweden&#8217;s two main candidates is unchanged from 2009, with Christian Engstrom first, followed by Amelia Andersdotter. Amelia, the <a title="Pirate To Join European Parliament As Youngest Member" href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-to-join-european-parliament-as-youngest-member-111120/">youngest ever</a> MEP when she was elected, is also one of the candidates for the <a title="Pirate Bay Founder Gets Ready to Run for European Parliament" href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-gets-ready-to-run-for-european-parliament-140321/">EU commission presidency</a>.</p>
<p>Christian told TorrentFreak: “The struggle to protect freedom on the Internet will continue, from defending net neutrality to fighting against mass surveillance. We must explain to the politicians from the older parties that the Internet is not a toy, and that we must defend our fundamental rights as vigorously in the online world as in the offline.”</p>
<p>The full list of candidates competing for the 20 seats is <a href="http://euval2014.piratpartiet.se/eu-kandidater/" target="_blank">available here</a>.</p>
<h2>Germany (96)</h2>
<p>Competing alongside Sweden in 2009, Germany also has the most seats of any country, with 96 up for grabs. While they didn&#8217;t quite hit 1% last time, they&#8217;ve been doing well in various regional elections for the last year or two, and they’re hardly a new ‘unelectable’ party either, with <a href="http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Mandate" target="_blank">250 seats</a> at various state and local governments. The 5% election threshold was ruled unconstitutional in 2011 and a proposed value of 3% was also <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26351565" target="_blank">struck down</a> a few months ago, meaning that just over 1% of the votes are needed to start winning seats, well within their grasp.</p>
<p>“Our vision for Europe,” <a href="https://www.piratenpartei.de/eu-kandidaten-2014/" target="_blank">lead candidate</a> Julia Reda told TF, “is based on the Internet: on sharing, collaboration and a community of peers. We need Pirates in the European Parliament to reform copyright and enable the sharing of culture and knowledge across national borders.”</p>
<h2>France (74, contesting 56)</h2>
<p>France is one of a select few countries that use a regional constituency system, rather than a national list. The French Pirate Party is running 13 candidates in the <a href="http://www.pirates-nordouest.eu/" target="_blank">North west</a>, 20 in the <a href="http://www.so-pirate.eu/blog/" target="_blank">south west</a> region, 26 in the <a href="http://partipirate.se/candidats/" target="_blank">South East</a>, 10 in <a href="http://wiki.partipirate.org/wiki/Candidats_Massif_central-Centre" target="_blank">Centre</a>, 30 in <a href="http://www.europirates.org/notre-liste/" target="_blank">Ile-de France</a> (which includes Paris) and 9  for the <a href="http://wiki.partipirate.org/wiki/Candidats_Outre-mer" target="_blank">overseas territories</a> of France.</p>
<p>Interestingly, there are at least twice as many candidates on each regions list than there are seats available, meaning that at least half the pirates are never going to be elected no matter how well they do.</p>
<h2>United Kingdom (73, contesting 8)</h2>
<p>Like France, Poland and Italy, the UK is also split into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:European_Parliament_constituencies_2009%E2%80%932014" target="_blank">several constituencies</a>, with the UK Pirate Party <a href="https://www.pirateparty.org.uk/campaigns/european-elections-2014" target="_blank">only contesting one</a>, their headquarters region of  North West England. They’re focusing on this area after having had some success in local elections in the recent past, beating, or equaling the coalition-government party candidates. In keeping with the open nature of the party, they’re also <a href="http://pozi.be/ppukeu" target="_blank">raising money</a> for the election via crowdfunding platform Pozible.</p>
<p>Candidate Jack Alnutt is firm on why people should vote Pirate. “The European Union needs more transparent and open governance, more democratic involvement with increased powers for the Parliament and better protection of our fundamental rights. The only way to make this happen is to vote Pirate in May.”</p>
<h2>Spain (54)</h2>
<p>The situation in Spain is more complex than normal. There have been two competing pirate groups for a while, Partido Pirata – the national party formed in 2006 which covered the whole of Spain – and a group of regional parties that have now banded together under the banner <a href="https://www.pirateparty.org.uk/campaigns/european-elections-2014" target="_blank">Confederacion Pirata</a>. It’s this latter group that is running candidates nationally.</p>
<p>Their <a href="http://confederacionpirata.org/lista-ep2014/" target="_blank">list of 50 candidates</a> is headed by Dario Castañé from Barcelona, a 29-year-old computer engineer who describes politics as “a passion of mine”.  With seats being awarded on just 2.5% of the vote last year, they have a strong chance of getting at least one Pirate into the European Parliament.</p>
<h2>Poland (51, contesting 16)</h2>
<p>Poland is another constitution-based system. Here only 6 pirates are running for election, but they’re also running in <a href="http://pe2014.pkw.gov.pl/pl/komitety/view/40" target="_blank">a coalition</a>, with the Direct Democracy party, the Libertarian Party, and a number of independent candidates.</p>
<p>Four of these are going to compete for the 4 seats in Łódź <em>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%81%C3%B3d%C5%BA_(European_Parliament_constituency)" target="_blank">district 6</a>] </em>(spots 1, 3, 4, and 5), with the other two pirates on the ballot in the Silesian area <em>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_(European_Parliament_constituency)" target="_blank">district 11</a>]</em> to the south (second on the list), and Lublin <em>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lublin_(European_Parliament_constituency)" target="_blank">district 8</a>]</em> to the east (fourth on the list).</p>
<h2>Netherlands (26)</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://piratenpartij.nl/kandidaten/" target="_blank">ten Pirates</a> contesting the Dutch seats are led by scientist Matthijs Pontier. They recently celebrated the <a href="https://www.nd.nl/artikelen/2014/maart/20/piratenpartij-pakt-zetel-in-gebiedscommissie-a-dam" target="_blank">first elected Pirate</a> to the Board committee of Amsterdam West with 3.6%, and fell just short of other seats in the Amsterdam South committee (3.5%) and city council (1.8%)</p>
<p>With no threshold to win seats, getting a seat is not outside the realms of possibility for them, especially if they can keep the momentum going.</p>
<h2>Czech Republic (21)</h2>
<p>The 21 seats in the Czech Republic will be contended by a full spread of Pirates. Leading <a href="https://www.volimpiraty.eu/kandidatni-listina-pro-volby-do-evropskeho-parlamentu-0-0" target="_blank">the list</a> is 34-year old Dr Ivan Bartos, Ph.D, an expert in database systems and part-time musician.</p>
<p>Current polls have them running a little short of their target to get a seat, but as with the Swedish party five years ago, they’ve a strong youth following which may be underrepresented in the polling. This gave them a ‘win’ in a <a href="http://piratetimes.net/czech-pirates-win-eu-elections-for-school-students/" target="_blank">student mock EU election</a> with 19.2% of the vote from the 25,000+ students aged 15 and older polled. Worst case, that’s another few thousand votes next time.</p>
<h2>Greece (21)</h2>
<p>In Greece, the Pirate-Green cooperation that has existed in the European Parliament has continued, with a <a href="http://elections.pirateparty.gr/?page_id=1029" target="_blank">coalition list</a> comprising candidates of both the <a href="http://elections.pirateparty.gr/?page_id=674" target="_blank">Greek Pirate Party</a>, and the Ecologist Greens party, along with several independent candidates.</p>
<p>In 2009, the Ecologist Greens won one seat with 3.9% of the vote. What impact the Pirates will have on any Green candidates is unknown, but with a formal alliance, it’s certainly expected that there will be some.</p>
<h2>Austria (18)</h2>
<p>Another party in an alliance, this time though, the coalition of three parties, all without national-level representation, as well as a few independents. Instead of a coalition with the Greens, as in Greece, the Austrian Pirates have instead joined forces with the Communist Party and the Change party to form the group &#8216;Europe Anders&#8221;.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.europaanders.at/team-kandidatinnen/" target="_blank">The list</a> is headed by current MEP Martin Ehrenhauser (elected on a pirate-like anti-corruption and pro-transparency platform via the “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Peter_Martin%27s_List" target="_blank">Hans-Peter Martin’s list</a>” in 2009) with the first Pirate in fourth. There is a 4% threshold.</p>
<h2>Finland (13)</h2>
<p>Finland uses a non-preferential list, meaning that <em>(as we understand it)</em> you vote for candidates, which also count for the party. The party is allocated seats based on the votes for all its candidates, and party fills those seats based on the vote count <a href="http://piraattipuolue.fi/eurovaalit-2014/" target="_blank">for the candidates</a>.</p>
<p>Their most obvious candidate for a seat is Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, whose campaign launch we <a title="Pirate Bay Founder Launches Election Campaign For European Parliament" href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-launches-election-campaign-for-european-parliament-140508/">covered recently</a>. He was also nominated as the Pirate Party Europe candidate for Commission President with Amelia Andersdotter as mentioned earlier.</p>
<h2>Croatia (11)</h2>
<p>It&#8217;s almost déjà vu for Croatian Pirates. They are one of only three Pirate parties to have previously contested a European parliament election, along with the Germans and Swedes. In their case, however, it was during an extraordinary election last year on their acceptance to the EU, where they scored <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2013_(Croatia)#Results" target="_blank">1.13% of the vote</a>, putting them 12th of 28 parties.</p>
<p>This year it appears that most parties have joined into a few coalitions or partnerships, with several European group affiliations mixed, but there are still 25 groups <a href="http://europedecides.eu/candidates/election-lists/hr/" target="_blank">listed on the ballot</a>. It certainly makes for an interesting election for the 13 pirates on the <a href="https://euizbori.pirati.hr/category/kandidati/" target="_blank">Croatian Pirate Party list</a> who are bucking the local coalition trend and standing alone.</p>
<h2>Slovenia (8)</h2>
<p>In Slovenia, they’re being a little more “realistic” (<em>in their own words</em>) and <a href="http://piratskastranka.si/pr/kandidat-piratske-stranke-slovenije-za-evroposlanca-je-rolando-benjamin-vaz-ferreira/" target="_blank">fielding only a single candidate</a>. Rolando Benjamin Vaz Ferreira is a translator specializing in English and German as well as his native Slovenian.</p>
<p>The feeling is upbeat and positive though, telling TF: “We&#8217;ve received incredible support amongst those who know of us, may it be voters, journalists, civil servants and even other party officers. Our biggest limiting factor is how many people we can reach in time.” In 2009, 9.7% was needed to win a seat, a figure that might be possible if the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/09/us-slovenia-protest-idUSBRE9280EU20130309" target="_blank">anti-corruption sentiment</a> that has swept the country leads to a strong pirate vote.</p>
<h2>Luxembourg (6)</h2>
<p>As one of the smallest and most overlooked countries with only 6 seats available, the barrier is high (some 15%) but  party president and <a href="http://piraten2014.eu/en/our-candidates/" target="_blank">list-leader</a> Sven Clement is a mixture of optimist and realist. After getting 2.96% in last October’s national election he’s hopeful for an improvement, but a double-digit increase is unlikely.</p>
<p>Clement told TF that despite that, people should still vote Pirate to ensure they can receive the kind of public financing the larger parties enjoy, enabling them to compete on a more level field.</p>
<h2>Estonia (6)</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://piraadipartei.ee/" target="_blank">Estonian Pirate Party</a> is also not running any candidates of its own in this election. They are, however, endorsing an independent candidate instead. <a href="http://www.meikar.ee/blog/" target="_blank">Silver Meikar</a> supports the Pirate platform, and has reportedly agreed to include a Pirate adviser as a member of his staff, if elected.</p>
<p>As with Luxembourg, with only six seats available, there is a high threshold for election, but only 8.7% of the vote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009_(Estonia)" target="_blank">was needed in 2009</a> for a seat.</p>
<h2>Italy (73)</h2>
<p>There is some debate about Italy and if they are running a ‘pirate’ candidate, hence its entry at the end of the list. As far as we can tell, the Italian Pirate Party is acting as an advising party on digital rights for the coalition “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Europe" target="_blank">The Other Europe</a>”, a left-wing coalition that includes the Communist Refoundation Party, Left Ecology Freedom, and the Labour party.</p>
<p>Italy, like France and the UK, uses a regional constituency system. However, which candidates in the <a href="http://www.listatsipras.eu/candidati.html" target="_blank">coalition’s regional lists</a> are Pirates (if any) are not known to us at this time.</p>
<h2>Belgium (21)</h2>
<p>Belgium is one of the earlier casualties. Despite having produced a candidate list for both it’s Dutch and French-speaking regions, they were unable to collect enough public signatures in time to make it onto the ballot.</p>
<h2>Election dates</h2>
<p>The European Parliament elections will take place on the following days</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>May 22nd</strong> for the Netherlands and the United Kingdom,</li>
<li><strong>May 23rd</strong> for Ireland and the Czech Republic.</li>
<li><strong>May 24th</strong> you can vote in Latvia, Malta, Slovakia, and the French Overseas territories and a second days voting in the Czech Republic</li>
<li><strong>May 25th</strong> is for all other EU countries.</li>
</ul>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87969
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 05/12/14
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-05-12-14
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/tDnSTuBv5-8/
content:
<p><a href="media/143c96ea.robocop.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/robocop.jpg"><img src="media/143c96ea.robocop.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/robocop.jpg" alt="robocop" width="300" height="169" class="alignright size-full wp-image-87716"></a>This week we have five newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>RoboCop is the most downloaded movie for the second week in a row.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><a href="http://TorrentFreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/"><strong>RSS feed</strong></a> for the weekly movie download chart.</p>
<table class="css hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="12%"><strong>Ranking</strong></th>
<th width="15%"><strong>(<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-140505/">last week</a>)</strong></th>
<th><strong>Movie</strong></th>
<th width="18%"><strong>IMDb Rating / Trailer</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">torrentfreak.com</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1200731-robocop/">RoboCop</a></td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234721/">6.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnRJ0r0eivk">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_monuments_men/">The Monuments Men</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2177771/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8tz8YeCz1s">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/jack_ryan_shadow_recruit/">Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205537/">6.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9KAnx4EvaE">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/captain_america_the_winter_soldier_2014/">Captain America: The Winter Soldier</a> (Cam/TS)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843866/">8.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SlILk2WMTI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/3_days_to_kill/">3 Days To kill</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2172934/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBnKYDDDq8">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pompeii_2013/">Pompeii</a></td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1921064/">6.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-ijDxsw5cE">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lego_movie/">The Lego Movie</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1490017/">8.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_JOBCLF-I">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(6)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/that_awkward_moment/">That Awkward Moment</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1800246/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRcVgJjnFLo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(8)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/rio_2/">Rio 2</a> (HDTS)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2357291/">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkZM1Zc0mBU">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vampire_academy/">Vampire Academy</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1686821/">6.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ERrnYunBg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=87973
title: Megaupload Asks Court to Freeze MPAA and RIAA Cases
uri: Megaupload-Asks-Court-to-Freeze-MPAA-and-RIAA-Cases
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/IWtVk-3jw3E/
content:
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-30407" src="media/5fd37436.megaupload.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/megaupload.jpg" alt="megaupload" width="180" height="154">Following in the footsteps of the U.S. Government, this month the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/now-the-riaa-sues-megaupload-for-massive-copyright-theft-140411/">major record labels</a> and Hollywood&#8217;s <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-demand-millions-megaupload-new-lawsuit-140408/">top movie studios</a> filed lawsuits against Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, and his colleagues.</p>
<p>The respective cases are strikingly similar and all built on the same evidence. The RIAA and MPAA repeat many of the claims that were laid out in the criminal case, and each demand millions of dollars in damages.</p>
<p>However, the fact that the suits all deal with the same issue is a problem according to Megaupload&#8217;s legal team. If the civil cases brought by the movie and music industries move ahead, this may directly influence the position of Dotcom and his colleagues in the criminal case.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://pdf.yt/d/WV38FLj5xV4llseu">motion for a stay</a>, the lawyers ask the court to freeze both civil cases pending the criminal proceedings. They argue that the accused may otherwise be forced to implicate themselves, which would violate their rights.</p>
<p>&#8220;A stay is warranted here to avoid burdening the Fifth Amendment rights of the individual defendants,&#8221; Megaupload&#8217;s lawyers write.</p>
<p>&#8220;During pleading, discovery, and trial, these individual defendants cannot be forced to risk implicating themselves in the crimes alleged in the Criminal Action in order to provide a defense to Megaupload in the civil case,&#8221; they add.</p>
<p>The lawyers ask to freeze the cases until August 1, when the two-week extradition hearing in New Zealand has reached its conclusion. Megaupload previously requested the same in their civil case against Microhits, with success. If the criminal case continues after the extradition hearing, the lawyers will most likely ask to extend the stay.</p>
<p>According to Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken the criminal case may be over sooner than later.</p>
<p>TorrentFreak previously <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-demand-millions-megaupload-new-lawsuit-140408/">spoke </a>to Rothken who believes that these RIAA and MPAA cases might show that the entertainment industries and the U.S. Government have little faith in the criminal proceedings.</p>
<p>In any case, Megaupload&#8217;s legal troubles, civil or criminal, are expected to drag on for years.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/copyright-issues/">copyright</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/pirate-talk/">file-sharing</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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