# articles

feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=98543
title: Dallas Buyers Club Wants Cash From European Pirates
uri: Dallas-Buyers-Club-Wants-Cash-From-European-Pirates
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/0U3lp91TSr8/
content:
<p><img src="media/d45c68ed.dallas.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dallas.jpg" width="180" height="180" class="alignright">For years lawyers for movie outfit Voltage Pictures have been writing to U.S. based Internet users demanding cash for alleged copyright infringements. Judging from its legal persistence the company has probably made some decent profits while doing so.</p>
<p>Earlier this year Voltage began <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/dallas-buyers-club-sues-bittorrent-pirates-citing-oscar-wins-140312/">filing lawsuits</a> against alleged downloaders of its hit movie Dallas Buyers Club. In common with all similar actions the end game is not a full trial but cash settlements from worried Internet account holders.</p>
<p>But while there are millions of torrent users in the U.S., Voltage and its partners are now venturing overseas. According to Danish news site <a href="http://www.b.dk/nationalt/amerikanere-jagter-danske-filmpirater">Berlingske</a>, the Dallas Buyers Club piracy-into-profit model is now operating in Europe.</p>
<p>In a letter obtained by the publication after being sent to an alleged Dallas Buyers Club downloader, veteran anti-piracy lawfirm Maqs demands a cash payment of around $250 to make a supposed lawsuit disappear.</p>
<p>The lawfirm increases its chances of a &#8216;hit&#8217; by writing to the ISP account holder but noting that payment should be made &#8220;if you, or someone in your household&#8221; acknowledges having downloaded or shared the movie.</p>
<p>&#8220;We know that in a particular household is a computer where this [piracy] has occurred from. That is why we have been asked to contact these people by the film company,&#8221; Clausen said.</p>
<p>In further comments the lawyer acknowledges that the Internet account holder may not be the infringer and that it could&#8217;ve been a child, neighbor, or other third-party, but whether targets will understand the implications of this remains to be seen.</p>
<p>These days chasing down individual file-sharers is almost unheard of in Denmark, so it&#8217;s unclear whether targets of Voltage and its Danish partners will be aware of when they&#8217;re liable and when they not. Unsurprisingly the early signs indicate that some people are simply paying up.</p>
<p>&#8220;Some [letter recipients] are happy to be made aware that they have done something illegal. They have recognized this, paid us, and learned their lesson. It is positive and also the response that we have hoped for,&#8221; Clausen says.</p>
<p>As is common in these cases, some letter recipients have told the lawfirm that they have open wifi that could&#8217;ve been used by anyone. Some claim they don&#8217;t even have a computer. Responses from others are more predictable.</p>
<p>&#8220;A few have responded aggressively and negatively to the letter, and several have not responded at all,&#8221; Clausen adds.</p>
<p>But for all groups, there is a deadline. Maqs informs its targets that if no payment is made in 15 days, it may &#8220;be necessary to institute legal proceedings&#8221;. Given past experience it seems unlikely that will transpire but Maqs says that all options remain open.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is a choice by the rights owner, whether one wants to go to court with this later,&#8221; Clausen concludes.</p>
<p>It comes as no surprise that Denmark has been introduced to so-called mass BitTorrent lawsuits and if predictions hold out, expect many more European countries to become similar targets in 2015.</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=98746
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 12/22/14
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-12-22-14
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/g--EDmMrrYA/
content:
<p><a href="media/aacecd00.equalizer1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/equalizer1.jpg"><img src="media/aacecd00.equalizer1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/equalizer1.jpg" alt="equalizer1" width="299" height="223" class="alignright size-full wp-image-98355"></a>This week we have four newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>The Equalizer 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-141215/">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/the_equalizer_2013/">The Equalizer</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455944/">7.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64-iSYVmMVY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/horrible_bosses_2/">Horrible Bosses 2</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2170439/">6.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGX4XwYVoIg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_girl/">Gone Girl</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2267998/">8.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DPpygqaCjY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/outcast_2015/">Outcast</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1552224/">5.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnAD4sClcQs">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_maze_runner/">The Maze Runner</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790864/">7.1</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt0GkVZK8zA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/guardians_of_the_galaxy/">Guardians of the Galaxy</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2015381/">8.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE9vypfwbvk">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_origins/">I Origins</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2884206/">7.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amFKzf4Lr5M">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(8)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/this_is_where_i_leave_you/">This Is Where I Leave You</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1371150/">6.7</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGSBiqnCh44">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_guest_2014/">The Guest</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2980592/">6.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0E2Qh6wLS4">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_boxtrolls/">The Boxtrolls</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787474/">7.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1El1xVRrkA">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=98718
title: Pirate Bay Domain Back Online, Waving a Pirate Flag
uri: Pirate-Bay-Domain-Back-Online-Waving-a-Pirate-Flag
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/_VXQGdiMQPk/
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>On December 9 The Pirate Bay was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">raided</a> at the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof data center built into a mountain complex near Stockholm.</p>
<p>Despite the rise of various TPB clones and rumors of reincarnations, <a href="http://thepiratebay.se/">thepiratebay.se</a> domain remained inaccessible, until today. </p>
<p>This morning the Pirate Bay&#8217;s nameservers were <a href="http://www.intodns.com/thepiratebay.se">updated</a> to ones controlled by their domain name registrar binero.se</p>
<p>A few minutes ago came another big change when The Pirate Bay&#8217;s main domain started pointing to a new IP-address (<a href="http://178.175.135.122/">178.175.135.122</a>) connected to a server hosted in Moldova.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/082ca706.pirate-bay-new-ip.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay-new-ip.png"><img src="media/082ca706.pirate-bay-new-ip.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay-new-ip.png" alt="pirate bay new ip" width="470" height="127" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-98727"></a></center></p>
<p>Thus far there&#8217;s not much to see. The domain only displays a waving pirate flag, but the recent changes will give many estranged Pirate Bay users hope that the site will be restored to its former glory </p>
<p>The DNS changes haven&#8217;t propagated everywhere yet, but soon most people should see the following landing page.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/47f65059.pirate-bay-flag.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay-flag.jpg"><img src="media/47f65059.pirate-bay-flag.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay-flag.jpg" alt="pirate bay flag" width="1444" height="1006" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-98721"></a></center></p>
<p>Whether a full comeback is in the works remains a mystery for now. Interestingly, the source of the page shows that the pirate flag is hosted by Isohunt.to&#8217;s &#8220;Open Bay&#8221; site where it serves as a background. </p>
<p>TorrentFreak asked both the Pirate Bay and Isohunt.to crews for a comment, thus far without a response. It could be that TPB and Isohunt.to are collaborating on something, hopefully we&#8217;ll hear more on that soon.</p>
<p>A few days ago Isohunt.to launched &#8220;<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/open-bay-now-everyone-can-run-pirate-bay-copy-141219/">The Open Bay</a>&#8221; initiative, which allows anyone to run a &#8220;copy&#8221; of The Pirate Bay. The TPB crew previously said that it would like to see as many clones as possible, so perhaps the domain will link to that for the time being.</p>
<p>“We’ve always lived by Kopimi. We love being cloned. It would be amazing if, like in the classic movie Spartacus, everyone could stand up and say “I am The Pirate Bay,” TPB&#8217;s Mr 10100100000 <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-crew-responds-to-the-raid-copies-and-the-future-141215/">told us</a> earlier.</p>
<p>Time will tell whether Pirate Bay&#8217;s &#8220;comeback&#8221; will be a full one, an encouragement for people to start their own clones, or something completely different. </p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> <strike>Thepiratebay.se A records now appear to be empty.</strike></p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> The page also includes and ad code, so people may see popups and other nasty stuff.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Isohunt.to responded and says it has nothing to do with the &#8216;comeback.&#8217; </p>
<p>&#8220;They simply included the video from our domain. And right now we have no idea what the TPB crew want to say by this,&#8221; Isohunt.to tells us.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> TPB added a clock/timer to the site now (using Flipclock) counting the time that&#8217;s passed since the raid (approximately, as the counter is relative to the visitor&#8217;s time).</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> The <strong>JyO7wNzc8xht47QKWohfDVj6Sc2qH+X5tBCT+uetocIJcjQnp/2f1ViEBR+ty0Cz</strong> AES string looks &#8216;promising&#8217; http://thepiratebay.se/aes.png (yes someone may have created a BitTorrent Sync key with the same characters. This was almost certainly created after it appeared on TPB, so nothing official).</p>
<p>Update: And there&#8217;s a Hydra image now&#8230; &#8220;/pipe.png&#8221; class=&#8221;sneakyhint&#8221; A reference to TPB&#8217;s previous hydra mentions.</p>
<p><em>Breaking story, updates may follow.</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=98781
title: EZTV Is Back Online After Pirate Bay Raid
uri: EZTV-Is-Back-Online-After-Pirate-Bay-Raid
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/g5uCHdMyWXE/
content:
<p><a href="media/58f42931.eztv-logo-small.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/eztv-logo-small.png"><img src="media/8447faa4.eztv-logo-small.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eztv-logo-small.png" alt="eztv-logo-small" width="205" height="80" class="alignright size-full wp-image-81993"></a>Nearly two weeks ago Swedish police <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">raided</a> a center in the city of Nacka, close to Stockholm.</p>
<p>The Pirate Bay was the main target of the raid, but collateral damage caused several other torrent sites to go down as well. These included EZTV, the go-to place for many torrenting TV fans.</p>
<p>Shortly after the raid TF <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/eztv-slowly-recovers-swedish-police-raid-141211/">spoke</a> with the EZTV crew, who quickly managed to recover several servers so proxies could serve the latest torrents again.</p>
<p>Getting the entire site up and running proved to be more challenging, but today it appears to have fully recovered. This means that EZTV is accessible from its original <a href="https://eztv.it/">EZTV.it</a> domain once again.</p>
<p>The site is loading intermittently at the time of writing, but if it doesn&#8217;t pop up right away it should be visible after a few refreshes.</p>
<p>While the EZTV website was down for 13 days, the TV-torrent distribution group only stopped releasing torrents for a day or so. During the downtime fresh content was still shared on other torrent sites, such as ExtraTorrent.cc and Kickass.so</p>
<p>Curiously, coinciding with the comeback some proxies including <a href="https://eztv-proxy.net/">Eztv-proxy.net</a> have stopped working, most likely because they have to change a few settings to connect to EZTV&#8217;s backend. </p>
<p>While EZTV may have fully recovered, many other sites hit by the raid are still experiencing problems. </p>
<p><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-domain-back-online-waving-a-pirate-flag-141221/">The Pirate Bay has put up a pirate flag</a> and a counter, but no index or torrents. The torrent cache Zoink.it and the popular Istole.it tracker previously returned, but are currently offline again. </p>
<p>For now, however, it appears that EZTV is here to stay.</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=98797
title: Raid on Kim Dotcom’s Mansion Was Legal, Supreme Court Rules
uri: Raid-on-Kim-Dotcom-s-Mansion-Was-Legal-Supreme-Court-Rules
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/53trmJBA0g0/
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">Almost three years ago, New Zealand police carried out a spectacular and aggressive armed raid against individuals accused only of copyright infringement.</p>
<p>Acting on allegations from the United States government and its Hollywood partners, officers of STG, New Zealand’s elite counter-terrorist force, raided Kim Dotcom’s mansion. The German-born businessman was detained along with his wife Mona and their children.</p>
<p>Mid 2012, a High Court judge found that the warrants used in the raid were overbroad and therefore illegal, but a February 2014 Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion.</p>
<p>While acknowledging that the warrants contained flaws, a panel of three judges at the Court of Appeal <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-raid-warrants-legal-court-of-appeal-rules-140219/">found</a> that overall the warrants were legal.<br>
Dissatisfied with the ruling, Dotcom took the case all the way to the Supreme Court complaining that the warrants were overbroad and lacked detail. The verdict was handed down today.</p>
<p>In another disappointing ruling for the Megaupload founder, this morning the Supreme Court found that the 2012 raids on Dotcom&#8217;s home were carried out legally.</p>
<p><center><Strong>The raids on Kim Dotcom&#8217;s mansion. Legal, says Supreme Court</strong><img src="media/f07956e1.raid1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/raid1.jpg" alt="DotcomRaid"></center></p>
<p>Four Justices &#8211; John McGrath, William Young, Susan Glazebrook and Terence Arnold &#8211; dismissed Dotcom&#8217;s appeal while agreeing that the 2012 warrants were not unreasonably vague and general. Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias dissented, but her determination that there had been a miscarriage of justice was overruled.</p>
<p>One judge aside, the Court acknowledged that while the original search warrants were indeed deficient when detailing the alleged offenses, those shortcomings did not result in damage for Dotcom and his associates.</p>
<p>&#8220;The majority of the Court has decided that, although the search warrants were deficient in their description of the offenses to which they related, these defects did not result in any miscarriage of justice to the appellants,&#8221; the Court wrote in its summary.</p>
<p>&#8220;While the search warrants did not specify that the offenses were against United States law, or that the offenses were punishable by two or more years’ imprisonment, this did not cause any significant prejudice to the appellants.&#8221;</p>
<p>When taking all circumstances into account, including the explanations given to Dotcom by police carrying out the raid, the Court found that Dotcom (and fellow claimants Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram Van Der Kolk) were given enough detail about the alleged offenses to which the search warrants related.</p>
<p>Dotcom, who along with his co-appellants will have to pay court costs of $35,000, aired his disappointment on Twitter.</p>
<p>&#8220;New Zealand Chief Justice Dame Elias got it right in both Supreme Court decisions in my case. She must be as frustrated as I am,&#8221; Dotcom <a href="https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/547176735595184128">wrote</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=98815
title: UK Cinema Calls Police on Kids With iPhones Over Piracy Concerns
uri: UK-Cinema-Calls-Police-on-Kids-With-iPhones-Over-Piracy-Concerns
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/wB8Tq2ERPZ4/
content:
<p><a href="media/465e52cb.pirate4.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/pirate4.jpg"><img src="media/f63530d5.pirate4.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate4.jpg" alt="pirate" width="240" height="172" class="alignright size-full wp-image-93585"></a>The movie industry sees the illegal recording of movies as one of the biggest piracy threats and for years has gone to extremes to stop it.</p>
<p>It started well over a decade ago when visitors began sneaking handheld camcorders into theaters. These big clunkers were easy to spot, but as time passed the recording devices became smaller and easier to hide.</p>
<p>While recording a movie for strictly personal use is not illegal in UK cinemas (despite industry efforts to have the law changed), theaters continue to outlaw the use of recording devices. Most recently, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-cinemas-ban-google-glass-piracy-fears-140630/">Google Glass was banned</a>, and phones and tablets need to be switched off as well.</p>
<p>In a code of conduct the movie industry and cinemas have agreed that employees will take immediate action when they spot someone with a recording device, but some cinema staff take these obligations way too far.</p>
<p>At a Cineworld cinema in Brighton Marina, UK, employees dialed the national 999 emergency number after they spotted a group of 12-year-old girls with iPhones and iPads at a showing of The Hunger Games.</p>
<p>The girls, accused of recording parts of the movie, were hauled outside where two police cars rushed towards the scene with flashing lights. </p>
<p>Although recording movies is not a crime in the UK (as long as there&#8217;s no intent to distribute), the officers still carefully inspected the devices for &#8216;bootleg&#8217; material. After their search turned up nothing the girls were allowed back in. However, the teens decided to wait outside, reportedly in tears, until their parents came to pick them up. </p>
<p>Louise Lawrence, the mother of one of the girls, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2883404/Girls-left-tears-dragged-cinema-hauled-police-staff-wrongly-accused-12-year-olds-filming-Hunger-Games-iPads.html">is outraged</a> by the treatment. Not just the false piracy accusation, but also the fact that they were left out in the cold afterwards.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our girls were falsely accused, had the police called on them and then just left in tears. It’s outrageous. If they have done this to our children they will do it again,&#8221; she says.</p>
<p>A Cineworld spokesperson stresses that they apologized to the parents for the mistake, adding that it&#8217;s common procedure to take these actions. </p>
<p>&#8220;While we regret that the customers felt distressed, we are confident that the correct procedures were followed. If our staff see such behavior we expect them to notify the cinema management immediately and to call the police. However, we have taken on board the concerns expressed by the parents and we are reviewing how the policy is applied to younger customers,&#8221; she adds. </p>
<p>While movie theater staff could indeed call the police if they suspect that a commercial pirate is in their midst, a group of 12-year-old girls with iPhones hardly falls into the category.</p>
<p>And calling the national emergency number certainly seems to be taking things too far.</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=98868
title: Pirate Bay’s Fredrik Neij Now “Wanted for Hacking”
uri: Pirate-Bay-s-Fredrik-Neij-Now-Wanted-for-Hacking
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/BaJ8bML6Lm0/
content:
<p><img src="media/d1aba6c8.small-fredrik.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/small-fredrik.jpg" width="180" height="135" class="alignright">One by one the key players behind The Pirate Bay have been captured by police and forced to complete jail sentences previously determined by Swedish authorities.</p>
<p>The most recently detained was Fredrik Neij, a key player in the operations of The Pirate Bay right from the very early days of the site.</p>
<p>After realizing that his fate in Sweden involved a 10 month jail sentence, Neij fled to Laos in Asia where he lived until recently with this young family. He traveled from Laos into bordering Thailand on many occasions but last month his luck ran out.</p>
<p>On November 4, immigration police announced that Neij had been detained while crossing the border into Nong Khai, a city in North-East Thailand. What followed was a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-fredrik-neij-arrested-in-asia-141104/">very public press conference</a> in which a bewildered looking Neij was paraded before the media while flanked by several officers.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/b5413046.fredrik-arrest.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/fredrik-arrest.jpg" alt="fredrik"></center></p>
<p>But while the rest of the world had to wait until November 4 to hear the news, leaked emails obtained by TorrentFreak show that the Hollywood studios knew about things well in advance.</p>
<p>In an email dated the day before Neij&#8217;s arrest was made public, the MPAA advised chiefs at Disney, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros, NBC Universal and FOX of the Swede&#8217;s arrest. But things went deeper than that.</p>
<p>Already there had been rumors in Thai media that “U.S. movie companies” had hired a lawfirm to track down Neij and that a house on the island of Phuket plus a bank account containing five million baht ($153,000) had been discovered. Emails seen by TF confirm the MPAA&#8217;s involvement, but also that they didn&#8217;t want that noticed in public.</p>
<p>&#8220;Jan Van Voorn [MPA&#8217;s Regional Director for Content Protection] and Neil Gane [former policeman, former AFACT boss, now MPA APIC chief in Asia] are in contact with both Swedish and Thai authorities providing additional assistance,&#8221; the email reveals.</p>
<p>&#8220;Thai Immigration is planning a press conference for tomorrow, November 4. We have alerted our Communications Section, and do not plan to comment to the media.&#8221;</p>
<p>Another email confirmed the MPA&#8217;s intention to lie low, but that it might already be too late to hide any involvement.</p>
<p>&#8220;Huge win! Don&#8217;t know if hackers will retaliate,&#8221; an email from a studio begins. &#8220;MPA is laying low and quiet, but the pirate blogs are attributing the pursuit to movie studios.&#8221;</p>
<p>While a brash affair, the press conference itself revealed few details of Neij&#8217;s actual arrest other than the time, place, and what he was wearing. However, the correspondence the MPAA had with the studios reveals they knew quite a bit more.</p>
<p>Holding a long-standing belief that Neij was somehow still associated with the running of The Pirate Bay, in 2011 the studios obtained a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-injunction-pirate-bay-founders-110525/">beefed-up injunction</a> which banned the Swede from being involved with the site.</p>
<p>Not only has their mindset remained the same for three years, but the studios also believe that Neij could be on the hook for other offenses too.</p>
<p>&#8220;Neij is facing a 10 month prison sentence in Sweden for his conviction in the Pirate Bay case. Neij may also face new charges for his continuing role in the operation of TPB and two additional charges for computer hacking,&#8221; the emails read.</p>
<p>No additional details on any hacking charges were provided or have been released since, but the MPAA are hopeful that items taken from Neij when he was arrested will provide the clues.</p>
<p>&#8220;Two laptop computers were seized from Neij at the time of his arrest, and may provide additional evidence against Neij and others in the ongoing TPB investigation in Sweden,&#8221; the MPAA writes.</p>
<p>While an investigation into The Pirate Bay is now obvious following the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">raid two weeks ago</a>, another MPAA email confirms that a criminal referral was also made against &#8220;TPB co-founder Frederik Neij and his ISP DCP Networks.&#8221;</p>
<p>Fredrik Neij is currently serving his 10 month Pirate Bay related sentence in a Swedish jail but his arrival there from Thailand was never announced publicly. He is the third key Pirate Bay operational figure to be jailed.</p>
<p>Gottfrid Svartholm was the first to be detained after authorities in Cambodia handed him over to Swedish police in 2012. Gottfrid completed his sentence but is <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/gottfrid-svartholm-found-guilty-in-hacking-trial-141030/">currently detained</a> in Denmark following an unrelated hacking case.</p>
<p>Peter Sunde was captured by a special police unit on a farm in Sweden during the summer of 2014. Sunde served his sentence and is now <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-peter-sunde-picks-fight-free-internet-141129/">a free man</a>, probably traveling around Europe.</p>
<p>With the imprisonment of Fredrik Neij the MPAA now have the full set, an achievement they were happy to pat themselves on the back for.</p>
<p>&#8220;Another excellent example of global cooperation and coordination between our content protection hubs,&#8221; a November email 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=98638
title: MPAA Secretly Settled With Hotfile for $4 Million, Not $80 Million
uri: MPAA-Secretly-Settled-With-Hotfile-for-4-Million-Not-80-Million
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/cNdSildq2ps/
content:
<p><a href="media/3b0329c8.mpaa-logo.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/mpaa-logo.png"><img src="media/fdb36aee.mpaa-logo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mpaa-logo.png" alt="mpaa-logo" width="259" height="170" class="alignright size-full wp-image-89856"></a>It’s been nearly a year since Hotfile was defeated by the MPAA, resulting in a<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/hotfile-pays-80-million-to-the-mpaa-but-might-survive-131204/"> hefty $80 million dollar settlement</a>.</p>
<p>While the public agreement left room for the file-hosting service to continue its operations by implementing a filtering mechanism, the company quickly shut down after the settlement was announced.</p>
<p>As it now turns out, this was the plan all long. And not just that, the $80 million figure that was touted by the MPAA doesn&#8217;t come close to the real settlement Hotfile agreed to pay.</p>
<p>Buried in one of the Sony leaks is an email conversation which confirms that the real settlement payment from Hotfile was just $4 million, just a fraction of the amount widely publicized in the press.</p>
<p>&#8220;The studios&nbsp;and Hotfile have reached agreement on settlement, a week before trial was to start. Hotfile has agreed to pay us $4 million, and has entered into a stipulation to have an $80 million judgment entered and the website shut down,&#8221; the email from Sony&#8217;s SVP Legal reads.</p>
<p>Considering the time and effort that went into the case, it would be no surprise if the movie studios actually lost money on the lawsuit. </p>
<p>The good news for the MPAA is that the money was paid in full. There were some doubts if Hotfile would indeed pay up, but during the first weeks of December last year the $4 million was sent in three separate payments.</p>
<p>The huge difference between the public settlement figure and the amount that was negotiated also puts previous cases in a different light. It doesn&#8217;t take a genius to realize that the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-shuts-down-after-110-million-settlement-with-the-mpaa-131017/">$110 million settlement</a> with isoHunt and the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/torrentspy-slapped-110-million-080507/">$110 deal with TorrentSpy</a> were just paper tigers too. </p>
<p>Whether or not the Hotfile case resulted in a net loss is probably not that important to the MPAA though. Hollywood mostly hopes that the staggering numbers will serve as a deterrent, preventing others from operating similar sites. </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=98905
title: The Interview Is A Pirate Hit With 200k Downloads (Updated)
uri: The-Interview-Is-A-Pirate-Hit-With-200k-Downloads
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/_-hmCd-XGbc/
content:
<p><a href="media/12e1be09.theinterview.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/theinterview.jpg"><img src="media/734911e6.theinterview.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/theinterview.jpg" alt="theinterview" width="180" height="136" class="alignright size-full wp-image-98689"></a>Facing a &#8220;terrorist&#8221; threat theaters all around the U.S. backed away from showing <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788710/">The Interview</a> last week.</p>
<p>Sony Pictures was left with no other option than to find online platforms to show the controversial movie to a broad audience during the holidays, and they eventually did.</p>
<p>Yesterday afternoon news broke that the film was <a href="http://www.theinterview-movie.com/">available for streaming</a> on YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Live. A group of hackers shouldn&#8217;t be able to chill freedom of speech, Sony and Google reasoned.  </p>
<p>&#8220;&#8230;after discussing all the issues, Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country,&#8221; Google&#8217;s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-interview-now-available-on-google.html">commented</a>. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, however, this free speech can only be heard by the U.S. public for now. People outside of the States will have to wait for weeks or months to see a film that was &#8220;trending&#8221; worldwide on Christmas eve.</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s where another group of self proclaimed freedom fighters come in. </p>
<p>Shortly after the first stream was made public various pirated copies quickly started to populate torrent sites and other sharing platforms. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/e839607c.theinterview.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/theinterview.png"><img src="media/e839607c.theinterview.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/theinterview.png" alt="theinterview" width="502" height="270" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-98916"></a></center></p>
<p>Even The Pirate Bay jumped in by adding the hash of one of The Interview&#8217;s torrents to the <a href="media/ec433854.4oJQGyA.png" data-original-source="http://i.imgur.com/4oJQGyA.png">top left corner of it&#8217;s site</a>, linking it to a Google search. In addition, the site added a cartoon picture of North Korea&#8217;s leader Kim Jong-un.</p>
<p>With The Interview making headlines for several weeks, it&#8217;s clear there&#8217;s a massive interest in the film. This is reflected download statistics too. </p>
<p>Data collected by TorrentFreak shows that The Interview was downloaded an estimated 200.000 times though BitTorrent during the first 10 hours it was available, and this number is still growing rapidly.</p>
<p>Browsing through the commentary on various torrent sites we see that restricted availability is a common topic.</p>
<p>&#8220;Just signed up to say Thanks, since it was not released outside of US when it should be all at the same time. Will now be finally able to watch this,&#8221; one downloader told his peers.</p>
<p>Considering the unique situation, it&#8217;s a real shame that Sony didn&#8217;t seize this opportunity to try a worldwide debut. It would have certainly brought in extra revenue. </p>
<p>Yes, of course, those who pirate the movie are breaking the law in most countries. But honestly, is it really a surprise that so many people outside the U.S. are prepared to cross the line to see a movie tied to one of the biggest news stories of the year?</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> The number of estimated downloads had exceeded 750,000 after 20 hours. </p>
<p>The number of active sharers on the most popular torrent is more than three times higher than 10 hours ago (close to 100k).</p>
<p><a href="media/9baecf7c.interview-sharers.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/interview-sharers.png"><img src="media/9baecf7c.interview-sharers.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/interview-sharers.png" alt="interview sharers" width="595" height="44" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-98944"></a></p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> The estimated number of downloads passed the 1.5 million mark after roughly two days, and the download rate is slowing down significantly. The download numbers are comparable to that of popular blockbusters, but they&#8217;re certainly not exceptional.</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=98556
title: ‘Game of Thrones’ Most Pirated TV-Show of 2014
uri: Game-of-Thrones-Most-Pirated-TV-Show-of-2014
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Q4fc-zgC9a4/
content:
<p><a href="media/1fc97bda.thrones.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/thrones.jpg"><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"></a>Game of Thrones has taken the crown of most downloaded TV-show for the third consecutive year. </p>
<p>With more than 8 million downloads via BitTorrent, the 2014 season finale is way ahead of the competition.</p>
<p>The Walking Dead and The Big Bang Theory complete the top three with an estimated 4.2 and 3.6 million downloads respectively.</p>
<p>Game of Thrones&#8217; top listing doesn&#8217;t come as much of a surprise. Earlier this year it broke an <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/game-thrones-season-finale-sets-piracy-record-140616/">all-time piracy record</a> when more than 254,114 peers shared the same torrent file simultaneously. </p>
<p>Overall there is no sign that TV-show piracy is declining, on the contrary. The download numbers for the most popular shows continues to rise, sometimes exceeding the number of traditional viewers in the US. </p>
<p>Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows worldwide (single episode) for 2014, together with the viewer average in the US. The data is estimated by TorrentFreak based on several sources, including download statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers.</p>
<p>Online streaming and downloads for file-hosting services are not included since there are no public sources to draw data from. Total piracy numbers will therefore be significantly higher.</p>
<table class="css hover" summary="Most downloaded TV-shows on BitTorrent">
<caption>Most downloaded TV-shows on BitTorrent, 2014</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="9%"><strong>rank</strong></th>
<th width="40%"><strong>show</strong></th>
<th width="22%"><strong>est. downloads</strong></th>
<th width="29%"><strong>est. US TV viewers</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">torrentfreak.com</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones_(TV_series)">Game of Thrones</a></td>
<td>8,100,000</td>
<td>7,160,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_(TV_series)">The Walking Dead</a></td>
<td>4,800,000</td>
<td>17,290,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bang_Theory">The Big Bang Theory</a></td>
<td>3,900,000</td>
<td>18,240,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Met_Your_Mother">How I Met Your Mother</a></td>
<td>3,500,000</td>
<td>13,130,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_(TV_series)">Gotham</a></td>
<td>3,200,000</td>
<td>11,810,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_(TV_series)">Arrow</a></td>
<td>2,900,000</td>
<td>3,920,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey%27s_Anatomy">Grey&#8217;s Anatomy</a></td>
<td>2,800,000</td>
<td>9,810,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td align="left"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings_(TV_series)">Vikings</a></td>
<td>2,700,000</td>
<td>3,560,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suits_(TV_series)">Suits</a></td>
<td>2,500,000</td>
<td>2,800,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park">South Park</a></td>
<td>2,400,000</td>
<td>2,400,000</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p></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=93592
title: Being a Pirate is OK, But Being a Cheapskate Sucks
uri: Being-a-Pirate-is-OK-But-Being-a-Cheapskate-Sucks
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/BqYH8GQnWKU/
content:
<p>There can be few Internet-savvy people around who haven&#8217;t, on occasion, downloaded an MP3 or two. Among those people&#8217;s parents, find a person who has never listened to a copied CD or cassette-taped LP and i&#8217;ll show you the bar where Bigfoot buys the Loch Ness Monster a beer on Friday nights.</p>
<p>These days piracy is somewhat socially acceptable, to the point that a little can fly alongside the average moral compass without upsetting it too much. This upsets the entertainment industries no end, however.</p>
<p>Times are changing though, there can be little doubt about that. Piracy is just as omnipresent now as it ever was, but educational and awareness schemes are at least giving pirates and potential pirates thoughts of what it might be like to be a more permanent fixture among the paying classes.</p>
<p>This awareness, coupled with better offerings of course, may eventually bring about steady change, but there is one area of IP infringement that the younger generation need little encouragement to understand.</p>
<p>Counterfeit items &#8211; whether clothing, sportswear, designer fragrances, watches or computer accessories &#8211; can be bought in just about every country of the world. By free-riding the brand awareness built by their trademarked namesakes they also tend to be massively cheaper in comparison.</p>
<p>This accessibility on pricing means that fakes always seem to sell well, which is particularly interesting since they&#8217;re a product with near zero street cred in the West. While some might not care about the stigma, kids &#8211; the so-called pirate generation &#8211; definitely do.</p>
<p>Those who can&#8217;t afford a pair of Nike sneakers quietly hope that their peers don&#8217;t notice that they&#8217;re wearing Mike. And dare to accuse a teen of communicating via a fake iPhone and expect rage to be the response. It&#8217;s as if by casting aspersions on their ability to own the genuine item you&#8217;ve somehow criticized their entire character.  </p>
<p>That said, kids and teens do not generally feel the same way about digital piracy. While Pirate Bay&#8217;d MP3s (especially unreleased ones) can at times be the pinnacle of cool, the wearing of Peats By Drei earphones is treated like a four letter outburst in church.</p>
<p>Adults aren&#8217;t immune to counterfeit aversion either. Earlier this year my trusty HTC One found itself being upgraded to a shiny new Samsung S5 courtesy of a third off retail eBay auction. While waiting for it to arrive I inadvertently read about some S5 Chinese copies going around and how side by side they&#8217;re difficult to tell apart from the real deal. Some, functionally, are apparently very good indeed.</p>
<p>That knowledge developed into a little panic followed by creeping annoyance that I might have been scammed. This led to my questioning whether having a functionally identical but fake product would make any difference to my enjoyment of it, much like listening to a genuine and &#8216;pirate&#8217; MP3 side by side. Would it really matter?</p>
<p>Damn right it would &#8211; I paid for the real thing, I wanted the real thing. Screw fakes and ready my PayPal chargeback. Fortunately it was a genuine Samsung device and I went back to feeling content with my purchase and happy I wouldn&#8217;t have to cover up being some kind of cheapskate down the pub.</p>
<p>That feel good, confident feeling, of having the real thing, is difficult to put one&#8217;s finger on. Kids and teens understand it, and in the right circumstances adults do too. That Gucci perfume? It smells good, for longer too. And just look at the quality stitching on that Prada handbag.</p>
<p>People might indeed be watching plenty of downloaded movies over the holidays, but they won&#8217;t generally be buying their loved ones counterfeit gifts this Christmas, will they?</p>
<p>How the entertainment industries bottle this emotional response to generally overpriced items and apply it to their own products is anyone&#8217;s guess, but especially among the younger generation there&#8217;s definitely something there to tap into.</p>
<p>Just don&#8217;t presume the big entertainment companies are going to get designer prices for whatever they come up with as those days are well and truly over. Everyone has limits on what they&#8217;ll pay for the real thing, as the thriving counterfeit market shows.</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=98628
title: Sony Accidentally Funded “Rogue” Piracy Sites
uri: Sony-Accidentally-Funded-Rogue-Piracy-Sites
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/4w6VA45-d3k/
content:
<p>In recent years the mainstream entertainment industries have largely come to the realization that chasing down individual file-sharers is unlikely to yield significant anti-piracy results.</p>
<p>With this in mind new strategies have been adopted, one of the most important being the attacking of &#8216;pirate&#8217; site revenue streams. The theory under consideration is that such sites would cease to exist if a profit could not be made from their operations.</p>
<p>One of the key ways sites generate revenue is via advertising so pressure has been mounting on agencies and the companies placing the ads to do everything possible to stop their promotions appearing on pirate sites. On occasion, groups such as the Digital Citizens Alliance publish information aimed at naming and shaming big brands who&#8217;ve let their ads appear in the wrong places.</p>
<p>“Good Money Gone Bad: Digital Thieves and the Hijacking of the Online Ad Business&#8221; was a DCA <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-sites-6-million-ad-revenue-140219/">report</a> from February 2014 which estimated that the top &#8220;pirate sites&#8221; generate $227 million in annual ad revenue.</p>
<p>The report also called out big companies including Amazon, American Express, Dell, Ford, Lego and McDonalds for allowing their ads to appear on pirate domains. What it failed to do was point the finger at companies a little closer to home.</p>
<p>TorrentFreak has learned that during its monitoring of &#8220;pirate&#8221; sites in early 2014, the MPAA discovered that ads commissioned by entertainment companies close to the ones it represents were appearing on those very same sites.</p>
<p>In a five month analysis (Jan to May 2014) the MPAA found that Sony companies including Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Entertainment Network, Sony Corporation, and Sony Mobile Communications, were placing ads on &#8216;rogue&#8217; sites.</p>
<p>This wasn&#8217;t a few here and a few there either. In the first five months of the year Sony company ads appeared on &#8220;pirate&#8221; sites almost two million times, with the lion&#8217;s share placed by SCE and its partners.</p>
<p>Internal correspondence reveals that Sony Pictures were keen to eliminate this embarrassment, with the company&#8217;s content protection department writing to other divisions requesting that ads are kept aware from pirate networks in future.</p>
<p>Sony said its goals were threefold:</p>
<p>&#8211; &#8220;Starving pirate sites of any additional ad revenue generated by viewers clicking through on those internet ads&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8211; &#8220;Eliminating any semblance of legitimacy that ads for well­ known<br>
brands might lend these rogue sites&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8211; &#8220;Protecting the reputation of our brand, since these sites often include malware and ads for questionable and/or illegal content.&#8221;</p>
<p>Noting that the information had been provided by the MPAA, Sony asked its sister companies to assist them in the fight against piracy. It&#8217;s unclear whether Sony has achieved its aims but in any event, don&#8217;t expect an MPAA partner company to be called out for supporting piracy anytime soon.</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=98947
title: Kim “Santa” Dotcom Stops Xbox and Playstation Attacks
uri: Kim-Santa-Dotcom-Stops-Xbox-and-Playstation-Attacks
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/EDpoIxA0TfA/
content:
<p><a href="media/b83cd62c.santa-dotcom.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/santa-dotcom.jpg"><img src="media/3876728e.santa-dotcom.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/santa-dotcom.jpg" alt="santa-dotcom" width="200" height="172" class="alignright size-full wp-image-62275"></a>When Xbox and Playstation players wanted to test their Christmas gifts a few hours ago, they were welcomed by an unpleasant surprise. </p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizard_squad">Lizard Squad</a>, who repeatedly DDoSed the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live&#8217;s servers in recent months, were back with a Christmas gift nobody asked for. Another DDoS attack resulting in yet more downtime. </p>
<p>One of the affected players was <a href="https://twitter.com/KimDotcom">Kim Dotcom</a>, who&#8217;s an avid Xbox player himself. But instead of cursing Lizard Squad to high heaven he decided to make them an offer.</p>
<p>Although the general belief may be that it&#8217;s best not to negotiate with &#8220;terrorists,&#8221; Dotcom decided to give it a try. </p>
<p>&#8220;Hi @LizardMafia, I want to play #Destiny on XBOX Live. I&#8217;ll give your entire crew Mega lifetime premium vouchers if you let us play. Cool?&#8221; he tweeted. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/cbe64f4e.kimask.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/kimask.png"><img src="media/cbe64f4e.kimask.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/kimask.png" alt="kimask" width="584" height="222" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-98949"></a></center></p>
<p>Lizard Squad is apparently easy to please as they were willing to stop the attacks in return for 3,000 free cloud hosting vouchers.</p>
<p>After getting approval from Mega&#8217;s management, Dotcom and Lizard Squad eventually came to terms through Twitter&#8217;s back-channel.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/307bd757.megalizard.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/megalizard.jpg"><img src="media/307bd757.megalizard.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/megalizard.jpg" alt="megalizard" width="516" height="937" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-98950"></a></center></p>
<p>Once the vouchers were in Lizard Squad&#8217;s possession, the attacks did indeed slow down and Christmas was saved. While some still experienced some outages due to the earlier attacks, many players were able to join their favorite games again.</p>
<p>&#8220;Thanks @KimDotcom for the vouchers&#8211;you&#8217;re the reason we stopped the attacks. @MegaPrivacy is an awesome service,&#8221; Lizard Squad tweeted, confirming the successful intervention. </p>
<p>Dotcom, meanwhile, is happy that he can play Destiny but wishes that his other troubles could be resolved this easily too. Whether the U.S. Department of Justice will accept Mega vouchers is doubtful though.</p>
<p>&#8220;Obviously, diplomacy works. I recommend that the U.S. Government gives it a try. #MakeLoveNotWar #UseMegaVouchers,&#8221; Kim noted.</p>
<p>Of course there&#8217;s no guarantee that Lizard Squad will keep their promise during the days to come, but Dotcom said he will render the vouchers useless if attacks resume.</p>
<p>Merry Christmas everyone&#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=98985
title: Hundreds of Pirate Bay Copies Emerge, Is The Hydra Alive?
uri: Hundreds-of-Pirate-Bay-Copies-Emerge-Is-The-Hydra-Alive
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/owyuGQHgDLo/
content:
<p><a href="media/707f9863.hydrabay.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/hydrabay.jpg"><img src="media/6d2953bd.hydrabay.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hydrabay.jpg" alt="hydrabay" width="180" height="166" class="alignright size-full wp-image-50642"></a>More than two weeks have passed since The Pirate Bay’s servers were pulled offline and it remains doubtful if the site will ever return in its full glory.</p>
<p>A few days ago The Pirate Bay showed <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-domain-back-online-waving-a-pirate-flag-141221/">signs of life</a> again when the domain name started waving a pirate flag. While this created plenty of mystery, there are still no torrents to be found on the site. </p>
<p>For now, it&#8217;s Pirate Bay supporters carrying the Kopimi spirit and keeping the &#8220;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra">Hydra</a>&#8221; seemingly alive and kicking. Chop one head off and new ones will grow back, making the beast stronger and stronger.</p>
<p>This week, most of the Pirate Bay copies have been growing from Isohunt.to&#8217;s <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/open-bay-now-everyone-can-run-pirate-bay-copy-141219/">OpenBay project</a>. Thus far nearly 400 Pirate Bay clones have launched and the people behind the initiative say that OpenBay is currently the <a href="https://github.com/trending?since=weekly">most popular project</a> on developer platform GitHub.</p>
<p>&#8220;Since it&#8217;s launch The Open Bay has drawn a lot of attention. As a result it&#8217;s placed as #1 on GitHub. During recent weeks 372 Open Bays have been created,&#8221; the Isohunt.to team inform us. </p>
<p>&#8220;Our current goal is to not only make it open source, but eventually provide a fully decentralized torrent database for the community,&#8221; they add.  </p>
<p>Although Isohunt told us that they&#8217;re not in contact with TPB, the Pirate Bay crew appears to appreciate the efforts. After all, the pirate flag that&#8217;s waving on the official Pirate Bay domain comes from OpenBay. </p>
<p>Isohunt.to is happy with this support and is now calling on developers to improve and expand the code, to support bigger and better torrent sites.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re glad that the original ThePirateBay founders are supporting us waving the pirate flag and the hash tag #CodeOpenBay. We hope that the community will step in and the new era will begin,&#8221; Isohunt.to tells us.</p>
<p><center><strong>The Pirate Bay homepage</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/87db6a84.piratebayhydra.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/piratebayhydra.jpg"><img src="media/87db6a84.piratebayhydra.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/piratebayhydra.jpg" alt="piratebayhydra" width="724" height="669" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-98989"></a></center></p>
<p>The question is, however, whether or not copies are going to be good enough. When Pirate Bay&#8217;s Peter Sunde talked about the Hydra concept <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-survival-the-way-of-the-hydra/">7.5 years ago</a> he wasn&#8217;t referring to copies, but entirely new sites with their own communities.</p>
<p>&#8220;Start up your own torrent sites, make the Internet the hydra it is and needs to be. If there’s hundreds of sites, they can’t all be shut down,&#8221; he said, pointing out that the torrent community was relying too heavily on TPB. </p>
<p>Seen through this lens, the hundreds of TPB copies that sprang up in recent days are pretty much useless. That is, until they become thriving communities of their own. Simply having a copy of the torrent listings isn&#8217;t going to be good enough.</p>
<p>Sticking with the Hydra mythology, if Pirate Bay copies are new heads then they&#8217;re on top of a dead beast for now. In this flawed analogy the Pirate Bay raid didn&#8217;t just cut off a head, it killed the beast itself. </p>
<p>The Pirate Bay&#8217;s real value were the uploaders and moderators, and these can&#8217;t simply be copied. </p>
<p>The real Hydra is something much broader. It is the entire BitTorrent ecosystem where The Pirate Bay was just one of the many heads, living alongside other popular torrent sites. </p>
<p>Only time can tell whether this Hydra is indeed alive and kicking.</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=98970
title: Sony About to Get Sued For Pirating Music in The Interview
uri: Sony-About-to-Get-Sued-For-Pirating-Music-in-The-Interview
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/oZ1fuFtGrE0/
content:
<p><img src="media/734911e6.theinterview.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/theinterview.jpg" width="180" height="136" class="alignright">The way things are panning out, the Sony movie The Interview is on course to become one of the most controversial movies of all time.</p>
<p>The comedy, which depicts the violent death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, made headlines worldwide when the so-called Guardians of Peace hacking group threatened Sony if it was released. Facing what amounted to a  “terrorist” threat, theaters all around the U.S. backed away from showing The Interview in the week leading up to Christmas.</p>
<p>After pulling the movie completely, Sony had a change of heart and on Christmas Eve released the music online via YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Live. Predictably the movie was quickly gobbled up by pirates, with the latest figures suggesting that in just two days the movie has been downloaded <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-interview-is-a-pirate-hit-with-200k-downloads-141225/">1.5 million times</a>.</p>
<p>But while Sony deals with rampant piracy issues at one end, it&#8217;s now facing copyright infringement allegations of its own. According to new claims, Sony used copyrighted music in The Interview without permission and without compensating an artist.</p>
<p>Yoon Mi-rae (real name Natasha Shanta Reid) is a US-born hip hop and R&#038;B singer who currently releases music on the Feel Ghood Music label. In January 2013 as part of MFBTY (My Fans Better Than Yours), the 33-year-old hit the number 1 spot in the Korean Music Charts and in September reached the same heights on Billboard&#8217;s Kpop Hot 100 list with her song &#8216;Touch Love&#8217;.</p>
<p>But while these recognitions were achieved by fans buying her music, she&#8217;s now in the spotlight for not getting paid for her work. It appears that Yoon Mi-rae was in negotiations with Sony to have her track &#8216;Pay Day&#8217; appear in The Interview. Even though no agreement was reached, Sony used the music anyway.</p>
<p>“There were initial discussions for using ‘Pay Day‘ in the movie, but at some point, the discussions ceased and we assumed that it would not follow through,&#8221; Feel Ghood Music <a href="http://www.soompi.com/2014/12/26/yoon-mi-rae-to-take-legal-action-against-sony-pictures-for-using-her-song-in-the-interview-without-permission/">says</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;However, after the movie was released, we learned that the track had been used without permission, legal procedure, or contracts.”</p>
<p>Sony, who are already facing a world of pain following the hacking and near destruction of their IT systems in recent weeks, will now face a copyright infringement lawsuit over the unauthorized use of the ironically named &#8216;Pay Day&#8217;.</p>
<p>“We will be taking legal action against Sony Pictures as well as DFSB, the agency that had been carrying out the discussion regarding the use of the track,” the label says.</p>
<p>It seems unlikely that this lawsuit will result in a messy legal battle. The huge publicity the movie has enjoyed in the past few weeks will virtually guarantee decent sales for Sony, even without lucrative box office revenues. Yoon Mi-rae should not only be able to secure a piece of that but also raise her profile in a way that would not have been possible had Sony paid her in the first instance.</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=98215
title: MPAA Considered Pulling Out of UK Pirate Notice Program
uri: MPAA-Considered-Pulling-Out-of-UK-Pirate-Notice-Program
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/yJu-3f51FKM/
content:
<p><img src="media/c579e316.pirate-card.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-card.jpg" width="250" height="210" class="alignright">One of the cornerstones of modern online piracy schemes are so-called &#8216;copyright alert&#8217; programs. The idea is simple &#8211; rightsholders monitor online file-sharing networks, capture IP addresses of alleged pirates and have ISPs send warnings to subscribers.</p>
<p>Several countries in the world currently operate these systems. France was one of the pioneers but the largest project is handled with the cooperation of the largest ISPs in the United States. In the summer a new <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-agree-to-send-out-music-movie-piracy-warnings-140509/">deal was reached</a> between the music and movie industries and the government to bring notices to the UK.</p>
<p>However, TorrentFreak has learned that just three months earlier Hollywood was getting cold feet over the scheme. Leaked emails reveal that the MPAA was giving consideration to the consequences of pulling out of VCAP (or delaying it by 18 months) due to the group not having enough information on the effectiveness of notice-only, no punishment schemes.</p>
<p>Since consequences could include political fallout due to UK government involvement in VCAP, the MPAA decided to send former Senator Chris Dodd to the UK. Dodd met Ed Vaizey, the UK Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, and Tim Luke, Prime Minister David Cameron&#8217;s Senior Policy Advisor, in the first week of March 2014.</p>
<p>Dodd returned with plenty of praise for Vaizey whose apparent efforts in paving the way for site blocking and attacking the finances of pirate sites were showing results. Nevertheless, there were sticking points.</p>
<p>It appears that a notice-only warning system, one in which subscribers aren&#8217;t punished for their actions, was not something the MPAA aspired to. This left the MPAA wondering whether launching VCAP quickly would be a favorable thing to do.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Dodd also made it clear to Vaizey that the MPAA was seriously considering the political implications of when VCAP should begin, a point not lost on the politicians.</p>
<p>Both Vaizey and Luke felt that if notices only started going out in the months preceding the May 2015 general election that would be an unwelcome development. A delay on notice-sending until the fall of 2015 was preferred all round.</p>
<p>Whatever happened in the interim period, in May <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-agree-to-send-out-music-movie-piracy-warnings-140509/">news leaked</a> that an agreement had been reached and by June the MPAA were confirming internally that a Memorandum of Understanding had indeed been signed.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-and-copyright-holders-praise-new-piracy-warning-system-140719/">public comments</a> welcoming the VCAP agreement it seems clear that the MPAA would prefer a system with account suspensions and disconnections. For now, however, that is not on the agenda.</p>
<p>At this point it appears Hollywood will give VCAP time to work, but could pull out at a later point if the public simply isn&#8217;t getting the message.</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=98870
title: isoHunt Founder: Piracy is A Convenience and Access Problem.
uri: isoHunt-Founder-Piracy-is-A-Convenience-and-Access-Problem
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/M59gMWm2LIE/
content:
<p><a href="media/9625dbce.garyfung.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/garyfung.jpg"><img src="media/9625dbce.garyfung.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/garyfung.jpg" alt="garyfung" width="180" height="180" class="alignright size-full wp-image-98974"></a>November last year isoHunt&#8217;s founder <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-shuts-down-after-110-million-settlement-with-the-mpaa-131017/">shut down</a> the site after he signed a $110 million settlement agreement with Hollywood. </p>
<p>After being one of the lead figures in the BitTorrent community for over a decade, Fung is now about to close his first year as an outsider.</p>
<p>Has this new perspective changed his outlook on piracy? What lessons has he learned, and what should the major entertainment industry companies do to address the piracy challenge? Today Fung shares some of his thoughts from the past year.</p>
<h3>On Piracy and The Future of Media Distribution</h3>
<p><strong>By <a href="https://twitter.com/garyfung">Gary Fung</a></strong></p>
<p>I&#8217;ve often said before, in court and elsewhere, that isoHunt&#8217;s shutdown means nothing against what and how much people share. isoHunt was a tool and its stats a reflection of what people wanted to share. I was right, nothing of substance has changed in file-sharing on BitTorrent. Neither has the recent downtime of The Pirate Bay it seems.</p>
<p>For now, piracy is being maintained by the inability of media giants to serve their customers well.</p>
<p>I like movies. I&#8217;ve always gone to theaters to see good movies, with friends. isoHunt&#8217;s shutdown hasn&#8217;t changed that. Recently, there was a movie I wanted to see: The Imitation Games. After weeks of it being premiered in the US, I still couldn&#8217;t see it here in BC, Canada. Only a few days ago did it start showing in just one local theater.</p>
<p>&#8220;Piracy&#8221; is not a money problem, it&#8217;s a convenience and access problem. Money is merely a part of the access problem. What are studios supposed to expect people to do when they want to see a movie but they can&#8217;t pay because it&#8217;s not playing locally?</p>
<p>So how can the entertainment industry stop piracy? Innovation.</p>
<p>Not being involved in file-sharing gives me the freedom to say that streaming services are the future of movies and TV. Technically, streaming and superior recommendations are the things that can effectively compete with piracy, which is not as convenient, not as legal and not as high quality. Continue to hamstring collective streaming services with licensing limitations and territorial barriers and expect piracy to endure. The War on Internet cannot be won with lawyers.</p>
<p>I wanted isoHunt to evolve into a service of frictionless content discovery. I realize now that without cooperation with the content owners, this isn&#8217;t possible. Technologically, I envision studios and other media companies creating open APIs and platforms so new innovative streaming services can be developed on top. </p>
<p>That would solve the studio&#8217;s fear of single players like Netflix dominating media distribution and eventually dictating terms in the industry. New streaming services could find a hybrid approach by using BitTorrent P2P streaming to lower cost and Bitcoin for pay per view micro-transactions. </p>
<p>Imagine when everyone can watch and listen to anything, anytime, anywhere, with mere cents, automatically and continuously deducted from your Bitcoin wallet. No, you won&#8217;t own your media, but that was never the case to begin with. Our entertainment will be completely in the cloud, searchable and discoverable with recommendations. Not yours, physically or otherwise, but available and priced low enough that you don&#8217;t think much about the charge.</p>
<p>I believe that the frictionless micro-transactions that enable this will be ideal for bridging the digital divide between creators and consumers. Taylor Swift doesn&#8217;t want to be on Spotify? She can create her own platform using a streaming API, a clearinghouse for rights, and bitcoin purchase details made available by her label. The same would be true for any TV show and movie producer.</p>
<p>And here&#8217;s my tip to industry associations like the MPAA and RIAA for continued relevance in this Internet age, possibly for everyone&#8217;s benefits. Become standards bodies for programmatic APIs over media rights, metadata and micro-transaction details. Record labels and movie/tv studios can use these standards to make their own works available for streaming and to accept payments from third parties. </p>
<p>With open APIs, new streaming services can freely innovate. With increased competition and choice, consumers can get better pricing and collectively access everything, just as the Internet eventually makes everything available. And with competing streaming services, the labels and studios don&#8217;t have to fear streaming giants such as Netflix, YouTube and Spotify consolidating too much power over distribution. </p>
<p>Streaming services will become the new channels, available on any connected TV, sound system and mobile device. Micro-transactions that are frictionless in access is the hardest part from a technical point of view, but has the potential to end download stores, subscription streaming and piracy of today. Free and cheaper tiers of access through the APIs are possible when supplemented with advertising naturally and new forms of product placements and endorsements, already pioneered by Youtube channels now (although ethics in continued melding of content and advertising will have to be questioned). </p>
<p>The piracy and ownership debates I believe will be largely academic when access to content in reality will be that easy. Media companies that hound their future customers and technology partners with lawsuits will be laughed at, like we can now laugh at horse carriages suing automobiles for going too fast</p>
<p>That would be a sight to see.</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=99037
title: Dotcom: Encrypted MegaChat is “Coming Soon”
uri: Dotcom-Encrypted-MegaChat-is-Coming-Soon
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/w6foJ9DGzNY/
content:
<p><img src="media/ddc76781.mega3.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mega3.png" width="222" height="103" class="alignright">Following the revelations of systems administrator <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden">Edward Snowden</a>, millions of eyes were opened to our online vulnerability. Total privacy, something presumed by many to be as simple as securing a password, was shown to be an easily shattered illusion.</p>
<p>As the need for heightened security filtered down to the masses, companies stepped into the frame offering products and services to help people maintain their privacy online. VPN companies are still riding this wave of popularity and are now going to even <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">greater lengths</a> to assure customers of their commitment to security.</p>
<p>Another company exploiting the security niche is Mega, the cloud-storage service founded by Kim Dotcom. While the flamboyant German reportedly has little to do with the company on a day to day basis, his family still owns shares in the operation. And for a company with a zero dollar marketing spend, Dotcom remains a valuable promotional asset.</p>
<p>In one of his regular updates, this morning the Megaupload founder announced that Mega is preparing to launch a new product into the communications market.</p>
<p>&#8220;Mega will soon release a fully encrypted and browser based video call &#038; chat service including high-speed file transfers. Bye bye Skype,&#8221; Dotcom <a href="https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/549429689198968832">teased</a>.</p>
<p>Although no official announcement has been made, it&#8217;s believed that the product will be called &#8220;MegaChat&#8221;, a naming convention that would certainly fit with previous Dotcom projects.</p>
<p>The service will offer end-to-end encryption and, reading between the lines of Dotcom&#8217;s statements, won&#8217;t be based in the backyard of his arch-rivals.</p>
<p>&#8220;No US based online service provider can be trusted with your data. Skype has no choice. They must provide the US Government with backdoors,&#8221; Dotcom says.</p>
<p>While clearly ambitious, Mega is already somewhat behind with plans for expansion outside of its core business of encrypted file-storage. It was previously reported that Mega&#8217;s chat/video product would be released to the public in the second quarter of 2014. Its encrypted email service is also yet to see the light.</p>
<p>That being said, an early 2015 release for &#8220;MegaChat&#8221; would be a welcome development for the company. After first <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/dotcoms-mega-plans-179m-public-listing-via-reverse-takeover-140325/">announcing</a> plans to go public in March 2014, Mega now has eyes on an early 2015 NZX listing.</p>
<p>The listing is planned via a reverse takeover of NZ-based TRS Investments but that too has not run entirely smoothly. A shareholders&#8217; vote at the company has been pushed back several times and is not expected to arrive sooner than the end of January.</p>
<p>For investors, potential is there. Mega currently has in excess of 15 million users and while the majority take advantage of the company&#8217;s free product, upgrades become more likely as users warm to the service. The advent of additional services will also boost its appeal but the hope is they will also improve the company&#8217;s bottom line.</p>
<p>Earlier this month Mega chief executive Graham Gaylard told Stuff that the company is not yet making money and is instead focusing on growth. However, there is profit to be made in this sector and it seems likely that the company will secure and develop its position during 2015.</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=99031
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 12/29/14
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-12-29-14
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/5K7PcnlXNW8/
content:
<p><a href="media/12e1be09.theinterview.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/theinterview.jpg"><img src="media/734911e6.theinterview.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/theinterview.jpg" alt="theinterview" width="180" height="136" class="alignright size-full wp-image-98689"></a>This week we have four newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>The Interview is the most downloaded movie.</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-141222/">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/the_interview_2014/">The Interview</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788710/">7.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frsvWVEHowg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_girl/">Gone Girl</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2267998/">8.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DPpygqaCjY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/horrible_bosses_2/">Horrible Bosses 2</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2170439/">6.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGX4XwYVoIg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/outcast_2015/">Outcast</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1552224/">5.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnAD4sClcQs">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_equalizer_2013/">The Equalizer</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455944/">7.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64-iSYVmMVY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/penguins_of_madagascar/">Penguins of Madagascar</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1911658/">5.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=retX8Wj7JdM">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dumb_and_dumber_to/">Dumb And Dumber To</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096672/">6.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMxwcRck9TI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_maze_runner/">The Maze Runner</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790864/">7.1</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt0GkVZK8zA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(6)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/guardians_of_the_galaxy/">Guardians of the Galaxy</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2015381/">8.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE9vypfwbvk">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pk/">PK</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2338151/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv3BHQhZEQo">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=98833
title: Movie Studios Fear a Google Fiber Piracy Surge
uri: Movie-Studios-Fear-a-Google-Fiber-Piracy-Surge
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/gnuAnfkQZtw/
content:
<p><a href="media/956e9ad4.googlefiberlogo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/googlefiberlogo.png"><img src="media/956e9ad4.googlefiberlogo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/googlefiberlogo.png" alt="googlefiberlogo" width="222" height="153" class="alignright size-full wp-image-98840"></a>Google is slowly expanding its fiber to the home services in the United States. Most recently Austin, Texas, was added to the list and a few dozen other cities will follow soon.</p>
<p>Promising free Internet and blazing fast gigabit per second connections at a relatively low price, many consumers are happy with Google&#8217;s new product. </p>
<p>Hollywood on the other hand fears the worst. While great connectivity offers commercial opportunities for entertainment companies, some are overly worried about the negative consequences.</p>
<p>Earlier this week we received a leaked presentation covering the results of a Google Fiber survey conducted on behalf of Warner Bros and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The research was conducted in 2012 and aimed to get a baseline of the piracy levels, so changes can be measured after the rollout.</p>
<p>The survey respondents came from Kansas City, where Google Fiber first launched, with St. Louis residents as a control group. In total, more than 2,000 persons between 13 and 54 were asked about Google Fiber, their piracy habits and media consumption in general.</p>
<p>The results reveal that more than half of those surveyed were very interested in Google&#8217;s offer. This includes a large group of pirates, which make up 31% of the entire population. </p>
<p>About a third of these pirates said they would download or stream more with Google Fiber. Perhaps even more worrying for Hollywood, about a quarter of the non-pirates said they would start doing so if Google comes to town.</p>
<p>The most interesting part, however, is that the research tries to estimate the studio&#8217;s extra piracy losses that Google Fiber could create across the nation. </p>
<p>Drawing on an MPAA formula that counts all pirated views as losses the report notes that it may cost Hollywood over a billion dollars per year. That&#8217;s a rather impressive increase of 58% compared to current piracy levels. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/8a70b1ca.fiber-pirates.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/fiber-pirates.png"><img src="media/8a70b1ca.fiber-pirates.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/fiber-pirates.png" alt="fiber-pirates" width="600" height="442" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-98836"></a></center></p>
<p>The research also finds a link between piracy and broadband speeds, which is another reason for Hollywood not to like Google&#8217;s Internet service. </p>
<p>According to the report this is &#8220;another indication that piracy becomes more attractive with Google Fiber.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><a href="media/5c113281.fiberspeed1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/fiberspeed1.jpg"><img src="media/5c113281.fiberspeed1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/fiberspeed1.jpg" alt="fiberspeed" width="600" height="442" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-98843"></a></center></p>
<p>We will refrain from analyzing the methods and the definition of piracy losses, which deserve an article of their own. What&#8217;s most striking from the above approach is the way the studios frame Google Fiber as a piracy threat, instead of looking at the opportunities it offers. </p>
<p>For example, the same report also concludes that 39% of the respondents would use paid streaming subscription services more, while 34% would rent and purchase more online video. Yet, there is no mention of the potential extra revenue that will bring in. </p>
<p>Judging from all the piracy calculations, statistics and projections, it appears that Hollywood is mostly occupied with threats. But of course there&#8217;s nothing new there.</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=99048
title: Top 10 Domains Hit By Google Piracy Takedowns 2014
uri: Top-10-Domains-Hit-By-Google-Piracy-Takedowns-2014
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/iyGWdIeT4-g/
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>As 2014 draws to a close it is notable that despite dozens of sites being blocked around Europe and millions of <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-warnings-double-year-140830/">infringement notices going out</a> to US-based Internet users, piracy appears to be just as prolific as it ever was.</p>
<p>There appears to be very little copyright holders can do to stop their content appearing online and as a result countless millions of &#8216;infringing&#8217; URLs become indexed by the world&#8217;s leading search engines.</p>
<p>Once this happens it&#8217;s largely too late to do anything really significant to turn back the clock on availability. Nevertheless, entertainment companies still want to make life as difficult as possible for online pirates. As a result they send out millions of takedown notices, not only to sites hosting content, but also to search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.</p>
<p>These companies are remarkably quick to respond. Google, for example, processes most DMCA notices in a matter of hours, despite receiving <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/google-asked-to-remove-1-million-pirate-links-per-day-140820/">one million requests</a> per day and on one occasion <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/google-takedown-requests-surge-after-new-anti-piracy-measures-140102/">11.6 million takedowns</a> in a week.</p>
<p>Every single one of these takedowns is logged in the company&#8217;s Transparency Report which has become a valuable source of insight into the company&#8217;s responses to copyright and the wider picture online.</p>
<p>Listed below are the top 10 domains for which Google received the most notices during the past year (Dec 28, 2013 to Dec 29, 2014).</p>
<p>File-hosting and MP3 search engines dominate the list, so it comes as little surprise that the major record labels (under the BPI umbrella) <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/bpi-hits-record-breaking-100-million-google-takedowns-140922/">sent the most notices</a> during the course of the year.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s also noteworthy that despite the high-profiles of sites such as The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, those sites were relegated to 18th and 29th places respectively in the takedown charts. In fact not a single torrent site made the top 10 this year, with the nearest torrent-related domains being torrentz.pro (#11), torrenthound (#12) and come.in (#13).</p>
<table class="css hover" summary="Top 10 Domains Subjected to Piracy Takedowns 2014">
<caption>Top 10 Domains Subjected to Piracy Takedowns 2014</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="9%"><strong>Rank</strong></th>
<th width="25%"><strong>Name</strong></th>
<th width="20%"><strong>URLs requested for takedown</strong></th>
<th width="26%"><strong>Top reporters (all time)</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">torrentfreak.com / google.com</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://www.4shared.com">4shared.com<br>
</a></td>
<td>8,345,559</td>
<td><a href="http://www.bpi.co.uk/">BPI labels</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://www.rapidgator.net">rapidgator.net</a></td>
<td>7,838,757</td>
<td><a href="http://www.nbcuni.com/">NBC Universal</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://www.uploaded.net/">uploaded.net</a></td>
<td>5,412,519</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fox.com/">FOX</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://dilandau.eu">dilandau.eu</a> (<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/worlds-most-infringing-music-website-faces-legal-action-140611/">site dead</a>)</td>
<td>4,913,298</td>
<td><a href="http://www.bpi.co.uk/">BPI labels</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://gosong.net/">GoSong.net</a></td>
<td>4,484,310</td>
<td><a href="http://www.bpi.co.uk">BPI labels</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://www.zippyshare.com">zippyshare.com</a></td>
<td>3,074,988</td>
<td><a href="http://toppletrack.com/">Topple Track</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://www.muzofon.com">Muzofon.com</a></td>
<td>2,835,660</td>
<td><a href="http://www.bpi.co.uk">BPI labels</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td><a href="http://www.myfreemp3.cc">myfreemp3.cc</a></td>
<td>2,699,706</td>
<td><a href="http://www.bpi.co.uk">BPI labels</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td align="left"><a href="http://www.myfreemp3.eu/">myfreemp3.eu</a></td>
<td>2,453,694</td>
<td><a href="http://www.bpi.co.uk">BPI labels</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td align="left"><a href="http://www.vmusice.net">vmusice.net</a></td>
<td>2,303,615</td>
<td><a href="http://www.bpi.co.uk">BPI labels</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p></p>
<p>Finally, it&#8217;s worth noting that there is a site for which Google receives millions of notices but isn&#8217;t listed in any of its reports. It&#8217;s possible we&#8217;ll never know the numbers involved, but YouTube itself is likely to be in the official top 10.</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=99078
title: Talos Principle Traps Pirating Gamers in An Elevator
uri: Talos-Principle-Traps-Pirating-Gamers-in-An-Elevator
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Zmj04DjLjUA/
content:
<p><a href="media/4261d875.talosp.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/talosp.png"><img src="media/4261d875.talosp.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/talosp.png" alt="talosp" width="200" height="128" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99082"></a>Every day hundreds of thousands of games are downloaded from various torrent sites. While it can be quite a challenge to get a pirated game working, most will play just fine. </p>
<p>The same is true for Croteam&#8217;s latest release <a href="http://www.croteam.com/talosprinciple/">The Talos Principle</a>. A few days ago a pirated copy of the puzzle title surfaced online which initially appeared to work as a regular game.</p>
<p>However, the fun didn&#8217;t last long as the developers had previously embedded a feature that traps free-riding pirates in a virtual elevator. </p>
<p>&#8220;When I unlocked the 2nd floor on the tower, all the elevators have stopped working. Whenever I want to get somewhere, it just stops in the middle of the way and I can&#8217;t do anything,&#8221; J.K. wrote on the Steam forums. </p>
<p>The measure had many pirates puzzled, but in a <a href="http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=960643">thread on Neogaf</a> the purpose of the &#8220;bug&#8221; soon came to light. </p>
<p>While bugs in &#8220;cracked&#8221; games are a regular occurrence, in this case it&#8217;s clearly an intentional anti-piracy measure. As can be seen below, the QR code visible in the elevator clearly references the scene release group SKIDROW, who are responsible for many pirated game copies. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/393a366d.talospirate.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/talospirate.jpg"><img src="media/393a366d.talospirate.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/talospirate.jpg" alt="talospirate" width="1024" height="768" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99083"></a></center></p>
<p>Croteam acknowledged the feature on social media by retweeting a mention of the puzzled Steam user, which must have been good for a few laughs among the developers. </p>
<p>Even more so, it probably led to a few extra sales as well. Apparently some pirates were hooked enough to get a legit copy of the game on Steam, to continue playing without any hassles. </p>
<p>&#8220;I hit the bug where the elevators stopped working correctly, so I bought the game on Steam and was able to import my save,&#8221; an anonymous user wrote on a popular torrent site, adding that it&#8217;s been worth the money.</p>
<p>&#8220;I did lose some progress, possibly a side effect of the elevator bug, but I was able to get back to where I was pretty quickly. I just finished the game (one ending, at least) and it was totally worth the purchase price.&#8221;</p>
<p>So the developers managed to punish pirates and get paid. That&#8217;s a pretty good outcome to say the least. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://kotaku.com/pc-game-traps-pirates-inside-an-elevator-1676204291">Kotaku mentions</a>, this isn&#8217;t the first time that Croteam has come up with a rather creative form of DRM. Three years ago the developers added an <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/serious-sam-pirates-forced-to-fight-immortal-scorpion-111207/">invincible scorpion</a> to Serious Sam, making it impossible for pirates to progress. </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=99106
title: Here’s Where “The Interview” Pirates Are Coming From
uri: Here-s-Where-The-Interview-Pirates-Are-Coming-From
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/iNelA5fozSU/
content:
<p><a href="media/12e1be09.theinterview.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/theinterview.jpg"><img src="media/734911e6.theinterview.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/theinterview.jpg" alt="theinterview" width="180" height="136" class="alignright size-full wp-image-98689"></a>After most U.S. theaters backed away from screening The Interview due to &#8220;terrorist&#8217; threats, Sony Pictures decided to give the movie its <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/the-interview-is-a-pirate-hit-with-200k-downloads-141225/">premiere</a> on the Internet via various streaming services. </p>
<p>By Sunday the movie had been sold two million times, which isn&#8217;t a bad result at all. However, in the dark corners of the Internet just as many copies were traded without permission. </p>
<p>Via torrent sites alone the movie was shared an estimated 2.5 million times and that number could double when illicit streaming sites and cyberlockers are added to the mix.</p>
<p>One question that remained unanswered until now is where all these pirates are coming from. To find out, TF gathered more than 7,000 IP-addresses of people who shared pirated copies via BitTorrent throughout the past 24-hours. </p>
<p>The data, presented in the table below, reveals that most of the pirates come from parts of the world where there&#8217;s no legal avenue to see the film. With 17.6% the United States is still leading the list, but this isn&#8217;t a big surprise considering the size of its population. </p>
<p>If we take a look at which countries have most pirates relative to their population size then the Netherlands (17 million) and Australia (23 million) come out on top. </p>
<p>In total Canada, Australia, the UK and the Netherlands are good for 30% of all downloads, but these countries have less than half of the U.S. population combined.</p>
<p>While this data gives some more insight into The Interview&#8217;s popularity worldwide it&#8217;s hard to draw any strong conclusions, as piracy rates depend on a multitude of factors.</p>
<p>Would there have been less pirated downloads if the movie was sold everywhere? Most likely, but the high percentage of U.S. downloads shows that there&#8217;s still plenty of piracy even where the film is available. </p>
<p>Finally, it&#8217;s worth mentioning that there were no downloads from North Korea in our sample. This doesn&#8217;t come as a surprise of course, not least because Internet connectivity has been down recently.</p>
<p>Sony Pictures, meanwhile, is targeting torrent sites with DMCA takedown requests hoping to hinder the distribution of pirated copies. Whether that will have much of an effect has yet to be seen as there are still plenty of pirate copies around. </p>
<p>&#8212;-</p>
<p><em>Note: downloaders who <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">use VPNs</a> may appear to be in a different country.</em></p>
<table class="css hover" summary="The Interview Downloads">
<caption>sample N=7,231</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="10%"><strong>#</strong></th>
<th width="22%"><strong>Country</strong></th>
<th width="22%"><strong>%</strong></th>
<th width="22%"><strong>City</strong></th>
<th width="22%"><strong>%</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="5">torrentfreak.com</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td>United States</td>
<td>17.6%</td>
<td>London</td>
<td>3.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>Canada</td>
<td>8.2%</td>
<td>Amsterdam</td>
<td>2.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>Australia</td>
<td>7.8%</td>
<td>Melbourne</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>United Kingdom</td>
<td>7.2%</td>
<td>Makati</td>
<td>1.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>The Netherlands</td>
<td>6.8%</td>
<td>Manila</td>
<td>1.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>Philippines</td>
<td>5.3%</td>
<td>Singapore</td>
<td>1.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>India</td>
<td>3.0%</td>
<td>Athens</td>
<td>1.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>Greece</td>
<td>2.1%</td>
<td>Sydney</td>
<td>1.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>Brazil</td>
<td>2.0%</td>
<td>Toronto</td>
<td>1.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>United Arab Emirates</td>
<td>1.5%</td>
<td>Dubai</td>
<td>1.2%</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=99099
title: BitTorrent Zeitgeist: What People Search for in 2014
uri: BitTorrent-Zeitgeist-What-People-Search-for-in-2014
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/7lL8D4e8dJg/
content:
<p><a href="media/f5afff22.2014.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/2014.jpg"><img src="media/2fc91374.2014.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/2014.jpg" alt="2014" width="190" height="189" class="alignright size-full wp-image-81725"></a>During December, all self-respecting search engines produce an overview of the most popular search terms of the past year.</p>
<p>These lists give insight into recent trends, and in 2014 Robin Williams, World Cup and Ebola were the top trending searches <a href="https://www.google.com/trends/topcharts?hl=en&#038;geo=US&#038;date=2014#vm=cat&#038;geo=US&#038;date=2014&#038;cid">on Google</a>.</p>
<p>But what about torrent search engines? With billions of searches every year it’s worth taking a look at the most-entered keywords on the dominant file-sharing network.</p>
<p>A few years ago we started the BitTorrent zeitgeist tradition with help from one of the largest torrent sites around. Based on a sample of hundreds of millions of searches, this list should give a decent overview of what people are looking for. </p>
<p>2014&#8217;s number one query is the same as last year&#8217;s. <strong>YIFY</strong> is the name of a popular movie release group that many people follow to see what new pirated titles are available. </p>
<p>The term <strong>2014</strong>, often used to find recent movies, comes in second place, followed by <strong>1080p</strong> in third. Last year &#8220;1080p&#8221; was in 42nd place suggesting that people were increasingly looking for high definition video. The sixth and eight place for newcomers <strong>YIFY 720p</strong> and <strong>YIFY 1080p</strong> confirm this trend.</p>
<p>In fourth place we find <strong>NeZu</strong>, another popular movie release group that is listed in the top 50 for the first time this year. </p>
<p>The first content related search query is <strong>Guardians of The Galaxy</strong> in ninth place. Other popular movie searches are <strong>Lucy</strong> and <strong>Dawn of The Planet of The Apes</strong> taking the 23rd and 24th spots respectively.</p>
<p>TV content is also popular with <strong>Game of Thrones</strong> in 12th and <strong>The Walking Dead</strong> in 16th place. Perhaps surprisingly, there are no searches related to music titles in the top 50. The only music related term is <strong>Discography</strong> in 11th place.</p>
<p>Finally, a game release group made it into the top 50 this year. The query <strong>Nosteam</strong>, referring to the ^^nosTEAM^^ group, is one of the highest newcomers and is listed in 15th place.</p>
<p>Below is the full list of the 50 most-entered search queries on one of the most popular torrent sites on the Internet.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>1. yify<br>
2. 2014<br>
3. 1080p<br>
4. nezu<br>
5. hindi<br>
6. yify 720p<br>
7. french<br>
8. yify 1080p<br>
9. guardians of the galaxy<br>
10. 3d<br>
11. discography<br>
12. game of thrones<br>
13. movies<br>
14. tamil<br>
15. nosteam<br>
16. the walking dead<br>
17. ita<br>
18. dvdrip<br>
19. telugu<br>
20. android<br>
21. malayalam<br>
22. hindi 2014<br>
23. lucy<br>
24. dawn of the planet of the apes<br>
25. nl<br>
26. apk<br>
27. ps3<br>
28. lynda<br>
29. 720p<br>
30. 2013<br>
31. need for speed<br>
32. arrow<br>
33. +18<br>
34. batman<br>
35. hercules<br>
36. x art<br>
37. pc games<br>
38. how to train your dragon 2<br>
39. 22 jump street<br>
40. divergent<br>
41. teenage mutant ninja turtles<br>
42. edge of tomorrow<br>
43. The fault in our stars<br>
44. godzilla<br>
45. mac<br>
46. wwe<br>
47. the equalizer<br>
48. walking dead<br>
49. maleficent<br>
50. the flash</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99149
title: Mortally Wounded Pirate Bay Enters 2015 in Uncertainty
uri: Mortally-Wounded-Pirate-Bay-Enters-2015-in-Uncertainty
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/FPYV3h-H7kM/
content:
<p><a href="media/850a0ead.tpb-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-logo.jpg"><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"></a>May 31, 2006 was a momentous day for everyone involved in the BitTorrent scene.</p>
<p>The Pirate Bay, one of the world&#8217;s most famous torrent sites, was smashed to its knees. Dozens of police, acting on information provided by the global entertainment industries via local anti-piracy group Antipiratbyran, raided Swedish datacenter PRQ and seized all of the site&#8217;s hardware.</p>
<p>But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, three days later The Pirate Bay was back online utilizing a backup that Fredrik Neij, aka TiAMO, had made of the site. In a public speech heralding the site&#8217;s return, Neij excited gathered crowds in Sweden.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a pleasure to announce that the Pirate Bay is back online. In your face, Hollywood,&#8221; the Swede declared. TPB was back.</p>
<p><center><br>
<h5>TPB Back online in 2006 &#8211; Image from TPB AFK</h5>
<p><img src="media/8a823f22.tpb-ss.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-ss.png" alt="tpb-back"></center></p>
<p>In the years that followed The Pirate Bay grew in size and reputation, an apparently unstoppable behemoth supported by a hard-core following renewed determination. </p>
<p>But while the masses enjoyed the spoils of the site for years to come, in November 2014 history caught up with Neij when he <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-fredrik-neij-arrested-in-asia-141104/">was arrested</a> at the Laos/Thai border, shipped back to Sweden and locked in a prison cell.</p>
<p>Several weeks later, on a December morning more than eight years after the original raid, Antipiratbyran &#8211; now known as Rights Alliance &#8211; showed the world that they also have extremely long memories when it comes to The Pirate Bay. </p>
<p>Following a new investigation and presentations to the authorities, police descended on a datacenter in Nacka and once again <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">ripped The Pirate Bay offline</a>.</p>
<p>The events of 2006 and the Megaupload case aside, never before had so much attention been focused on the shutdown of a file-sharing site. Tens of millions of worried Pirate Bay users sat in disbelief as the hours passed by. Some thought the downtime was related to technical issues. Others believed news of a fresh raid was a hoax. It was neither.</p>
<p>As file-sharers and interested observers absorbed developments, one train of thought persisted through most conversations. Hadn&#8217;t The Pirate Bay become <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-runs-on-21-raid-proof-virtual-machines-140921/">raid-proof</a>? Wasn&#8217;t its virtual server setup immune to the attentions of the police? Who was in charge of making the backups this time around and why isn&#8217;t the site back online already?</p>
<p><a href="media/79ceb7a2.piratesaint.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/piratesaint.jpg"><img src="media/62a13a20.piratesaint.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/piratesaint.jpg" alt="piratesaint" width="180" height="135" class="alignright size-full wp-image-73755"></a>The days passed and it became increasingly clear &#8211; this wasn&#8217;t The Pirate Bay of 2006. Times &#8211; and people &#8211; had changed.</p>
<p>The team that had driven the site to glory during the last decade had long since parted ways and the collective defiance of Piratbyran (the Pirate Bay&#8217;s founding  group) <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-founding-group-piratbyran-disbands-100623/">had dissipated</a> following a decade of pursuing still unsurpassed culture sharing ideals.</p>
<p>“We were not that surprised by the raid. That is something that is a part of this game. We couldn’t care less really,” a Pirate Bay insider <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-crew-responds-to-the-raid-copies-and-the-future-141215/">informed</a> TF in the wake of the shutdown.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have however taken this opportunity to give ourselves a break. How long are we supposed to keep going?&#8221;</p>
<p>So what could be done to fill the vacuum before any Pirate Bay return? Interestingly it was previous efforts to limit the availability of The Pirate Bay in countries such as the Netherlands, United Kingdom and elsewhere that provided the springboard.</p>
<p>Sites and domains that previously acted as mirrors and proxies to TPB suddenly transformed themselves into clones of the famous site. Some early efforts <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-has-not-been-resurrected-yet-141210/">were controversial</a>, with fears over impostors and malware unsettling the masses. Others (such as <a href="http://thepiratebay.com.ua">ThePirateBay.com.ua</a>) became the closest representation of what the site once was, with user names and a high percentage of comments now restored.</p>
<p>But despite the claims and suggestions, not a single one of these sites is the real Pirate Bay resurrected. Nevertheless, many <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-copycats-flourish-after-raid-141212/">have flourished</a> simply by virtue of similar looking domains and a half decent torrent index. However, one of the most interesting developments was launched by the team responsible for launching isoHunt.com clone, isoHunt.to.</p>
<p><img src="media/09a8fa76.openbaylogo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/openbaylogo.jpg" width="218" height="210" class="alignright"><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/open-bay-now-everyone-can-run-pirate-bay-copy-141219/">TheOpenBay project</a> is an attempt at open-sourcing a Pirate Bay-like site, and not without success. The initiative has resulted in <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/hundreds-of-pirate-bay-copies-emerge-is-the-hydra-alive-141227/">hundreds of mini TPB clones</a> and the sky-rocketing of the project to the top spot on developer platform Github. </p>
<p>OpenBay has real potential and provides an easier route into the torrent scene for budding admins, but ultimately this platform provides an alternative, not a replacement, to The Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>The disappearance of The Pirate Bay has been somewhat of a roller-coaster. Emotions have been running high all month, with hopes for a return and/or a worthy replacement at the forefront of millions of users&#8217; minds. </p>
<p>Dreams of a grand return were boosted four days before Christmas when the original Pirate Bay domain &#8211; ThePirateBay.se &#8211; <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-domain-back-online-waving-a-pirate-flag-141221/">burst back to life</a>. While the famous front page was missing, an elaborate pirate flag has waved on the site ever since. Alongside other cryptic hints, the flag is keeping the pirate spirit alive and hopes of a resurrection with it.</p>
<p>At the time of writing The Pirate Bay has been down a record-setting three weeks. In all of its history the site has never been offline for such a long time which raises some obvious questions. Will the site ever return or is the delay down to important technical issues which need to be overcome in order for the site to come back up and stay up?</p>
<p>Whatever the reason, it now seems that 2015 will begin without The Pirate Bay and if that is to be the case, somehow the community needs to come to terms with that. Will things ever be the same? Perhaps not. But file-sharing did not begin with The Pirate Bay and <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-shutdown-doesnt-stop-people-sharing-141216/">will not end</a> with it either.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99216
title: Pirate Bay Starts Counting Down To…. February 1
uri: Pirate-Bay-Starts-Counting-Down-To-February-1
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/t4jNsPPcPmY/
content:
<p><a href="media/850a0ead.tpb-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-logo.jpg"><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"></a>On December 9 The Pirate Bay <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">was raided</a> at the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof data center built into a mountain complex near Stockholm.</p>
<p>Two weeks later the domain became responsive again, waving a pirate flag and a counter that kept track of the time that had elapsed since the raid. </p>
<p>During the weeks that followed there were a handful of changes to the site, including a link to a pirated copy of &#8220;The Interview&#8221; and various cryptic messages. </p>
<p>Today, there&#8217;s another update that gives Pirate Bay users hope that the site may be working on a comeback. </p>
<p>As of a few hours ago the counter stopped counting up and began counting down. This suggests that something is going to happen on February 1, although it&#8217;s not officially confirmed what that will be.</p>
<p>In addition to the updated counter the javascript used to display fireworks on the site also has a promising name, &#8220;allishere.js.&#8221; Sources previously told TF that there were issues with Pirate Bay&#8217;s backups, but the &#8220;allishere&#8221; reference may suggest otherwise.</p>
<p>A source close to The Pirate Bay team informs TF that more exciting news and an official announcement will follow in the near future.</p>
<p>Stay tuned for more news. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/b4a80844.piratebaydowncount.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/piratebaydowncount.jpg"><img src="media/b4889e5b.piratebaydowncount.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/piratebaydowncount.jpg" alt="piratebaydowncount" width="836" height="857" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99219"></a></center></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99135
title: Rental Car Stereos Infringe Copyright, Music Rights Group Says
uri: Rental-Car-Stereos-Infringe-Copyright-Music-Rights-Group-Says
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/HKlOX-eVDpA/
content:
<p><img src="media/1c54a67f.ford-juke.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ford-juke.jpg" width="300" height="205" class="alignright">Car rentals are big business. According to <em>Car Rental Market &#8211; Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 &#8211; 2019</em>, the global car rental market was valued at $36.89 billion in 2013. In the US alone an estimated 2.07m vehicles are available for hire.</p>
<p>Over in Europe, the second largest market next to North America, a storm is brewing. Up in the north of the continent Swedish music rights outfit and car rental company Fleetmanager are locked in dispute over the latter&#8217;s business, specifically how the company provides car rental customers access to music.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.stim.se">STIM</a> (Svenska Tonsättares Internationella Musikbyrå) is a collecting society for songwriters, composers and music publishers. It demands license fees whenever its members&#8217; music is broadcast or transmitted, and collects sizable revenues from music streaming service Spotify. STIM also ensures that its members are paid when their music is played in public and this is at the heart of the dispute with Fleetmanager.</p>
<p>Each car rented out by Fleetmanager contains a stereo radio and CD player so that the customer can enjoy broadcasts of all kinds, including music. STIM says that to do so legally Fleetmanager needs to obtain a license but to date has failed to do so.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://mobil.svd.se/naringsliv/stim-stereo-i-hyrbil-upphovsrattsintrang_svd-4219853">SVD</a>, STIM is arguing that the inside of Fleetmanager&#8217;s cars contain members of the public and therefore amount to public places. On this basis the company needs to obtain a public performance license. Fleetmanager disagrees, noting that any music played inside a car is only heard by a limited circle of people.</p>
<p>STIM disagrees. The collection society says that previous cases involving hoteliers have ended with licenses being obtained which enable hotel guests to listen to music while on the premises. Furthermore, other car rental companies in Sweden have already agreed to pay a per-stereo levy so Fleetmanager should also pay, STIM argues.</p>
<p>This is not the first music-related copyright case to hit the car sector this year. In July, the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/music-industry-sues-ford-gm-cd-ripping-cars-140728/">launched</a> a class action lawsuit against Ford and General Motors over the CD-ripping capability of their cars. In November the group followed up with <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/artists-and-labels-now-sue-chrysler-over-cd-ripping-cars-141119/">fresh legal action</a> against Chrysler and technology partner Mitsubishi.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99204
title: Wiziwig and EliteTorrent ‘Shut Down’ Facing New Anti-Piracy Law
uri: Wiziwig-and-EliteTorrent-Shut-Down-Facing-New-Anti-Piracy-Law
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/jj4o3m4ryR4/
content:
<p>For a long time Spain has had a reputation for being easy on copyright infringement, but this lenient stance shifted last year. After continued pressure from entertainment industry groups, new copyright law amendments were passed which outlaw sites that link to pirated material.</p>
<p>The changes expose site owners to massive fines of up to €600,000 if they fail to respond to takedown requests in time. This liability also applies to non-profit sites that only use advertisements to cover their costs.</p>
<p>Today the changes officially go into effect and already they&#8217;ve resulted in two prominent casualties. Popular sports streaming links site <a href="http://Wiziwig.tv">Wiziwig.tv</a> and torrent index <a href="http://Elitetorrent.net">Elitetorrent.net</a> have both stopped linking to copyrighted material effective immediately.</p>
<p>With hundreds of thousands of visitors per day Wiziwig is the goto site for many sports fans who can&#8217;t watch their favorite teams through legal channels.  <a href="media/28f6398a.wiziwig.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/wiziwig.png"><img src="media/58090ee2.wiziwig-300x94.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/wiziwig-300x94.png" alt="wiziwig" width="300" height="94" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-99210"></a></p>
<p>According to the owner the site was specifically setup in Spain, where linking sites were declared legal in the past. </p>
<p>With the new amendments, however, the site can no longer operate from Spain without risking potential bankruptcy.</p>
<p>&#8220;Today is a sad day for all fans of live sports streaming, as we at Wiziwig have to announce that we&#8217;re forced to close our website, at least for now. This due to new laws in Spain,&#8221; the site&#8217;s owner writes in a statement.</p>
<p>&#8220;Failing to comply with the new reform puts us at risks of fines being as high as €600,000,- and also losing our domain, hosting and other necessary stuff to operate wiziwig,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>The founder of Elitetorrent.net also took drastic measures in response to the new legislation. <a href="media/9e438059.et-censurado.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/et-censurado.jpg"><img src="media/352a8e23.et-censurado-300x180.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/et-censurado-300x180.jpg" alt="et-censurado" width="300" height="120" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-99211"></a>His website, which is ranked among the 100 most visited sites in Spain, didn&#8217;t shut down completely but removed all torrents. </p>
<p>&#8220;I have always shown to be operating within the law, so I regret that after 11 years elitetorrent.net has to remove all links to downloads that are copyright protected, to suit the new legislation,&#8221; Elitetorrent&#8217;s Juan José says.</p>
<p>&#8220;Despite having fought battles for years against powerful forces, this last battle is very unequal and impossible to win. While the powerful use an army with tanks and warplanes, I can only fight with a stick,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>Elitetorrent.net remains open without links to downloads, but the owner is encouraging visitors to stay on board. He plans to transform the site into a lively community of movie and TV-fans, with news, trailers and other information.</p>
<p>Wiziwig.tv will shut down completely with the site&#8217;s owner deciding to push official content instead of unauthorized streams. He&#8217;s joined a new project, GetYourFixtures.com, a website providing information and official links to live sports events.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99107
title: Canadian ISPs and VPNs Now Have to Alert Pirating Customers
uri: Canadian-ISPs-and-VPNs-Now-Have-to-Alert-Pirating-Customers
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/HkVc0hKDITQ/
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>After years of public and private discussions, Canada started implementing a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Modernization_Act">new copyright law</a> in recent years.</p>
<p>The law introduced great improvements in terms of fair use and non-commercial file-sharing, and also adopts a “notice-and-notice” policy for ISPs that goes into effect today, January 2nd. </p>
<p>Under the new law Internet providers are required to forward copyright notices they receive from rightsholders to their customers. Providers who do not comply, including VPN services, face damages up to $10,000.</p>
<p>The notice scheme creates a safe harbor for Internet providers, protecting them from copyright holder lawsuits. For Internet subscribers the effects are limited to warnings, which is less draconian than the &#8220;strikes&#8221; systems other countries have implemented. </p>
<p>University of Ottawa professor <a href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/">Michael Geist</a>, who has been a critical follower of the copyright law changes, notes that despite its modesty people should be wary of the negative consequences these notices may have. </p>
<p>&#8220;I think they&#8217;re generally a good solution &#8211; proven effective when used informally and far less draconian than takedown systems. That said, there is the danger of potential abuse that will be need to be monitored,&#8221; Geist tells TF.</p>
<p>Among the most prominent concerns are the so-called <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/us-internet-providers-receive-1-1-million-piracy-settlements-per-week-140726/">settlement schemes</a> where copyright holders ask pirating subscribers to pay a fee. These have become relatively common in the U.S. and are now expected to expand into Canada.</p>
<p>One of the companies that helps rightsholders to collect settlements is <a href="http://www.cegtek.com/">CEG TEK</a>, and they are already gearing up to enter the Canadian market.</p>
<p>“We have been conducting tests in the Canada market and see positive results with ISPs. We look forward to a full-scale launch in the new year,” CEG TEK&#8217;s COO Kyle Reed informs TF.</p>
<p>These settlement notices are a &#8220;significant concern&#8221; according to Professor Geist. He says that the law currently doesn&#8217;t prohibit copyright holders from sending them in, but that subscribers&#8217; identities are shielded. </p>
<p>&#8220;The law does not preclude the inclusion of a settlement demand, though Canada has a cap on liability for non-commercial infringement and the sender of the notice obviously does not know the identity of the subscriber,&#8221; Geist tells TF  </p>
<p>&#8220;ISPs would seemingly be required to send these notifications, but there is nothing in the law that would stop them from advising subscribers on the context of these notices,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>The new notice-and-notice system also has a great impact on VPN providers. The new law requires them to identify pirating customers so they can forward the infringement notices.</p>
<p>To be able to do so the companies have to retain access logs for a minimum of six months. This mandatory data retention is expected to lead to a customer exodus as it makes it impossible for providers to guarantee people’s anonymity, a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">key feature of any VPN service</a>.</p>
<p>As we <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/canada-wants-vpns-to-log-and-warn-pirating-customers-131011/">pointed out before</a>, the new law requires VPN providers to implement an extensive logging and notice policy to deal with takedown notices. This will prove to be quite costly or simply impossible, especially for smaller companies that are sometimes run by individuals.</p>
<p>Many VPN providers assign shared IP-addresses to their customers, so even if they wanted to there is no option to accurately identify a copyright infringer. For these companies the only option will be to shut down, or move the company outside of Canada.</p>
<p>During the months to come it will become apparent what impact the notice-and-notice system will have on businesses and customers. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99279
title: UK Site Blocking Gives Boost to Pirate Linking Sites
uri: UK-Site-Blocking-Gives-Boost-to-Pirate-Linking-Sites
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ydkhfe_8CTM/
content:
<p><a href="media/7ea3aa35.unblocker.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/unblocker.jpg"><img src="media/a5a03817.unblocker.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/unblocker.jpg" alt="unblocker" width="180" height="226" class="alignright size-full wp-image-44361"></a>During 2014, several key strategies emerged to lead the mainstream entertainment industries&#8217; anti-piracy efforts. At the consumer end, so-called &#8220;strikes&#8221; programs saw errant Internet subscribers receive warning notices in an effort to correct their behaviors. </p>
<p>Then, on top of sending millions of DMCA-style takedown notices to sites and search engines, entertainment companies went to court in several regions to have domains blocked at the ISP level. The UK was hit particularly hard and now dozens of sites are inaccessible via regular means.</p>
<p>But the big question remains &#8211; is this an effective way to reduce piracy? Earlier this year the movie studios decided to find out by hiring a company called Incopro to conduct a study. The report has never been made public but TorrentFreak has now obtained a copy.</p>
<p>The report, titled &#8216;Site Blocking Efficacy Study United Kingdom&#8217; is dated September 30, 2014 and focuses on the top 250 &#8220;open access&#8221; websites involved in the unauthorized distribution of film and television content. Dedicated music sites were not included.</p>
<p>Overall the 26 page report, which relies heavily on Alexa data, found that blocking had resulted in targeted sites losing an average 73.2% of their direct traffic. And, when compared to the global control, usage of pirate sites had declined over time.</p>
<p>The report breaks sites down into three categories &#8211; linking only sites (the majority of sites in the top 250), public P2P portals and hosting.</p>
<p>Three sites were identified as the most popular among UK users in August 2014 &#8211; watchseries.lt (link), putlocker.is (link) and nowvideo.sx (host), with the former maintaining the number one position for the previous six months. And despite being blocked in March 2013 and taking a large hit in direct traffic, KickassTorrents maintained its place in the top 10.</p>
<p>In all cases, direct traffic to &#8216;pirate&#8217; sites plummeted when ISPs implemented court-ordered blockades. The chart below shows the effect of a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-bittorrent-and-music-download-sites-pushed-underground-in-the-uk-131030/">2013 blocking order</a> against BitSnoop, TorrentReactor, TorrentHound, Torrent Downloads, Monova, Filestube, Filecrop, 1337x, Torrentz, TorrentCrazy and ExtraTorrent.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/430f25c8.site-traff.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/site-traff.png"><img src="media/430f25c8.site-traff.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/site-traff.png" alt="site-traff" width="800" height="559" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-99315"></a></center></p>
<p>However, while direct traffic to &#8216;pirate&#8217; sites diminishes following blocking actions, Incopro found that a particular kind of site in the top 250 actually does better over time.</p>
<p>So-called &#8220;linking only&#8221; sites (i.e not a P2P portal or hosting site) enjoy significant boosts, as shown in the chart below.</p>
<p><img src="media/8022e54d.Or892ZK.png" data-original-source="http://i.imgur.com/Or892ZK.png" alt=""></p>
<p><center><a href="media/25e2e0e4.block-effect.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/block-effect.png"><img src="media/25e2e0e4.block-effect.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/block-effect.png" alt="block-effect" width="800" height="513" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-99317"></a></center></p>
<p>&#8220;Linking Only sites have shown a growth in usage over time, indicating that these sites increase in usage and can take the place of those that are blocked if they are allowed to grow over time,&#8221; the company warns. </p>
<p>&#8220;In summary, where there are sustained periods of blocking, usage levels are driven downwards across all site categories. Linking Only sites are the fastest growing category and should be considered as blocking targets over a sustained period to curtail their growth.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Circumvention techniques</strong></p>
<p>While the Alexa data relied on by Incopro relates to direct traffic to sites, the big unknown is how many people continue to visit blocked sites using circumvention tools such as VPNs and proxy services. In its report, Incopro highlights three different types</p>
<p>1. Dedicated sites offering access or a mirror of a blocked site<br>
2. Sites offering access to more than one blocked site (i.e come.in)<br>
3. VPNs or proxy services offering <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">access to any site</a></p>
<p>Immediately there is a problem for anyone looking to measure traffic to sites when the above methods are used. While option 1 is relatively easy to measure, options 2 and 3 present significant technical issues. For these reasons, Incopro measured only option 1. Nevertheless, as the chart below shows, use of dedicated proxies accounts for more than half of blocked &#8220;pirate&#8221; site traffic.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/f6d45cfb.block-proxy.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/block-proxy.png"><img src="media/f6d45cfb.block-proxy.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/block-proxy.png" alt="block-proxy" width="800" height="438" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-99319"></a></center></p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
<p>In summing up, Incopro found that when a website and all of its domains and dedicated proxies are blocked by court order (and updated quickly), &#8220;there is a significant impact in reducing infringement by the sites themselves and a reduction in the overall infringement undertaken by the most popular websites in the UK.&#8221;</p>
<p>But to really get to the heart of the problem requires a much deeper analysis and the answer to a question that sits way outside the scope of the report.</p>
<p>Does site blocking really put more money into the pockets of the entertainment industries?</p>
<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
<p><strong>Top 250 leading &#8220;pirate&#8221; movie/TV sites (dedicated music sites excluded)</strong></p>
<p>watchseries.lt<br>
putlocker.is<br>
nowvideo.sx<br>
uploaded.net<br>
kickass.to<br>
videoweed.es<br>
sockshare.com<br>
firedrive.com<br>
movshare.net<br>
alluc.to<br>
vodlocker.com<br>
isohunt.to<br>
thepiratebay.se<br>
4shared.com<br>
novamov.com<br>
rapidgator.net<br>
torrentz.eu<br>
gorillavid.in<br>
free-tv-video-online.me<br>
cucirca.eu<br>
rarbg.com<br>
torlock.com<br>
warez-bb.org<br>
mega.co.nz<br>
yify-torrent.org<br>
g2g.fm<br>
watchtvseries.to<br>
rlslog.net<br>
zzstream.li<br>
allmyvideos.net<br>
thevideo.me<br>
dfiles.eu<br>
played.to<br>
sendspace.com<br>
letitbit.net<br>
icefilms.info<br>
vidbull.com<br>
daclips.in<br>
couchtuner.eu<br>
billionuploads.com<br>
thefile.me<br>
watchseries-online.ch<br>
thedarewall.com<br>
filenuke.com<br>
promptfile.com<br>
primewire.ag<br>
extratorrent.cc<br>
stream-tv.me<br>
cokeandpopcorn.ch<br>
letmewatchthis.ae<br>
tv-series.me<br>
eztv.it<br>
turbobit.net<br>
videomega.tv<br>
vidto.me<br>
zalukaj.tv<br>
torrentbutler.eu<br>
watchserieshd.eu<br>
filmai.in<br>
watchtvseries.ch<br>
watch32.com<br>
iwatchonline.to<br>
uploadboy.com<br>
movreel.com<br>
ch131.so<br>
movie4k.to<br>
movpod.in<br>
tubeplus.me<br>
p30download.com<br>
rapidshare.com<br>
viooz.co<br>
avaxsearch.net<br>
bitshare.com<br>
sceper.ws<br>
torrents.to<br>
nosvideo.com<br>
sharesix.com<br>
torrentfunk.com<br>
expressleech.com<br>
rapidmoviez.com<br>
heroturko.me<br>
vidspot.net<br>
seedpeer.me<br>
www2.zmovie.tw<br>
downloadha.com<br>
uploadc.com<br>
torrentbit.net<br>
180upload.com<br>
vidbux.com<br>
tehparadox.com<br>
bestreams.net<br>
clicktoview.org<br>
divxstage.to<br>
2shared.com<br>
sharebeast.com<br>
ffilms.org<br>
watchmovies.to<br>
terafile.co<br>
rlsbb.com<br>
torrentus.si<br>
mightyupload.com<br>
filefactory.com<br>
vidxden.com<br>
freakshare.com<br>
losmovies.com<br>
flashx.tv<br>
youtubeonfire.com<br>
uppit.com<br>
desitorrents.com<br>
movie25.cm<br>
Filmix.net<br>
torrents.net<br>
uploadable.ch<br>
watchseries7.eu<br>
fsplay.net<br>
sharerepo.com<br>
watch-tvseries.net<br>
watchonlineseries.eu<br>
videobull.to<br>
tusfiles.net<br>
seriespepito.com<br>
seventorrents.re<br>
zalaa.com<br>
wareztuga.tv<br>
uploadbaz.com<br>
filepost.com<br>
afdah.com<br>
990.ro<br>
tv-release.net<br>
vidshark.ws<br>
kinogo.net<br>
torrenthound.com<br>
moovyshoovy.com<br>
vodu.ch<br>
rutor.org<br>
peliculaspepito.com<br>
boerse.bz<br>
lostfilm.tv<br>
allyoulike.com<br>
kinox.to<br>
bigcinema.tv<br>
kino-v-online.tv<br>
kinozal.tv<br>
rodfile.com<br>
putlockertvshows.me<br>
watchfreemovies.ch<br>
filehoot.com<br>
nowdownload.ch<br>
solarmovie.ag<br>
2baksa.net<br>
filecore.co.nz<br>
shaanig.com<br>
luckyshare.net<br>
d-addicts.com<br>
sumotorrent.sx<br>
1337x.to<br>
exsite.pl<br>
yourbittorrent.com<br>
awesomedl.ru<br>
thetorrent.org<br>
filecloud.io<br>
kinoman.tv<br>
cloudyvideos.com<br>
vidics.ch<br>
300mbfilms.co<br>
zone-telechargement.com<br>
cuevana2.tv<br>
video.tt<br>
uptobox.com<br>
linksfu.com<br>
depfile.com<br>
h33t.to<br>
megafilmeshd.net<br>
onfillm.ru<br>
vitorrent.org<br>
movzap.com<br>
dpstream.net<br>
videobam.com<br>
greek-movies.com<br>
softarchive.net<br>
filmifullizle.com<br>
torrentroom.com<br>
v1vn.com<br>
1fichier.com<br>
youwatch.org<br>
tnttorrent.info<br>
apnadesiforums.com<br>
divxplanet.com<br>
movie8k.to<br>
1channelmovie.com<br>
watchonlinefree.tv<br>
online.stepashka.com<br>
fileom.com<br>
tormovies.org<br>
movierulz.com<br>
oneclickwatch.org<br>
stream.cz<br>
torrent.cd<br>
mobi-live.ru<br>
myvideolinks.eu<br>
rajtamil.com<br>
netload.in<br>
dubbedepisodes.org<br>
monova.org<br>
torrentreactor.net<br>
channelcut.tv<br>
rslinks.org<br>
torrenty.org<br>
fileserve.com<br>
keep2s.cc<br>
divxstream.net<br>
zi-m.com<br>
torrentz.to<br>
kingfiles.net<br>
uloz.to<br>
tvshow7.eu<br>
megashares.com<br>
darkwarez.pl<br>
vodly.to<br>
scrapetorrent.com<br>
ryushare.com<br>
cinemaxx.ro<br>
watchmoviespro.pw<br>
hdvnbits.org<br>
torrents.fm<br>
datafile.com<br>
secureupload.eu<br>
phim3s.net<br>
vidhog.com<br>
peb.pl<br>
solarmovie.me<br>
share-online.biz<br>
watchopolis.net<br>
mega-search.me<br>
fileswap.com<br>
chameleons-download.com<br>
zmovie.in<br>
vertor.eu<br>
kinoprosmotr.net<br>
rusfolder.com<br>
divxcentral.com<br>
popcorntime.io<br>
ourrelease.org<br>
keep2share.cc<br>
uploadrocket.net<br>
motionempire.me<br>
crocko.com<br>
filenuke.net<br>
fulldls.com<br>
filestube.to</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99308
title: Wiziwig: Poor Legal Options Turn People into Pirates
uri: Wiziwig-Poor-Legal-Options-Turn-People-into-Pirates
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/itcIq2FEtLk/
content:
<p><img src="media/58090ee2.wiziwig-300x94.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/wiziwig-300x94.png" width="300" height="94" class="alignright">Until our <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/wiziwig-elitetorrent-shut-spanish-anti-piracy-law-150101/">report yesterday</a> it&#8217;s likely that Wiziwig, a streaming portal covering just about every spectator sport around, had flown under the radars of many readers. And that&#8217;s surprising. </p>
<p>The site is ranked #1,546 worlwide by Alexa and is the 239th most-popular site in the UK. On Thursday the term &#8216;wiziwig&#8217; was the <a href="media/7dc2989a.trends-wiz.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/trends-wiz.png">8th most popular search</a> on Google.co.uk, ahead of official sports broadcaster BT Sport. But the popularity wasn&#8217;t based on good news. Citing changes in Spanish law, Wiziwig had been forced to close just hours earlier.</p>
<p>In the wake of the closure TorrentFreak caught up with the operators of this hugely popular site to find out about events leading up to its shutdown. Interestingly it&#8217;s what <em>didn&#8217;t happen</em> on the site&#8217;s first day offline that topped the discussion.</p>
<p>Among dozens of other sports, Wiziwig carried links to live soccer games and as a result became somewhat of a magnet for companies such as the UK&#8217;s Premier League. New Year&#8217;s Day is a traditionally big date for UK soccer so coinciding with the first day of Wiziwig downtime, the site&#8217;s operators stood back and watched what happened.</p>
<p>&#8220;What we noticed Thursday, and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve always been thinking, is that the Premier League has only been focusing on Wiziwig lately to take down streams, like those from [P2P streaming service] <a href="http://www.sopcast.org/">Sopcast</a> for example,&#8221; Wiziwig told us.</p>
<p>&#8220;If we added a Sopcast link for a game in the Premier League, then quickly that link was made inaccessible. On Thursday all Sopcast channels kept working all day, without any been taking down during the early kickoff, 3pm game and late game. Coincidence?&#8221;</p>
<p>The idea that the soccer league had been using Wiziwig to find streams and have them taken down at source was confirmed when matches streamed from other sources also remained up.</p>
<p>&#8220;Same applied with Veetle links, as when those previously appeared on Wiziwig they were quickly taken down. If we didn&#8217;t add them they were working all game long, while people could find them easily in Veetle. That also applied to several other links.&#8221;</p>
<p>Aside from changes in Spanish law where the site was based, Wiziwig also reminded us of two serious events in the UK earlier in the year. In April the operator of sports streaming site Nutjob.eu <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/police-arrest-streaming-site-admin-several-domains-suspended-140409/">was arrested</a> by officers from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. That was followed by a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-make-third-pirate-streaming-arrest-140902/">September raid</a> on the operator of the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/police-throw-the-book-at-alleged-pirate-site-admin-140906/">Coolsport</a> streaming service.</p>
<p>When all things were considered (Wiziwig&#8217;s Twitter account was shutdown by a complaint in December) the team felt that the timing was right to call it a day. But even though Wiziwig is no more, other sites are bound to try and fill the gap the portal has left in the market. These, Wiziwig&#8217;s operators say, wouldn&#8217;t even exist if more effort was put into getting official services to consumers.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve seen in the past several years that people don&#8217;t get the right options to watch the sports and games they want to watch. Many sports events, and many games, aren&#8217;t available worldwide. The Leagues or competitions often don&#8217;t provide the right options for people to watch games in a legal way, which is also what we&#8217;ve seen from many replies on Twitter and Facebook,&#8221; Wiziwig explain.</p>
<p>&#8220;People want to subscribe to some games, some PPV events, and don&#8217;t want long contracts. In many countries there are no options to watch specific sports events and competitions. So not just the big sports/leagues, but also for smaller events.</p>
<p>&#8220;Then people decide to watch the online streams. A good example is the 3pm soccer games in England which aren&#8217;t shown on UK TV <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_football_on_television#3pm_.22Blackout.22">due to an old law</a> designed to keep stadiums full. If the leagues fail to provide such options then websites like Wiziwig and [illicit] streams will always exist,&#8221; Wiziwig adds.</p>
<p>With the site closed the team are now turning their attention to <a href="http://www.getyourfixtures.com/">GetYourFixtures</a>, a TV guide for sports with links to only official streams.</p>
<p>&#8220;GetYourFixtures&#8217; aim is to provide people with the correct TV info for all sports events, and if there isn&#8217;t a TV channel showing it then they want to give people the options to watch it officially online.</p>
<p>&#8220;Maybe leagues and competitions will wake up and start working on providing decent PPV options, letting people pay for just a single game, a flexible way of watching sports. On TV, mobile or tablet: wherever they are, either free and supported with advertisements when there isn&#8217;t any TV coverage/legal pay option, or just for small fees. They should work together,&#8221; Wiziwig concludes.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99148
title: Netflix Cracks Down on VPN and Proxy “Pirates”
uri: Netflix-Cracks-Down-on-VPN-and-Proxy-Pirates
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/5ppjPoAp14I/
content:
<p><a href="media/057c7f2e.netflix-logo.png" data-original-source="http://feed.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>Due to complicated licensing agreements Netflix is only available in a few dozen countries, all of which have a different content library. </p>
<p>Some people bypass these content and access restrictions by using <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">VPNs</a> or other circumvention tools that change their geographical location. This makes it easy for people all around the world to pay for access to the U.S. version of Netflix, for example. </p>
<p>The movie studios are not happy with these deviant subscribers as it hurts their licensing agreements. Previously entertainment industry sources in Australia complained bitterly that tens of thousands of Netflix “VPN-pirates” <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-users-pirating-netflix-scare-tv-networks-140303/">were hurting their business</a>.</p>
<p>Over the past weeks Netflix has started to take action against people who use certain circumvention tools. The Android application started to <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/netflix/comments/2qevqt/meta_netflix_is_starting_to_crack_down_on_dns_vpn/">force Google DNS</a> which now makes it harder to use DNS based location unblockers, and several VPN IP-ranges were targeted as well.</p>
<p>Thus far the actions are limited in scope, so not all VPN users may experience problems just yet. However, <a href="https://torguard.net/">TorGuard</a> is one of the VPN providers which noticed a surge in access problems by its users, starting mid-December.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is a brand new development. A few weeks ago we received the first report from a handful of clients that Netflix blocked access due to VPN or proxy usage. This is the very first time I&#8217;ve ever heard Netflix displaying this type of error message to a VPN user,&#8221; TorGuard&#8217;s Ben Van der Pelt tells us.</p>
<p>In TorGuard&#8217;s case the users were able to quickly gain access again by logging into another U.S. location. It further appears that some of the blocking efforts were temporary, probably as a test for a full-scale rollout at a later date.</p>
<p>&#8220;I have a sneaking suspicion that Netflix may be testing these new IP blocking methods temporarily in certain markets. At this time the blocks do not seem aggressive and may only be targeted at IP ranges that exceed too many simultaneous logins.&#8221;</p>
<p>Netflix is reportedly testing a variety of blocking methods. From querying the user&#8217;s time zone through the web browser or mobile device GPS and comparing it to the timezone of their IP-address, to forcing Google&#8217;s DNS services in the Android app. </p>
<p>TorGuard told us that if Netflix continues with a strict ban policy, they will provide an easy solution to bypass the blocks. Other services, such as Unblock-us are also <a href="http://support.unblock-us.com/customer/portal/questions/9871294-smart-vpn-not-working-on-netflix-android-app?b_id=530">suggesting workarounds</a> to their customers.  </p>
<p>Netflix&#8217; efforts to block geoblocking circumvention tools doesn&#8217;t come as a surprise. TF has seen a draft of the content protection agreement Sony Pictures prepared for Netflix earlier this year. This agreement specifically requires Netflix to verify that registered users are indeed residing in the proper locations.</p>
<p>Among other things Netflix must &#8220;use such geolocation bypass detection technology to detect known web proxies, DNS based proxies, anonymizing services and VPNs which have been created for the primary intent of bypassing geo-restrictions.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><a href="media/ae382bf0.geofiltering.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/geofiltering.png"><img src="media/ae382bf0.geofiltering.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/geofiltering.png" alt="geofiltering" width="600" height="476" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99166"></a></center></p>
<p>Blocking VPN and proxy &#8220;pirates&#8221; has become a priority for the movie studios as streaming services have failed to introduce proper countermeasures. Early 2014 the movie studio looked into  the accessibility of various services through popular circumvention tools, including TorGuard, to find out that most are not blocked.  </p>
<p>In a follow-up during the summer of 2014 Sony Pictures conducted research to identify the IP-ranges of various VPNs and proxies. These results were shared with Netflix and other streaming services so they could take action and expand their blocklists where needed.</p>
<p><center></center<a href="media/a9a36055.geolocationresults.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/geolocationresults.png"><img src="media/a9a36055.geolocationresults.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/geolocationresults.png" alt="geolocationresults" width="600" height="404" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99154"></a></center></p>
<p>Based on the above it&#8217;s safe to conclude that Netflix will continue to roll out more aggressive blocking tools during the months to come. As with all blocks, this may also affect some people who use VPNs for privacy and security reasons. Whether Netflix will factor this in has yet to be seen. </p>
<p>TF contacted Netflix for a comment on the findings and its future plans, but a few days have passed and we have yet to receive a response from the company.</p>
<p>Netflix is not the only streaming service that&#8217;s targeting VPN and proxy users. A few months ago <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/hulu-blocks-vpn-users-over-piracy-concerns-140425/">Hulu implemented similar restrictions</a>. This made the site unusable for location &#8220;pirates,&#8221; but also U.S. based paying customers who used a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">VPN for privacy reasons</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99259
title: Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2015
uri: Top-10-Most-Popular-Torrent-Sites-of-2015
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/RLWXBkXYans/
content:
<p><a href="media/2023bfa5.2015-top-torrent-sites.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/2015-top-torrent-sites.png"><img src="media/2023bfa5.2015-top-torrent-sites.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/2015-top-torrent-sites.png" alt="2015-top-torrent-sites" width="250" height="183" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99261"></a>Most torrent users rarely change their downloading habits or the places where they get their daily torrent dose.</p>
<p>This is also reflected in our annual top 10 where most sites have had a consistent listing for more than half a decade.</p>
<p>Like every year there are a few movers and shakers though, and the biggest impact was made by the Pirate Bay raid early last month.</p>
<p>The notorious torrent site has been crowned the most popular torrent site since 2008, but isn&#8217;t serving any torrents at the beginning of this year. As a result, the top spot is now taken by KickassTorrents. </p>
<p>The Pirate Bay hasn&#8217;t gone away completely though. There are currently several popular clones and copies of the site that together can easily match the traffic of most other sites that are listed. </p>
<p>Thanks to one of its top copies TPB managed to secure a spot in 4th place. Considering the situation we decided to mention both the original Pirate Bay domain and the most-used copy.</p>
<p>The rest of the top 10 consists of other familiar names. Bitsnoop.com is the only site to drop from the list, with Limetorrents.cc taking its place. </p>
<p><a href="http://demonoid.pw">Demonoid</a>, which returned online earlier this year, just fell out of the top 10 but appears to be making a slow but steady comeback that&#8217;s worth mentioning. There is a good chance that it will return again next year. </p>
<p>Below is the full list of the top 10 most-visited torrent sites at the start of the new year. Only public and English language content sites are included. The list is based on various traffic reports and we display the Alexa and U.S. Compete rank for each. In addition, we include last year&#8217;s ranking for each of the 10 sites.</p>
<h4>1. <a href="http://kickass.so">KickassTorrents</a></h4>
<p>KickassTorrents was founded in 2009 and surpassed The Pirate Bay in traffic this year, even before it went down. Battling various censorship efforts the site has burned through a few different domain names over the years. Most recently it switched <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-moves-kickass-so-domain-name-141117/">to the Somalian Kickass.so</a> address.</p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank: 151 / Compete Rank: 711 / Last year #2 </h5>
</div>
<h4>2. <a href="http://www.torrentz.eu/">Torrentz</a> </h4>
<p>Torrentz has been the leading BitTorrent meta-search engine for many years. Unlike the other sites featured in the list Torrentz does not host any torrent files, it merely redirects visitors to other places on the web. The site uses several domain names with .eu being the most popular.</p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank:	206 / Compete Rank: 1.716 / Last year #3 </h5>
</div>
<h4>3. <a href="http://extratorrent.cc">ExtraTorrent</a></h4>
<p>ExtraTorrent continues to gain more traffic and has become one of the most active torrent communities. The site is also the home of the popular ETTV and ETRG release groups.</p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank:	356 / Compete Rank: 3,446 / Last year #4 </h5>
</div>
<h4>4. <a href="http://thepiratebay.se/">The Pirate Bay (copies and clones)</a></h4>
<p>At the time of writing The Pirate Bay isn&#8217;t serving any torrents. However, there are several copies and clones of the site which, at least temporarily, take its place. <a href="http://OldPiratebay.org">OldPiratebay.org</a> is currently the most popular and based on its recent traffic the site is already ranked at least 4th in this list. </p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank:	NA / Compete Rank: NA / Last year #1 </h5>
</div>
<h4>5. <a href="http://yts.re/">YTS</a></h4>
<p>YTS, also known as the release group &#8220;YIFY,&#8221; has become the most recognizable movie piracy brands on the Internet. Despite a court court-ordered <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-asked-to-block-eztv-and-yify-torrents-130619/">ISP blockade</a> in the UK the group&#8217;s torrent site continues expand. </p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank:	740 / Compete Rank: 4,271 / Last year #5 </h5>
</div>
<h4>6. <a href="http://eztv.it">EZTV</a></h4>
<p>TV-torrent distribution group EZTV is a niche site specializing in TV content only. Because of its narrow focus, EZTV&#8217;s traffic varies in line with the TV seasons. Despite posting only a few dozen torrents per week it attracts millions of visitors.  </p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank:	1,262 / Compete Rank: 5,421 / Last year #6 </h5>
</div>
<h4>7. <a href="http://rarbg.com/">RARBG</a> </h4>
<p>RARBG, which started out as a Bulgarian tracker, was last year&#8217;s newcomer and continues to rake in more visitors. The site was blocked by UK ISPs last month, which put it on par with most other sites in the top 10.</p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank:	1,326 / Compete Rank: 8,890 / Last year #10 </h5>
</div>
<h4>8. <a href="http://isohunt.to">isoHunt.to</a> </h4>
<p>Isohunt.to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-resurrected-less-than-two-weeks-after-110-million-mpaa-deal-131029/">was launched</a> in 2013, less than two weeks after isoHunt.com shut down. The site is not affiliated with the old isoHunt but hopes to keep its spirit alive. The same people are also behind Oldpiratebay.org, which is is listed in 4th place.  </p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank:	1,890 / Compete Rank: 7,723 / Last year #8 </h5>
</div>
<h4>9. <a href="http://1337x.to">1337x</a></h4>
<p>1337x is a community driven torrent site. The site&#8217;s owners say they launched 1337x to &#8220;fill an apparent void where it seemed there was a lack of quality conscience ad free torrent sites with public trackers.&#8221; This year the site dropped its .org domain and is now operating from 1337x.to.</p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank:	2,581 / Compete Rank: 11,389 / Last year #7 </h5>
</div>
<h4>10. <a href="http://www.limetorrents.cc/">Limetorrents</a></h4>
<p>Limetorrents.cc has been around for several years already, and regained a spot in the top 10 this year. The site appeared in the news this summer after it was sued by LionsGate for posting a link to a leaked copy of The Expendables 3. The case is still ongoing.</p>
<div align="right">
<h5>Alexa Rank:	2,608 / Compete Rank: 3,984 / Last year #NA </h5>
</div>
<p><em>Disclaimer: Yes, we know that Alexa isn&#8217;t perfect and that Compete has plenty of flaws, but combined both do a pretty good job at comparing sites that operate in a similar niche.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=98643
title: Dozens of Pirate Bays Isn’t Necessarily a Pirate’s Dream
uri: Dozens-of-Pirate-Bays-Isn-t-Necessarily-a-Pirate-s-Dream
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/q36xAK3zcMk/
content:
<p><a href="media/1875263d.kongbay.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/kongbay.jpg"><img src="media/b55b0c20.kongbay.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/kongbay.jpg" alt="kongbay" width="200" height="226" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9995"></a>The Pirate Bay was quite possibly the world&#8217;s most-loved torrent site before it was taken offline in a police raid. Through thick and thin fans supported the site but now, in a somewhat unbelievable bad dream, the site has gone &#8211; possibly for good.</p>
<p>Of course at this point there will be some shouting at the screen while furiously pointing towards various domains where the site has been supposedly resurrected. To be clear, TPB hasn&#8217;t been brought back to life yet, on any domain. All these other sites are clones.</p>
<p>But aren&#8217;t 30 Pirate Bays better than one? Isn&#8217;t it now 30 times more difficult for law enforcement to disappear the site? Hasn&#8217;t that single point of failure been taken away?</p>
<p>There are many arguments in favor of having multiple Pirate Bays but when examining the situation from a user perspective, they don&#8217;t really add up. In fact, by having so many clones everything that made The Pirate Bay such a success has been critically watered down.</p>
<p><strong>A pirate Pirate Bay is not as good as the original</strong></p>
<p>It&#8217;s a truly great irony that The Pirate Bay cannot be successfully copied by outsiders. Sure, millions of torrents and magnet links can be put into a searchable database and most will probably work as advertised, but clones are missing several key components.</p>
<p><strong>No community</strong></p>
<p>While basic torrent indexes are undoubtedly useful, one of Pirate Bay&#8217;s strengths was its community. It&#8217;s true that not many of the site&#8217;s users took the time to participate on its Suprbay discussion forum, but the comments section attached to every torrent was an unrivaled source of information.</p>
<p>At any point, one could jump into a pool of torrents dating back 10 years, pick one, and get an idea of what it was about and how it had been received by the community. Were better versions available? The comments would have link. Was the download poorly seeded? Potential peers could be found. Anything interesting or topical about the torrent would also be noted.</p>
<p>No cloned Pirate Bay has yet managed to fully recreate the comments section of the site (<a href="http://thepiratebay.com.ua">although one is trying</a>). And since no clone has access to the genuine TPB database, every user account has disappeared. In some cases names exist, but logins are impossible. That&#8217;s bad because&#8230;&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>Sharing is caring (and getting thanked is awesome too)</strong></p>
<p>To dismiss the importance of genuine, active, verifiable user accounts is to misunderstand the mindset of uploaders and those who appreciate their work. Despite the claims of some anti-piracy companies, many uploaders do what they do not for money, but for recognition &#8211; and fun.</p>
<p>With the disappearance of The Pirate Bay, thousands of recognizable uploader accounts (many of them verified &#8216;VIP&#8217;) have simply gone. Worse than that, the pages of historical uploads regular users see when they click on these names has gone too. The work of these &#8216;famous&#8217; uploaders has been wiped from history &#8211; and much of their kudos with it.</p>
<p>Another issue relates to those same valuable uploaders. Where are they now? Some are indeed present on torrent sites such as Kickass.so and a number of others, but bringing them all back together under one Pirate Bay-branded roof that&#8217;s not the real thing could prove impossible.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s unlikely that any of the current clones has the standing to assure uploaders that they&#8217;re the single site worth supporting, which leaves the prospect of a release force scattered in dozens of locations. As a result, the largely single-location competition between these players could easily wither away.</p>
<p><strong>Quality control</strong></p>
<p>What The Pirate Bay offered that it&#8217;s clones largely do not is a team of human beings prepared to wade through every single uploaded torrent in order to check it for authenticity. Fakes, virus and malware-laden files had short lives on the real Pirate Bay and as a result the site gained a reputation among users.</p>
<p>The little colored skulls on Pirate Bay uploads meant that users could click and forget, safe in the knowledge that their chosen torrents will perform as expected. That entire system was destroyed when the site was raided early this month and any &#8216;clone&#8217; site will struggle to emulate it.</p>
<p><strong>Reputation and trust</strong></p>
<p>While they may not have stayed with the site until the end, in the eyes of millions the three most recognizable names behind The Pirate Bay have remained associated with the site. In fact, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Fredrick Neij are the only world-famous torrent site celebrities around today.</p>
<p>Through years of news, Pirate Bay users have built up a trust with not only these guys, but by proxy whoever they handed the site over to. With that level of respect gone, copy Pirate Bays will struggle to relive the dream.</p>
<p>Sure, Pirate Bay&#8217;s advertising ethics got a little bent up in recent years, with soft and even hardcore porn appearing when it should not, but the feeling remained that the site would never completely sell users down the river to the highest bidder. One can never be so certain about many of the faceless clones popping up today.</p>
<p><strong>Fragmentation is not the same as decentralization</strong></p>
<p>Finally, an anecdote. One night more than 20 years ago, a nightclub frequented every Saturday by myself and by association hundreds of friends, unceremoniously burnt to the ground. For the previous five years it had been not only our dance music mecca, but also our home. We were devastated.</p>
<p>Several other clubs stepped in to recreate the experience &#8211; one even took the name of the now-destroyed venue. Homeless and desperate, a group of us went around testing the &#8216;clone&#8217; clubs. Some were OK, but didn&#8217;t have all the DJs we&#8217;d been used to. Others had the music right, but lacked half our friends who had chosen to go elsewhere.</p>
<p>Before the fire we&#8217;d been a powerful, well-developed community in a venue we knew and trusted, coming to the same place at the same time every week to do what we loved. The fire hadn&#8217;t just destroyed the place where we met, but also the unfathomable something that had been holding us all together.</p>
<p>Sure, our club was a dump with badly functioning bathrooms and carpet your feet stuck to. But it was our club with a community we&#8217;d built. Without it we drifted apart.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
<p>Dozens of Pirate Bays might look like defiance, but the long-term outcome will be a lot less glamorous unless something can be done to play to uploaders&#8217; sense of pride and achievement.</p>
<p>From a technological standpoint, decentralization or a multi-location clone setup is clearly much more difficult for authorities to deal with, but fragmenting the community and key uploaders is perhaps an even bigger problem waiting for a solution.</p>
<p>Make no mistake, a solution will be found. But dozens of sites that look the same and offer a watered down version of something already in need of repair probably won&#8217;t be it.</p>
<p>See everyone back here, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-starts-counting-down-to-february-1-150101/">February 1</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99358
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 01/05/15
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-01-05-15
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/7gk9WCEAVfc/
content:
<p><a href="media/db664263.gonegirl.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gonegirl.jpg"><img src="media/db664263.gonegirl.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gonegirl.jpg" alt="gonegirl" width="300" height="200" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99359"></a>This week we have three newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Gone Girl is the most downloaded movie.</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-141229/">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>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_girl/">Gone Girl</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2267998/">8.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DPpygqaCjY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(6)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/penguins_of_madagascar/">Penguins of Madagascar</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1911658/">5.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=retX8Wj7JdM">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_interview_2014/">The Interview</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788710/">7.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frsvWVEHowg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_drop">The Drop</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1600196/">7.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lCiDIcqMe0">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_walk_among_the_tombstones/">A Walk Among the Tombstones</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365907/">6.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JjRoh13vzY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_judge_2014/">The Judge</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1872194/">7.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBvK6ni97W8">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/horrible_bosses_2/">Horrible Bosses 2</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2170439/">6.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGX4XwYVoIg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(10)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pk/">PK</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2338151/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv3BHQhZEQo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/outcast_2015/">Outcast</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1552224/">5.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnAD4sClcQs">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(7)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dumb_and_dumber_to/">Dumb And Dumber To</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096672/">6.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMxwcRck9TI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99363
title: In Europe, Pirates Are Writing The Copyright Law
uri: In-Europe-Pirates-Are-Writing-The-Copyright-Law
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/q8_cl3gYjcw/
content:
<p><a href="media/298c27c8.europe-flag.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/europe-flag.png"><img src="media/23e20654.europe-flag.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/europe-flag.png" alt="europe-flag" width="222" height="146" class="alignright size-full wp-image-79290"></a>For years &#8211; nay, for decades &#8211; net activists and freedom-of-speech activists have been fighting against the copyright industry&#8217;s corrupt initiatives. In country after country, the copyright industry was practically calling out for mail-order legislation, and receiving it every time. </p>
<p>The collateral damage to liberties has been immense, and has spilled far outside the net. In the US, people are complaining that copyright monopoly law is now unintentionally preventing them to modify items they legally own, such as cars or games consoles. They&#8217;re absolutely wrong: that was the exact intention with the most recent round of revisions to copyright monopoly law &#8211; to limit property rights and to lock people out of their own possessions. (The copyright monopoly is, and has always been, a <a href="http://falkvinge.net/2012/12/22/the-copyright-monopoly-stands-in-direct-opposition-to-property-rights/">limitation</a> on property rights.)</p>
<p>Further, that collateral damage includes making messengers (&#8220;intermediaries&#8221;) liable for any damages caused by a message they carry, unless they immediately take sites offline &#8211; which they would of course rather do, rather than risking immense lawsuits. The messenger immunity was gutted around the turn of the century, by the EUCD and the DMCA alike. &#8220;Notice-and-takedown&#8221; has been abused by everybody and their corporate brother, up to and including the oil company Neste Oil who <a href="http://falkvinge.net/2012/06/20/oil-company-sues-isp-kills-greenpeace-protest-site/">attacked</a> a Greenpeace protest site by threatening the Internet provider of Greenpeace, thereby killing the protest site.</p>
<p>As activists fought &#8211; and won! &#8211; against software patent monopolies in Europe in 2005, it became clear that we couldn&#8217;t fight one bad thing after another, never having the initiative, always being on the defense against onslaught from corporate mail-order legislation. For every exhausting victory, there were nine bad laws being passed in the shadows. We had to go on the offense. We had to aspire to write the law ourselves, keeping corporate lobbyists firmly out of any corrupt influence.</p>
<p>On January 1, 2006, I founded the Swedish and first Pirate Party. It&#8217;s now on its tenth year, and on its second term in the European Parliament. This term, that European Parliament is revising the copyright monopoly &#8211; definitely once, possibly twice. It starts out by evaluating what works and what doesn&#8217;t with the current set of laws on the matter. And the rapporteur for that dossier &#8211; meaning &#8220;the person writing the actual legislative document&#8221; &#8211; is <a href="https://juliareda.eu/2014/12/eu-copyright-evaluation/">Julia Reda</a>, representative for the Pirate Party from Germany.</p>
<p><strong>Let&#8217;s take that again: a Pirate Party representative is writing the European Union&#8217;s official evaluation of the copyright monopoly, and listing a set of necessary changes.</strong></p>
<p>In 2006, did I imagine that a pirate would be writing the European Parliament&#8217;s official evaluation of how well the copyright monopoly has worked &#8211; and what needs to be changed &#8211; in the European Union, the world&#8217;s largest economy? No, I didn&#8217;t, to be honest. But neither did I expect that the Pirate Party representatives would manage to get &#8220;three strikes&#8221; schemes outlawed across all of Europe in 2009, or take a radical reform proposal (allowing file-sharing and more) into the political mainstream in 2012. When you open the floodgates of the unrepresented, things can apparently happen fast.</p>
<p>Now, just because it&#8217;s a pirate writing the legislative document, that doesn&#8217;t mean that document is going to pass a vote in the European Parliament no matter what it contains. It needs to be negotiated to get majority support, as usual and as appropriate in a parliamentary democracy. The first of those votes is in the Legal Affairs committee on April 16, and the vote in the European Parliament as a whole is on May 20. So pirates aren&#8217;t &#8220;in charge&#8221;; democracy is, as it should be.</p>
<p>But the initiative has shifted. It is no longer solely initiated by mail-order lobbyists for corrupt incumbents who gladly sacrifice civil liberties and the entire Internet to preserve an unjust and immoral lucrative monopoly. For the first time, legislation on the matter is initiated by net liberty activists.</p>
<p>This shift of the initiative was what we set out to accomplish ten years ago. I think it went faster than most people had expected.</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><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 copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99370
title: Google Asked to Remove 345 Million “Pirate” Links in 2014
uri: Google-Asked-to-Remove-345-Million-Pirate-Links-in-2014
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/6IvvB9F_u8g/
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 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 processes more than a million reported &#8220;pirate&#8221; links per day.</p>
<p>Google doesn’t report yearly figures, but at TF we processed all the <a href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/">weekly reports</a> and found that the number of URLs submitted by copyright holders last year surpassed the 345 million mark – 345,169,134 to be exact. </p>
<p>The majority of these requests are honored with the associated links being removed from Google&#8217;s search results. However, Google sometimes takes &#8220;no action&#8221; if they are seemed not to be infringing or if they have been taken down previously. </p>
<p>Most takedown requests were sent for the domains <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-domains-hit-by-google-piracy-takedowns-2014-141230/">4shared.com, rapidgator.net and uploaded.net</a>, with more than five million targeted URLs each. The UK Music industry group BPI is the top copyright holder of 2014, good for more than 60 million reported links.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/e9734053.2014-takedown.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/2014-takedown.png"><img src="media/e9734053.2014-takedown.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/2014-takedown.png" alt="2014-takedown" width="592" height="309" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99371"></a></center></p>
<p>Despite the frequent use of the takedown process many copyright holders have stressed that the search giant should take responsibility and do more to tackle the piracy problem.</p>
<p>Facing this harsh criticism from copyright holders, Google has gradually changed its attitudes towards sites and services that are often associated with piracy.</p>
<p>October last year the company implemented the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/google-will-downrank-pirate-sites-starting-next-week-141018/">most significant change</a> to its search algorithm to date, aimed at downranking sites that often link to copyright-infringing material.</p>
<p>This significantly reduced the visibility of pirate links in search results and had a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/googles-new-downranking-hits-pirate-sites-hard-141023/">major impact</a> on the traffic levels of some sites. However, Google also reminded copyright holders that they too can do more to prevent piracy.</p>
<p>Without legal options it’s hard to beat unauthorized copying, is the argument Google often repeats.</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,” the company <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwxyRPFduTN2NmdYdGdJQnFTeTA/view">noted earlier</a>.</p>
<p>“The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.”</p>
<p>In recent weeks tensions between rightsholders and Google reached a new high. After the MPAA issued a &#8216;snarky&#8217; press release responding to Google&#8217;s downranking efforts, the company <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/furious-google-ended-mpaa-antipiracy-cooperation-141212/">ended its anti-piracy cooperation</a> with the Hollywood group.</p>
<p>Not much later, <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.de/2014/12/the-mpaas-attempt-to-revive-sopa.html">Google sued</a> Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood who secretly collaborated with the MPAA to get certain pirate sites delisted. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99389
title: Dotcom’s Wife Not Entitled to 50% of Seized Assets, U.S. Argues
uri: Dotcom-s-Wife-Not-Entitled-to-50-of-Seized-Assets-U-S-Argues
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/42T4GWC8W84/
content:
<p><a href="media/f62766a8.mona-dotcom.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/mona-dotcom.jpg"><img src="media/8cb45d47.mona-dotcom.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mona-dotcom.jpg" alt="mona-dotcom" width="180" height="180" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99394"></a>Following the 2012 raid on Megaupload and Kim Dotcom, U.S. and New Zealand authorities seized millions of dollars in cash and other property.</p>
<p>Claiming the assets were obtained through copyright and money laundering crimes, last July the U.S. government launched a separate <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-wants-kim-dotcoms-cash-cars-140904/">civil action</a> in which it asked the court to forfeit the bank accounts, cars and other seized possessions of the Megaupload defendants. </p>
<p>In August 2014, Dotcom and his co-defendants responded by filing their own claims against the property, a move which resulted in the U.S. branding the former Megaupload operators as &#8220;<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-brands-kim-dotcom-fugitive-spies-others-141120/">fugitives</a>&#8220;.</p>
<p>Early September Mona Dotcom, Kim Dotcom&#8217;s wife, filed her own claim against some of the seized property. Mona said that under New Zealand law she had &#8220;a 50% marital interest&#8221; in the assets named in the civil forfeiture complaint, which includes luxury vehicles and other expensive items.</p>
<p><strong>No standing to claim</strong></p>
<p>However, in a new filing the U.S. states that Mona currently has no standing to make such a claim, arguing that her interest under New Zealand law remains &#8220;unquantifiable&#8221; until she obtains a New Zealand court order defining the extent of her marital property.</p>
<p>Noting that Mona herself previously claimed to have been &#8220;completely financially dependent&#8221; on Kim Dotcom since their marriage, the U.S. states that Mona has failed to provide evidence that she has &#8220;dominion and control over the properties&#8221; which give her standing to make a claim.</p>
<p>Highlighting Mona&#8217;s claim to one of the seized vehicles, the U.S. notes that &#8220;Mona Dotcom cannot even drive &#8212; and without that ability, it would seem nearly impossible for her to establish that she had dominion and control over the vehicles.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Already received millions from marriage</strong></p>
<p>Also at issue is the value of the 50% claim itself. According to the U.S. government, Mona has already received assets &#8220;far in excess&#8221; of the value of her claim from her marriage thus far.</p>
<p>&#8220;Mona Dotcom has already received more than any possible marital interest claim from releases from the New Zealand Courts, as well as from a direct transfer to her from Kim Dotcom of assets not restrained by this Court,&#8221; the U.S. argues.</p>
<p>According to the filing, through successful court action the Dotcom&#8217;s have obtained 40% of the assets previously seized in New Zealand.</p>
<p>&#8220;As of December 2014, more than NZ$1 million (currently US$770,000) in restrained funds were released to the Dotcoms as &#8216;living expenses&#8217; by the New Zealand courts,&#8221; the filing reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;An additional approximate NZ$6 million (US$4.64 million) in legal fees have already been released to the Dotcoms. Mona Dotcom has benefited from the attacks on the restraints and has continued to enjoy a lavish lifestyle as a result.&#8221;  </p>
<p>The U.S. also references assets in cloud-storage service Mega which were gifted to Mona by husband Kim. The 17% share is estimated to be worth NZ$35 million.</p>
<p>&#8220;This gift, combined with the apparent proceeds of previous sales of stock in Mega Limited and [music service] Baboom, means that Mona Dotcom has been provided and still controls assets well in excess of the approximately NZ$23 million she is trying to claim in this proceeding as her marital assets.</p>
<p>&#8220;Because she has already been provided those assets, her claim that she is still owed half the interest in Kim Dotcom’s restrained assets cannot be established under New Zealand law.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Benefits from illegal activity?</strong></p>
<p>The U.S. government also insists that in order to have a valid claim for assets Mona might have to prove that she has not unlawfully benefited from criminal activity associated with her husband and Megaupload.</p>
<p>&#8220;Whatever the New Zealand courts ultimately determine Mona Dotcom’s marital interest to be, New Zealand courts have consistently refused to allow even an entirely innocent and unaware spouse to retain any interest in criminal proceeds,&#8221; the U.S. government writes.</p>
<p>But according to government&#8217;s lawyers, it may not come to that. They say that Mona was one of the incorporators of the “Megateam Corp.” in the Philipines and had no less than six separate Megaupload accounts associated with her email addresses.</p>
<p>&#8220;Mona Dotcom’s claim is insufficient to give her standing because she cannot establish any concrete injury,&#8221; the U.S. concludes. &#8220;Until the New Zealand courts quantify whatever property interest she may have, the nature of her property interest is at best, inchoate and murky.&#8221;</p>
<p>Finally, it appears the U.S. is also concerned about the amount of cash being burned through by the Dotcoms. In December Kim Dotcom filed a request for further legal expenses (estimated by the U.S. as likely to run into &#8220;millions&#8221;) plus additional living expenses (US$77,000 per month) to be released. That hearing will take place next week.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99450
title: TVTorrents.com Shuts Down For Good
uri: TVTorrents-com-Shuts-Down-For-Good
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/H8-sOCDczTU/
content:
<p>For well over a decade TVTorrents.com has served TV fans from all over the world. The site started in 2003 as a public torrent index and later transformed into one of the best known private trackers.</p>
<p>In recent months, however, the site has suffered frequent outages. <a href="https://twitter.com/tvtorrents_com">Citing</a> hosting problems and technical failures, TVTorrents suffered weeks of downtime.</p>
<p>In a surprise announcement today, the TVTorrent&#8217;s owners mark the end of the road for the troubled site. Without providing any background to their decision, the site has shut down permanently. </p>
<p>&#8220;Due to recent events the site will not be coming back,&#8221; a message on the site&#8217;s <a href="The site's users, which run in the tens of thousands, will have to find another home. ">homepage</a> reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;Thanks for all the support and good times throughout the years. For all the haters, go hate on something else or get a life.&#8221;</p>
<p>The site leaves behind tens of thousands of users, some of whom have been regulars for more than 10 years. For them, there&#8217;s no other option than to find a new home. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/63625650.siteisdead.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/siteisdead.png"><img src="media/63625650.siteisdead.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/siteisdead.png" alt="siteisdead" width="515" height="302" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99451"></a></center></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99457
title: First 3D Camcorder Piracy Case: Student on Trial
uri: First-3D-Camcorder-Piracy-Case-Student-on-Trial
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/EZeCmDKri6s/
content:
<p><a href="media/af97a5a3.rsz_gravity-movie-poster.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/rsz_gravity-movie-poster.jpg"><img src="media/94cae5ce.rsz_gravity-movie-poster.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/rsz_gravity-movie-poster.jpg" alt="rsz_gravity-movie-poster" width="165" height="244" class="alignright size-full wp-image-77736"></a>Despite their reputation for being poor quality, so-called &#8216;cam&#8217; copies of movies remain popular with movie fans. On the other hand, these bootlegs &#8211; which are the product of unauthorized in-cinema recording &#8211; remain terribly unpopular with the movie industry itself.</p>
<p>Over the years Hollywood has lobbied for draconian laws all around the world to deal with the problem. On home turf legislation is now particularly tough, with lengthy jail sentences for those caught recording the latest blockbusters. Elsewhere the strength of the law varies, but that hasn&#8217;t stopped the industry from using all of the tools at its disposal.</p>
<p>There have been a number of &#8220;camming&#8221; cases in the UK in recent years, some of which have resulted in <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/fast-furious-6-pirate-sentenced-33-months-prison-140821/">lengthy sentences</a> for the accused. And in what appears to be a world first, a trial currently underway in central England involves the prosecution of an individual alleged to have gone equipped to &#8220;cam&#8221; a movie in full 3D.</p>
<p>According to reports from Birmingham Crown Court, Ciprian Florea attended a Cineworld cinema in the city during November 2013 with the express intention of making an unauthorized copy of the space blockbuster &#8216;Gravity&#8217;.</p>
<p>Making effective camcorder copies of 3D movies is not straightforward but the prosecution said the 28-year-old had prepared for the job in hand.</p>
<p>Florea, a student of film technology at Birmingham City University, is said to have hired two special high-definition cameras the day before his arrest. These had been placed in a custom-made box in order to record the left and right eye as required for 3D imaging.</p>
<p>Florea admits making the device and taking it into the cinema, but denies he intended to make a copy of the movie.</p>
<p>“It is not disputed that the defendant made that camera. He says he did not intend to use it in the auditorium,&#8221; said Sally Cairns, prosecuting.</p>
<p>“The prosecution say that is exactly what he intended to do. That is why he went to the cinema, that is why he bought the tickets to see the 3D film Gravity on that night.”</p>
<p>With no specific &#8220;camming&#8221; legislation available to the prosecution, Florea stands accused of possessing a 3D camera with intent to commit fraud, i.e the recording and subsequent distribution of the movie.</p>
<p>“This trial is about piracy, film piracy,&#8221; Cairns said. “Specifically the illegal recording of films from cinema screens and then potentially distributing them, showing them, sharing them with others.&#8221;</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/student-tried-pirate-3d-film-8385198">Birmingham Mail</a> the case is also unusual in that Florea had not even reached the screening room before his device was confiscated by security.</p>
<p>“He had something around his neck, a sort of box,&#8221; a security guard told the Court. &#8220;I saw a red light and that is when I turned around. I though this could be a recording device. It did not look like a usual camera.”</p>
<p>The Federation Against Copyright Theft confirmed to TF that the case is underway but declined further comment. For the Cineworld chain involved in the case, this is the second time in the headlines in as many months.</p>
<p>In December 2014, Cineworld <a href=" http://torrentfreak.com/uk-cinema-calls-police-on-kids-with-iphones-over-piracy-concerns-141223/">made headlines</a> when staff called police to tackle children they believed had been recording the movie The Hunger Games. The innocent kids were cleared by police of all wrong doing.</p>
<p>A representative for Cineworld informs TorrentFreak that following the event the chain is now revisiting its policies.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is for the police to decide whether they feel it is appropriate to act on the information provided to them. In this case, the police decided that there were sufficient grounds for suspicion and chose to attend the cinema,&#8221; a spokesperson said.</p>
<p>&#8220;However, we have taken on board the concerns expressed by the parents and we are reviewing how the policy is applied to younger customers.”  </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99408
title: Top Torrent Trackers All Return Online
uri: Top-Torrent-Trackers-All-Return-Online
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/toqYcmO8Q8E/
content:
<p><a href="media/ce09ad7f.opentracker.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/opentracker.png"><img src="media/4a01ccea.opentracker.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/opentracker.png" alt="opentracker" width="198" height="144" class="alignright size-full wp-image-57349"></a>OpenBitTorrent, PublicBT and Istole.it are three of the largest BitTorrent trackers on the Internet, coordinating the downloads of 30 million people at any given point in time. </p>
<p>This means that these non-commercial services handle a staggering three billion connections per day &#8211; each.</p>
<p>However, over the past several weeks the three trackers have been offline most of the time. While they have had their fair share of downtime in the past, it’s not often that these top trackers become unresponsive all at once.</p>
<p><a href="http://openbittorrent.com/">OpenBitTorrent</a> was the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/worlds-largest-bittorrent-tracker-goes-down-141205/">first to go offline</a> early December. The domain name, registered to Pirate Bay&#8217;s Fredrik Neij, disappeared without notice leaving many downloaders in the cold. </p>
<p>Not much later the <a href="http://publicbt.com/">PublicBT</a> and <a href="http://istole.it/">Istole.it</a> trackers folded too. The latter was hit by the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">Pirate Bay raid</a> as collateral damage, alongside several other BitTorrent related services.</p>
<p>During the weeks that followed the three trackers have worked hard on a comeback. There have been ups and downs, but now they&#8217;re all up and running again. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/13bb190f.trackers-back.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/trackers-back.png"><img src="media/13bb190f.trackers-back.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/trackers-back.png" alt="trackers-back" width="540" height="75" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99424"></a></center></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99418
title: PirateSnoop Browser Unblocks Torrent Sites
uri: PirateSnoop-Browser-Unblocks-Torrent-Sites
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/2rfqzAgnHB4/
content:
<p><a href="media/db3bd45e.pirate-card.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-card.jpg"><img src="media/9d886086.pirate-card-150x150.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-card-150x150.jpg" alt="pirate-card" width="150" height="150" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-86520"></a>Blocking of file-sharing related sites is becoming widespread in Europe, particularly so in the UK. In fact, it&#8217;s now almost impossible to access a top torrent site from any of the country&#8217;s leading ISPs, with the notable exception of <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-copycats-flourish-after-raid-141212/">OldPirateBay</a> since the site is so new.</p>
<p>Users in the United States can&#8217;t rest easy either. <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-prepares-to-bring-pirate-site-blocking-to-the-u-s-141211/">As reported here</a> in December, the MPAA is working hard to introduce site-blocking by utilizing creative interpretations of existing law. It seems unlikely that Hollywood will stop until it gets its way.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s becoming clear that Internet users everywhere will need to prepare if they want unfettered access to the Internet. While that can be achieved using premium services <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">such as VPNs</a>, there will always be those looking for a free solution. Today we have news of one such product.</p>
<p>In appearance <a href="https://piratesnoop.com/">PirateSnoop</a> looks a lot like the popular Chrome browser. In fact the only immediate giveaway that things are a little different is the existence of a small pirate-themed button on the right hand side of its toolbar.</p>
<p><Center><img src="media/d44318e0.pirate-unblock.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-unblock.png" alt="pirate-unblock"></center></p>
<p>Underneath, however, PirateSnoop is based on the freeware web browser <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron">SRWare Iron</a> which aims to eliminate some of the privacy-compromising features present in Google Chrome. PirateSnoop is then augmented with special extensions to enable its site unblocking features.</p>
<p>PirateSnoop (PS) was created by the team at public torrent site RARBG. While certainly less referenced by the mainstream media than The Pirate Bay for example, RARBG is now the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">7th most popular torrent site</a> in the world and a force to be reckoned with. It was also blocked by major UK ISPs recently.</p>
<p><strong>Anti-censorship agenda</strong></p>
<p><a href="media/1a653914.rarbg-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/rarbg-logo.jpg"><img src="media/1a653914.rarbg-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/rarbg-logo.jpg" alt="rarbg-logo" width="180" height="91" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99444"></a>&#8220;Nazi Germany had less censorship than we have today on the Internet,&#8221; the PS team informs TorrentFreak.</p>
<p>&#8220;However you are not paying for the Internet itself to your ISPs, but for the carrying of the Internet connectivity. ISPs are legally enforced by their countries to block content and what we are worried about is that little to none of the ISPs decided to fight any blocking court order.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>PirateSnoop vs PirateBrowser</strong></p>
<p>The web-blocking features of PirateSnoop are similar to those of The Pirate Bay&#8217;s <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-releases-pirate-browser-to-thwart-censorship-130810/">PirateBrowser</a>, but there are some important differences. Although users are not rendered anonymous, PirateBrowser uses the TOR network. PirateSnoop sees this as problematic as torrent sites are increasingly blocking TOR IPs.</p>
<p>&#8220;The TOR network is abused by a lot of people &#8211; uploading fakes for example. It&#8217;s also used by DMCA agencies to scan sites. TOR is no longer an option to access sites. Its blocked on almost every site I know,&#8221; a dev explains.</p>
<p>Instead, PirateSnoop uses its own custom proxy network which utilizes full HTTPS instead of the HTTP used by basic proxies. Just like a regular browser to website connection, PS allows websites to see their users&#8217; IP addresses (unless they&#8217;re using a VPN) in order to cut down on abuse.</p>
<p>Overall, PirateSnoop should be a faster browsing solution than PirateBrowser, its creators say.</p>
<p><strong>Limitations and future upgrades</strong></p>
<p>Currently several major blocked sites are supported by PirateSnoop but there are a couple of omissions. However, the team is prepared to expand the browser&#8217;s reach based on user demand.</p>
<p>&#8220;Any site that is requested to be added will be added immediately with no questions asked,&#8221; the team note.</p>
<p>The PirateSnoop team say they are committed to upgrades of their software to include proxy updates (added automatically upon browser restart) and full browser updates following any Iron browser core updates.</p>
<p>PirateSnoop can be downloaded <a href="https://piratesnoop.com">here</a> (using BitTorrent, of course).</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99494
title: VPN Services Consider Leaving Canada to Protect Customer Privacy
uri: VPN-Services-Consider-Leaving-Canada-to-Protect-Customer-Privacy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/7367POgXNwE/
content:
<p><a href="media/4d2ce87e.canada.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/canada.jpg"><img src="media/c89c2205.canada.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/canada.jpg" alt="canada" width="222" height="165" class="alignright size-full wp-image-60888"></a>A few days ago it became a legal requirement for Canadian ISPs to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/canadian-isps-vpns-now-alert-pirating-customers-150102/">forward copyright infringement notices</a> to their subscribers. </p>
<p>As a result of the new copyright law amendments, which also apply to VPN services, providers now have to retain logs of their subscribers&#8217; IP-addresses or face high penalties.</p>
<p>Specifically, the law requires a <a href="media/83c33a1c.descr.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/descr.png">broad range</a> of Internet services to “retain records that will allow the identity of the person to whom the electronic location belongs to be determined, and do so for six months….” </p>
<p>Failing to retain logs and forward these notices may result in “statutory damages in an amount that the court considers just, but not less than $5,000 and not more than 10,000…”</p>
<p>The new rules also apply to <a href="https://btguard.com/">BTGuard</a>, a well-known Canadian VPN and proxy service that claims to keep no logs. Concerned that the new data retention requirements would force a change in this policy, several customers asked the provider for clarification.</p>
<p>Responding to these requests BTGuard assured its customers that its logging policy remains unchanged. However, BTGuard may discontinue its Canadian servers in the near future.</p>
<p>&#8220;Rest assured that we are committed to our customers&#8217; privacy. As stated in our privacy policy, we do not log our customers&#8217; usage or IPs and never will,&#8221; one customer was told by BTGuard. </p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s possible that this legislation will require us to discontinue our servers in Canada, but we will find a solution and our services will continue where it&#8217;s legal to be anonymous without causing you any inconvenience,&#8221; the company added.</p>
<p>In a separate request we asked BTGuard for a comment on how the new law will affect its business. In a short comment we were informed that they are still exploring their options and that no final decision has been made yet. </p>
<p>&#8220;We still guarantee privacy. Our servers in Canada might be closed, but we are still exploring our options,&#8221; BTGuard&#8217;s Jared told TF.</p>
<p>Other providers are prepared to take similar measures. While the text of the law suggests that VPN providers are covered (something that&#8217;s also confirmed by one of Canada&#8217;s top copyright scholars), many are still uncertain about the exact impact it will have. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tunnelbear.com/">TunnelBear</a> informed us that they are still investigating if they are indeed covered by the new legislation. If they are, the company will take its business elsewhere.</p>
<p>&#8220;Despite our investigation and legal consultations, it remains unclear whether or not VPN companies are included in the bill.  We have brought on legal counsel to continue to investigate,&#8221; TunnelBear says.</p>
<p>&#8220;If it is determined that TunnelBear is required to comply with C11 if we retain operations in Canada, we will swiftly move our operations to a more privacy friendly region.  At no point, under any circumstances will TunnelBear log the activity of our users,&#8221; TunnelBear adds. </p>
<p>For TunnelBear the issue is less urgent than for others though, as the company doesn&#8217;t allow torrent traffic on its servers.  </p>
<p>While the changes may reduce piracy somewhat, it also negatively affects people&#8217;s privacy. And with the new data retention requirements Canada has certainly become an unattractive location for VPNs and other privacy services. </p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Several sources in the know have offered TF additional analyses to clear up some the confusion. Below are some of the most relevant comments regarding VPN providers. </p>
<p>1. There is disagreement to what extent VPNs are seen as a &#8220;means of telecommunication.&#8221; This description could be fought by VPN providers which would then mean that they are not bound to section 41.25(1)(a). For now, this remains undecided. </p>
<p>2. Section 41.26(1)(b) requires to retain data for six months from the moment a notice is received so &#8220;the identity of the person to whom the electronic location belongs to be determined.&#8221; This includes the IP-address/timestamp linking the infringement to a specific customer, but no other &#8220;logs&#8221; are required.</p>
<p>3. If a VPN doesn&#8217;t hold any information that can link an IP-address to a specific customer they have to explain that to the copyright holder. 41.26(3) suggests that this could lead to potential legal action.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99518
title: Google Porn Takedowns Carpet Bomb Github
uri: Google-Porn-Takedowns-Carpet-Bomb-Github
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/5RlXxB5bx1Y/
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>Every single week thousands of copyright holders and anti-piracy companies demand that Google removes links to allegedly infringing content.</p>
<p>The effort required to deal with this deluge is considerable. Google has received as many as 11 million requests in a single week and in 2014 alone the search giant processed some <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/google-asked-remove-345-million-pirate-links-2014-150105/">345 million URL takedowns</a>.</p>
<p>While it&#8217;s believed that most takedown requests are accurate, Google still does its best to ensure that erroneous notices don&#8217;t negatively affect legitimate online services. Google regularly rejects overbroad and inaccurate notices but like everyone else, the company isn&#8217;t perfect.</p>
<p>The latest <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8848544">head-shaker</a> arrives courtesy of anti-piracy outfit Takedown Piracy (TDP). Acting on behalf of porn outfit Wicked Pictures, TDP sent Google <a href="https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10275257#">a notice</a> containing thousands of URLs targeting dozens of well and lesser-known file-sharing sites.</p>
<p>Sadly, however, the notice also targeted coding site Github &#8211; over and over and over again. And Google complied.</p>
<p>&#8220;The materials reported in this notice are the copyrighted DVD/videos of Wicked Pictures,&#8221; the notice begins.</p>
<p>Not exactly.</p>
<p><strong>Impure Takedown</strong></p>
<p>Two URLs targeted &#8211; github.com/yahoo/pure and github.com/yahoo/pure/releases/ belong to the <a href="http://purecss.io/">Pure.css project</a>. Described as &#8220;a set of small, responsive CSS modules that you can use in every web project&#8221;, Pure.css is owned by Yahoo.</p>
<p>Apparent reason for takedown: Wicked has a movie titled Impure Hunger</p>
<p><strong>On the rebound</strong></p>
<p><a href="media/31850a09.tpbfacebook.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/tpbfacebook.png"><img src="media/165b76e1.tpbfacebook-150x150.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpbfacebook-150x150.png" alt="tpbfacebook" width="150" height="150" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-98475"></a>&#8220;Rebound is a java library that models spring dynamics. Rebound spring models can be used to create animations that feel natural by introducing real world physics to your application,&#8221; the project&#8217;s <a href="http://facebook.github.io/rebound/">lead in</a> begins.</p>
<p>Sadly, TDP thinks that this BSD-licensed Facebook-owned project&#8217;s URLs (<a href="https://github.com/facebook/rebound">1</a>) (<a href="https://github.com/facebook/rebound-js">2</a>) infringes on its client&#8217;s copyrights.</p>
<p>Thanks to another takedown, a separate <a href="https://github.com/hannorein/rebound">project of the same name</a> exploring &#8220;collisional dynamics&#8221; and operated by several academics is now harder to find too.</p>
<p>Their crimes? Wicked&#8217;s &#8220;Stormy Daniels&#8221; has a movie called Rebound.</p>
<p><strong>Get down Netflix</strong></p>
<p><a href="media/f5209525.netflix.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/netflix.png"><img src="media/cf399f6d.netflix.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/netflix.png" alt="netflix" width="185" height="64" class="alignright size-full wp-image-26779"></a>In June 2013, Netflix <a href="http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/06/introducing-lipstick-on-apache-pig.html">announced Lipstick</a>, the company&#8217;s open source Pig workflow visualization tool.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for the movie streaming outfit TDP believes that their Github project located at https://github.com/Netflix/Lipstick infringes Wicked Picture&#8217;s copyrights.</p>
<p>Another project, <a href="https://github.com/nemomobile/lipstick">also titled Lipstick</a>, was also accused of doing the same.</p>
<p>Reason for takedown? Wicked has a movie title containing the same word.</p>
<p><strong>A wickedly poor choice of name</strong></p>
<p><a href="media/ebedc52d.opensuse.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/opensuse.jpg"><img src="media/ebedc52d.opensuse.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/opensuse.jpg" alt="opensuse" width="180" height="116" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99547"></a>If only the people behind the free Linux-based operating system openSUSE had been a little more cautious. When selecting a name for their network configuration tool located <a href="https://github.com/openSUSE/wicked">here</a> there were millions to choose from.</p>
<p>But by titling their project &#8216;Wicked&#8217; they became sitting ducks for several URL takedowns by an adult company of the same name.</p>
<p>The same goes for <a href="https://github.com/thombergs/wicked-charts">Wicked Charts</a>, whose main URL for their &#8220;beautiful and interactive javascript charts&#8221; has been delisted from Google. The Schneems <a href="https://github.com/schneems/wicked">&#8216;wicked&#8217; project</a> likewise.</p>
<p><strong>No pushover</strong></p>
<p>Wicked Pictures&#8217; 1999 movie Pushover has a lot to answer for too. </p>
<p>Takedown Piracy hit Google with demands to delist the main URLs for no less than ten Github projects simply because they had the word &#8216;pushover&#8217; in their titles.</p>
<blockquote><h6>https://github.com/Thibauth/python-pushover</p>
<p>https://github.com/tcnksm/vagrant-pushover</p>
<p>https://github.com/substack/pushover</p>
<p>https://github.com/sps/pushover4j</p>
<p>https://github.com/qbit/node-pushover</p>
<p>https://github.com/laprice/pushover</p>
<p>https://github.com/kryap/php-pushover</p>
<p>https://github.com/danesparza/Pushover.NET</p>
<p>https://github.com/jnwatts/pushover.sh</p>
<p>https://github.com/dyaa/Laravel-pushover</p>
<p>https://github.com/erniebrodeur/pushover</h6>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Tip of the iceberg</strong></p>
<p>The above are just a few examples from a single takedown notice which can be <a href="https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10275257#">viewed</a> on ChillingEffects. It makes disappointing reading.</p>
<p>In Takedown Piracy&#8217;s defense the company has sent 39.6 million URL notices to Google since 2011. However, that will be of little comfort to the many legitimate projects which are now harder to find due to the company&#8217;s errors.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion: Always blaming Google</strong></p>
<p>Taking a wider look at Google&#8217;s Transparency Report, one discovers that Github is <a href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/github.com">being targeted</a> on a regular basis by a wide range of copyright holders. Few if any bother to send a notice to Github itself. If they did they might make few mistakes, but carpet-bombing Google is much easier, quicker and cheaper.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99583
title: The Pirate Bay Sets Sail For Home Base…
uri: The-Pirate-Bay-Sets-Sail-For-Home-Base
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Jc2gAL-wbII/
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>A month has passed since The <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">Pirate Bay was raided</a> at the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof data center built into a mountain complex near Stockholm.</p>
<p>After being down for two weeks the site&#8217;s domain became responsive again, waving a pirate flag and a counter that kept track of the time that had elapsed since the raid.</p>
<p>Last week this counter suddenly <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-starts-counting-down-to-february-1-150101/">started counting down</a>, indicating that something is about to happen on February 1st. A few hours ago a few new mystery changes were made to the site.</p>
<p>The Pirate Bay logo in the right left corner <a href="media/d298cf93.ZrYwSjn.png" data-original-source="http://i.imgur.com/ZrYwSjn.png">started to move</a> to a new image named <a href="media/f9927079.totheisland.png" data-original-source="http://thepiratebay.se/totheisland.png">totheisland.png</a> on the bottom left. The CSS class of the image is &#8220;setsail,&#8221; suggesting that TPB is moving to the island. </p>
<p>The question that remains, however, is what it all means. The text on the island image is hardly readable but on closer inspection it appears to be a copy of one of TPB&#8217;s older doodles, pictured below. </p>
<p>The island in question features Pirate Bay&#8217;s home base and a few other torrent landmarks, including the seeder&#8217;s cave, dead torrents swamp, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-to-buy-sealand/">Sealand</a> and the grave of the MPAA.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/0bf9c0f3.tpbdown.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpbdown.jpg" alt="pirate bay"></center></p>
<p>So does this mean that the Pirate Bay is heading home for a fresh start? Or will the ship dock for good?</p>
<p>Besides the moving ship and the island image TPB also added a new &#8220;pipe vi Makefile&#8221; class for the encrypted AES code. This is yet another suggestion that something&#8217;s coming, but in common with the other hints it&#8217;s still unclear what. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/9ae4b380.tpb-source.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-source.png"><img src="media/9ae4b380.tpb-source.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-source.png" alt="tpb-source" width="609" height="271" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99585"></a></center></p>
<p>A source close to The Pirate Bay team informs TF that they are not ready to make an announcement on the site&#8217;s future yet. However, an official statement will follow in a few days time.</p>
<p>While Pirate Bay users are eagerly hoping for a full comeback on February 1st, the site could also announce something new. The extended downtime suggests that the site was hit hard and it&#8217;s not unthinkable that recent backups are out of reach.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, several Pirate Bay copycats are trying to gain the hearts and minds of lost Pirate Bay users. Yesterday, one of the imposters using the com.ua TLD went as far as issuing <a href="media/6119ba9c.4YQiewJ.png" data-original-source="http://i.imgur.com/4YQiewJ.png">a press release</a>, stating that the Pirate Bay has found a new home in Ukraine.</p>
<p>For now, however, the real Pirate Bay remains without torrents. And if it eventually makes a comeback, it will be at the official <a href="http://thepiratebay.se">thepiratebay.se</a> domain. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99484
title: Anti-Piracy Firm ‘Caught’ Pirating News Articles
uri: Anti-Piracy-Firm-Caught-Pirating-News-Articles
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/NlgUGzSbhk8/
content:
<p>Copyright is a double-edged sword, and those who sharpen one side often get cut by the other. We see it happening time and time again with <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/acs-law-anti-piracy-lawyers-are-copyright-infringers-090529/">lawyers</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/politician-violates-his-own-two-strikes-anti-piracy-plan-111001/">lawmakers</a>, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-steals-code-violates-linkware-license/">anti-piracy groups</a> and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/anime-distributor-dubs-using-pirated-subs-110321/">copyright holders</a>.</p>
<p>In Canada the local anti-piracy group <a href="http://canipre.com/">Canipre</a> is running into the same trap. The blog <a href="http://copyrightenforcement.ca">copyrightenforcement.ca</a>, which is <a href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/01/glass-houses-throwing-stones-canadian-anti-piracy-firm-may-need-send-copyright-infringement-notices/">linked to</a> one of the company&#8217;s top executives and often used to post Canipre press releases, has been making a habit out of lifting articles written by hard-working journalists. </p>
<p>Most of the articles that appear on the site are copied from other news sources, including <a href="http://copyrightenforcement.ca/viewers-worldwide-are-torrenting-the-interview-despite-u-s-only-releas/">TechCrunch</a>, <a href="http://copyrightenforcement.ca/now-theres-a-torrent-network-that-could-be-impossible-for-police-to-shut-down/">Business Insider</a>, <a href="http://copyrightenforcement.ca/canadian-downloaders-to-start-getting-copyright-infringement-notices-jan-1/">The Huffington Post</a>, <a href="http://copyrightenforcement.ca/lionsgate-sues-over-expendables-3-leak-exclusive/">The Hollywood Reporter</a>, <a href="http://copyrightenforcement.ca/court-hands-google-a-worldwide-site-blocking-injunction/">TorrentFreak</a> and many others.</p>
<p>At TF we publish our content under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/">CC license</a>, so there&#8217;s no foul play there, but the other news sites are not all copy friendly. In fact, the publication of most of the lifted articles amounts to blatant copyright infringement. </p>
<p>While fair dealing exists, posting full articles, some of which are behind a paywall, generally doesn&#8217;t fall into this category. And it&#8217;s not only the text that&#8217;s being copied but also the images which are often independently copyrighted.  </p>
<p>After becoming the first company <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/canada-set-for-mass-bittorrent-lawsuits-anti-piracy-company-warns-121127/">to go after</a> individual Canadian file-sharers in court, this week Canipre announced a new campaign to send copyright infringement warnings to ISPs under the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/canadian-isps-vpns-now-alert-pirating-customers-150102/">notice-and-notice</a> program.</p>
<p>However, as University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist <a href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/01/glass-houses-throwing-stones-canadian-anti-piracy-firm-may-need-send-copyright-infringement-notices/">points out</a>, they may have to start sending piracy notices to their own staff first.</p>
<p>&#8220;Canipre would likely offer its services to the media companies whose work is affected, yet it might want to take a closer look at its internal conduct before throwing stones in the form of thousands of notices alleging infringement,&#8221; Geist notes.</p>
<p>Making matter even worse, this isn&#8217;t the first time that Canipre has been linked to unauthorized copying. Two years ago the company&#8217;s own website <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-anti-piracy-outfit-pirates-photos-for-its-website-130515/">blatantly</a> used photos that were ripped-off from independent photographers.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99588
title: Leaked Oscar Movie Screeners Flood Torrent Sites
uri: Leaked-Oscar-Movie-Screeners-Flood-Torrent-Sites
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/y5l53YM4zf8/
content:
<p><a href="media/6fa5d6d2.oscartorrents.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/oscartorrents.png"><img src="media/7cffd0f4.oscartorrents.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/oscartorrents.png" alt="oscartorrents" width="185" height="198" class="alignright size-full wp-image-22131"></a>While some pirates are content with downloading and viewing so-called &#8216;cam&#8217; releases of the latest movies, few will be happy with the quality. Movies recorded surreptitiously in cinemas with home-made rigs can produce reasonable results but nothing beats the sparkle of a digital copy.</p>
<p>Filling that gap are DVD screeners, the advance copies of recent movies sent out to critics and awards voters. Often in DVD format (but now also in Blu-ray), these high quality releases are much sought after online and as a result are subjected to intense security by the studios sending them out.</p>
<p>But despite all the efforts, leaks always happen. Every year copies of DVD screeners (identified by the term DVDSCR) turn up on torrent sites and are downloaded in huge numbers. December and January are the key months for leaks and yesterday downloaders hit the jackpot.</p>
<p>Over the past 24 hours copies of at least nine big movies leaked online in decent quality, all apparently sourced from industry DVD screeners.</p>
<p><strong>The Hobbit is a smash hit &#8211; without watermarks</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2310332/">The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies</a> is proving exceptionally popular with BitTorrent users. Statistics gathered by TorrentFreak reveal that the movie was downloaded at least 500,000 times in the first 24 hours.</p>
<p>Several &#8216;versions&#8217; of the movie exist on torrent sites, each labeled by rival release groups including CM8, EVO, TiTAN, Ozlem and RAV3N. But despite the apparent selection, sources inform TorrentFreak that there is only one true source. Whether that is CM8 remains unclear but in a comment the group revealed that a lot of time was spent removing security watermarks from Peter Jackson&#8217;s movie.</p>
<p>&#8220;Movie had watermarks visible and invisible ones, had to remove frames to get rid of them,&#8221; CM8 said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Nothing I haven&#8217;t done before. It was hours of work, but its finally done and here for you to get!&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Oscar hopefuls 2015</strong></p>
<p>Yesterday, Indiewire <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/article/2015-oscar-predictions-best-picture">published</a> their Oscar predictions. Their &#8216;absolute locks&#8217; for Best Picture include &#8220;<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2562232/">Birdman</a>&#8221; (Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis) and &#8220;<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/">The Imitation Game</a>&#8221; (Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley). Both were leaked yesterday.</p>
<p>Also tipped for Best Picture is &#8220;<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020072/">Selma</a>&#8220;, a chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.&#8217;s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.  Paramount sent DVD screeners to Academy voters in December and the movie leaked yesterday.</p>
<p>Also battling it out for Oscar glory are Clint Eastwood&#8217;s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136/">American Sniper</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1809398/">Unbroken</a> directed by Angelina Jolie, and crime thriller <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872718/">Nightcrawler</a>. While the latter was leaked in October, the other titles were in yesterday&#8217;s batch.</p>
<p>Rounding off the DVD Screener bonanza are Disney&#8217;s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2245084/">Big Hero 6</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/">Into the Woods</a>, and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1126590/">Big Eyes</a>.</p>
<p><strong>From studio to torrent site</strong></p>
<p>Finally, it&#8217;s worth highlighting how these titles appeared online. For years one of the most popular routes was via the &#8220;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene">The Scene</a>&#8221; but in common with more recent times, yesterday&#8217;s DVD screeners hit the Internet via P2P/BitTorrent suppliers. These upstarts continue to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-releasers-slice-the-top-off-movie-piracy-pyramid-100727/">slice the top off</a> the so-called &#8216;piracy pyramid&#8217;.</p>
<p>According to TorrentFreak sources who asked to remain anonymous, the nine movies came from three different sources. One accounted for the Hobbit and another Big Hero 6. The remaining seven all came from a single source. The encoding on these is described as &#8220;choppy&#8221; suggesting the leaker may not be an experienced pirate.</p>
<p>Update: More screeners have leaked including The Gambler, Inherent Vice, A Most Violent Year and Kill The Messenger.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99619
title: Canadian Piracy Notices: From Benign to Ridiculous
uri: Canadian-Piracy-Notices-From-Benign-to-Ridiculous
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/22IraJhcwc0/
content:
<p><a href="media/6792aa7c.canada-pirate.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/canada-pirate.png"><img src="media/af081baa.canada-pirate.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/canada-pirate.png" alt="canada-pirate" width="225" height="113" class="alignright size-full wp-image-83641"></a>A change in the law means that when copyright holders spot Canadian subscribers&#8217; Internet connections sharing content online without permission, ISPs <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-isps-vpns-now-alert-pirating-customers-150102/">must forward</a> any resulting infringement notices to their customers.</p>
<p>Following its introduction less than a week ago, the so-called notice-and-notice system is already being utilized by entertainment companies. Small but popular ISP Teksavvy confirms that it&#8217;s already sending out thousands of notices to its subscribers every single day.</p>
<p>&#8220;With notice-and-notice, in early January 2015 we were receiving about 3000 copyright infringement notices each day,&#8221; the company confirms.</p>
<p>But despite knowing about the system for some time (and the relevant Canadian laws which led to its introduction), it seems that rightsholders haven&#8217;t yet found the time to customize their takedown notices to accommodate the law of the land.</p>
<p>&#8220;Many of [the notices] are formatted based on the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (&#8216;DMCA&#8217;) requirements, although we expect that to change over time,&#8221; Teksavvy add.</p>
<p>While the aims of a DMCA takedown notice tend to be understood internationally, there are companies involved in anti-piracy activities who make more explicit threats so should be more prepared. University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist has already spotted a particularly bad example.</p>
<p><strong>The ridiculous</strong></p>
<p>Rightscorp Inc. is a U.S. based anti-piracy outfit whose activities have been <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/?s=rightscorp">documented here</a> many times. Their business model involves tagging cash demands onto takedown notices so it perhaps comes as no surprise that Canada has become the company&#8217;s latest target.</p>
<p>However, instead of tailoring their demands to the Canadian market, Rightscorp have simply exported their U.S. model north. A <a href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/01/rightscorp-bmg-exploiting-copyright-notice-notice-system-citing-false-legal-information-payment-demands/">notice</a> obtained by Geist and sent by Rightscorp on behalf of music outfit BMG reveals the details.</p>
<p>&#8220;Your ISP account has been used to download, upload or offer for upload copyrighted content in a manner that infringes on the rights of the copyright owner. Your ISP service could be suspended if this matter is not resolved. You could be liable for up to $150,000 per infringement in civil penalties,&#8221; the notice reads.</p>
<p>As Geist points out, the $150,000 claim is bogus since Canadian law caps liability for non-commercial infringement at $5,000 for all infringements. Disconnecting a user from the Internet is also out since there is no provision under Canadian law. Even the claim against music piracy is up for debate.</p>
<p>&#8220;Given the existence of the private copying system (which features levies on blank media such as CDs), some experts argue that certain personal music downloads may qualify as private copying and therefore be legal in Canada,&#8221; Geist explains.</p>
<p><strong>The benign</strong></p>
<p>But while Rightscorp aim to scare Internet subscribers, it&#8217;s clear that other notices being received are much less worrisome. A copy of a notice sent to a Bell Aliant subscriber and obtained by TorrentFreak is a good example.</p>
<p>The subscriber had been downloading a DVD screener copy of the movie American Sniper on Thursday which took just 10 mins to complete. Nevertheless, that was enough to receive a standard U.S. DMCA notice from Warner Bros a few hours later.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have received information that an individual has utilized the below-referenced IP address at the noted date and time to offer downloads of copyrighted material. The title in question is: American Sniper,&#8221; the Warner Bros. notice begins.</p>
<p>&#8220;The distribution of unauthorized copies of copyrighted television programs constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, Title 17 United States Code Section 106(3). This conduct may also violate the laws of other countries, international law, and/or treaty obligations.</p>
<p>The notice made no threats but did contain a request for the ISP to deal with the customer under its abuse policy. The ISP forwarded the notice but nothing was done to punish the recipient.</p>
<blockquote><p>From: Copyright Notification <copyright@bellaliant.ca><br>
Date: Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at XX:XX<br>
Subject: Important notice regarding your Internet activity [******]</p>
<p>The Government of Canada requires by law that all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) let their clients know when content owners contact them about possible unauthorized use of the content owner&#8217;s material such as illegal downloading of music, videos and games. As a result, we must let you know that we have received the below notification related to your account.</p>
<p>We want to assure you that Bell Aliant as your Internet Service Provider played no part in the identification of possible unauthorized use of content but are only passing on the owner&#8217;s message as required by law.</p>
<p>If you have any questions or need clarification please contact the content owner directly. For more information on why you received this notice visit http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=858069 . Thank you for your cooperation.</p></blockquote>
<p>The person who received the notice told TF that while he was surprised to have received one so quickly, his downloading habits won&#8217;t change.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll continue to download, I&#8217;ll now be activating my VPN though whenever torrenting activity is going on,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;I suspect it&#8217;s a scare tactic that will work on most of the novice Canadians that download. I also suspect that roughly 90% of Canadians have downloaded something illegally, or know some who does for them.&#8221;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s expected that most ISPs will handle notices carefully but if any reader receives any notices containing threats or aggressive language, please feel free to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/contact/">forward them</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99478
title: MPAA Wants to Sue ‘Pirate’ Site Hosting Providers
uri: MPAA-Wants-to-Sue-Pirate-Site-Hosting-Providers
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/rC6SpciMshE/
content:
<p><a href="media/3b0329c8.mpaa-logo.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/mpaa-logo.png"><img src="media/fdb36aee.mpaa-logo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mpaa-logo.png" alt="mpaa-logo" width="259" height="170" class="alignright size-full wp-image-89856"></a>Last month a leaked document from the MPAA exposed Hollywood&#8217;s global <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/leak-exposes-hollywoods-global-anti-piracy-strategy-141212/">anti-piracy priorities</a> for the coming years. </p>
<p>The leak revealed where the movie studios would focus their efforts, with file-hosting and streaming sites among the top targets. </p>
<p>The same data breach also included a more in-depth overview of the anti-piracy plans which were previously unreported. This new leak comes from an email the MPAA sent to the movie studio&#8217;s top executives October last year and provides additional background. </p>
<p>One of MPAA&#8217;s main anti-piracy priorities are file-hosting services, often referred to as cyberlockers. As part of the strategy to deal with this threat the movie studios plan to sue the site&#8217;s hosting providers. </p>
<p>The two items below reveal Dutch hosting provider <a href="https://www.leaseweb.com/">LeaseWeb</a> is named as one of the possible targets. The MPAA also leaves the option open to go after &#8220;recalcitrant&#8221; hosters in the United States, if these choose not to cooperate.</p>
<p><em>- Litigation against a significant hosting provider in the Netherlands (e.g., Leaseweb).<br>
&#8211; Outreach to hosting providers in the US, where sufficient legal precedent exists (potentially to be followed by litigation against recalcitrant US hosting providers).</em></p>
<p><center><a href="media/32cd6fd7.mpaastrat1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mpaastrat1.png"><img src="media/32cd6fd7.mpaastrat1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mpaastrat1.png" alt="mpaastrat1" width="600" height="186" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99506"></a></center></p>
<p>In a specific section describing its strategy towards hosting services the MPAA also notes that it will put a &#8220;political spotlight and pressure&#8221; on hosting providers who make a lot of revenue from pirate sites.</p>
<p>In addition the MPAA plans to make criminal referrals against hosting companies, accusing them of money laundering and conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. </p>
<p>Interestingly, it&#8217;s unclear whether the criminal route will be successful as the document mentions that the U.S. Government may be reluctant to take these on &#8220;given	 difficulty with Megaupload case.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><a href="media/6faa42cf.mpaahosting1.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/mpaahosting1.png"><img src="media/cc28b215.mpaahosting1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mpaahosting1.png" alt="mpaahosting1" width="627" height="656" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99500"></a></center></p>
<p>LeaseWeb is surprised to learn that they are referenced in these MPAA documents. According to the company&#8217;s Senior Regulatory Counsel Alex de Joode there is no reason why they should be considered a target.</p>
<p>&#8220;There is no basis or ground for the MPAA to target any LeaseWeb company as part of its anti-piracy strategy,&#8221; De Joode tells TF. </p>
<p>&#8220;LeaseWeb companies that provide services to third parties have stringent policies to which cloud storage providers and video streaming sites must adhere, and which ensure rights holders can enforce their rights effectively. All LeaseWeb companies also have efficient abuse notification procedures in place, and act quickly upon takedown requests,&#8221; he adds. </p>
<p>LeaseWeb operates various companies, also in the United States, but the MPAA&#8217;s plan suggests that a possible lawsuit would take place in the Netherlands. </p>
<p>Thus far, however, LeaseWeb hasn&#8217;t seen any signs of or reasons for a potential lawsuit. In fact, they maintain a good relationship with the local Hollywood-backed anti-piracy group BREIN with which they have regular meetings in the Netherlands. </p>
<p>&#8220;Neither BREIN nor the MPAA has informed any LeaseWeb company that the MPAA may consider any of the LeaseWeb companies a target as part of its anti-piracy strategy or why such may be the case. The only reason that we can think of for &#8216;LeaseWeb&#8217; to be on the list is that we are a big brand and big player in the hosting business, and as a group of companies have a vast and fast network.&#8221; </p>
<p>LeaseWeb is indeed a major player in the hosting business. It previously provided hundreds of servers to the now defunct Megaupload, and still serves many streaming sites and file-hosting services.</p>
<p>TF asked MPAA for a comment on their plans, but we have yet to receive a response. </p>
<p>For now, no lawsuits against hosting providers have been filed by the MPAA. Whether or not this will happen depends in part on the level of funding the major movie studios are willing to contribute to the laid out anti-piracy proposals.	</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99613
title: Pirate Bay Investigation “Will Take Months” to Complete
uri: Pirate-Bay-Investigation-Will-Take-Months-to-Complete
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/-95j-VUzy2Y/
content:
<p><a href="media/b4a80844.piratebaydowncount.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/piratebaydowncount.jpg"><img src="media/bb7aa6e7.piratebaydowncount-150x150.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/piratebaydowncount-150x150.jpg" alt="piratebaydowncount" width="150" height="150" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-99219"></a>Yesterday was the one month anniversary of the December 9, 2014 <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">raid on The Pirate Bay</a>. To this day the site remains down.</p>
<p>First week aside, most news has focused on the fate of the notorious site and whether it will rise like a phoenix from the ashes. There have been <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-sets-sail-for-home-base-150108/">numerous teasers</a> from people with access to The Pirate Bay&#8217;s main domain, thepiratebay.se, but no concrete signs either way.</p>
<p>But while millions of former users adjust to life without the site, authorities have remained fairly tight-lipped about when their investigation began and the position it&#8217;s at today. There are signs, however.</p>
<p>In 2012 it became evident that new action was being planned against the site when the Pirate Bay team <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/police-plans-to-raid-the-pirate-bay-120309/">revealed</a> the existence of a new investigation. Just days later Swedish hosting company Binero confirmed that they had been <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/domain-registrar-confirms-new-pirate-bay-investigation-120314/">approached</a> by the police for information about the site&#8217;s domain.</p>
<p>Then, as predicted, in April 2013 prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad filed a motion at the District Court of Stockholm <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-moves-to-sx-as-prosecutor-files-motion-to-seize-domains-130430/">requesting the seizure</a> of several Pirate Bay domains.</p>
<p>Shortly after, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm was <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/swedish-authorities-target-pirate-bay-again-police-question-founder-in-prison-130430/">questioned in prison</a>, a visit which confirmed the existence of a new investigation involving Swedish anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån and led by Ingblad.</p>
<p>Outwardly things went quiet in the months that followed but in November 2014 there was a significant development. The Pirate Bay&#8217;s Fredrik Neij <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-fredrik-neij-arrested-in-asia-141104/">was arrested</a>, ostensibly to serve the sentence handed down for his previous involvement in the site.</p>
<p>However, emails obtained by TorrentFreak <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-fredrik-neij-now-wanted-for-hacking-141224/">revealed</a> Hollywood insiders discussing new criminal charges against Neij for his alleged continued involvement in the site.</p>
<p>Also of interest but not revealed until today, TF understands that last year Thai police were briefed on a number of individuals said to be involved in The Pirate Bay&#8217;s operations.</p>
<p>One of those individuals was a man employed at a hosting company back in Sweden, but not the company that was raided in December. After obtaining his photograph from a police briefing document TorrentFreak approached the man himself and also Rights Alliance lawyer Henrik Ponten for more information. Neither responded to our requests for comment.</p>
<p>The task ahead for Swedish authorities is said to be substantial. In the December raid large amounts of equipment and other evidence was seized and that will have to be systematically processed as the days unfold. According to prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad, that will take a considerable time.</p>
<p>&#8220;[The Pirate Bay] was seized, everything needs to be reviewed and analyzed. It will take many months to do so,&#8221; Ingblad <a href="http://www.idg.se/17.108/2.1085/1.603877/pirate-bay-utredning-drar-ut-pa-tiden">said</a> this week.</p>
<p>The big question now is whether Ingblad&#8217;s team will be investigating a dead site or one that has already risen from the ashes. They are watching, he confirmed.</p>
<p>&#8220;We will keep track of what happens,&#8221; the prosecutor added.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99697
title: Chilling Effects DMCA Archive Censors Itself
uri: Chilling-Effects-DMCA-Archive-Censors-Itself
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/lyalWrR-LxE/
content:
<p><a href="media/845900b7.chilling5.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/chilling5.png"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-99707" src="media/845900b7.chilling5.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/chilling5.png" alt="chilling" width="250" height="101"></a>On an average day Google now processes <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/google-asked-remove-345-million-pirate-links-2014-150105/">more than a million takedown requests</a> from copyright holders, and that&#8217;s for its search engine alone.</p>
<p>Thanks to Google&#8217;s transparency report the public is able to see where these notices come from and what content they&#8217;re targeting. In addition, Google partners with <a href="http://chillingeffects.org">Chilling Effects</a> to post redacted copies of all notices online.</p>
<p>The Chilling Effects DMCA clearing house is one of the few tools that helps to keep copyright holders accountable. Founded by <a href="https://www.chillingeffects.org/pages/about">Harvard&#8217;s Berkman Center</a>, it offers an invaluable database for researchers and the public in general.</p>
<p>At TF we use the website on a weekly basis to spot <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-asks-google-to-take-down-infringing-vlc-media-player-130715/">inaccurate takedown notices</a> and other <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/dragons-den-company-dmcas-google-to-censor-competitor-120812/">wrongdoings</a>. Since the native search engine doesn&#8217;t always return the best results, we mostly use Google to spot newsworthy notices on the site.</p>
<p>This week, however, we were no longer able to do so. The Chilling Effects team decided to <a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ncr#q=site:chillingeffects.org">remove its entire domain</a> from all search engines, including its homepage and other <a href="https://www.chillingeffects.org/topics/14">informational</a> and <a href="https://www.chillingeffects.org/topics/11">educational</a> resources.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/9e8d13d8.chilling1res.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/chilling1res.png"><img src="media/9e8d13d8.chilling1res.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/chilling1res.png" alt="chilling1res" width="600" height="246" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99711"></a></center></p>
<p>Ironically enough, complaints from copyright holders are at the base of this unprecedented display of self-censorship. Since Chilling Effects has partnered with Google to publish all takedown notices Google receives, its pages contain hundreds of millions of non-linked URLs to infringing material. Copyright holders are not happy with these pages. Previously, Copyright Alliance CEO Sandra Aistars described the activities of the Chilling Effects projects as &#8220;<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/chillingeffects-dmca-archive-is-repugnant-copyright-group-says-140316/">repugnant</a>.&#8221;</p>
<p>As a result of the increased criticisms Chilling Effects has now decided to hide its content from search engines, making it harder to find.  </p>
<p>&#8220;After much internal discussion the Chilling Effects project recently made the decision to remove the site&#8217;s notice pages from search engines,&#8221; Berkman Center project coordinator Adam Holland informs TF.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our recent relaunch of the site has brought it a lot more attention, and as a result, we&#8217;re currently thinking through ways to better balance making this information available for valuable study, research, and journalism, while still addressing the concerns of people whose information appears in the database.&#8221;</p>
<p>The self censorship may sound strange coming from an organization that was founded to offer more transparency, but the Chilling Effects team believes that it strikes the right balance, for now.</p>
<p>&#8220;As a project, we&#8217;ve always worked to strike that balance, for example by removing personally identifying information. Removing notice pages from search engine results is the latest step in that balancing process,&#8221; Holland tells us.</p>
<p>&#8220;It may or may not prove to be permanent, but for now it&#8217;s the step that makes the most sense as we continue to think things through,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>While we respect the decision it&#8217;s a real shame for researchers that the notices and other informational material are now hidden from search engines. The notices themselves remain online, but with just the site&#8217;s own search it&#8217;s harder to find cases of abuse. </p>
<p>The copyright holders on the other hand will be happy. But they probably don&#8217;t care much about the chilling effect it has. </p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><sup><a href="media/17617c1f.FileAvalanche_Zinal.jpg" data-original-source="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Avalanche_Zinal.jpg">Photo: CC</a></sup></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99616
title: U.S. ‘Strikes’ Scheme Fails to Impact Piracy Landscape
uri: U-S-Strikes-Scheme-Fails-to-Impact-Piracy-Landscape
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ZQJHOZx-P3c/
content:
<p><a href="media/2db6a4db.FBIpiracydept.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/FBIpiracydept.jpg"><img src="media/f40119da.FBIpiracydept-150x150.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/FBIpiracydept-150x150.jpg" alt="FBIpiracydept" width="150" height="150" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-81799"></a>Alongside site blocking and attacking the finances of pirate sites, so-called &#8220;strike&#8221; schemes are one of the preferred anti-piracy mechanisms of the mainstream entertainment companies.</p>
<p>The idea is simple. Rightsholders monitor their works being exchanged on file-sharing networks, capture IP addresses of alleged infringers, and send complaints to those individuals&#8217; ISPs. These notices are then forwarded to inform customers of their errant behavior.</p>
<p>There can be little doubt that this option is preferable to suing users en masse, but is the approach effective? Thanks to MPAA documents sent to the studios and obtained by TorrentFreak, we now have a clearer idea of whether the movie business itself thinks that &#8220;strikes&#8221; programs work &#8211; and more besides.</p>
<p>One document, titled &#8216;Notice &#038; Graduated Response Programs&#8217; begins by stating the primary aim of the programs: &#8220;Reduce P2P piracy while educating consumers about, and directing them to, legal	content.&#8221;</p>
<p>Also confirmed is the MPAA&#8217;s desire to implement graduated response schemes with mitigation measures and awareness campaigns attached, the U.S. &#8220;Copyright Alerts System&#8221; (CAS) for example.</p>
<p>CAS mitigation measures haven&#8217;t proven to be particularly aggressive thus far but plenty of users have received notices. Around <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-results-show-high-number-of-persistent-pirates-140528/">1.3 million notices</a> were sent in the first 10 months of operations. By November last year, Comcast alone had sent <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/comcast-sent-1000000-copyright-alerts-to-pirating-subscribers-141109/">one million warnings</a>.</p>
<p><strong>But does the Copyright Alerts System work?</strong></p>
<p>While it&#8217;s clear that the studios believe these schemes are part of the answer, the MPAA is pragmatic about the CAS behind closed doors, largely since it believes efforts thus far are just the beginning.</p>
<p>The U.S. system is &#8220;not yet at scale&#8221; or operating with &#8220;enough education support&#8221; according to the MPAA. As a result the CAS has not made an &#8220;impact on the overall [piracy] landscape.&#8221;</p>
<p>That said, the MPAA does claim some successes among those receiving notices.</p>
<p>&#8220;US program – with escalating remedial measures	– [is] reasonably effective in decreasing P2P piracy by those actually receiving notices/alerts,&#8221; one summary reads.</p>
<p>However, the claim that some notice recipients mend their ways after receiving a warning (the rate of re-offending is actually <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-results-show-high-number-of-persistent-pirates-140528/">quite high</a>) is somewhat contradicted by another statement later in the same document.</p>
<p>&#8220;No current information as to the behavior of users who appear to stop P2P infringement &#8211; do not know whether [they are] migrating to other pirate systems or to lawful services,&#8221; the statement reads.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the MPAA appears keen to expand the program to a point where impact is more meaningful. This will require cooperation with ISPs, both on volumes and mitigation measures.</p>
<p><strong>Expansion, tougher punishments</strong></p>
<p>&#8220;Attainability as to existing programs boils down to whether ISPs will	agree (a) to expand scale to levels that might impact overall P2P piracy,	and (b) to enhance remedial measures so	as to improve efficacy,&#8221; the MPAA writes.</p>
<p>Plans to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-warnings-double-year-140830/">double up</a> on the number of warnings being sent have already been revealed but whether ISPs will be keen to further punish customers remains to be seen. Still, the MPAA&#8217;s graduated response &#8220;secondary objective&#8221; might help them decide.</p>
<p>&#8220;Build	and leverage relationships with ISPs; acknowledgement by	ISPs of some responsibility for infringement through their systems;	gain and/or strengthen government and other influential	support	for	ISP accountability,&#8221; the objective reads.</p>
<p><strong>Strikes systems worked elsewhere, right?</strong></p>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly the MPAA has pushed ahead with CAS in the United States despite knowing that similar schemes have produced lukewarm results elsewhere.</p>
<p>&#8220;Programs in France and	South Korea (both mandated/managed by government) – and available in New Zealand and Ireland&#8221; have had a &#8220;limited impact&#8221; according to the MPAA.</p>
<p>And the notice-and-notice scheme just launched in Canada and the UK&#8217;s upcoming VCAP warning system probably won&#8217;t produce nice surprises either. The MPAA believes that both are &#8220;likely&#8221; to prove less effective than programs with mitigation measures, such as the United States&#8217;. CAS.</p>
<p><strong>The future</strong></p>
<p>For the coming year it seems likely that while the MPAA will try to expand its current notice programs by volume, it will not attempt to introduce similar schemes elsewhere.</p>
<p>Will users flood to legitimate services though? The MPAA doesn&#8217;t know today and won&#8217;t know anytime soon but in any event that desired effect will probably require much more investment.</p>
<p>&#8220;Should	see reasonable	economies of scale&#8230;but to scale to level that	will impact overall P2P	piracy will likely require substantial additional resources,&#8221; the movie group says.</p>
<p>&#8220;May not have reliable data about impact for 1-2 years.&#8221;</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99679
title: Huh? Google Crowns a New Pirate Bay
uri: Huh-Google-Crowns-a-New-Pirate-Bay
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/XSMM_l1Dioc/
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>Ever since The Pirate Bay <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">was raided</a> early December millions of people have been anticipating a comeback. In the meantime, they have had had no other option than to look for alternatives.</p>
<p>Several websites <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-copycats-flourish-after-raid-141212/">inspired by The Pirate Bay</a> quickly appeared online, hoping to fill this gap. These include the OldPirateBay site that was launched by the operators of Isohunt.to. </p>
<p>While the site&#8217;s operators have <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/open-bay-now-everyone-can-run-pirate-bay-copy-141219/">nothing to do with The Pirate Bay</a>, they cleverly use the brand to gain traffic. It&#8217;s been a successful strategy with the site now pulling in millions of visitors per day.</p>
<p>Interestingly, many of these visitors are being referred by Google where the OldPirateBay site has <a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ncr#q=pirate+bay">gained the top search spot</a> . This is odd, to say the least, because the official Pirate Bay domain is still up and running.</p>
<p>For some reason Google&#8217;s algorithms have decided that the &#8220;copy,&#8221; which also indexes torrents from other torrent sites, is of more interest than the official site, which appears several results down. </p>
<p><center><a href="media/9a46b330.tpbold-google.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpbold-google.png"><img src="media/9a46b330.tpbold-google.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpbold-google.png" alt="tpbold-google" width="646" height="253" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99689"></a></center></p>
<p>While we have to agree that most torrent users will find OldPirateBay more useful, it doesn&#8217;t feel entirely right that Google can just crown a new Pirate Bay. In this instance, we prefer Bing&#8217;s strategy. </p>
<p>Those who use Microsoft&#8217;s search engine will still see thepiratebay.se listed as the top result. And to avoid any confusion, Bing clearly labels it as the &#8220;official site,&#8221; which it still is.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/3702d515.tpb-bing.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-bing.png"><img src="media/3702d515.tpb-bing.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-bing.png" alt="tpb-bing" width="640" height="367" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99690"></a></center></p>
<p>It appears that thepiratebay.se can only regain the top spot in Google if they start serving torrents again. Whether that will happen should become clear during the coming days when The Pirate Bay crew is <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-sets-sail-for-home-base-150108/">expected to make an official statement</a>.  </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99736
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 01/12/15
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-01-12-15
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/dHlHajkH_to/
content:
<p><a href="media/fd8c0d02.hobbit2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hobbit2.jpg"><img src="media/fd8c0d02.hobbit2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hobbit2.jpg" alt="hobbit2" width="299" height="215" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99737"></a>This week we have seven newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the most downloaded movie.</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-150105/">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/the_hobbit_the_battle_of_the_five_armies/">The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2310332/">7.7</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Fv5StfAxA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_sniper/">American Sniper</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136/">7.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bP1f_1o-zo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/into_the_woods_2014/">Into The Woods</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjy5MK1X70">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_girl/">Gone Girl</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2267998/">8.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DPpygqaCjY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/unbroken_2014/">Unbroken</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1809398/">7.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8mBzKLhL0U">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_book_of_life_2014/">The Book Of Life</a></td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2262227/">7.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBw5YScs8iQ">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/birdman_2014/">Birdman</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2562232/">8.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJfLoE6hanc">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/penguins_of_madagascar/">Penguins of Madagascar</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1911658/">5.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=retX8Wj7JdM">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/before_i_go_to_sleep/">Before I Go To Sleep</a></td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1726592/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFwhmCMnHHc">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_drop">The Drop</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1600196/">7.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lCiDIcqMe0">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99732
title: Canadian Govt. Outlaws Bogus Piracy Notices
uri: Canadian-Govt-Outlaws-Bogus-Piracy-Notices
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/PiLcGWknpGY/
content:
<p><img src="media/af081baa.canada-pirate.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/canada-pirate.png" width="225" height="113" class="alignright">Recent changes to Canadian copyright law mean that when rightsholders observe local Internet users infringing copyright online, ISPs must forward any resulting infringement notices to their customers.</p>
<p>The new system has only been in place for just over a week but rightsholders haven&#8217;t wasted any time sending notices out. Even smaller ISPs such as Teksavvy are forwarding in excess of 3,000 notices per day.</p>
<p>While notices are one of the more reasonable anti-piracy options available today, there are companies that want to augment those gentle warnings into something more aggressive. Close to day one of the new law, U.S.-based anti-piracy outfit <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/?s=rightscorp">Rightscorp</a> began sending infringement notices to Canadians with cash-settlement threats attached.</p>
<p>&#8220;You could be liable for up to $150,000 per infringement in civil penalties,” <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-piracy-notices-from-benign-to-ridiculous-150109/">the notices</a> told alleged music pirates.</p>
<p>Sadly, the claim is completely untrue. Canadian law caps liability for non-commercial infringement at $5,000 for all infringements. This miscalculated eagerness to break the Canadian market could now cost Rightscorp dearly.</p>
<p>Within a day of the company&#8217;s bogus threats being made public, Rightscorp attracted the negative attentions of the Canadian government and placed the turn-piracy-into-profit business model under scrutiny.</p>
<p>&#8220;These notices are misleading and companies cannot use them to demand money from Canadians,&#8221; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/150109/stop-threats-canadas-online-pirates-rights-holders-told">said</a> Jake Enright, a spokesman for Industry Minister James Moore.</p>
<p>The good news for Internet subscribers is that government officials will contact Internet service providers during the days to come in order to put an end to these threats. However, it&#8217;s not clear that will put a complete end to Rightscorp&#8217;s activities in Canada.</p>
<p>According to University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist, there is nothing in Canada&#8217;s new legislation which restricts the ability of rights holders to include information in notices that goes beyond a simple advisory that copyright law has been breached.</p>
<p>On this basis it seems unlikely that Rightscorp will simply give up. Government comment on the original notices centers around the anti-piracy company&#8217;s erroneous citing of U.S. law so modification to reflect the true Canadian position should bring the piracy monetization outfit into line.</p>
<p>It may be, however, that given the government intervention ISPs will choose not to forward Rightscorp notices at all.</p>
<p>Demands for cash aren&#8217;t popular with Internet subscribers and there are signs that leading ISPs in the United States don&#8217;t like the approach either. While they forward the infringement notices themselves, Comcast, Verizon, AT&#038;T and other major ISPs remove the attached cash settlement demands.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Rightscorp does work with dozens of smaller ISPs who are happy to assist with the company&#8217;s business model. And despite plenty of information being available which advises letter recipients not to pay, many still pay a $20 &#8216;fine&#8217; to get the company off their back.</p>
<p>Sadly though, sometimes this has the opposite effect. One of Rightscorp&#8217;s tactics is to send a bill for $20 for one track from an album and then when people pay, they are subsequently billed for the rest of the tracks at a further $20 each.</p>
<p>Before the notice recipient pays the first $20, Rightscorp has no idea of the person&#8217;s identity and would need to spend a lot of money in court to find out &#8211; hardly worth it for $20. But having paid $20 and signed a disclaimer, the company now knows the person&#8217;s name and address.</p>
<p>At this point the pressure to pay can become overwhelming. Time will tell if Canadians can avoid these tactics.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99777
title: ExtraTorrent Down After Huge DDoS Attack
uri: ExtraTorrent-Down-After-Huge-DDoS-Attack
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/HxdV9ZLeXJc/
content:
<p><a href="media/400460be.extratorrent.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/extratorrent.jpg"><img src="media/30b6392a.extratorrent.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/extratorrent.jpg" alt="extratorrent" width="180" height="110" class="alignright size-full wp-image-77858"></a>With The Pirate Bay down and possibly out, millions of file-sharers around the world are turning to alternative sources for their content.</p>
<p>The current <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">top 10 torrent sites</a> in the world are the largest beneficiaries in terms of traffic but with that comes additional attention.</p>
<p>One of those sites is <a href="http://extratorrent.cc">ExtraTorrent</a>, an index that has moved up the rankings in recent years to become a torrent scene front runner. Last year the site took the #4 position overall and with an impressive Alexa rank of 356, now sits at #3.</p>
<p>But despite the achievements, progress has now temporarily ground to a halt. On January 10 the site went down unexpectedly, with an all-too-familiar announcement delivered shortly after.</p>
<p>&#8220;Extratorrent is under DDoS attack by hackers right now. Please, keep your patience. We&#8217;ll try to fix the issues. We&#8217;ll be back shortly!&#8221; the site announced on Twitter.</p>
<p>Indeed, that very same day the site did return but the comeback was brief, with the admins reporting &#8220;issues&#8221; getting the index functioning again.</p>
<p>Early Monday the site&#8217;s operators announced that while server problems could continue, everything was on course to be fixed before January 13. But with less than a day to go, attacks against the site persist.</p>
<p>&#8220;ExtraTorrent still is under DDoS attack. It&#8217;s very powerful DDoS attack,&#8221; the site reported a few minutes ago.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our hosting provider tries to solve the issues. We hope to back soon!&#8221; </p>
<p>At the time of writing ExtraTorrent is available in some regions intermittently.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99742
title: Pirate Bay’s Mystery AES Code Finally Decrypted
uri: Pirate-Bay-s-Mystery-AES-Code-Finally-Decrypted
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/FO42U85I85M/
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>Two weeks after The <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">Pirate Bay raid</a> early December, the notorious torrent site <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-domain-back-online-waving-a-pirate-flag-141221/">returned online</a>. </p>
<p>Instead of its traditional homepage it waved a pirate flag alongside some mysterious hints. The most intriguing part was the <a href="media/1de3b1df.aes.png" data-original-source="http://thepiratebay.se/aes.png">aes.png</a> image at the bottom which displayed an encrypted message. </p>
<p>Was this secret message pointing to a pirate treasure hidden in the deep web? Did it hold the location of crucial backups that TPB needed to restore the site, or the code of Pirate Bay&#8217;s <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pirate-bay-plans-to-beat-censorship-for-good-140105/">unreleased P2P browser</a>?</p>
<p><center><a href="media/1ff17fb3.aes.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/aes.png"><img src="media/1ff17fb3.aes.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/aes.png" alt="aes" width="599" height="24" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99750"></a></center></p>
<p>As time went on the TPB started to add more hints to the site&#8217;s source, hoping that someone would solve the mystery. These pointers eventually led to the answer, first <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/piratebayaes/comments/2rvn1c/observation_weired_css_for_the_pipe_class/cnllylk">uncovered</a> by Reddit user &#8220;dafky2000.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;By analyzing the page source code I could see some irrelevant HTML tags that had no effect. In particular, &#8216;key lowercase&#8217; with the text enclosed &#8216;WeAreTPB&#8217;, which was not in fact lowercase. The encryption technology was the name of the image itself &#8211; &#8216;aes.png&#8217; &#8211; AES,&#8221; dafky2000 tells TF.</p>
<p>After guessing a few different password hashing algorithms he finally landed on the right one, SHA256. That revealed part of the answer and after a few hours of sleep dafky2000 was able to uncover the entire message.</p>
<p>&#8220;I did have some trouble &#8211; Initially, I was only decrypting half the URL so I knew I was on the right track. Took a break at 2am, but got some sleep to clear my head and finished it off in the morning. I love a challenge and that hit the spot.&#8221;</p>
<p>As it turns out, Pirate Bay&#8217;s message was little more than a URL of a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YEG9DgRHhA">YouTube video</a>. No secret messages crucial to the site&#8217;s return, but a compilation of The Terminator&#8217;s famous line &#8220;I&#8217;ll be back.&#8221;</p>
<p>Like most people dafky2000 had hoped for something more. Especially because another hint that was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-sets-sail-for-home-base-150108/">added recently</a> &#8220;pipe vi Makefile&#8221; suggests that there&#8217;s something TPB wants people to build. </p>
<p>&#8220;I was trying to solve the &#8216;pipe vi Makefile&#8217; mystery so I could build whatever program the Makefile would make. Decryption seemed like the stepping stone to that goal. I was mildly disappointed I couldn&#8217;t build something but I think there might be more to that,&#8221; dafky2000 tells us.</p>
<p>Those who want to replicate the results can use the following bash code dafky2000 <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/thepiratebay/comments/2s3tk9/bash_solution_to_pirate_bay_encrypted_aes_message/">provided</a>. </p>
<p><code>echo "JyO7wNzc8xht47QKWohfDVj6Sc2qH+X5tBCT+uetocIJcjQnp/2f1ViEBR+ty0Cz" | openssl aes-128-cbc -K $(printf wearetpb | sha256sum | head -c 32 | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]') -nosalt -nopad -iv 0 -base64 -d -p</code></p>
<p>The question now is whether The Pirate Bay will indeed make a glorious return as Arnold Schwarzenegger suggests? </p>
<p><center><iframe width="600" height="338" src="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/-YEG9DgRHhA?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99807
title: IFPI Targets ‘Pirate’ Domains With New Site Blocking Law
uri: IFPI-Targets-Pirate-Domains-With-New-Site-Blocking-Law
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/TEqRZqw4wK8/
content:
<p><img src="media/07db73b3.stop-blocked.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/stop-blocked.jpg" width="200" height="168" class="alignright">Domain blocking is now firmly established as one of the entertainment industries&#8217; go-to methods for reducing online copyright infringement. Its use is widespread around Europe by both the music and movie sector.</p>
<p>In Europe the most important legal decision was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/eu-court-isps-can-be-forced-to-block-pirate-sites-140327/">announced</a> in March last year when the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that EU ISPs can be required to block access to sites engaged in copyright infringement.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, individual countries are making their own decisions on how to move forward. Last July, Singapore <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/singapore-passes-pirate-bay-blocking-anti-piracy-law-140708/">legislators approved</a> the Copyright Amendment Bill which allows copyright holders to obtain High Court orders forcing local service providers to block “flagrantly infringing” websites. Now, six months on, entertainment companies are ready to launch their first tests.</p>
<p>IFPI regional director Ang Kwee Tiang confirmed that the music group will initially target three to five &#8220;infringing sites&#8221; over the next two months.</p>
<p>“We are now actively looking into exercising this in the future,” he <a href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/trade-association-aims-to/1586388.html">said</a>.</p>
<p>The sites to be targeted have not yet been revealed but it&#8217;s always been the understanding that The Pirate Bay would be tackled first. The site&#8217;s reputation as the &#8220;worst-of-the-worst&#8221; allows entertainment companies to present a relatively straightforward case to the courts. The rising number of blocking orders already granted elsewhere only add to the mix. </p>
<p>“Now, The Pirate Bay has more than 6 million links. We take the screenshots and we show that these are not licensed. We&#8217;re going to show that The Pirate Bay has been blocked in nine or 10 different countries. I think that will be very convincing for our cause,&#8221; Ang said.</p>
<p>However, with The Pirate Bay currently down, it&#8217;s possible that other targets will have to be selected in the first batch. Ang confirms that evidence is still being collated but he&#8217;s confident that a successful blockade will help to reduce piracy.</p>
<p>“I divide (consumers) 80 to 20 – 80 per cent are average consumers, if they cannot get it easily and if a legal site offers it, they may go for the legal site,” he said.</p>
<p>“The committed pirate is like a committed criminal. They will search for ways to circumvent. But once we have the website blocking, then we are free to tackle the 20 per cent.”</p>
<p>The driving force behind the site blocking phenomenon can be found in the entertainment companies of the United States but following the SOPA debacle public discussion to progress site blocking has been fairly muted. That doesn&#8217;t mean nothing has been happening, however.</p>
<p>In December it was revealed that behind closed doors the MPAA has been working hard <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-prepares-to-bring-pirate-site-blocking-to-the-u-s-141211/">to bring site blocking to the United States</a>. Whether those aims will still be progressed following the somewhat embarrassing leaks will remain to be seen, but it&#8217;s likely the movie group won&#8217;t be steered off course for long.</p>
<p>Overall, Hollywood definitely sees blocking as an important anti-piracy tool. The practice is <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-pirate-site-blockades-140613/">endorsed</a> by none other than MPAA chief Chris Dodd and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-research-blocking-the-pirate-bay-works-so-140828/">internal MPAA research</a> has found it to be effective.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99770
title: Falsely Accused ‘Pirate’ Wins $101,000 in Attorney Fees
uri: Falsely-Accused-Pirate-Wins-101-000-in-Attorney-Fees
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/CXtd-TIEiiA/
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 plaguing the U.S. for years, targeting hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders.</p>
<p>Most copyright holders involved in these cases, often referred to as trolls, are only out to collect settlement payments from the accused, so the cases never go to trial.</p>
<p>The same is true for the lawsuit between the makers of the “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2281215/">Elf-Man</a>” movie and Ryan Lamberson of Spokane Valley, Washington. </p>
<p>As is common in these cases an IP address was presented as the main piece of evidence. This address was collected by a file-sharing &#8220;investigator&#8221; using software to connect to the BitTorrent swarm where the infringing files were allegedly shared.</p>
<p>However, Lamberson&#8217;s attorney pointed out to the court that the studio&#8217;s evidence was far from solid, and that they couldn&#8217;t prove the alleged wrongdoings.</p>
<p>&#8220;Mr. Lamberson is an innocent ISP subscriber. Like many of the Elf Man defendants, he had never heard of Elf Man. He never had any desire to view the movie let alone download his own copy,&#8221; defense attorney <a href="http://www.leehayes.com/pros/chris-lynch.php">Chris Lynch</a> tells TF.</p>
<p>One of the problems the defense uncovered was that the tracking software couldn&#8217;t actually prove that the defendant had downloaded the file.</p>
<p>&#8220;Although the complaints allege the defendants &#8216;downloaded&#8217; the works, the plaintiff&#8217;s investigators&#8217; computers are programmed only to entrap data uploaded by the defendant, not data downloaded by the defendant. In other words, there is no evidence that any defendant downloaded the movie, only supposition,&#8221; Lynch says.</p>
<p>And there were other problems too. The Elf-Man studio wasn&#8217;t entirely forthcoming about the identity, employer, or location of its investigators, for example. </p>
<p>Faced with these issues the Elf-Man makers decided to drop the lawsuit. However, they didn&#8217;t get away without having to pick up the bill as Judge Rice awarded attorney fees to the accused file-sharer. </p>
<p>Just before the weekend the Judge issued an order <a href="http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2015/01/09/defendant-in-elf-man-v-lamberson-was-awarded-100k-in-attorney-fees/">granting</a> Mr. Lamberson nearly $101,000 in attorney fees, which he deemed a reasonable amount. </p>
<p>&#8220;Defendant’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees &#8230; is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. Defendant is awarded attorney fees in the amount of $100,961,&#8221; the Judge writes.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/51465298.100k.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/100k.png"><img src="media/51465298.100k.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/100k.png" alt="100k" width="600" height="146" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99789"></a></center></p>
<p>The awarded fees are short of the $200,000 requested, but the defense is quite pleased with the outcome nonetheless as the amount helps to cover the costs.</p>
<p>For some, however, the outcome is still a <a href="http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2015/01/09/defendant-in-elf-man-v-lamberson-was-awarded-100k-in-attorney-fees/">disappointment</a> in that the Elf-Man makers weren&#8217;t sanctioned for their dubious practices, including the use of <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/accused-pirate-slams-bittorrent-tracking-outfit-court-140503/">unlicensed investigators</a>. </p>
<p>Lynch and his firm <a href="http://www.leehayes.com/">Lee &#038; Hayes</a> are not done with the copyright trolling cases though, and will keep a close eye on developments. Perhaps they can target this type of abuse again in a future case. </p>
<p>&#8220;Although we are delighted with the outcome for Mr. Lamberson, we remain concerned about the practice of United States copyright infringement cases being brought against innocent people who are based on thin, possibly inadmissible, foreign evidence without any corroboration of actual infringement,&#8221; Lynch notes. </p>
<p>&#8220;Our case exposed some of the abuse, but there are hundreds of cases throughout the country based on similar evidentiary anomalies. My law firm intends to remain active in this area fighting this abuse.&#8221;</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99854
title: Record Labels Try to Force ISP to Disconnect Pirates
uri: Record-Labels-Try-to-Force-ISP-to-Disconnect-Pirates
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/jrhWqBX-yNk/
content:
<p><img src="media/426d8edb.ireland.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ireland.jpg" width="200" height="101" class="alignright">Half a decade ago the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) ended its legal action against local ISP Eircom when the ISP agreed to implement a new anti-piracy policy against its own subscribers.</p>
<p>The agreement saw IRMA-affiliated labels including Sony, Universal and Warner tracking Eircom subscribers online. Eircom then forwarded warning notices to customers found to be sharing content without permission and agreed to disconnect those who were caught three times.</p>
<p>In a follow-up move IRMA tried to force another ISP, UPC, to implement the same measures. UPC fought back and a 2010 High Court ruling <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/music-industry-fails-in-high-court-bid-to-force-3-strikes-on-isp-101011/">went in the ISP&#8217;s favor</a>.</p>
<p>However, a 2012 change in the law emboldened IRMA to have a second bite and now the music group&#8217;s case is being heard by the Commercial Court. As before, IRMA wants an injunction issued against UPC forcing it to implement a &#8220;three strikes&#8221; or similar regime against its customers.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/case-against-upc-over-illegal-downloading-begins-1.2064220">Irish Times</a>, Michael McDowell SC representing the labels said that UPC could come up with its own graduated response, whether it be “two strikes” or “five strikes”.</p>
<p>For its part, UPC appears to be more concerned about the cost of operating such a system rather than the actual introduction of one. UPC has provided estimates for doing so but the labels view the amounts involved as excessive.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, Cian Ferriter SC, for UPC, said the ISP has &#8220;no difficulty in handing over information&#8221; (on pirates) for the labels to pursue but the company has issues with setting up an &#8220;entire system&#8221; to deal with the problem.</p>
<p>The stance of UPC seems markedly different from its position during February 2014. At the time the company said that subjecting customers to a graduated response scheme would raise a “serious question of freedom of expression and public policy&#8221; and would &#8220;demand fair and impartial procedures in the appropriate balancing of rights.”</p>
<p>In the event, however, Mr McDowell said that UPC&#8217;s offer was not only a new but one that raises concern over privacy and data protection issues.</p>
<p>IRMA chairman Willie Kavanagh previously said that the Eircom three-strikes scheme had been “remarkably effective,” since only 0.2% of warned users have proceeded to the disconnection stage. Perhaps even more remarkable is that even after four years of the program, Eircom hadn&#8217;t disconnected a single customer.</p>
<p>“We are continuing to implement the graduated response process,” a spokesman <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/three-strikes-isp-no-pirates-disconnected-in-four-years-140313/">said</a> last March. “We haven’t, as yet, disconnected anyone.”</p>
<p>IRMA is contractually bound by its agreement with Eircom to pursue UPC and/or other ISPs to implement a graduated response scheme, so expect this one to run either until the bitter end &#8211; or when UPC cave in. For now the case is scheduled to run for eight days.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99833
title: Aussie ISPs Rushing Ahead With Anti-Piracy Proposals
uri: Aussie-ISPs-Rushing-Ahead-With-Anti-Piracy-Proposals
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/UoFoHiouxzw/
content:
<p><a href="media/c5e87d4f.aus.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/aus.jpg"><img src="media/d0591cc5.aus-150x150.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/aus-150x150.jpg" alt="aus" width="150" height="150" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-96798"></a>For years Australian citizens have complained of being treated as second class citizens by content companies who have failed to make content freely available at a fair price. As a result millions of Aussies have turned to file-sharing networks for their media fix.</p>
<p>This has given the country somewhat of a reputation on the world stage, which in turn has put intense pressure on the Australian government to do something to reduce unlawful usage.</p>
<p>After years of negotiations between ISPs and entertainment companies went nowhere, last year the government stepped in. ISPs were warned that if they don&#8217;t take voluntarily measures to deter and educate pirating subscribers, the government would force a mechanism upon them by law.</p>
<p>With a desire to avoid that option at all costs, the service providers went away with orders to come up with a solution. Just last month Attorney-General George Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull set an April 8 deadline, a tight squeeze considering the years of failed negotiations.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, iiNet, Australia&#8217;s second largest ISP, feels that the deadline will be met.</p>
<p>“We will have code; whether or not it gets the rubber stamp remains to be seen,” <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/technology/isps_will_be_ready_for_piracy_deadline_pybA40gmbzOdsOSz8cVmAK">says</a> iiNet chief regulatory officer Steve Dalby. &#8220;Dedicated people are putting in a lot of work drafting documents and putting frameworks together.&#8221;</p>
<p>With just 120 days to come up with a solution the government&#8217;s deadline is a big ask and Dalby says there are plenty of complications.</p>
<p>“There are issues around privacy, there are issues around appeals. There are issues around costs. There is a lot of work that needs to be done,” he says.</p>
<p>Of course, these are exactly the same issues that caused talks to collapse on a number of occasions in the past. However, in recent months it&#8217;s become clear that the government is prepared to accept less stringent measures than the entertainment industries originally wanted. Slowing and disconnecting subscribers is now off the table, for example.</p>
<p>Although there has been no official announcement, it seems likely that the ISPs will offer a notice-and-notice system similar to the one being <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-agree-to-send-out-music-movie-piracy-warnings-140509/">planned for the UK</a>.</p>
<p>Subscribers will be informed by email that their connections are being used to share content unlawfully and will be politely but firmly asked to stop. An educational program, which advises users where to obtain content legally, is likely to augment the scheme.</p>
<p>Who will pay for all this remains to be seen. ISPs have previously refused to contribute but with the government threatening to impose a code if a suitable one is not presented, compromise could be on the table.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99811
title: Piracy Notices Boost Demand For Anonymous VPNs in Canada
uri: Piracy-Notices-Boost-Demand-For-Anonymous-VPNs-in-Canada
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/QrNnd1SmmSE/
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>Due to a recent change to Canada&#8217;s copyright law, ISPs are now <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-isps-vpns-now-alert-pirating-customers-150102/">required</a> to forward copyright infringement notices to their customers.</p>
<p>As a result, tens of thousands of Internet subscribers have received warnings in their mailboxes over the past days, with some asking for <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-piracy-notices-from-benign-to-ridiculous-150109/">cash settlements</a>.</p>
<p>The so-called notice-and-notice system aims to reduce local piracy rates, but it appears that not all Canadians are ready to give up their habits.</p>
<p>Instead, many file-sharers are taking measures to hide their IP-addresses and bypass the monitoring companies copyright holders have hired. By using <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/">VPN services</a> or BitTorrent proxies their sharing activities can no longer be linked to their ISP account, effectively evading the notice system.</p>
<p>Data from Google trends reveals that interest in anonymizing services has spiked with <a href="http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=vpn&#038;geo=CA&#038;cmpt=geo&#038;tz=">searches for &#8220;VPN&#8221;</a> nearly doubling in recent weeks. This effect, shown in the graph below, is limited to Canada and likely a direct result of the new law.</p>
<p><center><strong>&#8220;VPN&#8221; searches in Canada<br></br></strong></center><center><a href="media/4b118b40.vpncanada.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vpncanada.png"><img src="media/4b118b40.vpncanada.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vpncanada.png" alt="vpncanada" width="858" height="380" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99822"></a></center></p>
<p>The effects are clearly noticeable at VPN providers as well, in both traffic and sales. <a href="http://torguard.net/">TorGuard</a>, a VPN and BitTorrent proxy provider saw the number of Canadian visitors and subscribers double this year.</p>
<p>&#8220;Since the start of 2015 TorGuard has seen a drastic jump in Canadian traffic and subscribers. At the time of this writing our Canadian sales are up roughly 100% and this trend appears to be increasing,&#8221; TorGuard’s Ben Van der Pelt tells us.</p>
<p><center><strong>TorGuard traffic from Canada<br></br></strong></center><center><a href="media/743ae937.torgcanada.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/torgcanada.png"><img src="media/743ae937.torgcanada.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/torgcanada.png" alt="torgcanada" width="1076" height="279" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99856"></a></center></p>
<p>Another VPN provider that preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed the traffic increase and sent us a graph of a <a href="media/3b4e958b.vpnanon.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/vpnanon.png">similar spike</a>. </p>
<p>Aside from steering people towards anonymizing tools Canada&#8217;s notice-and-notice scheme also piqued the interest of the Government. The <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-govt-outlaws-bogus-piracy-notices-150112/">abuse of these notices</a> in particular. </p>
<p>Another consequence of the new law is that Canadian VPN providers have to warn pirating users as well. For most services this is impossible, as they don&#8217;t keep any IP-address logs, adding further insecurity to the local market.</p>
<p>For now, none of the VPN providers we spoke with plan to start logging but if they are forced to do so the preference is to move their businesses <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-consider-leaving-canada-to-protect-customer-privacy-150107/">outside Canada</a>.</p>
<p>From the above it&#8217;s clear that the new notice-and-notice system is certainly having an impact, but how many file-sharers stop pirating and how many choose to hide instead is anyone’s guess at this point. </p>
<p>One thing&#8217;s for certain though, VPN services are certainly becoming a more mainstream option.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99918
title: EZTV Ditches .IT Domain After Italian Intervention
uri: EZTV-Ditches-IT-Domain-After-Italian-Intervention
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/h0fjLbJbb3g/
content:
<p><a href="media/a9c13900.eztv-logo-small1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eztv-logo-small1.png"><img src="media/a9c13900.eztv-logo-small1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eztv-logo-small1.png" alt="eztv-logo-small" width="191" height="80" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99927"></a>Founded in 2005, the TV-torrent site EZTV has served torrents for nearly a decade. </p>
<p>Over the past several years it has maintained a steady user-base and with millions of users it&#8217;s undoubtedly the most used TV-torrent site on the Internet today. </p>
<p>This popularity hasn&#8217;t gone unnoticed by copyright holders. The site has already been blocked in the UK via court order and there are efforts underway elsewhere to frustrate the site&#8217;s operations. </p>
<p>Most recently EZTV ran into trouble with the Italian domain name registry <a href="http://www.nic.it/">NIC.it</a> over some paperwork. Facing a possible confiscation of the EZTV.it domain name, they saw no other option than to switch to a new home. </p>
<p>Without going into detail, EZTV&#8217;s NovaKing tells TF that a complaint from copyright holders is likely to be the driving force behind the recent issues. </p>
<p>&#8220;NIC.it hasn&#8217;t been very cooperative in trying to find a solution. While they haven&#8217;t admitted it on the record, it wouldn&#8217;t surprise me if they were pressured by copyright holders,&#8221; NovaKing says.</p>
<p>EZTV&#8217;s domain registrar EuroDNS suggested several options to resolve the problems but all these paths were fruitless.</p>
<p>With the Italian registry not willing to cooperate, EZTV decided not to wait any longer and has now ditched the .it domain. EZTV swiftly relocated to a new home using the Swiss TLD <a href="http://eztv.ch">EZTV.ch</a>.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/11a2d1e1.eztvnewhome.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eztvnewhome.png"><img src="media/11a2d1e1.eztvnewhome.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eztvnewhome.png" alt="eztvnewhome" width="960" height="361" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99950"></a></center></p>
<p>The Swiss domain name wasn&#8217;t chosen for any reason in particular, it was just the most convenient option for now.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have a stockpile of domain names in reserve. The Swiss domain was the easiest option as that was already partially setup, but we can easily relocate again if needed,&#8221; NovaKing says.</p>
<p>And so the Whack-A-Mole can continue for a while.</p>
<p>For EZTV the domain intervention is a relatively minor inconvenience. The site has faced bigger problems in the past. Just last month it was down for <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/eztv-back-online-pirate-bay-raid-141222/">nearly two weeks</a> after its servers were taken offline in the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">Pirate Bay raid</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99913
title: Oscar Nominee Won’t Sue Pirates, Accepts Donations Instead
uri: Oscar-Nominee-Won-t-Sue-Pirates-Accepts-Donations-Instead
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Ea3eGIn8T3o/
content:
<p><a href="media/6fa5d6d2.oscartorrents.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/oscartorrents.png"><img src="media/7cffd0f4.oscartorrents.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/oscartorrents.png" alt="oscartorrents" width="185" height="198" class="alignright size-full wp-image-22131"></a>Last week a flood of DVD screener copies of Oscar-nominated movies <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/leaked-oscar-movie-screeners-flood-torrent-sites-150108/">hit torrent sites</a>. The Hobbit, Birdman, The Imitation Game, Selma, American Sniper, Unbroken, Big Hero 6, Into the Woods, and Big Eyes all appeared online. </p>
<p>But the leakers still hadn&#8217;t finished. The Gambler, Inherent Vice, A Most Violent Year and Kill The Messenger appeared on public sites and those more private, followed by Cake and Wild this week.</p>
<p>But while those are all Western titles, it is a movie hailing from the East that offers the most interesting back-story, from both political and piracy perspectives.</p>
<p>Partially financed by the Russian Culture Ministry, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802154/">Leviathan</a> tells the story of a man fighting against corruption in a Russia depicted as dark and cruel. Leviathan just picked up the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is also nominated for an Oscar.</p>
<p>Like all of its counterparts listed above, Leviathan too has leaked onto the Internet in DVD screener format. However, what is particularly interesting is how the movie&#8217;s makers are handling this development.</p>
<p>“All the films nominated for an Oscar have been downloaded by pirates. We are not going to pursue anybody,&#8221; Leviathan producer Alexander Rodnyansky told local media.</p>
<p>While that might be music to the ears of file-sharers, the response from fellow digital producer Slava Smirnov generates yet more interest in the movie. In solidarity with the filmmakers, Smirnov has just launched an independent website with the aim of taking donations from downloaders and forwarding that money to the crew of Leviathan.</p>
<p>&#8220;As a result of leakage of all films nominated for an Oscar in 2015, the film Leviathan was on the Internet before it hit the box office in Russia,&#8221; a note <a href="http://Leviathan-film.ru">on the site</a> reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;Here you can express gratitude to the team of the film, using a simple form to transfer any amount. Fundraising will continue until February 5, 2015.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><img src="media/3cd5bf3a.leviathan-ss.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/leviathan-ss.png" alt="leviathan"></center></p>
<p>Speaking with local press, Alexander Rodnyansky said the team behind the movie appreciates the gesture.</p>
<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s an amazing story, it seems, unprecedented even. A talented young man named Slava Smirnov made this site on his own initiative and to him we are very grateful,&#8221; he <a href="http://www.forbes.ru/sobytiya/obshchestvo/277505-aleksandr-rodnyanskii-zhanr-dramy-perestal-byt-vostrebovan-shirokoi-kino">said</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;If any of those who have downloaded and watched Leviathan would like to express their response to our film in a tangible form, they can do so through this website.&#8221;</p>
<p>But while Rodnyansky offers his clear support to the fundraiser, he&#8217;s actually refusing to take any of its proceeds. The producer says any donations should be sent directly to the children&#8217;s cancer charity &#8220;Give Life&#8221; founded by actresses Chulpan Khamatova and Dina Korzun.</p>
<p>In the meantime Leviathan continues to be downloaded from dozens of sources, a situation worsened by the fact that the movie won&#8217;t go on general release in Russia until next month. That has prompted rumors that the filmmakers themselves leaked the movie. Rodnyansky refutes the claim.</p>
<p>&#8220;No, we certainly did not upload a copy of the film to the Internet. But be aware that there is always a risk of leakage, and it is huge,&#8221; Rodnyansky says. </p>
<p>&#8220;One of the most popular online issues (and it is not the most pleasant for me) remains the question of the Russian theatrical release date. Why does a full release in the Russian homeland come so late, after already rolling out in France, the UK, Switzerland, Korea and other countries?&#8221;</p>
<p>While angry over the leak and late release window, Rodnyansky is also disappointed that the quality of the copy being made available online is not up to standard. Nevertheless, there are some upsides, with various publications and the public now increasingly &#8220;warming&#8221; to the movie.</p>
<p>&#8220;These considerations guided me when I say that we will not pursue viewers who have downloaded &#8216;Leviathan&#8217; before the premiere. Viewers we will not pursue, but [takedowns] on pirate sites &#8211; that is necessary,&#8221; Rodnyansky concludes.</p>
<p>Finally, there&#8217;s another twist that may only encourage pirate downloads of Leviathan, even when the movie screens next month. The DVD screener copy which leaked from an Academy member on January 11 is full and uncut. However, the Kremlin insists that Leviathan will have to be edited before release to remove <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/russia-bans-swearing-arts">unacceptable levels</a> of profanity.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99880
title: MPAA Links Online Piracy to Obama’s Cybersecurity Plan
uri: MPAA-Links-Online-Piracy-to-Obama-s-Cybersecurity-Plan
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/-w6r4RvrjnY/
content:
<p><a href="media/3b0329c8.mpaa-logo.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/mpaa-logo.png"><img src="media/fdb36aee.mpaa-logo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mpaa-logo.png" alt="mpaa-logo" width="259" height="170" class="alignright size-full wp-image-89856"></a>The unprecedented Sony hack has put cybersecurity on top of the political agenda in the United States. </p>
<p>Just last week Representative Ruppersberger <a href="http://piratetimes.net/exclusive-a-sneak-peek-at-cispa-2015/">re-introduced</a> the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/cispa-bill-lets-isps-spy-on-and-report-pirating-subscribers-120409/">controversial</a> CISPA bill and yesterday President Obama announced his new <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/13/securing-cyberspace-president-obama-announces-new-cybersecurity-legislat">cybersecurity plans</a>.</p>
<p>New measures are needed to &#8220;investigate, disrupt and prosecute&#8221; cybercrime as recent events have shown that criminals can and will exploit current weaknesses, according to the White House  </p>
<p>“In this interconnected, digital world, there are going to be opportunities for hackers to engage in cyber assaults both in the private sector and the public sector,&#8221; President Obama notes.   </p>
<p>Together with Congress the Obama administration hopes to draft a new bill that will address these concerns. Among other things, the new plan aims to improve information sharing between private Internet companies and the Government. </p>
<p>Privacy advocates <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/eff-statement-president-obamas-cybersecurity-legislative-proposal">argue</a> that this kind of data sharing endangers the rights of citizens, who may see more private data falling into the hands of the Government. President Obama, on the other hand, sees it as a necessity to stop attacks such as the Sony breach.</p>
<p>&#8220;Because if we don’t put in place the kind of architecture that can prevent these attacks from taking place, this is not just going to be affecting movies, this is going to be affecting our entire economy in ways that are extraordinarily significant,” the President cautions.</p>
<p>With the Sony hack Hollywood played a central role in putting cybersecurity back on the agenda. And although President Obama makes no mention of online piracy, the MPAA is quick to add it to the discussion.</p>
<p>In a statement responding to the new cybersecurity plans, MPAA CEO Chris Dodd notes that because of these criminals certain companies have their &#8220;digital products exposed and available online for anyone to loot.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;That’s why law enforcement must be given the resources they need to police these criminal activities,&#8221; Dodd says. </p>
<p>The MPAA appears to blend the Sony hack with online piracy. It calls upon Congress to keep the interests of Hollywood in mind, and urges private actors including search engines and ISPs to help in curbing the piracy threat.</p>
<p>&#8220;&#8230; responsible participants in the Internet ecosystem – content creators, search, payment processors, ad networks, ISPs – need to work more closely together to forge initiatives to stop the unlawful spread of illegally-obtained content,&#8221; Dodd says.  </p>
<p>Hollywood&#8217;s effort to frame online piracy as a broader cybersecurity threat is not entirely new. </p>
<p>Last year an entertainment industry backed <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-sites-rife-malware-credit-card-fraud-report-claims-140430/">report</a> claimed that  90 percent of the top pirate sites link to malware or other unwanted software. In addition, two-thirds were said to link to credit card scams.</p>
<p>This report was later cited in a Senate Subcommittee hearing where the MPAA <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-urges-lawmakers-protect-pirates-140519/">urged lawmakers</a> to take steps so young Americans can be protected from the &#8220;numerous hazards on pirate sites.&#8221;</p>
<p>Whether a new cybersecurity bill will indeed include anti-piracy measures has yet to be seen. But for the MPAA it may be one of the few positive outcomes of the Sony hack, which <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/leak-exposes-hollywoods-global-anti-piracy-strategy-141212/">exposed</a> <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/furious-google-ended-mpaa-antipiracy-cooperation-141212/">some</a> <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-strikes-scheme-fails-to-impact-piracy-landscape-150111/">of its</a> <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-wants-to-sue-pirate-site-hosting-providers-150109/">best</a> <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/furious-google-ended-mpaa-antipiracy-cooperation-141212/">kept</a> <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-prepares-to-bring-pirate-site-blocking-to-the-u-s-141211/">secrets</a> in recent weeks. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99877
title: Student “Not Guilty” in First 3D Movie Piracy Case
uri: Student-Not-Guilty-in-First-3D-Movie-Piracy-Case
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/tgn_9y1xQHM/
content:
<p><img src="media/94cae5ce.rsz_gravity-movie-poster.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/rsz_gravity-movie-poster.jpg" width="165" height="244" class="alignright">There have been a number of so-called “camming” cases in the UK in recent years with the MPAA-affiliated Federation Against Copyright Theft keen to stamp out the practice.</p>
<p>Punishments can be severe. Fast and Furious 6 &#8216;cammer&#8217; Philip Danks was sentenced to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/fast-furious-6-pirate-sentenced-33-months-prison-140821/">33 months in prison</a> last year for recording, uploading and selling physical copies of the popular movie. But prosecutions can be complex and sometimes things can backfire in the biggest possible way.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, Birmingham student Ciprian Florea went on trial accused of attempting to &#8216;cam&#8217; the space blockbuster Gravity. The case was special in a number of ways, not least that this was the first time that an individual had been accused of going equipped to capture a movie in full 3D.</p>
<p>According to the prosecution, Florea attended a Cineworld cinema in the city during November 2013 equipped with a home-made recording rig consisting of a pair of high-def cameras fashioned together in a device held on the man&#8217;s chest.</p>
<p>Florea, a student of film technology at Birmingham City University, is said to have hired the cameras the day before his arrest. These had been placed in a custom-made box in order to record the left and right eye as required for 3D imaging.</p>
<p>But before he had even entered the screening the student <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/first-3d-camcorder-piracy-case-student-on-trial-150106/">was spotted</a> by a security guard who confiscated the device and called the police.</p>
<p>Florea said he had no intention to record the movie and only had the device to record his friends. He attended the screening without the device.</p>
<p>In the light of the fact that the UK has no specific &#8220;anti-camming&#8221; legislation and no copyright works were ever recorded, the prosecution accused the student of possessing a 3D camera with intent to commit fraud, i.e the recording and subsequent distribution of the movie.</p>
<p>The Judge didn&#8217;t buy it.</p>
<p>“I am sure everything was done with the best of motives. However I have real concern as to whether this prosecution should have been brought at all,&#8221; said Mr Recorder Nolan QC.</p>
<p>“It ought to have been absolutely clear there was no legal basis for it,” he added.</p>
<p>The Judge added that there was nothing to suggest that Florea had intended to commercially exploit any copy. Going further, he noted that even if a copy had been made and posted online, the offense may have been a breach of copyright but would not have amounted to fraud.</p>
<p>This may well present a problem for similar future prosecutions. With no uploading to the Internet and no evidence to support that was the intent, it appears claims of copyright infringement and/or fraud are effectively ruled out. In a case like this, where the movie hadn&#8217;t even been recorded, it&#8217;s not difficult to see why the case fell apart.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, who supported the prosecution, told TorrentFreak that the student&#8217;s behavior suggested he intended to break the law.</p>
<p>&#8220;The circumstances of Mr Florea&#8217;s actions in entering a cinema with equipment constructed to capture a 3D film provided strong evidence that he intended to commit a criminal offense,&#8221; FACT said.</p>
<p>&#8220;FACT supported the prosecution brought against him by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service on the basis of the serious damage caused to the film industry by those who illegally record films in cinemas. We are disappointed with the verdict, but respect the decision of the court.&#8221;</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/student-cleraed-trying-pirate-3d-8394047">comments</a> to the Birmingham Mail after the verdict, Florea said he was glad the whole thing was over.</p>
<p>&#8220;I am relieved. It has taken a year and to be honest it has been a big pain in my life,&#8221; the student said. </p>
<p>“Although I won the case it has really been hard for me in my third year of my course. It was the first test of my final year’s project. I was just taking film of friends at the cinema.”</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99970
title: Hotline Miami 2 Censored – So Pirate It, Devs Say
uri: Hotline-Miami-2-Censored-So-Pirate-It-Devs-Say
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/BqhNH2wxlbY/
content:
<p><a href="media/cd3dadea.miami2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/miami2.jpg"><img src="media/cd3dadea.miami2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/miami2.jpg" alt="miami2" width="200" height="93" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99980"></a>Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is a 2D top-down video game developed by Dennaton Games and published by Devolver Digital. It&#8217;s the follow-up to the original Hotline Miami which developed into a fan favorite shifting hundreds of thousands of units in its first weeks on sale.</p>
<p>While HM2 is set to ride on its predecessor&#8217;s successes, its nature means that the some gamers will not be seeing the game on shelves, virtual or otherwise. The problem lies with HM2&#8217;s depiction of sex and violence, often in the same scenes.</p>
<p>Kotaku, for example, has a <a href="http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/01/hotline-miami-2-refused-classification-because-of-an-implicit-rape-scene/">report</a> on one particular scene which involves lots of killing rounded off with what appears to be rape. While this scene isn&#8217;t the only culprit, it&#8217;s all been too much for the <a href="http://www.classification.gov.au/Pages/Home.aspx">Australian Classification Board</a>, the body tasked with ensuring titles are suitable for a local audience.</p>
<p>According to government guidelines, publications that “depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified&#8221; will not be classified.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/4d793fa5.hotline.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hotline.png" alt="hotline"></center></p>
<p>As a result the Australian Classification Board has now effectively banned Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number in Australia meaning that Aussies won&#8217;t be able to get their hands on the title. Well not by official means of course.</p>
<p>Normally this kind of situation would see gamers disappearing off to torrent sites hoping to obtain the title without being caught. However, thanks to HM2&#8217;s developers they can not only still do the former but can do so without any fear of the latter.</p>
<p>The move was uncovered by Reddit user Max Cartwright who wrote to Jonatan Söderström, co-creator of Hotline Miami, expressing disappointment at the game being banned.</p>
<p>&#8220;As you obviously are aware, Hotline Miami 2 has been refused classification in Australia. This killed me, knowing that there is no legitimate way to purchase one of my most anticipated games,&#8221; Cartwright began.</p>
<p>&#8220;My question to you is, how would you, as the developer, most prefer me to obtain your game? I was thinking maybe I could torrent it and donate to you directly, but I&#8217;m not a fan of torrenting games and I don&#8217;t want to get in legal trouble.&#8221;</p>
<p>Söderström responded, and it was everything Cartwright could&#8217;ve hoped for.</p>
<p>&#8220;If it ends up not being released in Australia, just pirate it after release,&#8221; Söderström said. &#8220;No need to send us any money, just enjoy the game!&#8221;</p>
<p>With the email <a href="https://twitter.com/ForkParker/status/555840176199860225">confirmed</a> as genuine it now seems that Australians will not only be able to bypass the censors but do so with permission &#8211; a somewhat unique situation for commercially available title.</p>
<p>For their part, Devolver Digital have expressed disappointment at the decision not to classify but say they have no plans to censor the title.</p>
<p>&#8220;We  are concerned and disappointed that a board of professionals tasked with evaluating and judging games fairly and honestly would stretch the facts to such a degree and issue a report that describes specific thrusting actions that are not simply present in the sequence in question and incorrectly portrays what was presented to them for review,&#8221; the company said.</p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t the first time that the creators of Hotline Miami have rubbed shoulders with pirates. In 2012 the developer took the decision to give <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/games-developer-gives-customer-support-to-pirate-bay-downloaders-121026/">customer support and a special patch</a> to users of The Pirate Bay who had downloaded the game without paying for it.</p>
<p>Playing nice with pirates worked out well two years ago. Let&#8217;s see how that pans out second time around.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=100009
title: 95% Of Oscar Contenders Leaked on Pirate Sites Already
uri: 95-Of-Oscar-Contenders-Leaked-on-Pirate-Sites-Already
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/jwojza385_o/
content:
<p><a href="media/6fa5d6d2.oscartorrents.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/oscartorrents.png"><img src="media/7cffd0f4.oscartorrents.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/oscartorrents.png" alt="oscartorrents" width="185" height="198" class="alignright size-full wp-image-22131"></a>The Oscars is the biggest award show of the year and is closely followed by hundreds of millions of movie fans. </p>
<p>This week the new <a href="http://oscar.go.com/nominees">nominees were announced</a> and as usual that triggered a spike in sales, theater visits and illegal downloads. </p>
<p>The interest of torrent users for Best Picture nominee &#8220;The Theory of Everything&#8221; quadrupled almost instantly, and several other titles saw similar spikes. </p>
<p>With help from <a href="http://waxy.org/">Andy Baio</a>, who has been collecting detailed piracy <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&#038;key=0Ag0BxADNLZqgcFZOcnNoN0Vxd0Q3YTdOZ2hvRlpSQWc&#038;hl=en_US&#038;gid=0">stats</a> for the Oscar-nominees since 2003, we can also reveal how many of the films are already available along with some other interesting trends.</p>
<p>What stands out immediately is how widely available the films are. Of all 2015 nominees, except documentary and foreign films, 34 of the 36 films (95%) are present on pirate sites. </p>
<p>Only the animated feature film &#8220;Song of The Sea&#8221; and best original song nominee &#8220;Glen Campbell: I&#8217;ll Be Me&#8221; have yet to appear online.</p>
<p>The films that are available don&#8217;t all come in perfect quality of course. &#8220;Beyond the Lights,&#8221; for example, only leaked in a CAM (camcorded) version. Most, however, are available in relatively decent screener, DVDRip or comparable quality. </p>
<p>Ironically enough, nearly all of the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/leaked-oscar-movie-screeners-flood-torrent-sites-150108/">pirated screener copies</a> appear to have been leaked from Academy sources.</p>
<p><center><iframe src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&amp;hl=en_US&amp;key=0Ag0BxADNLZqgcFZOcnNoN0Vxd0Q3YTdOZ2hvRlpSQWc&amp;output=html&amp;widget=true" frameborder="0" width="650" height="330"></iframe></center></p>
<p>The data further shows that it takes an average of 25 days until first leak appears online. In 2015 retail DVDs leaked faster than in previous years, in part due to shorter release windows.</p>
<p>&#8220;Two Days One Night&#8221; leaked the earliest, with a DVD quality copy of the movie becoming available more than two months before its official U.S. release date. &#8220;The Grand Budapest Hotel&#8221; took the longest with a total of 88 days.	</p>
<p>While relatively unknown films see a serious spike in downloads after the nominations, most interest goes out to the traditional blockbusters. Of all nominees The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies remains the most popular with more than two million downloads over the past week.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99874
title: MPAA Wants to Censor OpenCulture’s Public Domain Movies
uri: MPAA-Wants-to-Censor-OpenCulture-s-Public-Domain-Movies
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ciTNlijVZjA/
content:
<p><a href="media/3d3897ce.openculture.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/openculture.png"><img src="media/3d3897ce.openculture.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/openculture.png" alt="openculture" width="270" height="72" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99974"></a>Despite the growing availability of legal services in many countries, movie studios face a constant stream of pirated films.</p>
<p>In an attempt to deter these infringements, the MPAA and individual movie studios send thousands of takedown notices to Internet services every month. Most of these requests are directed at Google.</p>
<p>When it comes to takedown notices the MPAA has a dubious track record. The movie industry group <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/google-refuses-mpaa-request-blacklist-pirate-site-homepages-141123/">has got into the habit</a> of asking Google to remove the homepages of allegedly infringing sites instead of individual pages where the infringing movies are listed.</p>
<p>A few days ago, for example, the MPAA asked Google to remove the homepage of the most popular torrent site Kickass.so, alongside several other torrent and streaming sites. As with previous requests Google declined to do so as the request was too broad.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/0cef1d2c.kickmpaa.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/kickmpaa.png"><img src="media/0cef1d2c.kickmpaa.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/kickmpaa.png" alt="kickmpaa" width="601" height="142" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99984"></a></center></p>
<p>The same takedown notice <a href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/requests/1799841/">includes</a> another unusual and perhaps more worrying request. Between all the &#8220;pirate sites&#8221; the MPAA also targeted Open Culture&#8217;s list of public domain movies. </p>
<p>For those unfamiliar with the project, <a href="http://www.openculture.com/">Open Culture</a> offers an archive of high-quality cultural &#038; educational media. With Stanford University&#8217;s <a href="http://www.openculture.com/author/dancolman">Dan Colman</a> as founder and lead editor, the content listed on the site is selected with great care.</p>
<p>The MPAA, however, appears to have spotted a problem with the list and has asked Google to remove the entire page (containing 700 movies) from its search results, as shown in the image below.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/75fd3fb2.openculturedown.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/openculturedown.png"><img src="media/75fd3fb2.openculturedown.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/openculturedown.png" alt="openculturedown" width="601" height="268" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-99985"></a></center> </p>
<p>So why would MPAA target content that&#8217;s seemingly in the public domain? </p>
<p>The full details of the takedown notice have yet to be published, but there is a good chance that the request was sent in error. </p>
<p>In any case, the notice doesn&#8217;t look good for the MPAA. Over the past several months the MPAA has lobbied Google to block entire domains from its search results, but mistakes like these are a reminder for Google to remain cautious.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=100060
title: Torrent Admins Get Probation But Face Millions in Damages
uri: Torrent-Admins-Get-Probation-But-Face-Millions-in-Damages
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/MVjXCM7SFc0/
content:
<p><a href="media/dab215ee.disney-pirate.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/disney-pirate.jpg"><img src="media/c84c2457.disney-pirate-150x150.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/disney-pirate-150x150.jpg" alt="disney-pirate" width="150" height="150" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-95935"></a>Five years ago, pressure was building against Swedish private torrent tracker ‘eXcelleNT’. The site, known to its users as XNT, had been on the radar of local anti-piracy outfits for some time, but had chosen not to shut down.</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, Swedish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance (then Antipiratbyrån) was closing in and early 2011 the group filed an official police complaint.</p>
<p>In May that year authorities pounced, arresting a man in Borlänge, Sweden, and another in the Stockholm area a day later. The site’s server was seized in Germany.</p>
<p>What followed was a wait of more than three years as the authorities prepared their case and in December the men <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/private-torrent-site-operators-face-criminal-trial-141220/">went on trial</a>. The pair were accused of making available more than 1,000 different movies and TV shows without permission from rightsholders including Warner Bros. and Disney.</p>
<p>Yesterday the verdict was handed down by the Falu District Court and it&#8217;s mixed news for the pair.</p>
<p>Although 1,050 titles were referenced in the case (an unusually large amount), the court only found the men guilty of copyright infringement in 28 cases. In the remaining 1,022 cases there was no proof that infringement had been committed.</p>
<p>This meant that rather than the hefty jail sentences demanded by the prosecutor, the 24 and 25-year-olds received probation and were ordered to complete 120 hours of community service instead.</p>
<p>Speaking with DN.se, prosecutor Frederick Ingblad, the man also running the case against The Pirate Bay, says he has not decided if he will appeal the decison.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think the sentence was low, but it&#8217;s good that they still got community service and not just probation,&#8221; Ingblad said.</p>
<p>But while probation is probably a relief to the men, another significant challenge lies ahead.</p>
<p>The judgment reveals that film company Nordisk Film has also filed a claim for damages amounting to some 18 million kronor ($2.2 million). This will be dealt with through a separate legal process handled by Rights Alliance.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99641
title: Pirate Bay’s Fredrik Neij Wants You to Write Him a Letter
uri: Pirate-Bay-s-Fredrik-Neij-Wants-You-to-Write-Him-a-Letter
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/rTF5eDazZEM/
content:
<p><a href="media/6ae5a612.fredrik-neij.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/fredrik-neij.jpg"><img src="media/6ae5a612.fredrik-neij.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/fredrik-neij.jpg" alt="fredrik-neij" width="250" height="236" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99649"></a>Fredrik Neij, also known as Tiamo, was one of the key players behind The Pirate Bay during its early years. Without him, the site <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-five-years-after-the-raid-110531/">might have never recovered</a> from the first raid in 2006. </p>
<p>As with Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik&#8217;s involvement with the site eventually resulted in a prison sentence and a hefty fine. </p>
<p>After being on the run for two years he was arrested by Thai immigration authorities <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-fredrik-neij-arrested-in-asia-141104/">last November</a> when he tried to cross the border from Laos. A few days later he flew to Sweden where he was transferred to a prison in Skänninge.</p>
<p>With several weeks now passed, TF has learned that Fredrik is doing well considering the circumstances. His wife and two kids are allowed to visit now, which must be a welcome distraction to monotonous prison life.</p>
<p>With a sentence of 10 months Fredrik will not be released before summer. Worryingly, he also has to face <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-fredrik-neij-now-wanted-for-hacking-141224/">hacking allegations</a> as well as a criminal referral of his ISP DCP Networks. </p>
<p>Considering the above, Fredrik won&#8217;t mind having some things to entertain himself.  In a message sent to TF he signaled that it would be nice to receive letters, cards and other stuff from people all over the world. </p>
<p>Anything goes, the more mail arrives the better.</p>
<p>People who want to write Fredrik should use the address listed at the bottom of this article. Keep in mind though, all incoming mail will be checked by the authorities before he receives it.</p>
<p>Besides Fredrik, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm also remains in prison. Last October he was convicted of hacking into the systems of IT company CSC and <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/gottfrid-svartholm-found-guilty-in-hacking-trial-141030/">sentenced to 3.5 years</a>. </p>
<p>TF spoke with Gottfrid&#8217;s mother Kristina who informed us that her son is being held in better conditions than before. He is allowed to receive books and his letters are no longer read by the police, but access to a computer or the Internet is still off-limits.  </p>
<p>Gottfrid has officially appealed his sentence and these proceedings are scheduled to start in April. In the meantime, he too would love to receive mail. </p>
<p>The addresses of Gottfrid and Fredrik are listed below. </p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p><em>Gottfrid Svartholm Warg<br>
Arresthuset i Koege<br>
Kongsberg Allé 6<br>
Dk4600 Koege, DENMARK<br>
</em></p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p><em>Fredrik Neij 14-514<br>
Box 213<br>
596 21 Skänninge<br>
SWEDEN</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=99965
title: BitCannon: Download Torrent Sites to Use Offline
uri: BitCannon-Download-Torrent-Sites-to-Use-Offline
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/0Rd_47kbElo/
content:
<p><a href="media/68f57680.bcannon.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/bcannon.jpg"><img src="media/68f57680.bcannon.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/bcannon.jpg" alt="bcannon" width="180" height="203" class="alignright size-full wp-image-100003"></a>Attacks on torrent sites are a regular occurrence. That&#8217;s been the case for well over a decade and isn&#8217;t likely to end anytime soon. As a result people are increasingly looking at ways to make them more resilient.</p>
<p>Proxies and mirrors, for example, helped keep The Pirate Bay accessible in the face of countless web blockades. And today, projects like <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/open-bay-now-everyone-can-run-pirate-bay-copy-141219/">Open Bay</a> and other sundry clones keep the spirit of the site alive even during its prolonged downtime.</p>
<p>While these projects are of interest, they all rely on other people taking the initiative. A new open source tool, however, brings torrent site preservation into the hands of everyone with a PC.</p>
<p>The idea behind BitCannon is straightforward. The software allows users to download and import torrent site contents into a database hosted on a local machine. From there users are able to browse and search torrents using a web browser in much they same way as they can on the site itself. Torrents can then be downloaded using magnet links and any compatible torrent client.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/a041e5cf.cannon-title.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cannon-title.png" alt="cannon-title"></center></p>
<p>After getting a local copy of KickassTorrents up and running, TorrentFreak caught up with BitCannon creator Stephen Smith for the lowdown.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a self taught web developer currently in college studying computer science. I&#8217;ve always been fascinated by BitTorrent and its decentralized nature,&#8221; Stephen told TF.</p>
<p>&#8220;With BitCannon, I am hoping to reduce the incentive of taking down torrent sites by encouraging users to utilize the site archives, and I hope this will also encourage more torrent sites to offer full site archives.&#8221;</p>
<p>Currently only a handful of sites offer these archives (notably KickassTorrents and Demonoid) but they are <a href="https://kickass.so/api/">offered openly</a> and are easy to download and use once BitCannon has been installed.</p>
<p>Downloaded site databases, which be viewed in any web browser, are presented in a straightforward and clean format. The image below shows BitCannon running a KickassTorrents dump of all torrents uploaded in the past 24 hours.</p>
<p><Center><img src="media/2267098b.kick-daily.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/kick-daily.png" alt="kick-daily"></center></p>
<p>BitCannon is certainly fast. While tests with a 24 hour dump of KickassTorrents were impressive, Stephen says searches on a database of 6 million torrents can be completed in about 10ms, plenty quick enough for most users.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly BitCannon is open source and currently <a href="https://github.com/Stephen304/bitcannon">available on Github</a>. Stephen says the decision to go this route was an obvious one.</p>
<p>&#8220;I want BitCannon to be useful to people, and I want it to be clear that I don&#8217;t intend to profit off of it, although I decided to have a donate button because the domain did cost money and I&#8217;m a college student,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>&#8220;I also want to allow people to use BitCannon as they please without any restrictions, in hopes that even if someone wanted to rebrand it and use it to host their own public torrent site, they may do so with minimal trouble.&#8221;</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s the other trick up BitCannon&#8217;s sleeve. Stephen says in addition to personal use he hopes that BitCannon will prove flexible enough to provide public facing versions of cloned websites to lower the barrier of entry for those brave enough to host their own torrent sites.</p>
<p>BitCannon works well but is still in development, so there are some issues to be ironed out. The installation process could be more automated and the browse page can take a while to load when databases contain more than one million torrents. Seeder/leecher counts are also on the to-do list as is a fully embedded database rather than <a href="http://www.mongodb.org">MongoDB</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;What would be ideal, I think, is if more torrent sites allowed users to download archives AND if more users downloaded these archives. Taking down torrent sites would then have less and less of an impact,&#8221; Stephen says.</p>
<p>BitCannon&#8217;s creator is grateful for the invaluable help he&#8217;s received from friend Casey Nordcliff and is now is calling on the community to help the project along.</p>
<p>&#8220;BitCannon isn&#8217;t 100% production ready, but I&#8217;d like to invite BitTorrent enthusiasts to try it out and provide feedback on how I can make it more useful and easier to use,&#8221; Stephen concludes.</p>
<p>BitCannon can be downloaded for Windows, Linux and Mac <a href="http://bitcannon.io/">here</a> with instructions found <a href="https://github.com/Stephen304/bitcannon">here</a>. For initial testing we advise use of a daily dump rather than full site databases.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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=100089
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 01/19/15
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-01-19-15
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/FPNbIW4hZcU/
content:
<p><a href="media/fd8c0d02.hobbit2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hobbit2.jpg"><img src="media/fd8c0d02.hobbit2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hobbit2.jpg" alt="hobbit2" width="299" height="215" class="alignright size-full wp-image-99737"></a>This week we have four newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies 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-011215/">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/the_hobbit_the_battle_of_the_five_armies/">The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2310332/">7.7</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Fv5StfAxA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_sniper/">American Sniper</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136/">7.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bP1f_1o-zo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fury_2015/">Fury</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2713180/">7.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKu5lGfRBxc">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/into_the_woods_2014/">Into The Woods</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjy5MK1X70">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_judge_2014/">The Judge</a></td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1872194/">7.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ikeVQ8WAcQ">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(7)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/birdman_2014/">Birdman</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2562232/">8.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJfLoE6hanc">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_girl/">Gone Girl</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2267998/">8.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DPpygqaCjY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/unbroken_2014/">Unbroken</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1809398/">7.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8mBzKLhL0U">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/771405230/">Vice</a></td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3480796/">4.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9StyQ2mW4c">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wild_2014/">Wild</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2305051/">7.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn2-GSqPyl0">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com">TorrentFreak</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">torrent sites</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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