# articles

feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=101539
title: Tumblr Panics as Site Gets Tough on Music Piracy
uri: Tumblr-Panics-as-Site-Gets-Tough-on-Music-Piracy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/pHbVw4Y8ttI/
content:
<p><a href="media/437bbc0f.tumblr.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tumblr.jpg"><img src="media/437bbc0f.tumblr.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tumblr.jpg" alt="tumblr" width="180" height="180" class="alignright size-full wp-image-101554"></a>Founded February 2007, Tumblr now processes huge amounts of traffic. According to latest figures from the site it currently hosts more than 223 million blogs containing almost 104 billion posts. </p>
<p>In common with all sites of a similar size, keeping on top of what every user posts is a formidable and near impossible task, even with the 300+ employees Tumblr has at its disposal. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, effort does have to be made and when it comes to copyright issues the law demands it. The DMCA requires Tumblr to respond to copyright holder complaints by removing infringing content in a timely manner. According to the site&#8217;s users, however, a more aggressive response is now being pursued.</p>
<p>A large number of recent complaints suggest that music group IFPI is making a renewed effort to target Tumblr in order to weed out users who post copyright music to the site. Since several users have posted Tumblr copyright notices citing IFPI complaints, it seems like a reasonable assumption.</p>
<p>But what is really spooking users is Tumblr&#8217;s policy of terminating those who have three complaints lodged against their account. It&#8217;s been in place for some time but with enforcement against the site seemingly being ramped up, more people are falling into the trap.</p>
<p>&#8220;As outlined in previous emails, we implement a strict three-strike policy against repeat copyright infringement. Your blog has received three strikes in an 18 month period. Consequently, your account has been terminated. In addition, any new accounts you create will also be terminated,&#8221; Tumblr <a href="http://stewardessme.tumblr.com/">told</a> one user.</p>
<p>Of course, anti-piracy bots don&#8217;t discriminate between content posted today or 18 months ago so any tracks they find can result in a notice to Tumblr and a subsequent &#8220;strike&#8221; against a user&#8217;s account. As a result, many users are now desperately trying to clear up their post history (using sites like <a href="http://trntbl.me/">trntbl.me</a>) to avoid getting three strikes all at once.</p>
<p>To find out what changes may have contributed to the panic TorrentFreak contacted Tumblr for further details. We&#8217;re yet to hear back (we&#8217;ll update this article when we do) but in the meantime its worth noting that the company updated its copyright notice policy last month.</p>
<p>&#8220;After removing material pursuant to a valid DMCA notice, Tumblr will immediately notify the Subscriber responsible for the allegedly infringing material that it has removed or disabled access to the material,&#8221; <a href="https://github.com/tumblr/policy/commit/823afedf956148a4ea4a00a8b6226d38e0c6310b">it reads</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;Tumblr will terminate, under appropriate circumstances, the Accounts of Subscribers who are repeat copyright infringers, and reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate any Subscriber for actual or apparent copyright infringement.&#8221;</p>
<p>In order for users to be able to contest copyright complaints, Tumblr <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/terms-of-service">operates</a> a counter-notification system. However, users including Stewardessme complain that on the third strike she was simply locked out. Her story also highlights the importance of contesting invalid claims early on.</p>
<p>&#8220;Since the IFPI sent takedowns for two songs, that was two strikes, and I had a previous strike months earlier due to being erroneously accused of a copyright violation by Harper-Collins (the photo in question was not theirs),&#8221; she <a href="http://stewardessme.tumblr.com/post/111081565035/tumblr-copyright-violation-account-terminated">writes</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;In my case, the time period between getting the two strikes for music and my account being terminated was zero time; I found out something was wrong when I tried to log into my account.&#8221;</p>
<p>Since Tumblr is yet to publicly respond to the concerns of its userbase, TorrentFreak asked the company to comment on any changes that could have triggered what is now being perceived as a piracy crackdown. We&#8217;ll update here in due course.</p>
<p><center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H7L5O9zeKEk" 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=101033
title: How a Private ‘Anime’ Torrent Tracker Became an Essential Tool For Facebook
uri: How-a-Private-Anime-Torrent-Tracker-Became-an-Essential-Tool-For
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/GICwkab2534/
content:
<p><a href="media/152e75a7.share.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/share.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-101045" src="media/152e75a7.share.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/share.jpg" alt="share" width="250" height="111"></a>Large scale web-services need tens of thousands of servers to keep things running smoothly for their millions of users.</p>
<p>Keeping all of these servers updated with the latest code can be time and resource intensive and it was no different at Facebook during its early years.</p>
<p>However, most problems disappeared when the social networking company <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/facebook-uses-bittorrent-and-they-love-it-100625/">discovered BitTorrent</a>. With BitTorrent all servers in the network could help to distribute code updates and as a result deployment took minutes rather than hours or days.</p>
<p>After discovering these benefits Facebook changed its BitTorrent implementation quite a bit. Among other tools, the company is now using the open source tracker software <a href="https://github.com/chihaya/chihaya">Chihaya</a>, named after a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Chihaya&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=C47UVKegEcPEmAXZtIGIAQ&amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ">school girl</a> starring in the manga series <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chihayafuru">Chihayafuru</a>.</p>
<p>While this might seem like a peculiar name for a piece of BitTorrent tracking code, all becomes clear when you look at the history of the software and its links to a private anime torrent tracker.</p>
<p>In 2012 a developer named Kotoko <a href="https://github.com/kotoko/chihaya">started working</a> on a new tracker backend written in the then-new programming language Go. Named Chihaya, the project (originally developed for a private anime community) aimed to become a replacement for the Ocelot tracker used by many <a href="http://whatcd.github.io/Gazelle/">Gazelle-based</a> torrent sites.</p>
<p>Around the same time the people behind the Waffles community were working on a full replacement for Gazelle named Batter, and the Chihaya developer eventually jumped on this bandwagon. The project also drew the attention of other programmers, including Jimmy Zelinskie and Justin Li, both college students at the time.</p>
<p>&#8220;I was interested in helping out with Chihaya back then because I wanted to work on a project to cement my skills in the Go programming language,&#8221; Zelinskie tells TF.</p>
<p>After a while priorities changed. Chihaya was never connected to a tracker frontend, but Zelinskie and Li kept improving it bit by bit.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Batter project fizzled out, but Chihaya development continued,&#8221; Zelinskie says. &#8220;We restructured Chihaya a few times, trying to decide how to make it scalable and ultimately landed on what we have today.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><strong>Chihaya</strong></center><center><a href="media/d86c8ea2.chi.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/chi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-101058" src="media/d86c8ea2.chi.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/chi.jpg" alt="chi" width="940" height="413"></a></center></p>
<p>Over the past several years Chihaya has evolved into one of the most advanced pieces of tracker software around, with support for multi-cored processors and peers announcing on IPv4, IPv6 or both.</p>
<p>&#8220;The architecture of the project is entirely modular and in doing so, we&#8217;ve made the tracker so it could potentially support any transport protocol like HTTP or UDP and any backend BitTorrent indexing software like Gazelle,&#8221; Zelinskie tells TF.</p>
<p>This didn&#8217;t go unnoticed by others, including the engineering team at Facebook who also started to use the code for their server deployment.</p>
<p>&#8220;Facebook started using the project because of our proper IPv6 support,&#8221; Zelinskie says, adding that they optimized the tracker even more for a local setup.</p>
<p>&#8220;We soon after added the ability to prefer peers based on a subnet of their IP address; for example, if your IP address is 192.168.1.1, you can configure the tracker to deliver you all the &#8216;closest&#8217; peers in the 192.168.1.X range before any others,&#8221; he notes.</p>
<p>Zelinskie currently works at <a href="https://coreos.com/">CoreOS</a>, a company that specializes in the deployment of software. He believes that BitTorrent-supported distribution is the future for companies, large and small. Chihaya certainly fits into this picture.</p>
<p>This leads to the remarkable conclusion that an open source private tracker, originally programmed to serve anime torrents, is now powering one of the largest technology companies in the world.</p>
<p>For Zelinskie, this transition not only shows the true power of open source, but also of BitTorrent.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is the reason why I write open source software and my company releases so much of what we do open source. Having as many people as possible working towards a common goal, in this case a solid BitTorrent tracker implementation, is beneficial to all of society, not just one set of individuals,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>&#8220;BitTorrent is far too often associated with copyright infringement. When in reality, BitTorrent is simply the best file transfer protocol. Whether it&#8217;s being used by you, me, or even Facebook.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p><em>Facebook didn&#8217;t respond to our request for comment but their use of Chihaya was confirmed by an insider.<br>
</em></p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.zerochan.net/1048736#full"><sup>Image credit</sup></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=101563
title: Pirate Bay Caught Up In a Hosting Whac-A-Mole
uri: Pirate-Bay-Caught-Up-In-a-Hosting-Whac-A-Mole
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/3VpJwBwcIXU/
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 ago The Pirate Bay <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-back-online-150131/">returned online</a> and millions of users have been finding their way back to the popular torrent site since.</p>
<p>While the site is currently up and running, Pirate Bay&#8217;s comeback hasn&#8217;t been without trouble. On Friday the site <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-down-again-150213/">went offline</a> for roughly 12 hours after a hosting provider pulled the plug. </p>
<p>TF reached out to Pirate Bay admin Winston, who informed us that &#8220;getting stable hosting&#8221; is one of the main challenges the site faces at the moment. </p>
<p>TPB is currently using CloudFlare&#8217;s CDN services which means that the hosting location is well hidden. However, Cloudflare <a href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/thoughts-on-abuse/">does forward</a> takedown notices to hosting providers and most are not very eager to have TPB as a customer. </p>
<p>The site continues to look for a safe alternative but that is proving to be a troublesome process. When we discussed the topic with the site&#8217;s admin TPB went offline again, causing yet more downtime.</p>
<p>&#8220;Another ISP killed it,&#8221; Winston told us yesterday. &#8220;So yeah. It will take a long time until it&#8217;s stable.&#8221;</p>
<p>While the hosting issue has priority, there&#8217;s also a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-already-has-a-pollution-problem-150202/">spam problem</a> TPB has to deal with. Despite <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-deploys-robots-to-scan-for-fake-torrents-150207/">deploying &#8220;FakeSkan&#8221; robots</a> there are still many scammy comments and malicious torrents on the site.</p>
<p>The Pirate Bay initially launched <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-wont-make-a-full-comeback-staff-revolt-150127/">without moderators</a> due to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-will-ditch-cloudflare-asks-users-moderate-150203/">security concerns</a>. This resulted in a mutiny among TPB staff, some of whom wanted to start their own version of the site.</p>
<p>While the locked-out staffers managed to <a href="https://pirates-forum.org/index.php">revive</a> a copy of the Suprbay forum a few days ago, launching a TPB alternative will prove to be much harder. Winston now says that TPB is open to welcoming some of the old staffers back in the near future.</p>
<p>&#8220;After hosting issues are resolved I&#8217;ll talk to some old mods,&#8221; Winston tells us. &#8220;If they want to continue then it&#8217;s okay, but I won&#8217;t look for new mods. Someone from the old team will have to be in charge of that.&#8221;</p>
<p>After the initial disappointment of  being locked out, several admins are indeed showing willingness to return to their former home. </p>
<p>&#8220;The conditions do not need to change from our side,&#8221; long time TPB moderator Agricola told TF. &#8220;All we want to do is keep the site clean.&#8221;</p>
<p>In addition to dealing with the pollution problem, TPB registrations should also open up again in the future. At the moment new users are unable to sign-up and publish content. </p>
<p>&#8220;There are just some security issues that have to be resolved first,&#8221; Winston says. &#8220;Plus, the hosting has to be stable.&#8221;</p>
<p>Speaking of hosting, a few hours before this article was published The Pirate Bay was forced to leave another ISP. That brings the total to four thus far, and the end is not yet in sight. </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=101616
title: UK Police Raid Movie & TV Show Site, Three Arrested
uri: UK-Police-Raid-Movie-TV-Show-Site-Three-Arrested
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/91tnpP2Blto/
content:
<p><a href="media/bc6e239e.cityoflondonpolice.jpg" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/cityoflondonpolice.jpg"><img src="media/31176dbb.cityoflondonpolice.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cityoflondonpolice.jpg" alt="cityoflondonpolice" width="200" height="82" class="alignright size-full wp-image-71397"></a>After scaling considerable heights during much of 2013 and 2014, overt operations to reduce online copyright infringement tapered off in the UK at the end of last year.</p>
<p>The first six weeks of 2015 also remained quiet, with the now-famous Police Intellectual Property Unit (PIPCU) holding a lower profile. Today, however, there is news of fresh action by local authorities.</p>
<p>Following an investigation by the Hollywood-affiliated anti-piracy group Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), this morning detectives raided individuals said to be involved in the operations of a movie and TV show download site.</p>
<p>The men, aged 24, 25 and 26, all from the Southwark area of London, were arrested at 06:45 on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and copyright infringement offenses. Equipment and financial documents were also seized.</p>
<p>Speaking with TorrentFreak a few moments ago, FACT said that they weren&#8217;t able to name the site &#8220;for operational reasons.&#8221; Nevertheless, police say it was popular among users.</p>
<p>&#8220;The site was extremely popular. It was viewed about 70,000 times a day and, internationally, it ranked thousands of places higher than a well-known and legitimate film download site,&#8221; said investigating officer Detective Sergeant Neil Reynolds.</p>
<p>Similar raids in recent times have been carried out by <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/?s=pipcu">PIPCU</a> but today&#8217;s operation is being accredited to the London Regional Asset Recovery Team.</p>
<p>LRART is a Home Office-funded team comprised of officers and financial investigators from City of London Police and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, among others. The unit carries out financial investigations aimed at seizing criminal assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.</p>
<p>&#8220;It can be difficult for people to care about copyright laws being broken but the money made from such sites is often spent on funding other crime,&#8221; said DS Reynolds. &#8220;We are looking at how much money was made from advertising on this website and where that money went to.&#8221;</p>
<p>FACT say that the site was registered to one of the suspects in the UK but was then re-registered to a second suspect at an address in Romania. Advertising revenue was paid into a London-based bank account.</p>
<p>Director General Kieron Sharp said that unauthorized sites undermine legitimate businesses and warned that people running such ventures face stiff penalties.</p>
<p>“Websites which set out to direct users to illegal copies of films and TV shows are engaged in criminal activity which not only reaps huge financial benefits for the individuals involved but also undermines the fundamental business model which allows for future investment in the creative industries,&#8221; Sharp said.</p>
<p>“As these latest arrests show, this type of criminal enterprise will not go without action, and those involved face severe penalties.”</p>
<p><em>If anyone has any further information <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/contact/">please contact us in confidence</a></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=101582
title: Dumb and Dumber Downloaders Face Legal Action
uri: Dumb-and-Dumber-Downloaders-Face-Legal-Action
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/bgu8-_mCbiU/
content:
<p><a href="media/f3cd368a.dumb-small.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dumb-small.jpg"><img src="media/f3cd368a.dumb-small.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dumb-small.jpg" alt="dumb-small" width="180" height="132" class="alignright size-full wp-image-101589"></a>BitTorrent networks are online venues where anyone with an Internet connection can obtain almost limitless content for free. They&#8217;re also places closely monitored by copyright holders looking to protect their interests.</p>
<p>While some monitor for analysis reasons, others aim to boost profits. The most recent to venture down this latter path are the rights holders behind the Jim Carrey / Jeff Daniels movie Dumb and Dumber To.</p>
<p>In motions filed at the United States District Court in Oregon, DDTO Finance, LLC explains that it needs to obtain the identities of at least five individuals said to have downloaded and shared the comedy without permission.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Doe defendant is a BitTorrent user, or &#8216;peer,&#8217; whose computer is interconnected with others and was used for illegally copying and distributing plaintiff’s motion picture to others,&#8221; one motion (<a href="media/ff038750.dumb.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dumb.pdf">pdf</a>) reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;Plaintiff is suing the Doe defendant for using the Internet, specifically the BitTorrent file distribution network, to commit copyright infringement.&#8221;</p>
<p>While conceding that the subscriber may not necessarily be the actual infringer, DDTO Finance calls on the Court to force Comcast to reveal the subscriber details quickly so that ongoing infringement can be brought to an end.</p>
<p>&#8220;[It] is the experience of counsel that parties generally promptly terminate infringing activity and further distribution as soon as they have notice of an actual suit pending,&#8221; motion for discovery adds.</p>
<p>In one copyright infringement complaint DDTO notes that Dumb and Dumber To is <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-pirated-movies-week-021615/">currently one of the top 10</a> most downloaded movies on BitTorrent networks &#8220;with over 1,000 confirmed infringing Internet Protocol (&#8216;IP&#8217;) addresses in Oregon alone.&#8221; </p>
<p>Also of interest is how DDTO takes its IP-address evidence and uses it to build a wider picture of infringement against the subscriber.</p>
<p>&#8220;Defendant’s IP address has been observed as associated with the peer-to-peer exchange of a large number of copyrighted titles through the BitTorrent network,&#8221; the complaint reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;The volume and titles of the activity associated with defendant’s IP address indicates that the defendant is likely the primary subscriber of the IP address or someone who resides with the subscriber, as such activity indicates the defendant is an authorized user of the IP address with consistent and permissive access.&#8221;</p>
<p>Continuing with its assumptions, DDTO ventures that based on the quantity and type of content being transferred, the infringer is not a minor.</p>
<p>&#8220;The volume and titles of the activity associated with defendant’s IP address indicates that the defendant is not a young child, but an adult with mature tastes,&#8221; the company says.</p>
<p>The suit goes further still, suggesting that by downloading the movie the subscriber contributed to the illegal activities of torrent sites which generate &#8220;hundreds of millions&#8221; from &#8220;sales and advertising&#8221;. Not only that, he or she may even have been rewarded for doing so.</p>
<p>&#8220;Many parties, and possibly defendant, have been compensated with increased access to other content, faster download speeds, or other forms of compensation for their participation in expanding the availability of pirated content, including plaintiff’s movie,&#8221; the complaints adds.</p>
<p>In conclusion, DDTO seeks a permanent injunction against the defendants, costs and attorney fees, statutory damages of up to $150,000, and a trial by jury.</p>
<p>It is much more likely, however, that Comcast will hand over the subscribers&#8217; details and a cash settlement will be reached in private.</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=101613
title: Media Companies Track Pirated Downloads For Marketing Purposes
uri: Media-Companies-Track-Pirated-Downloads-For-Marketing-Purposes
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Xlowu68GcaY/
content:
<p><a href="media/40bef039.monetizebt.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/monetizebt.png"><img src="media/40bef039.monetizebt.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/monetizebt.png" alt="monetizebt" width="222" height="228" class="alignright size-full wp-image-101686"></a>When major movie and TV companies discuss piracy they often mention the massive losses incurred as a result of unauthorized downloads and streams. </p>
<p>However, this unofficial market also offers a valuable pool of publicly available data on the media consumption habits of a relatively young generation. </p>
<p>Many believe that piracy is in part a market signal showing rightsholders what consumers want. This makes piracy statistics key business intelligence, which many large companies already actively use. </p>
<p>Netflix Vice President of Content Acquisition Kelly Merryman, for example, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-uses-pirate-sites-to-determine-what-shows-to-buy-130914/">previously said</a> that their offering is partly based on what shows do well on BitTorrent networks and other pirate sites.</p>
<p>One of the companies very active on the business intelligence side is <a href="http://truoptik.com/">Tru Optik</a>. Unlike other monitoring outfits the company does not collect info on torrent users for legal campaigns or other enforcement purposes. </p>
<p>&#8220;[Tracking users for lawsuits] is a worthless business model and we feel there is more value in helping content owners better understand consumers so they can monetize their attention than suing them,&#8221; Tru Optik CEO Andre Swanston tells TF.</p>
<p>After tracking BitTorrent downloads for several years, today the company <a href="http://truoptik.com/digital-media-unmonetized-demand-and-peer-to-peer-file-sharing-report-2014">released</a> a partial summary of the 2014 piracy landscape. According to its statistics torrent users shared 18 billion files last year, with movies and TV-shows accounting for half of them. </p>
<p>The results offer insight into what&#8217;s popular on BitTorrent and where downloaders are based. Game of Thrones is listed as the most downloaded TV-show, for example, and Minecraft tops the gaming list. The United States harbors the most pirates according to the data, followed by Brazil and the UK.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/04956530.billionbt.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/billionbt.jpg"><img src="media/04956530.billionbt.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/billionbt.jpg" alt="billionbt" width="774" height="772" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-101614"></a></center></p>
<p>Tru Optik is using this pirate consumption data to help media companies make better business decisions. Piracy signals demand for a product and this data can be used to optimize legal offerings. </p>
<p>&#8220;P2P users are some of the most important and influential consumers in the world. P2P consumption is also the best leading indicator of demand for media. If no one torrents your content that means pretty much it&#8217;s irrelevant to consumers between age 18 and 40,&#8221; Swanston says. </p>
<p>&#8220;At the end of the day young P2P users trend more educated, more affluent, more likely to have a child and spend far more of their disposable income on media and entertainment than non P2P users,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>The gathered data also allows the company to direct tailored ads at P2P users based on their IP-addresses. Hypothetically, this means that a Game of Thrones downloader can be targeted with an ad for a discounted HBO subscription the week before a new season starts.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/4c5b570b.tru-monetize.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tru-monetize.jpg"><img src="media/4c5b570b.tru-monetize.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tru-monetize.jpg" alt="tru-monetize" width="724" height="407" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-101615"></a></center></p>
<p>This positive approach is working well, according to the company. Swanston says that several of the top studios are already on board with the program, and no client has ever asked about enforcement options.</p>
<p>&#8220;Several of the world’s top producers of original television and movie content have already started using our audience insight and measurement to drive strategic decisions on millennial facing content production, international licensing of content and evaluating new ways to distribute their content,&#8221; Swanston notes.</p>
<p>Tru Optik believes that their approach is much more effective than traditional cookie and social media-based methods. Data comes from real people and allows the company to analyze interest across various titles and content categories. </p>
<p>While not mentioned in the report, there are also downsides to the approach. An IP-address says very little about a person&#8217;s age, gender and other demographic variables, for example. On top of that, IP-addresses can be shared with multiple people, and single users can have multiple IPs. </p>
<p>In total there were 970 million unique IP-addresses identified in 2014. However, it is likely that the number of downloaders is lower. In Australia there were more than 30 million torrenting IP-addresses, which is more than the country&#8217;s entire population.</p>
<p>That said, the relative popularity of content in various countries and various intercorrelations can prove to be an important marketing tool for media companies. They can cater better to the &#8220;pirate&#8221; audience and convert people to paying customers. That could very well be a win-win for all involved.</p>
<p>According to Swanston, it&#8217;s a must. </p>
<p>“Any millennial focused media company, agency or brand that isn’t preparing for a massive shift to OTT and utilizing P2P audience insight in 2015 risks being left behind by their competitors by 2016,” he says.</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=101640
title: Voltage Pics: Suing Disabled Kids For Piracy is Bad PR
uri: Voltage-Pics-Suing-Disabled-Kids-For-Piracy-is-Bad-PR
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/W61PyYYsgwE/
content:
<p><img src="media/d45c68ed.dallas.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dallas.jpg" width="180" height="180" class="alignright">Movie company Voltage Pictures has built quite a reputation in the past couple of years for its approach to those said to have downloaded and shared The Hurt Locker and Dallas Buyers Club without permission.</p>
<p>Rather than take the soft approach, the company has sued <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/?s=voltage">thousands of individuals</a> across the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/dallas-buyers-club-sues-bittorrent-pirates-citing-oscar-wins-140312/">United States</a> and has also tested the waters in Canada, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/dallas-buyers-club-wants-cash-european-pirates-141222/">Europe</a> and Australia.</p>
<p>Litigation in the latter region is reaching a critical point, with Voltage affiliate Dallas Buyers Club LLC (DBCLLC) attempting to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/australians-face-fines-for-downloading-pirate-movies-141022/">force several local ISPs</a> (iiNet, Wideband Networks, Internode, Dodo Services, Amnet Broadband and Adam Internet) to hand over the identities of individuals said to have downloaded the movie of the same name.</p>
<p>The ISPs have been putting up a fight in Sydney&#8217;s Federal Court this week in order to protect their customers and thus far DBCLLC and their piracy tracking partners have been given a rocky ride.</p>
<p>Flown in from Germany especially for the hearing, Daniel Macek of BitTorrent monitoring outfit Maverick Eye was given a particularly hard time. On Monday under cross-examination by iiNet barrister Richard Lancaster, SC, the 30-year-old admitted that he did not prepare his own affidavit.</p>
<p>&#8220;It was provided [by Dallas Buyers Club],&#8221; Mr Macek said.</p>
<p>Since Macek was appearing as an expert witness, the revelation was pounced upon by Lancaster.</p>
<p>&#8220;You provide affidavits and statements in lots of litigations all around the world,&#8221; Mr Lancaster said. &#8220;Is it your practice just to sign what is put in front of you?&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; Macek <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/iinet-v-dallas-buyers-club-piracy-expert-witness-didnt-prepare-own-evidence-court-hears-20150217-13h26r.html">replied</a>.</p>
<p>During yesterday&#8217;s hearing things only appeared to get worse for Macek, as both his expertise and Maverick Eye&#8217;s evidence was called into question. The company provided &#8220;.pcap&#8221; files to the Court which contained timestamps of alleged infringements but when questioned about their contents, Macek fell short.</p>
<p>&#8220;Are you familiar with the information in the .pcap files themselves?&#8221; Lancaster asked Macek.</p>
<p>&#8220;Not in detail,&#8221; Macek admitted.</p>
<p>Lancaster&#8217;s questioning was aimed at casting doubt on the timings of alleged infringements logged in the Maverick Eye system. Were the times logged in the .pcap files representative of when a file was uploaded by an infringer&#8217;s computer to Maverick Eye&#8217;s system, or of a later point when further processing had occurred?</p>
<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t understand this .pcap [file] in this detail,&#8221; Macek said. &#8220;I know how the Maverick software works in general but I&#8217;m not aware of the .pcap [files],&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>The Judge agreed with Lancaster on the importance of his questioning.</p>
<p>&#8220;If the IP [address] switched midway through one of these transmissions it just occurs to me that change would have some impact on your cross-examination,&#8221; Justice Perram <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/pirate-hunter-daniel-maceks-evidence-integrity-under-fire-in-australian-landmark-web-piracy-case-20150217-13hlnd.html">said</a>.</p>
<p>Also appearing this week was Vice-president of royalties for Voltage Pictures, Michael Wickstrom. The Voltage executive said that piracy was eating away at his company&#8217;s profits and had become far too easy. Lawsuits helped raise awareness of the problem, he said.</p>
<p>Under cross-examination Wednesday, Wickstrom denied that the letters sent out to customers in the United States were &#8220;threatening&#8221;, noting instead that they are a statement of facts.</p>
<p>&#8220;There are facts stated [in the letter] that [the customer&#8217;s] IP address was identified [as having downloaded the film illicitly],&#8221; he <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/these-are-not-scare-tactics-dallas-buyers-club-defends-legal-letters-sent-to-alleged-web-pirates-20150218-13i3ld.html">said</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;Any settlement amount that is disclosed [in the letter]; that was the attorney&#8217;s decision and is done on a case by case basis.&#8221;</p>
<p>However, while the company has no real idea of the nature of the people they&#8217;re targeting, Wickstrom said his company had limits on who would be pursued for cash demands. According to SMH, the executive said that his company &#8220;would not pursue an autistic child, people who were handicapped, welfare cases, or people that have mental issues.&#8221;</p>
<p>Some compassion from Voltage perhaps? Not exactly &#8211; the company seems more interested in how that would look on the PR front.</p>
<p>&#8220;That kind of press would ruin us,&#8221; Wickstrom said, adding that &#8220;the majority&#8221; of piracy was in fact occurring at the hands of vulnerable groups.</p>
<p>If that&#8217;s truly the case and any &#8220;vulnerable&#8221; people inform the company of their circumstances, Voltage stands to make very little money from their Australian venture, despite all the expense incurred in legal action thus far. Strangely, they don&#8217;t seem to mind.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is truly not about the money here, it&#8217;s about stopping illegal piracy,&#8221; Wickstrom said.</p>
<p>The case continues 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=101632
title: YouTube Blocks Game Of Thrones Trailer on Copyright Grounds
uri: YouTube-Blocks-Game-Of-Thrones-Trailer-on-Copyright-Grounds
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/8nU5k5-E0So/
content:
<p><a href="media/f805d856.youtubesadsmall1.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/youtubesadsmall1.png"><img src="media/d9d620b7.youtubesadsmall1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/youtubesadsmall1.png" alt="youtubesadsmall" width="200" height="145" class="alignright size-full wp-image-84333"></a>Last year Australian pay TV company Foxtel signed a deal with HBO to become the exclusive provider for Game of Thrones. </p>
<p>This means that the popular TV-show will not be available online through other channels such as iTunes, a decision that may increase local piracy rates. </p>
<p>Foxtel, for their part, sees the move as an important strategy to gain more subscribers. Looking forward to the fifth season of Game of Thrones, which starts this April, the company put up a teaser last Friday. </p>
<p>&#8220;We hope you&#8217;re hanging onto the edge of your iron throne, because Game of Thrones is back&#8230;,&#8221; <a href="http://www.foxtel.com.au/got/whats-on/foxtel-insider/showcase/game-of-thrones.html">writes</a> Foxtel in an airing schedule announcement.</p>
<p>The article on Foxtel&#8217;s official site also includes a copy of the trailer for the fifth season. However, those who try to play the embedded YouTube video are in for a disappointment.</p>
<p>&#8220;This video contains content from Home Box Office (Singapore) Pte Ltd, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds,&#8221; YouTube notes.</p>
<p><center><strong>GoT Trailer Blocked</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/998b41c0.gotblocked.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gotblocked.jpg"><img src="media/998b41c0.gotblocked.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gotblocked.jpg" alt="gotblocked" width="801" height="737" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-101649"></a></center></p>
<p>The Game of Thrones trailer Foxtel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0pLbTXPHng">links to</a> is claimed by HBO Singapore, which means that it can only be viewed in the Asian country and not in Australia, America, the UK or elsewhere.</p>
<p>The video in question was likely flagged by accident as it makes little sense to put geographical restrictions on global trailers, which have the sole purpose to promote the show.</p>
<p>HBO&#8217;s actions are not only a problem for Foxtel and the tvpromosdb channel they linked to, but also for <a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ncr#q=%22This+video+contains+content+from+Home+Box+Office+(Singapore)+Pte+Ltd%2C+who+has+blocked+it+in+your+country+on+copyright+grounds.%22">the dozens of other YouTube users</a> that had the trailers taken down.</p>
<p>While some <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/2w9ulr/game_of_thrones_trailer_blocked_on_foxtel_website/">appreciate the irony</a> of a blocked trailer on Foxtel&#8217;s website, it&#8217;s mostly sad to see yet another example of <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/youtubes-content-id-piracy-filter-wreaks-havoc-110908/">the mess</a> that copyright holders make in YouTube&#8217;s Content-ID system. </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=101744
title: Oscar Nominations Massively Boosted Pirate Downloads
uri: Oscar-Nominations-Massively-Boosted-Pirate-Downloads
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/3Tu5AAa0ReY/
content:
<p><img src="media/7cffd0f4.oscartorrents.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/oscartorrents.png" width="185" height="198" class="alignright">While Hollywood would&#8217;ve liked it to remain a secret, news that the majority of Oscar contenders were available online <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/95-of-oscar-contenders-leaked-on-pirate-sites-already-150116/">just a day</a> after the Academy&#8217;s announcement traveled fast.</p>
<p>In anticipation of this eventuality, at the turn of the year piracy monitoring firm <a href="http://irdeto.com/news-and-events/and-the-winner-for-the-most-pirated-motion-picture-is-.html">Irdeto</a> began tracking dozens of top movies in order to compare the number of downloads before and after the Oscar nominations were made public. Some of the numbers just revealed by the company are eye-watering.</p>
<p>After monitoring from January 1 through February 14, Irdeto found that there was a 385% increase in piracy of nominated films following the Academy&#8217;s announcement on January 15.</p>
<p>&#8220;While Gone Girl was the early frontrunner after nominations, American Sniper took the lead and is currently the most pirated film in the world post-nomination,&#8221; Irdeto reveals.</p>
<p>As the chart below shows, the majority of nominees had download numbers boosted between 161% and 230%, but clearly out in front is Selma with a 1033% uplift.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/ac3e5da0.post-nom-oscar.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/post-nom-oscar.jpg" alt="post-nom"></center></p>
<p>In terms of pure downloads, however, the Martin Luther King movie isn&#8217;t an Oscar high-flyer. Despite the huge boost in interest after nomination day, Selma sits in 10th place well behind piracy leaders American Sniper and Gone Girl.</p>
<p><Center><img src="media/e53d164f.oscar-downs.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/oscar-downs.png" alt="oscar-downs"></center></p>
<p>Of course, the big question now is whether popularity on BitTorrent networks will be mirrored in the final Oscars ceremony. Ranking movies based on downloads since January 15 in the categories they were nominated, Irdeto predicts the winners as follows:</p>
<p><em>Best Picture: American Sniper (1.39m) </p>
<p>Best Actor: Bradley Cooper, American Sniper (1.39m)</p>
<p>Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman (796.7K) </p>
<p>Best Actress: Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl (1.25m)</em></p>
<p><strong>Hollywood&#8217;s own leaks contributed to the piracy problem</strong></p>
<p>While the Oscar-nominated movies now available online come from a wide variety of sources including Blu-ray, DVD (34% combined) and Cams (11%), Irdeto&#8217;s study highlights the problems the Academy has with its own leaks. Handed out to voters, critics and others in the industry, screeners are the most prized source for online booty. And this year there were plenty of them.</p>
<p>&#8220;Hollywood screeners specifically accounted for a substantial 31% of the total illegal downloads tracked between January 15 and February 14,&#8221; Irdeto reveals.</p>
<p>&#8220;Six nominated movies currently unavailable for retail purchase on Blu-Ray, DVD, VOD or legal streaming/download sites saw the majority of piracy coming directly from these screeners: American Sniper, The Imitation Game, Wild, Selma, Whiplash and Still Alice.&#8221;</p>
<p>While noting that not every download is a lost sale, the anti-piracy company still believes that an estimated $40m could have been lost on these titles alone, simply because they weren&#8217;t made available legally to consumers.</p>
<p><strong>Release windows</strong></p>
<p>“Our data clearly shows that the rest of the world is paying attention to the Academy Awards and there is significant demand for new movies to be available earlier, in more geographies and over more platforms,” says Rory O’Connor, VP of Managed Services at Irdeto.</p>
<p>“In the world of internet re-distribution, the window between theatrical release and worldwide market availability may simply be too long, leaving room for pirates to take advantage and offer consumers alternative means of instant gratification. Today’s consumers simply refuse to wait to access these movies through legitimate services.”</p>
<p><strong>The rest of the world</strong></p>
<p>Finally, outside of the United States the top ten countries accounting for the most illegal downloads were Russia, Italy, UK, Brazil, Canada, India, Australia, Spain, South Korea and the Netherlands.</p>
<p>And in what is bound to be yet more ammunition for the copyright lobby Down Under, the Oscar for the country with the highest percentage of piracy per Internet user population goes to&#8230;.</p>
<p>&#8230;&#8230;.Australia.</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=101704
title: AT&T Patents “Fast Lane” For File-Sharing Traffic
uri: AT-T-Patents-Fast-Lane-For-File-Sharing-Traffic
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/aOWiRbMpDok/
content:
<p><a href="media/ec5c8589.att.png" data-original-source="http://feed.torrentfreak.com/images/att.png"><img src="media/a6cfb5d0.att.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/att.png" alt="att" width="200" height="130" class="alignright size-full wp-image-72895"></a>Despite the growing availability of legal services, unauthorized file-sharing continues to generate thousands of petabytes of traffic each month.</p>
<p>This massive network use has caused concern among many Internet providers over the years, some of which decided to throttle BitTorrent transfers. Interestingly, AT&#038;T believes the problem can also be dealt with in a more positive way.</p>
<p>A new patent awarded to the Intellectual Property division of the Texas-based ISP describes a &#8216;fast lane&#8217; for BitTorrent and other P2P traffic. </p>
<p>Titled “System and Method to Guide Active Participation in Peer-to-Peer Systems with Passive Monitoring Environment,” one of the patent’s main goals is to speed up P2P transfers while reducing network costs.</p>
<p>While acknowledging the benefits of file-sharing networks, the ISP notes that they can take up a lot of resources.</p>
<p>&#8220;P2P networks can be useful for sharing content files containing audio, video, or other data in digital format. It is estimated that P2P file sharing, such as BitTorrent, represents greater than 20% of all broadband traffic on the Internet,&#8221; <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/256235649/TorrentFreak-ATT-fast-lane">AT&#038;T writes</a>.</p>
<p>To limit the impact on its network resources, AT&#038;T proposes several technologies to serve content locally. This can be done by prioritizing local traffic and caching files from its own servers. </p>
<p>&#8220;The local peer server may provide the content to peers within the same subnet more efficiently than can a peer in another subnet,&#8221; the patent reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;As such, providing the content on the local peer server can reduce network usage and decrease the time required for the peer to download the content.&#8221; </p>
<p><center><strong>Patent drawing</strong><br></br></center><center><a href="media/40bd8790.attlane3.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/attlane3.png"><img src="media/40bd8790.attlane3.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/attlane3.png" alt="attlane3" width="600" height="694" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-101715"></a></center></p>
<p>The ISP realizes that there may be legal concerns when it starts to serve downloads from its own servers, and notes that some &#8220;unlicensed&#8221; content may be excluded. </p>
<p>In addition to caching files, the patent also describes a system in which BitTorrent traffic is analyzed in order to connect subscribers to peers that cause less congestion.</p>
<p>&#8220;In an embodiment, pieces of the data file may be preferentially retrieved from peers closer in the network or peers having a lower network cost,&#8221; the patent reads.</p>
<p>In other words, AT&#038;T&#8217;s proposal reduces network costs while speeding up the transfers of its subscribers. It seems like a win-win for everyone involved, except strict net neutrality proponents who expect every bit to be treated equally.</p>
<p>Given the big push for net neutrality it is unlikely that the ISP has intentions to test or implement the file-sharing &#8220;fast lane&#8221; in the real world. </p>
<p>It&#8217;s hard to miss the irony here. </p>
<p>The present net neutrality debate first started in 2007 when <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-ordered-to-stop-bittorrent-traffic-interference-080711/">TF uncovered</a> that Comcast was throttling BitTorrent traffic. Those same principles might now prevent a system that can speed up torrents.</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=101775
title: Aussie ISPs Advocate “Three Strikes” Solution to Piracy
uri: Aussie-ISPs-Advocate-Three-Strikes-Solution-to-Piracy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/7w99Li1Htz0/
content:
<p><img src="media/d0591cc5.aus-150x150.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/aus-150x150.jpg" width="150" height="150" class="alignright">After developing a reputation for being some of the most prolific online pirates around, last year Australian citizens were told by the government that enough is enough.</p>
<p>Since years of negotiations between ISPs and entertainment companies had gone nowhere, service providers were told to propose voluntary measures to deter and educate pirating subscribers or have one forced upon them by law.</p>
<p>With a deadline looming, telecoms body the Communications Alliance has now published its draft proposal on behalf of its ISP members. Titled &#8220;Copyright Notice Scheme Industry Code&#8221;, the 34-page document hopes to pacify rightsholders and their allies in government by outlining a graduated response mechanism to deal with file-sharers.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Copyright Notice Scheme Code is designed to facilitate a cooperative industry-led copyright notice scheme through which<br>
Internet Service Providers and the owners of copyright works will work to deter the practice of online copyright infringement and inform consumers about available and lawful content alternatives,&#8221; the draft begins.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Code provides for the creation of a copyright notice scheme under which ISPs will accept reports (in a prescribed format) from Rights Holders. The reports will identify Internet Protocol addresses that a Rights Holder alleges have been used to infringe copyright in online work of the Rights Holder. The reports will request that the relevant ISP notify the relevant Account Holders of the alleged infringements.&#8221; </p>
<p>According to the draft there will be three types of notice.</p>
<p><strong>Step 1: Educational Notice</strong></p>
<p>Warnings received by subscribers for their first alleged offense are designed to be educational. The notice will advise that a rightsholder has observed an infringement while detailing the content involved plus a time and date.</p>
<p>The notice will acknowledge that the account holder is not necessarily the infringer and will contain assurances that no information about the subscriber has been shared with a third party. Recipients will be warned, however, that they are now at a greater risk of being exposed to rightsholder legal action.</p>
<p>Any questions about the notice can be sent to the Copyright Information Panel, an adjudication body comprised of ISP and rightsholder representatives.</p>
<p><strong>Step 2: Warning Notice</strong></p>
<p>Second notices sent to errant subscribers are framed as a warning. Like educational notices they will detail the alleged infringement but will also underline the fact that the subscriber has already received an Educational Notice.</p>
<p>At this stage no information about the subscriber will be passed to rightsholders but will contain a stern warning.</p>
<p>&#8220;Receipt of a further notice may result in a Rights Holder instituting court proceedings against the Account Holder, including a preliminary discovery application to obtain the Account Holder’s details,&#8221; the draft reads.</p>
<p>Any questions about the notice can again be directed towards the Copyright Information Panel.</p>
<p><strong>Step 3: Final Notice</strong></p>
<p>In addition to detailing the alleged infringement, subscribers will be reminded that they have already received Educational and Warning notices.</p>
<p>The subscriber will be required to acknowledge receipt of a Final Notice (via registered letter or popups) and will be advised that rightholders may go to court to obtain their identity.</p>
<p>ISPs will make a record that a Final Notice has been sent to the subscriber but will not be required to send any further notices to an account holder who receives a Final Notice within 12 months of receiving an Educational Notice.</p>
<p><strong>Challenge Notices</strong></p>
<p>Subscribers who feel they have been wrongly accused can file a Challenge Notice with the adjudication panel. An appeal will cost the subscriber AUS$25 but will be refunded if the appeal is upheld. Fees may also be waived if the panel believes that would be appropriate.</p>
<p><strong>Punishments and costs</strong></p>
<p>The document makes no mention of punishments such as throttling, suspensions or disconnections, so they are now clearly off the table. Who pays for the system &#8211;  a big sticking point throughout several years of negotiations &#8211; also appears to be unresolved.</p>
<p>&#8220;Rights Holders and ISPs are cooperatively undertaking further work to quantify the costs of meeting the specific operational responsibilities and processes required by the Scheme and determine how these costs should be fairly apportioned between ISPs and Right Holders,&#8221; the draft reads.</p>
<p>If the <a href="media/57d2b686.DR-C653-2015.pdf" data-original-source="http://www.commsalliance.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/47570/DR-C653-2015.pdf">proposals <em>(pdf)</em></a> in the draft are accepted the scheme could be in place as early as September but the big question remains.</p>
<p>Will entertainment companies also help Aussies to break the piracy habit by providing better and cost-friendly legal alternatives?</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=101702
title: Piracy Settlement Firm Sued Over Intimidating Robocalls and Text Messages
uri: Piracy-Settlement-Firm-Sued-Over-Intimidating-Robocalls-and-Text-Messa
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/M-6V3ZmKvAM/
content:
<p><a href="media/240640ec.textrc.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/textrc.png"><img src="media/240640ec.textrc.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/textrc.png" alt="textrc" width="222" height="182" class="alignright size-full wp-image-101737"></a>Piracy monetization firm <a href="http://www.rightscorp.com/">Rightscorp</a> has made headlines over the past year, often because of its aggressive attempts to obtain settlements from allegedly pirating Internet users.</p>
<p>Among other tactics the company sent DMCA subpoenas to smaller local ISPs in the United States, urging them to reveal the personal details of subscribers.</p>
<p>While the legitimacy of these requests is in doubt, most Internet providers complied. This is also true for the City of Monroe, Georgia, which offers cable Internet to its residents.</p>
<p>Rightscorp used the personal information of the Monroe residents to offer the alleged copyright infringers a settlement. The offers start with a snail mail letter, but if these are ignored things get worse. </p>
<p>In a complaint (<a href="media/d57528da.right.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/right.pdf">pdf</a>) filed at a federal court in Georgia, Melissa Brown and Ben Jenkins accuse Rightcorp and its clients of using intimidating robocalls and text messages to solicit settlements.</p>
<p>&#8220;Once Rightscorp obtains a consumer’s contact information, it commences autocalls and text messages in an attempt to intimidate the consumer into settlement,” the complaint reads.</p>
<p>The victims, who deny having downloaded any infringing material, note that they never gave Rightcorp permission to contact them. On the contrary, after requesting that the letters, calls and texts stop, Rightscorp continued to press for settlements.</p>
<p>&#8220;Jenkins sent Rightscorp numerous emails instructing Rightscorp to cease their calls, text messages, emails and letter solicitations to him and Brown. Regardless, Rightscorp continued to place calls and text messages to Plaintiffs’ cellular and home phones.&#8221; </p>
<p>The complaint accuses Rightscorp of willfully violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which forbids companies from contacting people through robocalls and text messages without their consent.</p>
<p>Brown and Ben Jenkins demand damages for each violation, which may run into the thousands of dollars, and hope that this will also stop the intimidating settlement requests. </p>
<p>This is not the first legal battle Rightscorp has been involved in recently. A few weeks ago the company and its clients were sued for <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-monetization-firm-rightscorp-sued-harassment-abuse-141124/">fraud, harassment and abuse</a> for their controversial settlement scheme.</p>
<p>If the piracy monetization firm loses, it&#8217;s not unlikely that other accused file-sharers will follow the example.</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=103054
title: Pirate Party Becomes Iceland’s Most Popular Political Party
uri: Pirate-Party-Becomes-Iceland-s-Most-Popular-Political-Party
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/_ktd6rI4mzA/
content:
<p><img src="media/8bd18bcb.pirate-ice.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-ice.jpg" alt="pirate-ice" width="180" height="160" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103057">On January 1, 2006, Rick Falkvinge founded the Swedish and first Pirate Party. The party has survived more than nine turbulent years while provoking heated discussion on copyright reform, privacy and freedom of speech.</p>
<p>The party is currently enjoying its second term in the European Parliament and in January 2014 Julia Reda MEP <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-mep-proposes-major-reform-of-eu-copyright-150119/">released her draft report</a> for the overhaul of EU copyright. As pointed out by Falkvinge himself, that fact is worthy of a double take.</p>
<p>&#8220;A <em> Pirate Party representative</em> is writing the European Union’s <em>official evaluation of the copyright monopoly</em>, and listing a set of necessary changes,&#8221; <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/in-europe-pirates-are-writing-the-copyright-law-150104/">he wrote</a> in a TF column.</p>
<p>And today brings yet more news which prompts a second look at a surprising headline. According to a poll carried out in Iceland over the past week, the Pirate Party is now the country&#8217;s most popular political party. For a party founded locally less than two and a half years ago, that&#8217;s an astounding achievement.</p>
<p>Run between the 13th and 18th of March by MMR, a company experienced in measuring support for local political parties, the survey places the Pirates ahead of even the most established of political movements.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.visir.is/the-pirate-party-is-now-measured-as-the-biggest-party-in-iceland/article/2015150318848">Visir</a>, total public support for the Pirate Party is currently riding at 23.9%, that&#8217;s up from the 12.8% reported in the last MMR survey.</p>
<p>The Pirates have snatched the lead from the Independence Party, who led during the last poll with 25.5% but have now dropped to 23.4%. While that is a slim lead of just 0.5%, it is a lead nonetheless, and the gap between the Pirates and other parties is even more pronounced.</p>
<p>The Social Democratic Alliance polled at 15.5% and the Progressive Party now sits at just 11.0%, marginally ahead of the Green Party with 10.8% of the support.</p>
<p>Today&#8217;s results are an improvement over those reported in a separate <a href="http://www.visir.is/the-pirate-party-is-now-measured-as-the-second-biggest-party-in-iceland/article/2015150319483">survey</a> published last week which put the Pirates in a marginal second place. That prompted cautious excitement from Pirate MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is a poll and we are in the middle of the term, so we have no idea if this sort of following will continue, but it is a clear sign that our agenda, <a href="http://www.piratar.is/policies/core-policy/?lang=en ">our core policy</a> is something that appeals to almost quarter of Icelanders today,&#8221; Jónsdóttir tells TF.</p>
<p>&#8220;People are sick of traditional politics and the revolving doors. They are hopefully ready for more responsibility for that is one of our main aims, to create platforms for people to be more engaged via direct democracy. People seem to like that we speak like other people and behave like ordinary people,&#8221; she adds. </p>
<p>Speaking with TorrentFreak, Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge says the results of the poll are inspiring.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is an extraordinary accomplishment. Where we had the proof-of-concept in Sweden in 2009, and additional sparks of success in Germany in the following years, I didn&#8217;t really anticipate a Pirate Party measuring as its country&#8217;s very largest within a decade of founding the first one in 2006,&#8221; Falkvinge says</p>
<p>&#8220;The suddenly-within-reach prospect of actually taking up a prime ministry in the near term shows what you can accomplish when you&#8217;re calling out stale policies and governmental backroom shadiness for what they are. It also shows how the net generation just won&#8217;t stand for the holier-than-thou attitude that&#8217;s still being displayed by an old self-appointed elite toward the young future.</p>
<p>&#8220;Still, to get to this point requires extraordinary hard work, commitment, and dedication. Far more than just congratulations are in order. The Icelandic Pirate Party is an inspiration for the net generation of the entire world,&#8221; Falkvinge 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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103034
title: Exposing Canadian Pirates Costs $11 Per IP-Address
uri: Exposing-Canadian-Pirates-Costs-11-Per-IP-Address
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/REska2bQRso/
content:
<p><img src="media/a212e388.hurt-locker-law.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hurt-locker-law.jpg" alt="hurt-locker-law" width="222" height="148" class="alignright size-full wp-image-29032">More than two years ago movie studio Voltage Pictures took its legal crusade against pirating BitTorrent users to Canada.</p>
<p>After targeting tens of thousands of people in the US, the company <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-isp-defends-decision-not-to-oppose-bittorrent-copyright-trolls-121218/">hoped to expose</a> 2,000 Internet subscribers of Canadian ISP TekSavvy. The studio behind &#8220;The Hurt Locker&#8221; argued that they have a solid case under the Copyright Act.</p>
<p>The efforts led to objections from the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) who demanded safeguards so Voltage wouldn&#8217;t demand hefty fines from subscribers without oversight. The court <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-court-slaps-restrictions-on-copyright-trolling-140221/">agreed </a>on this, but allowed the customers to be exposed. </p>
<p>The only matter that remained were the costs associated with identifying the alleged pirates. According to Voltage these would only be a few hundred Canadian dollars, but Teksavvy claimed more that $350,000. </p>
<p>This week the Federal Court ruled on the matter (<a href="media/2c592307.T-2058-12-reasons-17-Mar2015.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/T-2058-12-reasons-17-Mar2015.pdf">pdf</a>), settling the costs at $21,557. This includes $17,057 in technical administrative costs and $4,500 in legal fees associated with the IP-address lookups.</p>
<p>The total sum translates to roughly $11 per IP-address, which is a tiny fraction of the thousands of dollars in settlements Voltage usually requests.</p>
<p>The Court decided not to award any assessment costs, noting that both parties are intent on disparaging each other’s business practices. Taking claims from both sides into account it concluded that neither party should be rewarded for its conduct.</p>
<p>&#8220;TekSavvy, without justification, has greatly exaggerated its claim, while Voltage has unreasonably sought to trivialize it based on unreliable and largely irrelevant evidence,&#8221; Judge Aronovitch writes.</p>
<p>In the future it would be wise to agree on a fixed rate for linking IP-addresses to the personal details of subscribers before taking the matter to court, the Judge further notes.</p>
<p>&#8220;The best practice, in my view, would be for the rights holder to ascertain, in advance, with clarity and precision, the method of correlation used by the ISP, as well as the time and costs attendant on the execution of the work based, to begin, on a hypothetical number of IP addresses.&#8221; </p>
<p>The verdict opens the door for more of these cases in Canada. The question is, however, whether the costs and the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-court-slaps-restrictions-on-copyright-trolling-140221/">restrictions</a> still make it worthwhile.</p>
<p>University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist, who followed the case closely, believes this troll-type activity may not be as financially viable as Voltage has hoped.</p>
<p>&#8220;With the cap on liability for non-commercial infringement, the further costs of litigating against individuals, the actual value of the works, and the need to obtain court approval on demand letters, it is hard to see how this is a business model that works,&#8221; Geist notes. </p>
<p>Voltage, however, appears to be determined to continue its actions against the subscribers. The studio&#8217;s lawyer is happy with the verdict and <a href="http://business.financialpost.com/2015/03/18/voltage-pictures-ordered-to-pay-22000-to-teksavvy-in-illegal-downloads-case/?__lsa=ce42-b2fe">says</a> the decision “confirms the court’s commitment to facilitate anti-piracy and allow companies like Voltage to pursue pirates.”</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102993
title: Porn Group Cracks Down on Pirate Tube Sites
uri: Porn-Group-Cracks-Down-on-Pirate-Tube-Sites
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ybeuPf23ez0/
content:
<p><img src="media/967d338a.metart.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/metart.jpg" alt="metart" width="275" height="185" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103010">Porn is huge on the Internet, and so is pirated porn. </p>
<p>In common with other entertainment industries adult producers are battling with a constant stream of illegal content. Most of this content is enjoyed via so-called tube sites where videos can be streamed instantly. </p>
<p>In an effort to put a stop to the unauthorized streams <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MET-Art">MetArt Network</a> has decided to take several pirate tube sites to court. </p>
<p>The group has filed ten lawsuits in Seattle, Washington, targeting the operators of Spankbang.com, Pornvideoxo.com, Pornburst.xxx, Sextvx.com and other streaming sites that offer their content without permission. </p>
<p>The site owners are accused of various copyright and trademark violations, as well as unfair competition. According to MetArt the sites hide behind the DMCA while profiting heavily from the illegal videos they host. </p>
<p>&#8220;The DMCA safe harbor provisions have been systematically abused by internet copyright infringers in an attempt to garner protection for pirate websites displaying copyrighted adult entertainment content without license or authority for free viewing to the public,&#8221; the complaint (<a href="media/68ec5672.metart3.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/metart3.pdf">pdf</a>) reads. </p>
<p>&#8220;Under a veneer of DMCA compliance, the owners and operators attempt to hide behind the safe harbor provisions while monetizing the website through premium membership programs and substantial advertising contracts.&#8221;</p>
<p>MetArt points out that the site&#8217;s operators take no measures to ensure that pirated videos stay offline, nor do they enforce a policy to ban repeat copyright infringers among their users.</p>
<p>Instead of taking proactive steps against piracy, the tube sites are &#8220;willfully blind&#8221; to the infringements while using MetArt&#8217;s brand to advertise its services, the adult group claims.  </p>
<p>&#8220;Defendants’ acts and omissions allow them to profit from their infringement while imposing the burden of monitoring Defendants’ website onto copyright holders, without sufficient means to prevent continued and unabated infringement,&#8221; the complaint reads.</p>
<p>One problem MetArt faces is that some site owners hide behind private Whois registrations. The company has therefore asked the court <a href="media/68ec5672.metart3.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/metart3.pdf">for a subpoena</a> against Whoisguard, Enom, CloudFlare and various other service providers so it can identify those responsible. </p>
<p>Through the lawsuits MetArt eventually hopes to recoup damages which can run into the millions of dollars. In addition, they&#8217;re asking the court to transfer the sites&#8217; domain names to stop future infringements. </p>
<p>Whether the adult group&#8217;s arguments will hold up in court has yet to be seen but the cases will be watched closely by the adult industry as well as the major Hollywood studios, who face a similar &#8216;pirate&#8217; steaming problem.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102982
title: Chinese Pirates to Get Free Windows 10 Upgrade
uri: Chinese-Pirates-to-Get-Free-Windows-10-Upgrade
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/t-h5oJUrTGI/
content:
<p><img src="media/b4f20436.microsoft-pirate.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/microsoft-pirate.png" alt="microsoft-pirate" width="225" height="137" class="alignright size-full wp-image-51663">The Chinese are known for duplicating just about anything, from <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/pda/2011/jul/21/fake-apple-store">entire Apple stores</a> to some of the <a href="http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/87772/chinese-copycat-cars">world&#8217;s most famous cars</a>.</p>
<p>Nevertheless and seemingly against the odds, easily copied items are doing well through official channels. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-mpaa-report-china-global-box-office-revenue-20150312-story.html">China reportedly fueled</a> record global box-office revenues in 2014 and even has official Hollywood movies available online <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/how-cunning-vod-pirates-plundered-taken-3-150128/">before they air</a> in the United States, ostensibly to beat piracy.</p>
<p>And today brings yet more good news for Chinese citizens who prefer not to pay for their content. When it arrives later in the year, Microsoft are going to gift free upgrades of Windows 10 not only to those who purchased Windows 7 and Windows 8, but also to those who pirated them.</p>
<p>Speaking from the WinHEC technology conference in Shenzhen, China, Terry Myerson, who runs Microsoft&#8217;s operating systems unit, said the plan was aimed at bringing the currently non-paying back on board.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10,&#8221; Myerson told <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-microsoft-china-idUSKBN0ME06A20150318">Reuters</a>. &#8220;The plan is to &#8216;re-engage&#8217; with the hundreds of millions of users of Windows in China,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>In January this year Microsoft said it would offer free upgrades of Windows 10 to legitimate users of Windows 7 and Windows 8 but this is the first time that pirates will be given an official free pass.</p>
<p>The big question now is how this news will be received in the West. In the United States, for example, pirate users of Windows 7 and 8 will be expected to pay top dollar for Microsoft&#8217;s newest OS if they too want to jump aboard the legit train. That may raise hackles.</p>
<p>However, the fact that Chinese pirate users will get a free upgrade of Windows 10 could open up avenues for Western pirates to masquerade as their Eastern counterparts in order to avoid paying. Exactly how that will play out will remain to be seen, but it&#8217;s more than likely that a &#8216;pirate&#8217; solution will be found, one way or another.</p>
<p>In the meantime many pirates will remain with their current operating system until a stable version of Windows 10 becomes available, whether that hails from China or elsewhere.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Microsoft has confirmed that all pirates, wherever they&#8217;re located, will get a free upgrade.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102973
title: Police Arrest World’s Most Prolific UFC and WWE Pirate
uri: Police-Arrest-World-s-Most-Prolific-UFC-and-WWE-Pirate
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/6Bi2fO8rbhQ/
content:
<p><img src="media/31176dbb.cityoflondonpolice.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cityoflondonpolice.jpg" alt="cityoflondonpolice" width="200" height="82" class="alignright size-full wp-image-71397">World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) events are without doubt the most popular combat-based content available today.</p>
<p>These enterprises are big business. WWE had revenues in excess of half a billion dollars in 2014 and while UFC parent Zuffa is rather more tight-lipped about its financial position, the company is believed to be worth several billion dollars.</p>
<p>Both companies&#8217; revenues rely heavily on TV-focused content. In 2013, UFC-parent company Zuffa&#8217;s revenues were split roughly 58% for PPV events and ticket sales with the remaining 42% derived from TV, sponsorships and various distribution agreements.</p>
<p>Predictably the company has a track record of reacting furiously to its content being uploaded to the Internet and has active programs to remove links and prosecute individuals, mainly in the United States. Today police in the UK have been doing the organization&#8217;s work for them.</p>
<p>This morning officers from the UK&#8217;s Police Intellectual Property Unit arrested an individual said to be one of the world&#8217;s most prolific uploaders of both UFC and WWE content.</p>
<p>Traveling hundreds of miles north to the tiny market town of Coalville in Leicestershire, officers descended on the home of the 55-year-old man.</p>
<p>According to police the man is &#8220;believed to be one of the internet’s biggest offenders&#8221; when it comes to uploading wrestling and mixed martial arts content to both peer-to-peer and user-generated content sites.</p>
<p>The man&#8217;s home was searched and several computers were seized. He was then taken to a local police station for questioning.</p>
<p><img src="media/c7b122d2.ufc.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ufc.jpg" alt="ufc" width="200" height="146" class="alignright size-full wp-image-25323">Upload monitoring by TorrentFreak reveals there are only a limited number of players in the combat sports release game who act alone. There are fewer still who are relatively easy to identify and are located in the UK. We gave PIPCU a name and asked if that person had been arrested this morning.</p>
<p>&#8220;We do not release the name or identity of suspects at arrest stage. This information is only released once an individual has been charged,&#8221; a PIPCU spokesperson said.</p>
<p>In any event, PIPCU are throwing some big numbers around. The unit claims that the individual is responsible for uploading more than 3.2 terabytes of data, which is the equivalent of more than 3,000 videos.</p>
<p>Of course, that&#8217;s just his uploading. When it comes to total videos distributed things get much, much worse. PIPCU estimates that the files uploaded generated in excess of two million downloads at a cost to the industry of several million pounds.</p>
<p>“Today’s operation serves as a clear warning to anyone thinking of uploading copyrighted material to pirate sites. This is not a victimless crime as copyright infringement is costing our creative industries hundreds of millions of pounds,&#8221; said PIPCU chief DCI Danny Medlycott.</p>
<p>“Our team is dedicated to combating criminals ripping off other’s intellectual property and so those who are thinking of taking this path should think twice, as it might result in a knock on the door from our officers.”</p>
<p>Jim Langham, WWE Senior Vice President &#038; Assistant General Counsel expressed thanks for PIPCU&#8217;s action this morning.</p>
<p>“WWE provides many options for our fans to watch our content lawfully – on television, pay-per-view, and digitally via YouTube and the WWE Network.  We will continue to protect our intellectual property aggressively and combat piracy in any form,” Langham said.</p>
<p>UFC Chief Legal Officer Kirk Hendrick said that he hoped that this morning&#8217;s arrest would lead to a &#8220;significant decrease&#8221; in the unlawful online distribution of UFC events.</p>
<p>“We take online piracy very seriously and will continue to work with law enforcement officials around the world to prevent illegal sharing of UFC content,” Hendrick said.</p>
<p>If the individual does indeed turn out to be the person we believe he is, a significant &#8220;brand name&#8221; will now disappear from the UFC and WWE uploads scene during the coming week. That will no doubt disorient some downloaders, but plenty more uploaders exist.</p>
<p>At least 10 different groups uploaded last weekend&#8217;s UFC 185 PPV event, with the majority capturing the event from non-UK sources. Viewers in the UK are able to view events relatively cheaply via the subscription channel BT Sport, but illegal captures from this source are now likely to disappear, at least in the short term.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Still no confirmation from any official source, but multiple lines of investigation across multiple torrent and other communities all lead to the almost inevitable conclusion that the person arrested this morning is known online as &#8216;Sir Paul&#8217;.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102925
title: Aussie ‘Pirate’ Site Blocking Law Could Be Passed This Week
uri: Aussie-Pirate-Site-Blocking-Law-Could-Be-Passed-This-Week
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/589Qe9cZ0cw/
content:
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-96798" src="media/dbb74c88.aus.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/aus.jpg" alt="aus" width="250" height="159">For many years Australia has struggled with a reputation for being a country of file-sharing pirates. Following a period of heated debate, during the summer of 2014 two key piracy-tackling strategies boiled to the surface.</p>
<p>First, in some way, shape or form, copyright holders would get access, indirectly if necessary, to communicate with errant Internet users found to be downloading and sharing copyrighted material without permission.</p>
<p>Pressure built, with the government warning ISPs that they must come up with a voluntary solution to the problem or have one forced upon them. Last month in collaboration with rightsholders, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/aussie-isps-advocate-three-strikes-solution-to-piracy-150220/">proposals</a> were placed on the table. It now seems almost certain that Aussie file-sharers will be subjected to a three-strikes style regime.</p>
<p>The second element involved the &#8216;pirate&#8217; sites themselves. Australian law allows local authorities to easily close down sites in their own territory should the need arise. While that&#8217;s not unheard of &#8211; a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/moviex-bittorrent-tracker-busted-by-australian-police-081204/">400,000 member torrent tracker was shut down in 2008</a> &#8211; Australia isn&#8217;t best known for hosting popular torrent sites. The problem, according to the government, comes from overseas.</p>
<p>Early December 2014, Attorney-General George Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull asked the Cabinet to approve the development of a new legal mechanism which would allow rightsholders to obtain site blocking injunctions against ISPs. And now, just three months later, it is all systems go.</p>
<p>This week the government will deliver new legislation to tackle the problem. Led by Brandis, the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill was today cleared for introduction into parliament. And things are moving extremely quickly.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.itnews.com.au/News/401763,brandis-to-introduce-site-blocking-legislation-this-week.aspx">ITNews</a>, the legislation is planned to be introduced into parliament Wednesday or Thursday with a view to having it passed by the end of the week.</p>
<p>Despite many countries now making extensive use of the process, site blocking itself is highly controversial. In the UK, for example, rightsholders initially have to go court but are then free to add news sites to existing injunctions, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-quietly-block-lists-of-pirate-bay-proxies-150310/">even ones that don&#8217;t directly infringe</a> any copyrights.</p>
<p>So what mechanism does the Aussie model envision? Somewhat disappointingly those details are being kept a secret. The text of the bill hasn&#8217;t yet been made public and even the country&#8217;s ISPs are being kept in the dark.</p>
<p>John Stanton, CEO of the Communications Alliance, the body that proposed the recent &#8220;three strikes&#8221; system on behalf of ISPs, said he is &#8220;disappointed&#8221; that his group hadn&#8217;t been consulted. Some consultation would have of course been preferable, since it is the ISPs who will be expected to put the site blocks into place.</p>
<p>Whether copyright holders have a greater insight isn&#8217;t clear, but the head of the Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association confirmed that he hadn&#8217;t seen a copy of the draft legislation either.</p>
<p>In any event, introducing site blocking to Australian Internet users should be an interesting thing to behold, especially when compared to other site-block regions with different consumption pattern backgrounds.</p>
<p>After years of being treated as second-class content consumers who have to wait longer and pay more for their content, Aussies have become extremely adept at using VPN and proxy services to access legal services such as Netflix. Those same tools can be used to easily evade site bans and recent concerns over the introduction of a strikes mechanism has only <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/aussie-anti-piracy-plans-boost-demand-vpns-150308/">boosted interest</a> in them.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102948
title: Universal Music Hijacks YouTube Videos of Indie Artist
uri: Universal-Music-Hijacks-YouTube-Videos-of-Indie-Artist
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/RrOOABTWxqQ/
content:
<p><img src="media/d9d620b7.youtubesadsmall1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/youtubesadsmall1.png" alt="youtubesadsmall" width="200" height="145" class="alignright size-full wp-image-84333">Day in and day out automated bots detect and report millions of alleged copyright infringements, which are processed by popular web services without a human ever looking at them.</p>
<p>Needless to say, this process is far from flawless, but YouTube’s takedown system is <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/youtubes-content-id-piracy-filter-wreaks-havoc-110908/">particularly problematic</a>. YouTube allows copyright holders to upload their work into a fingerprint database so matching content can easily be detected. </p>
<p>This results in some rather hilarious mismatches, such as a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-flags-cat-purring-as-copyright-infringing-music-150211/">cat purring video</a> being flagged as pirated music. But there are also mistakes of a different order, where original artists are targeted over their own work. </p>
<p>These include Norwegian musician <a href="http://www.lynnemusic.com/index.html">Bjorn Lynne</a> who has had two of his videos hijacked by Universal Music Group (UMG) which is now running ads alongside his work.</p>
<p>&#8220;Can I just state publicly that I hate Universal Music Group. For the second time now, they have hijacked my music and claimed ownership of it in all YouTube videos that include my music, thereby monetizing my music,&#8221; Lynne <a href="media/b6f9917a.lynne.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/lynne.png">writes</a>.</p>
<p>Apparently UMG has the rights to an audiobook that uses Lynne&#8217;s music track &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BISlp85Njts">Kingdom of the Persians</a>&#8221; as background music. This isn&#8217;t a problem, as his music can be freely used as long as the license fees are paid. </p>
<p>However, UMG have entered the audiobook in YouTube&#8217;s Content-ID system, and as a result they&#8217;ve hijacked the ads on the original video. Making matters even worse, UMG also rejected Lynne&#8217;s dispute through YouTube after he explained the situation. </p>
<p>&#8220;One thing would have been to have done this unwittingly, by mistake. But I have &#8216;disputed&#8217; the claim on YouTube, written an explanation and told them about the origins of this music &#8212; then waited the FULL 30 DAYS that the claimant has to process the dispute, only to be told that UMG have reviewed the dispute and UPHELD their claim!&#8221; Lynne notes.</p>
<p>This means that the indie artist is running short on options to challenge the claim (although there&#8217;s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slgldWAsB0M">still the appeal and counter-notification</a>). He could of course sue the largest music corporation in the world, but without a heap of cash in hand that&#8217;s not really an option either.</p>
<p>&#8220;The only reasonable thing to do here, for me, would be to hire a top lawyer to go after them legally. But realistically, it&#8217;s like $350 per hour for a lawyer and a 3 hour minimum for a case, so I&#8217;m looking at over $1,000 just to get something started.&#8221; </p>
<p>&#8220;I feel powerless and I&#8217;m left to watch my music being raped by a media giant, who sits behind closed curtains, ignores the rightful owner of the music and just goes &#8216;Nah, we&#8217;ll take it anyway&#8217;. Screw you, Universal Music Group!&#8221;</p>
<p>According to Lynne this is not the first time his music has been hijacked. The same thing happened in the past with the track &#8220;Mystical Pyramids,&#8221; and it may very well happen again in the future.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> We updated the article to clarify that the Content ID process has three stages to fight a claim.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Lynne posted an update <a href="https://www.facebook.com/41670261867/photos/a.10150273836606868.332777.41670261867/10152750149141868/?type=1&#038;theater">on Facebook</a> a few hours after we published this article. He took the issue to YouTube&#8217;s highest appeal process and that finally freed his videos.</p>
<p>&#8220;I have not had any communication with/from UMG, but what seems to have done the trick is that I used the &#8220;appeal&#8221; process at YouTube after I was told that my original dispute had been rejected by UMG. Going through the &#8220;appeal&#8221; at YouTube is a pretty scary process, because YouTube uses some very strong language to warn you that you may face legal action and/or your YouTube account may be shut down. I did it nevertheless, I was that hell bent on getting UMG to stop monetizing my music and claiming ownership of it.&#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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102919
title: Internet Providers Win Court Case Over “Pirate Tax”
uri: Internet-Providers-Win-Court-Case-Over-Pirate-Tax
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/UbRnUzGuWkM/
content:
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-84245" src="media/7abb2d22.cassette.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cassette.jpg" alt="cassette" width="200" height="150">Over the past several years Belgian music rights group <a href="http://sabam.be">SABAM</a> has pressured Internet providers to take responsibility for online piracy.</p>
<p>An effort to force ISPs to monitor and filter copyrighted material found itself <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/european-court-isps-cant-spy-on-pirating-customers-111124/">stranded</a> in the European Court, but the group didn&#8217;t give up.</p>
<p>In one of its latest attempts SABAM sued the Belgian ISPs Belgacom, Telenet and Voo, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/music-rights-group-sues-isps-over-pirate-tax-130501/">claiming</a> a 3.4 percent cut of all Internet subscriber fees as compensation for the rampant piracy they enable through their networks.</p>
<p>SABAM argued that authors should be paid for all “public broadcasts” of musical compositions. Pirated downloads and streams on the Internet are such public broadcasts according to the group, and therefore require proper compensation.</p>
<p>This proposed “pirate tax” would not make it legal for consumers to download from unauthorized sources.</p>
<p>In their defense the ISPs countered that they are not liable for pirating consumers, as they are mere conduits. ISPs simply forward information without knowing what travels through their networks.</p>
<p>This week the Brussels Court ruled in favor of the Internet provider. According to the court ISPs should be characterized as mere conduits instead of communication tools for public broadcasts.</p>
<p>As a result, the music right group is not allowed to demand royalties from ISPs, which means that the controversal &#8220;pirate tax&#8221; is off the table for now.</p>
<p>SABAM is <a href="http://www.sabam.be/nl/sabam/de-rechtbank-van-eerste-aanleg-van-brussel-oordeelt-dat-de-internet-access-providers-niet-aan">disappointed</a> with the verdict which, according to CEO Christophe Depreter, opposes the general view of the European Court of Justice.</p>
<p>&#8220;The European Court of Justice has frequently stressed that the economic benefit that someone has from relaying works, is often crucial for the decision if this is an act of communication to the public that falls within the exclusive right of the author,&#8221; Depreter says.</p>
<p>The music rights group is still considering what steps to take in response. Next week SABAM will announce whether or not it will appeal the verdict.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102875
title: BitTorrent-Style Updates Revealed in Leaked Windows 10
uri: BitTorrent-Style-Updates-Revealed-in-Leaked-Windows-10
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/sfi-MgQB6M4/
content:
<p><img src="media/a7370be4.microsoft.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/microsoft.jpg" alt="microsoft" width="180" height="100" class="alignright size-full wp-image-73836">There once was a time when one could simply throw a disc &#8211; floppy or otherwise &#8211; into a machine and enjoy software functionality right off the bat. Those days have long gone.</p>
<p>Massive complexity, online connectivity and associated cloud features have given way to a culture of almost continual updates with some component or other requiring a &#8216;fix&#8217; or performance-based software upgrade on an annoyingly regular basis.</p>
<p>While huge technology companies have plenty of bandwidth at their disposal, shifting data around doesn&#8217;t come free. It is relatively cheap, granted, but those bits and bytes soon cause the dollars to mount up. Much &#8216;better&#8217; then, is to try and offload some of that load onto consumers.</p>
<p>It could be that with its upcoming Windows 10, Microsoft is mulling doing just that. Deep in the settings of a <a href="http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-10036-updates-to-the-start-menu---transparency-and-beyond">leaked build</a> spotted by Neowin, the company has introduced settings which give users the option of where to obtain updates and apps for their new operating system.</p>
<p><Center><br>
<h5>Download apps and OS updates from multiple sources to get them more quickly</h5>
<p><img src="media/916a9341.win10-uupdate.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/win10-uupdate.png" alt="update"></center></p>
<p>Of course, this is where distributed BitTorrent-like systems come into their own, with each user helping to share the load of shifting around data and providing excellent speeds, without any single entity (in this case Microsoft) footing the lion&#8217;s share of the bills.</p>
<p>If Microsoft did choose BitTorrent, they would be in excellent company. Half a decade ago it was revealed that Twitter had <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-makes-twitters-server-deployment-75-faster-100716/">implemented the protocol</a> and in the same year Facebook confirmed deploying its own servers with technology.</p>
<p>&#8220;It’s ‘superduper’ fast and it allows us to alleviate a lot of scaling concerns we’ve had in the past, where it took forever to get code to the webservers before you could even boot it up and run it,” the company <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/facebook-uses-bittorrent-and-they-love-it-100625/">said</a> at the time.</p>
<p>But even though Facebook is still <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/private-anime-torrent-tracker-became-essential-tool-facebook-150216/">having fun with torrent technology</a> to this day, it seems likely that Microsoft has its own, more proprietary tricks up its sleeve.</p>
<p>More than a decade ago with BitTorrent in its infancy, Microsoft also began looking at developing P2P distribution. Researcher Christos Gkantsidis published his paper <em>Network Coding for Large Scale Content Distribution</em> which begins with a now very familiar concept.</p>
<p>&#8220;We propose a new scheme for content distribution of large files that is based on network coding. With network coding, each node of the distribution network is able to generate and transmit encoded blocks of information. The randomization introduced by the coding process eases the scheduling of block propagation, and, thus, makes the distribution more efficient,&#8221; the paper&#8217;s abstract reads.</p>
<p>In 2006, Microsoft <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=67453">published</a> <em>Anatomy of a P2P Content Distribution System with Network Coding</em> but by then the existence of a Microsoft equivalent to BitTorrent was public knowledge &#8211; Project Avalanche had been born.</p>
<p>Named after traditional avalanches that start small but gain massive momentum as more snow (or peers) get involved, Avalanche claimed it would improve on BitTorrent in a number of ways. At the time, however, BitTorrent&#8217;s Bram Cohen <a href="http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/20140.html">criticized</a> the project technically and concluded that it amounted to vaporware.</p>
<p>But today in 2015, almost ten years on, things have definitely changed. Although there is no confirmation that Avalanche (or the Microsoft Secure Content Downloader as it was once <a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/256592-Microsoft-Secure-Content-Downloader-Avalanche">described</a>) is behind the Windows 10 update process option, there&#8217;s little doubt that Microsoft will have sharpened its tools.</p>
<p>In addition, Microsoft owns patents (<a href="http://patents.com/us-7639805.html">1</a>,<a href="http://patents.com/us-8375456.html">2</a>) which describe DRM-protected P2P distribution systems which could potentially help to keep any P2P Windows 10 update system secure, a requirement predicted by Avalanche years before.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Avalanche model includes strong security to ensure content providers are uniquely identifiable, and to prevent unauthorized parties from offering content for download. The project also ensures content downloaded to each client machine is exactly the same as the content shared by the content provider,&#8221; Microsoft said.</p>
<p>Only time will tell if Microsoft takes the distributed update route for its eventual release of Windows 10, and whether avalanches or torrents cascade into (and out of) homes worldwide as a result.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102814
title: Secure Pirate Bay ‘Unblocked’ By Most UK ISPs
uri: Secure-Pirate-Bay-Unblocked-By-Most-UK-ISPs
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/nogq_oDmXiw/
content:
<p><img src="media/2a43984f.pirate-bay.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg" alt="pirate bay" width="200" height="207" class="alignright size-full wp-image-53470">Following a series of blocking orders issued by the High Court, several UK ISPs are required to restrict access to many of the world’s largest torrent sites and streaming portals.</p>
<p>The most prominent target of these blocks is without doubt The Pirate Bay. As one of the most visited sites on the Internet it has been a thorn in the side of the entertainment industries for years.</p>
<p>The Pirate Bay was one of the first sites on the UK blocklist and access has been barred since 2012. Or rather <em>should</em> have been barred.</p>
<p>For a few weeks most UK Internet subscribers have been able to access TPB just fine. Ever since the site switched to CloudFlare and made the secure <a href="https://thepiratebay.se">https://thepiratebay.se</a> version default, it has become widely accessible again.</p>
<p>TorrentFreak did a quick round among subscribers of various ISPs and found that The Pirate Bay is no longer blocked by Virgin Media, TalkTalk, BT and EE. At the time of writing only Sky appears to block the site consistently. </p>
<p>As a result, The Pirate Bay&#8217;s direct UK traffic is steadily increasing. </p>
<p>The Pirate Bay is not the only site that&#8217;s widely accessible again. The same applies to the https versions of Torrentz.eu, Rarbg.com, Isohunt.to and various other &#8216;blocked&#8217; sites. For some sites, including Kickass.to and Extratorrent, the results vary per ISP. </p>
<p>The operator of the Pirate Bay proxy <a href="https://ilikerainbows.co/">ilikerainbows.co</a>, which had its own domain name added to the blocklist last week, believes that the unblocking relates to the use of https strict. </p>
<p>&#8220;I believe it&#8217;s because of how CloudFlare works, Simply put when you enable HTTPS Strict on CloudFlare they remove the HTTP Header from the request during HTTPS Connections, thus when they try to inspect the header to a list of &#8216;banned&#8217; websites it won&#8217;t register,&#8221; Rainbows&#8217; operator tells TF.</p>
<p>&#8220;So any site that uses CloudFlare, has a properly configured and signed SSL Certificate and enables HTTPS-Strict under CloudFlare should be able to evade the ban that&#8217;s imposed by Virgin and perhaps other providers,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>What further complicates the matter is the fact that it&#8217;s harder to block The Pirate Bay by its IP-address, as the true location is hidden by CloudFlare&#8217;s network of addresses now. </p>
<p>While it may be harder to block sites, it&#8217;s not impossible. Sky appears to have no trouble keeping sites blocked, although that probably requires some rather advanced and invasive monitoring tools.</p>
<p>TF asked several ISPs for a comment on the issue and Virgin Media informed us that they still comply with the court order.</p>
<p>&#8220;Virgin Media is required to block certain sites by the UK High Court. As a responsible ISP, we comply with court orders addressed to us,&#8221; a spokesperson informed TF this morning. </p>
<p>Virgin&#8217;s comment suggests that the https version of TPB is not covered by the order at all, and that it was previously blocked by IP-address. However, Virgin couldn&#8217;t comment on this suggestion.</p>
<p>We&#8217;ll update this article as more information comes in.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/1675c052.blocktpb1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/blocktpb1.jpg" alt="FCT ty" width="553" height="413" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-87047"></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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103153
title: YIFY Torrents Faces Domain Suspension, Moves to YTS.to
uri: YIFY-Torrents-Faces-Domain-Suspension-Moves-to-YTS-to
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/N6ki3CDdmac/
content:
<p><img src="media/82494202.YTS.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/YTS.png" alt="YTS" width="211" height="91" class="alignright size-full wp-image-100810">Operated by the popular ‘YIFY’ release group, YTS has become one of the most popular pirate brands.</p>
<p>The group releases its movies on various popular torrent sites and its home base YTS.re has also become <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">increasingly popular</a>.</p>
<p>Over the past year YTS gathered fame as the movie source for the &#8220;pirate Netflix&#8221; app Popcorn Time. Pretty much all popular Popcorn Time forks get their movie releases from the YTS API.</p>
<p>This connection further raised YTS&#8217;s profile and turned it into a prime target for various copyright holder groups. Even the U.S. Government chimed in, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-lists-top-torrent-sites-as-piracy-havens-150306/">labeling YTS</a> a notorious pirate site. </p>
<p>Apparently this pressure has paid off. YTS is now being forced to switch to a new domain after being advised by French domain name registry <a href="http://nic.fr">FRNIC</a> that its .re domain is doomed.</p>
<p>&#8220;We got a warning from FRNIC that the domain is frozen and will be suspended by the end of March,&#8221; a YTS admin informs TorrentFreak while announcing YTS.to as their new domain.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s unclear where the complaint originates from, but the MPAA and BREIN would be on top of the list if YTS has to take a guess. The admin is happy, however, that FRNIC informed them in advance so they have time to inform users about the transition. </p>
<p>&#8220;It was very nice of FRNIC to give us more than a week prep time. I see too many cases were the registrar closes an account without warning,&#8221; the YTS admin says.</p>
<p>The MPAA and other anti-piracy groups are increasingly <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-pushes-icann-policy-changes-target-pirate-domains-150227/">pressuring</a> domain name registrars and registries to cut off &#8220;pirate&#8221; domain names. While not all organizations are as eager to comply as FRNIC, YTS doesn&#8217;t blame them for the suspension.</p>
<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t blame them for caving into threats. After all, 10 to 50 USD per year is not enough to warrant the hassle of dealing with lawyers and 3rd party law enforcement bodies. It&#8217;s easier and cheaper to just drop the client,&#8221; the admin concludes.</p>
<p>Despite the unforeseen move, YTS will continue to release the latest movie torrents from its new YTS.to domain. </p>
<p>For its users the implications are limited to updating their bookmarks. The various Popcorn Time forks will have to update their API links to point to the new domain name, but other than that things should work as usual.  </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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103076
title: Received a Piracy Letter? UK Solicitor Will Defend You For Free
uri: Received-a-Piracy-Letter-UK-Solicitor-Will-Defend-You-For-Free
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/hVPaQoTYZwA/
content:
<p><img src="media/43622170.troll.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/troll.jpg" alt="troll" width="175" height="131" class="alignright size-full wp-image-48009">Early March, US-based company TCYK LLC <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/sky-will-hand-over-customer-data-in-movie-piracy-case-150310/">began demanding cash</a> from customers of the UK’s second largest ISP, Sky Broadband. In 2014 TCYK monitored BitTorrent swarms for individuals sharing their movies without permission and eventually forced Sky to hand over the alleged file-sharers&#8217; personal details.</p>
<p>Virgin Media customers were targeted by an almost identical wave of letters shortly after, this time sent by well-known copyright troll outfit Mircom. Representing several overseas porn companies, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/virgin-customers-targeted-in-new-porn-piracy-shakedown-150314/">Mircom also want cash</a> to make supposed lawsuits go away.</p>
<p>This week the latter case provided a sinister twist. After TF revealed that Mircom was trying to hide its identity from its domain WHOIS, a reader reported the company to domain registry Nominet. Soon after Mircom.co.uk revealed its true operator to be <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/?s=goldeneye">GoldenEye International</a>, another copyright troll outfit that had  featured in previous UK cases. Emails currently being sent to letter recipients also confirm that GoldenEye are handling their claims.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/54001cef.mircom-whois.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mircom-whois.png" alt="mircom-whois"></center></p>
<p>The apparent murkiness of these cases only adds to the anxiety of letter recipients, but today they have some good news. Michael Coyle of Southampton-based <a href="http://www.lawdit.co.uk/">Lawdit Solicitors</a> informs TorrentFreak he will give his time for free to defend those accused.</p>
<p>Coyle is one of the most experienced UK-based solicitors in the file-sharing arena. Since 2008 he has spoken with or acted for more than 700 individuals who have received so-called Letters of Claim, including those involved in the infamous <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/?s=acs%3Alaw">ACS:Law case</a> that ended with solicitor Andrew Crossley being <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/acslaw-anti-piracy-lawyer-suspended-for-2-years-120116/">severely disciplined</a>.</p>
<p>Coyle says he expected that affair to signal the end of &#8216;trolling&#8217; in the UK but recent events have sadly proven him wrong.</p>
<p>&#8220;I am a Copyright Solicitor and regularly enforce copyright where it has been infringed. People should respect the copyright of third parties. However, are some copyright holders abusing the great British public?&#8221; he questions.</p>
<p>The general consensus to that proposition is yes, most likely. And according to Coyle there is serious money involved.</p>
<p>&#8220;The amounts are quite staggering. In the most recent campaign 2500 letters were sent out. Typical sums demanded are in the range of £500 to £1000. If everyone pays say £700.00 this would generate £1,750,000 which is not bad even for the porn industry.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;The tactic is to scare people into paying the sums by threatening to issue court proceedings. If this does not work, proceedings are not normally issued,&#8221; says Coyle quoting Justice Arnold who dealt with previous cases.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is because the economic model for speculative invoicing means that it is more profitable to collect monies from those who pay rather than incur substantial costs in pursuing those who do not pay in court. Where proceedings are issued, they are not pursued if a default judgment cannot be obtained.&#8221;</p>
<p>By now this strategy is relatively common knowledge to those following these cases, but for those targeted the experience can be a painful one.</p>
<p>&#8220;The whole process is indiscriminate and causes immense worry and suffering. It&#8217;s frustrating and brings the whole concept of protecting your copyright in to disrepute,&#8221; Coyle says.</p>
<p>So, with this in mind, he&#8217;s stepping up to help level the playing field.</p>
<p>&#8220;I’ve decided to act [by offering time for free] and hopefully my small input along with consumer groups can persuade the Courts to prevent such conduct. However I suspect that it will require parliament to effect any change,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>So, faced with the dilemma of whether to go it alone, pay up, or seek legal advice, those in receipt of a letter can now take the latter option for free, albeit it with a minor string attached.</p>
<p>Coyle is a regular runner of the London Marathon and has raised thousands for children&#8217;s charities while doing so. If people want his help in these cases they&#8217;re going to have to get generous via this year&#8217;s donation page, <a href="http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserPage.action?userUrl=MichaelCoyle&#038;pageUrl=5">located here</a>.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a rare thing to be able to fight trolls and support a charity all at once so anyone with a desire to contribute to the fun <a href="http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserPage.action?userUrl=MichaelCoyle&#038;pageUrl=5">is invited to do so</a>, letter recipient or not.</p>
<p><em>Michael Coyle can be contacted on michael.coyle[at]lawdit.co.uk.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102422
title: Vuze Speeds Up Torrent Downloads Through “Swarm Merging”
uri: Vuze-Speeds-Up-Torrent-Downloads-Through-Swarm-Merging
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/mHJAxZ9b-r4/
content:
<p><img src="media/8f7035ef.Vuze_bw_logo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/Vuze_bw_logo.png" alt="Vuze_bw_logo" width="222" height="106" class="alignright size-full wp-image-91380"><a href="http://www.vuze.com/">Vuze</a> is one of the most recognized BitTorrent brands. The client is used by millions of people each day and has a steadily growing user-base.</p>
<p>In recent years Vuze’s BitTorrent client has evolved into an all-in-one download solution, with <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/vuze-reinvents-its-bittorrent-client-081013/">built-in search</a>, DVD-burning capabilities and <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/vuze-integrates-with-itunes-xbox-360-and-ps3-090323/">device integration</a></p>
<p>While it&#8217;s certainly not the most lightweight client around, Vuze has some interesting options for more demanding BitTorrent users. With the latest <a href="http://blog.vuze.com/2015/03/03/vuze-5-6-officially-live-read-features-updates/">5.6 release</a> the new &#8220;<a href="http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Swarm_Merging">swarm merging</a>&#8221; feature stands out.</p>
<p>The new feature allows users to find duplicate files shared elsewhere via BitTorrent, and combines the seeds and peers from multiple sources. </p>
<p>&#8220;Vuze automatically detects when two or more of your incomplete downloads share one or more files of identical size and will attempt to merge the torrent swarms to download the file faster or, possibly, complete an existing file with bad availability,&#8221; Vuze explains.</p>
<p>For example, if you download a copy of LibreOffice, Vuze can search for torrents that have the same files and combine these swarms. This is particularly useful when a torrent has no seeds or very few active ones.</p>
<p>Below is a screenshot of one download being pulled from two swarms. In this case it&#8217;s downloading 1.2MB per second from the original torrent and an additional 1.0MB per second from the merged swarm.</p>
<p><center><strong>A merged swarm</strong><br></br></center><center><img src="media/c7011203.SwarmMergeEx4.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/SwarmMergeEx4.png" alt="SwarmMergeEx4" width="873" height="195" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103121"></center></p>
<p>The merging feature makes use of Vuze&#8217;s <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/use-dht-for-a-youtube-like-bittorrent-content-discovery-journey-121027/">swarm discovery tool</a> and finds files through the Distributed Hash Table (DHT). It&#8217;s relatively primitive and based on file-sizes, but can be a life-safer nonetheless.</p>
<p>Another new feature that&#8217;s worth mentioning is improved support for the anonymous <a href="https://geti2p.net/en/">I2P network</a>. While not mentioned in the official 5.6 release announcement, users who download a torrent with an I2P tracker are now prompted to install the corresponding plugin. </p>
<p><center><strong>I2P plug</strong><br></br></center><center><img src="media/3695e12b.i2pvuze.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/i2pvuze.png" alt="i2pvuze" width="413" height="246" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103128"></center></p>
<p>This I2P plug will likely increase the number of users on the network, increasing the download speeds as well. Vuze believes that it makes sense to support I2P as many of its users are interested in communicating anonymously.</p>
<p>&#8220;I2P is used by many people who care about their privacy: activists, journalists, as well as the average person. The Vuze user can fall into all of these categories,&#8221; a Vuze spokesperson informs TF. </p>
<p>The latest stable release of Vuze for Mac, Linux and Windows is available at the <a href="http://www.vuze.com/">official website</a>. More details on the swarm merging feature can be found in the <a href="http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Swarm_Merging">Vuze wiki</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103100
title: Strike: Public Tracker & DHT Searches Presented Cleanly
uri: Strike-Public-Tracker-DHT-Searches-Presented-Cleanly
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/sySNry2Kfj8/
content:
<p><img src="media/84a48043.strikelogo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/strikelogo.jpg" alt="strikelogo" width="172" height="144" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103132">There are dozens of torrent site engines online today but to attract our attention new entrants have to stand out from the crowd by doing things somewhat differently.</p>
<p>Strike has only been online for a few days but it certainly fits that billing in a number of ways, despite its plain appearance.</p>
<p><strong>Indexing </strong></p>
<p>Firstly, and in common with many other sites, Strike indexes public torrents. Creator <a href="http://blog.andrew.im/">Andrew Sampson</a> informs TorrentFreak that his engine indexes all available public trackers, which is clearly a good start for a site of this type. However, Strike boosts its indexes by also scraping BitTorrent&#8217;s Distributed Hash Table. DHT search engines have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/btdigg-the-first-trackerless-torrent-search-engine-110223/">appeared in the past</a> but as far as we know, Strike is the first site to utilize both sets of resources.</p>
<p>We have covered <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrents-future-dht-pex-and-magnet-links-explained-091120/">DHT in detail</a> in the past, but Sampson offers a quick refresher.</p>
<p>&#8220;DHT basically is a second P2P protocol aiming to replace trackers. It stores pairs of info hashes and updates the swarm if it receives announce messages. When it comes to DHT every [torrent] client is announcing themselves as being present. Because of this I&#8217;m able to scrape millions of torrents in a decentralized manner; not having to rely on trackers themselves,&#8221; the dev told TF.</p>
<p><img src="media/d39064b3.strike2.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/strike2.png" alt="strike2" width="650" height="267" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103123"> </p>
<p>&#8220;My scraper can query DHT with the respect to an info hash and doesn&#8217;t have to use a tracker or know a peer that is part of the swarm before. If one of the peers it contacts supports the sharing of metadata it only needs the info to retrieve the .torrent file from the swarm. This is what effectively puts this search engine ahead of everything else.&#8221;</p>
<p>In order to get information on torrents, Strike&#8217;s DHT &#8220;scraper&#8221; behaves like a regular torrent client, connecting to swarms and exchanging a few bytes with other peers. This enables it to gain access to all the peers in the swarm and the data they have.</p>
<p>&#8220;It bounces around from infohash to infohash scraping up meta data, writing it to disk where it&#8217;s queued up to be stored in the database. It&#8217;s highly bandwidth and hardware intensive, (I have 5 servers constantly working on it) But the end results are millions of torrents for end users to search through quickly,&#8221; Sampson says.</p>
<p><strong>Search</strong></p>
<p><img src="media/c36174e9.qtbot.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/qtbot.jpg" alt="qtbot" width="180" height="202" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103126">The project also has an interesting approach to search and related results which grew out of <a href="http://codeusa.net/qtbot/">QTBot</a>, an AI tool originally written for Skype.</p>
<p>&#8220;Her job was to not only learn to be your personal assistant or friends, but to do sentiment analysis to determine the best course for keeping a group conversation lively,&#8221; Sampson explains.</p>
<p>&#8220;I saw this technology as going to waste, for a while I thought about a better way to apply it and the obvious thing was always to build a search engine of some sort. Well, after one too many fake download button clicks with malware were forced down my pipe it was obvious what kind it was going to be.&#8221;</p>
<p>Within Strike, QTBot caches common terms and phrases to see which results it should present first. &#8216;She&#8217; recognizes that high seeder counts are important but also considers other factors, including whether to present the latest version of a release if users search for them enough. </p>
<p><strong>Presentation</strong></p>
<p>No doubt about it, Strike is one of the cleanest, most tidy torrent sites around. There is no clutter in the interface and strictly no ads.</p>
<p>&#8220;From the start I knew this would be a completely non-profit project, so sorry to all users, but there won’t be any hot singles in your area or fake download buttons filled with malware. I wanted to offer the cleanest experience I could for users while also keeping them safe,&#8221; Sampson notes.</p>
<p>Clicking on search results brings up a details page which reveals all content inside each torrent, useful in the unlikely event a user is presented with a suspect file. Files can then be accessed via a torrent or magnet link, with RSS and Twitter announcing options for those that way inclined. </p>
<p><img src="media/36fc8c4b.strike1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/strike1.png" alt="strike1" width="650" height="393" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103117"></p>
<p><strong>Overall</strong></p>
<p>In a sea of advertising, pop ups and irrelevant results, Strike certainly stands out as one of the cleanest torrent sites around. Those looking for the most comprehensive sets of results on the rarest of content might be a little disappointed, but most things even moderately mainstream are well catered for.</p>
<p>Having both DHT and public tracker indexing makes this site unique while its <a href="https://getstrike.net/torrents/help/">no logging policy</a> and <a href="https://getstrike.net/api/">dev-friendly API</a> add icing to the cake.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102984
title: SXSW 2015 on BitTorrent: 8.42 GB of Free Music
uri: SXSW-2015-on-BitTorrent-8-42-GB-of-Free-Music
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/whzR9HS2ZuE/
content:
<p><img src="media/0be8386e.sxsw2015.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/sxsw2015.jpg" alt="sxsw2015" width="250" height="149" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103103">Since 2005 the <a href="http://www.sxsw.com/music">SXSW music</a> festival has published thousands of DRM-free tracks from participating artists. </p>
<p>For some of the first releases the festival organizers created the torrents for the artist showcases themselves, but since 2008 this task has been in the hands of the public.</p>
<p>In 2014 SXSW replaced the MP3 files with Soundcloud links, which complicated the archiving process. Luckily, this year all of the regular SXSW showcase MP3s are freely available again on the festival site for sampling purposes.</p>
<p>In common with previous years, Ben Stolt has taken the time and effort to upload all of the MP3s onto BitTorrent with proper ID3 tags. The 2015 release is out now and comes in <a href="http://www.sxswtorrent.com/2015">two torrents</a> containing 1,291 tracks.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s 8.42 gigabytes of free music in total, which is a new record.</p>
<p>&#8220;These torrents include tracks that can be previewed on the SXSW website for SXSW 2015. This year&#8217;s includes 1,291 files totaling 8.42GB, making it the largest to date,&#8221; Stolt notes.</p>
<p>All the tracks released for the previous editions are also still <a href="http://www.sxswtorrent.com/">available</a> for those people who want to fill up their MP3 players without having to invest thousands of dollars. The 2005 &#8211; 2015 archives now total more than 55 gigabytes.</p>
<p>Every year SXSW torrents are a great success, with many thousands of music aficionados downloading gigabytes of free music across virtually every genre from both established acts and upcoming bands. </p>
<p>This year’s SXSW music festival is currently underway in Austin, Texas and ends tomorrow. The torrents, however, are expected to live on for as long as there are people sharing. </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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103090
title: Guide: How File-Sharers Can Ruin Their Online Privacy
uri: Guide-How-File-Sharers-Can-Ruin-Their-Online-Privacy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/OeTpJS09MAo/
content:
<p><img src="media/d8e50015.unmasked.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/unmasked.jpg" alt="unmasked" width="180" height="135" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103173">Every single day one can hear do-gooders banging on endlessly about staying private on the Internet. It&#8217;s all encryption this and Edward Snowden that. Ignore them. They&#8217;re lunatics involved in a joint Illuminati / Scientologist conspiracy.</p>
<p>No, what Internet users need is a more care-free approach to online surveillance, one that allows them to relax into a zen-like state of blissful ignorance, free from the &#8220;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes">Five Eyes</a>&#8221; rantings of Kim Dotcom. </p>
<p>And there are plenty of real people already following this advice. Real events reported here on TF (and investigated by us over the past few months) have shown us that while operating in the world of file-sharing (especially if that involves releasing content or running a tracker) it is absolutely vital to lay down an easily followed trail of information. Here are some golden rules for doing just that.</p>
<p><strong>Naming convention</strong></p>
<p>If at all possible, file-sharers should incorporate their real-life names into their online nickname. Dave Mark Robinson should become DaveR at a minimum, but for greater effect DaveMR should be used. As adding in a date of birth allows significant narrowing down of identities, DaveMR1982 would be a near perfect choice.</p>
<p>This secret codename can then be used on any torrent site, but for best effect it should be used across multiple trackers at once so the user is more easily identified. But let&#8217;s not think too narrowly here.</p>
<p>As an added bonus, Dave should also ensure that the same nickname is used on sites that have absolutely nothing to do with his file-sharing. EBay profiles and YouTube accounts are perfect candidates, with the latter carrying some personally identifying videos, if at all possible. That said, Dave would be selling himself short if he didn&#8217;t also use the same names on&#8230;..</p>
<p><strong>Social media</strong></p>
<p>If Dave doesn&#8217;t have an active Facebook account which is easily linked to his file-sharing accounts, he is really missing out. Twitter is particularly useful when choosing the naming convention highlighted above since nicknames can often be cross-referenced with real names on Facebook, especially given the effort made in the previous section.</p>
<p>In addition to all the regular personal and family information readily input by people like Dave, file-sharing Facebook users really need to make sure they put up clear pictures of themselves and then &#8216;like&#8217; content most closely related to the stuff they&#8217;re uploading. &#8216;Liking&#8217; file-sharing related tools such as uTorrent is always recommended.</p>
<p><strong>File-sharing sites</strong></p>
<p>When DaveMR1982 signs up to (or even starts to run) a torrent site it&#8217;s really important that he uses an easy to remember password, ideally one used on several other sites. This could be a pet&#8217;s name, for example, but only if that pet gets a prominent mention on Facebook. Remember: make it easy for people, it saves so much time!</p>
<p>Dave&#8217;s participation in site forums is a must too. Ideally he will speak a lot about where he lives and his close family, as with the right care these can be easily cross-referenced with the information he previously input into Facebook. Interests and hobbies are always great topics for public discussion as these can be matched against items for sale on eBay, complete with item locations for added ease.</p>
<p>Also, Dave should never use a VPN if he wants his privacy shattered, with the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">no-log type</a> a particular no-go. In the event he decides to use a seedbox he should pay for it himself using his own PayPal account, but only if that&#8217;s linked to his home address and personal bank account. Remember, bonus points for using the same nickname as earlier when signing up at the seedbox company!</p>
<p><strong>Make friends and then turn them into enemies</strong></p>
<p>Great friendships can be built on file-sharing sites but in order to maximize the risks of a major privacy invasion, personal information must be given freely to these almost complete strangers whenever possible.</p>
<p>In an ideal world, trusting relationships should be fostered with online &#8216;friends&#8217; and then allowed to deteriorate into chaos amid a petty squabble, something often referred to in the torrent scene as a &#8220;tracker drama&#8221;. With any luck these people will discard friendships in an instant and spill the beans on a whim.</p>
<p><strong>Domain registration</strong></p>
<p>Under no circumstances should Dave register his domains with a protected WHOIS as although they can be circumvented, they do offer some level of protection. Instead (and to comply with necessary regulations) Dave should include his real home address and telephone number so he is easily identified.</p>
<p>If for some crazy reason that isn&#8217;t possible and Dave is forced to WHOIS-protect his domain, having other non-filesharing sites on the same server as his file-sharing site is always good for laying down breadcrumbs for the anti-privacy police. If the domains of those other sites don&#8217;t have a protected WHOIS, so much the better. Remember, make sure the address matches the home location mentioned on Facebook and the items for sale on eBay!</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
<p>As the above shows, with practice it&#8217;s easy to completely compromise one&#8217;s privacy, whether participating in the file-sharing space or elsewhere. In the above guide we&#8217;ve simply cited some genuine real-life techniques used by people reported in previous TF articles published during the last year, but if you have better ideas at ruining privacy online, please feel free to add them in the comments.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103212
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 03/23/15
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-03-23-15
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/dmCGrOhwGMQ/
content:
<p><img src="media/38ec2ede.interst.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/interst.jpg" alt="interst" width="300" height="212" class="alignright size-full wp-image-102856">This week we have four newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Interstellar 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-pirated-movies-week-030915/">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/interstellar_2014/">Interstellar</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxOhd4qlnA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/exodus_gods_and_kings/">Exodus: Gods and Kings</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1528100/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8YsulfxVI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/into_the_woods_2014/">Into The Woods</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjy5MK1X70">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(8)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/focus_2014/">Focus</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381941/">6.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxCRgtdAuBo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/heat_2013/">Wild Card</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2231253/">5.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fJGbTfFPkM">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fifty_shades_of_grey/">Fifty Shades of Grey</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322441/">3.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfZWFDs0LxA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_water_diviner/">The Water Diviner</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3007512/">7.7</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CkLC4Zr2Mw">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(4)</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> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2310332/">7.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Fv5StfAxA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/paddington_2014/">Paddington</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1109624/">7.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-d-V9jXYDE">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/seventh_son/">Seventh Son</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1121096/">5.7</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXiNkOjM7oM">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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103060
title: “Pay Off Your Credit Card Debt By Ratting on Software Pirates”
uri: Pay-Off-Your-Credit-Card-Debt-By-Ratting-on-Software-Pirates
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/3oLb0Z-AvYU/
content:
<p><img src="media/76fd4240.nopiracy.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/nopiracy.png" alt="nopiracy" width="183" height="155" class="alignright size-full wp-image-83919">We hate to be repetitive here at TF, but the Business Software Alliance (BSA) leaves us little choice.</p>
<p>Representing major software companies, the BSA encourages people to report businesses that use unlicensed software. </p>
<p>If one of these reports results in a successful court case, the pirate snitch can look forward to a cash reward, which could amount to a million dollars per case.</p>
<p><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/bsa-gets-hundreds-paid-informants-rat-software-pirates-140626/">According</a> to a BSA executive the campaign has been very successful. It has resulted in many referrals and a decrease in software piracy rates. </p>
<p>Sounds great, but the way BSA recruits their snitches<a href="https://www.facebook.com/reportsoftwarepiracy"> on Facebook</a> is dubious and somewhat surrealistic. Instead of appealing to people&#8217;s ethics, the software group chooses to frames the campaign as a get-rich-quick scheme. </p>
<p>BSA <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/bsa-offers-facebook-users-cash-rat-pirates-140215/">continues</a> to surprise us with new ads mainly targeting people who are short on money. For example, a few days ago this ad appeared in the timeline of thousands of Facebook users.</p>
<p>&#8220;Looking to pay off your credit card debt? If you know a company using unlicensed business software, file a report today to be eligible for a cash reward,&#8221; BSA&#8217;s latest Facebook ad reads.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/5b4fc1e3.bsacc.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/bsacc.jpg" alt="bsacc" width="509" height="394" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103063"></center></p>
<p>It appears that every time we think BSA has found a new low, they come with a new ad that&#8217;s even more questionable. During the holidays, for example, they also appealed to the fact that many people are short on cash. </p>
<p>&#8220;Money can get tight during the holidays. If you know a company using unlicensed business software, file a report today to be eligible for a cash reward,&#8217; the holiday ad reads, and there are more examples <a href="https://www.facebook.com/reportsoftwarepiracy">here</a>.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/70a05f7e.bsaholiday.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/bsaholiday.jpg" alt="bsaholiday" width="504" height="389" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103065"></center></p>
<p>While the BSA promises a quick cash solution, those who decide to report a pirating company are in it for the long haul. In the <a href="https://reporting.bsa.org/r/report/canada/rewardsconditions.aspx">fine print</a> it&#8217;s explained that people will only get a reward if a successful legal proceeding results in a settlement. </p>
<p>We reached out to the BSA find out more about how many people have been paid since the start of the campaign, but we have yet to hear back.</p>
<p>To be continued&#8230;</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103228
title: RIAA Bites Grooveshark With Record Google Takedowns
uri: RIAA-Bites-Grooveshark-With-Record-Google-Takedowns
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Gr2HX29lt6g/
content:
<p><img src="media/971b8479.riaa-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/riaa-logo.jpg" alt="riaa-logo" width="170" height="173" class="alignright size-full wp-image-15326">It would be fair to say that the relationship between the world&#8217;s major recording labels and streaming music service Grooveshark is a rocky one at best.</p>
<p>Founded in 2006 as a site where users could upload their own music and listen to streams for free, friction with record companies built alongside Grooveshark&#8217;s growth. EMI first filed a copyright infringement suit against the company in 2009 but it was withdrawn later that year after the pair reached a licensing agreement.</p>
<p>Since then there have been major and ongoing disputes with the labels of the RIAA who <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-accuses-grooveshark-of-making-piracy-a-job-requirement-140220/">accuse Grooveshark</a> of massive copyright infringement. Those behind the service insist that Grooveshark is simply a YouTube-like site which is entitled to enjoy the safe harbor protections of the DMCA. </p>
<p>Part of Grooveshark&#8217;s DMCA responsibilities is to remove infringing content once a copyright holder asks for it to be taken down. Grooveshark doesn&#8217;t publish any kind of transparency report but there is nothing to suggest that in 2015 it doesn&#8217;t take that responsibility extremely seriously.</p>
<p>However, Google&#8217;s transparency report reveals that the world&#8217;s major recording labels are currently hitting Grooveshark particularly hard. In fact, between the RIAA, IFPI and several affiliated anti-piracy groups, Google handled 346,619 complaints during the past month alone, with up to 10,000 URLs reported in a <a href="https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10503543">single notice</a>.</p>
<p><img src="media/66f02b27.grooveshark1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/grooveshark1.jpg" alt="grooveshark" width="200" height="104" class="alignright size-full wp-image-42451">While the labels have always complained about Grooveshark to Google, the big question is why the game is being stepped up now. Both the RIAA and Grooveshark tend to remain tight-lipped on such matters, but in recent times Google&#8217;s transparency report has become a convenient barometer for rightsholders to illustrate how &#8216;infringing&#8217; any particular site is.</p>
<p>According to the report, last month those complaints made Grooveshark the 7th most-complained about domain in the world, just one position behind 4Shared, a site the USTR <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-lists-top-torrent-sites-as-piracy-havens-150306/">declares</a> a &#8220;notorious market&#8221;. It should be noted that Grooveshark is definitely not on that list, but there are other reasons for Google to be sent as many complaints about Grooveshark as possible.</p>
<p>Around October 2014, Google tweaked its search algorithm so that sites receiving the most takedown notices were placed lower in its search results. The move not only hit <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/googles-new-downranking-hits-pirate-sites-hard-141023/">torrent sites hard</a>, but also affected many <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/cyberlocker-traffic-plummets-but-not-mega-150308/">cyber-locker type domains</a> too. As show in the Alexa chart below, Grooveshark&#8217;s traffic has also been largely on the decline since October.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/8f706205.groove1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/groove1.png" alt="groove1"></center></p>
<p>While there could be other factors at play for the downturn in traffic, perhaps the most obvious sign that a recent and massive surge in DMCA notices sent to Google is having an effect on Grooveshark&#8217;s visibility can be seen below. Early February the site&#8217;s traffic from search fell off a cliff and is currently just half of what it was seven weeks ago.</p>
<p><Center><img src="media/ba634b7b.groove2.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/groove2.png" alt="groove2"></center></p>
<p>While results are currently being removed from Google in their hundreds of thousands, Grooveshark is far from on its knees. The site services millions of happy users who are currently enjoying a fully redesigned platform which looks and performs better than its predecessor.</p>
<p>One thing is for certain; if the current pressure continues Grooveshark&#8217;s own search engine will work much better than Google&#8217;s when it comes to finding music on the service.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103078
title: U.S. Court Extends Global Shutdown of DVD Ripping Software
uri: U-S-Court-Extends-Global-Shutdown-of-DVD-Ripping-Software
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/jB-YC4XdPZ8/
content:
<p><img src="media/71ee9633.dvdf.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dvdf.jpg" alt="dvdf" width="275" height="178" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103142">Last year the decryption licensing outfit <a href="http://www.aacsla.com/home">AACS</a> launched a crackdown on DRM-circumvention software.</p>
<p>The company sued the makers of popular DVD ripping software <a href="http://www.dvdfab.cn/">DVDFab</a>. It <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/u-s-court-orders-seizure-dvdfab-domain-names-funds-140310/">won</a> a preliminary injunction based on the argument that the “DVDFab Group” violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention clause, since their software can bypass DVD encryption.</p>
<p>Initially DVDFab did not respond to the court, so the order was entered by default. However, after the injunction was issued the company responded in the name of Feng Tao, with a request for the court to revise its earlier judgment.</p>
<p>One of the counterarguments DVDFab raised was that the DMCA&#8217;s anti-circumvention provisions don’t apply worldwide, and DVDFab was promising to no longer do business with U.S. customers. </p>
<p>“It is well-established that the Copyright Act doesn’t apply extra-territorially,” the company <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/us-copyright-law-doesnt-apply-worldwidedvd-ripper-tells-court-140424/">argued</a>, asking the court to quash the injunction or limit it to the United States.</p>
<p>AACS contested the good intentions of DVDFab and showed the court that the software was still readily available to the U.S. public. According to AACS the circumvention software was still being offered and promoted though new domains and services. </p>
<p>For example, new circumvention tools and services were offered from TDMore.com, BluFab.com, Boooya.org, DVDFab.de, and FabImg.net, among others. To stop DVDFab from bypassing the court order, AACS asked for an updated injunction to cover these new products and domains.</p>
<p>This week District Court Judge Vernon Broderick ruled on the motions from both sides with AACS the clear winner</p>
<p>The Judge argues that DVDFab&#8217;s explanations for the continued offering of software in the U.S. are not credible so has ordered the seizure of several new domain names.</p>
<p>&#8220;Tao’s explanations for his continued trafficking of infringing products into the United States—the product is not his, the product was not created &#8216;primarily&#8217; for AACS circumvention, or the product was not intended for U.S. users — is simply not credible. The record overwhelmingly demonstrates these statements are not true,&#8221; Judge Broderick writes.</p>
<p>The injunction (<a href="media/eec9f198.AACSl.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/AACSl.pdf">pdf</a>) bars DVDFab from distributing its software in public and allows AACS to seize seizure a wide range domain names. In addition, the company’s social media accounts are to be blocked and other services including online banks cut off as well.</p>
<p>While the Judge understands that the DMCA doesn&#8217;t apply in other countries he argues that, considering DVDFab&#8217;s conduct after the initial injunction, it will only be effective if it applies worldwide.</p>
<p>&#8220;It was not my intention to sweep within the Preliminary Injunction lawful conduct, i.e. entirely extraterritorial conduct. However, Defendant’s recalcitrant persistence in accessing the United States market makes clear to me that no more narrowly-tailored relief would be effective,&#8221; the Judge writes.  </p>
<p>As a result DVDFab will lose control over TDMore.com, BluFab.cn, BluFab.com, Boooya.org, DVDFab.de, DVDFab.cn, FabImg.net, Woookao.cn, and Woookao.com  which were found to be in violation of the DMCA. Two other domains, TDMore.cn and Boooya.com, were not added as there&#8217;s not enough evidence that they are operated by the software vendor.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the broad injunction will severely impact the Chinese company. Aside from its domain names, the court also ordered payment processors to stop working with DVDFab, which will make it very hard for the company to sell its products anywhere in the world.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103250
title: UK Blocking More Than 100 Pirate Sites After New Court Order
uri: UK-Blocking-More-Than-100-Pirate-Sites-After-New-Court-Order
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/vz31ZEXny1Q/
content:
<p><img src="media/7abb2d22.cassette.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cassette.jpg" alt="cassette" width="200" height="150" class="alignright size-full wp-image-84245">Following a series of High Court orders six UK ISPs are required to block subscriber access to many of the largest pirate sites.</p>
<p>The efforts started in 2012 and the list continued to grow in the years that followed.</p>
<p>In a new wave the BPI, which represents the major record labels, has teamed up with music licensing outfit Phonographic Performance Limited to obtain an order targeting a series of MP3 download sites. </p>
<p>This latest round expands the UK blocklist by 17 MP3 download sites, including stafaband.info, rnbxclusive.se, plixid.com and mp3.li. It brings the total number of blocked sites over a hundred, 110 to be precise.</p>
<p>Nearly all of the newly blocked sites are so-called MP3 search engines. However, the list also includes megasearch.co, a website that allows users to find files on the Mega cloud storage service founded by Kim Dotcom.</p>
<p><center><strong>Plixid</strong><br></br></center><center><img src="media/51426fa1.plixid.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/plixid.jpg" alt="plixid" width="600" height="508" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103252"></center></p>
<p>A few days ago several providers including Sky, BT and Virgin implemented the new changes, making it harder for their subscribers to reach these sites. The other ISPs are expected to follow suit during the days to come.</p>
<p>Thus far the sealed Court order hasn&#8217;t been released to the public but the list of 17 sites was confirmed to TorrentFreak by one of the major ISPs, which preferred not to comment on the latest blocking round.</p>
<p>Because the ISPs have given up on defending their position in court, it is now a mere formality for copyright holders to have a pirate site banned. However, the blocking efforts are not without cost.</p>
<p>Leaked information previously revealed that even an unopposed application for a blocking order costs copyright holders around <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/the-soaring-financial-cost-of-blocking-pirate-sites-141019/">£14,000 per website</a>. This brings the total costs of the requesting parties well over a million pounds.</p>
<p>TF approached the BPI for a comment on the latest blocking efforts, but we have yet to hear back. </p>
<p>—-</p>
<p>The full list of sites that are currently blocked in the UK is as follows:</p>
<p>—</p>
<p><em><strong>New:</strong> Bursalagu, Fullsongs, Mega-Search, Mp3 Monkey, Mp3.li, Mp3Bear, MP3Boo, Mp3Clan, Mp3Olimp, MP3s.pl, Mp3soup, Mp3Truck, Musicaddict, My Free MP3, Plixid, RnBXclusive and STAFA Band.</p>
<p><strong>Previously blocked:</strong> watchseries.lt, Stream TV, Watchseries-online, Cucirca, Movie25, watchseries.to, Iwannawatch, Warez BB, Ice Films, Tehparadox, Heroturko, Scene Source,, Rapid Moviez, Iwatchonline, Los Movies, Isohunt, Torrentz.pro, Torrentbutler, IP Torrents, Sumotorrent, Torrent Day, Torrenting, BitSoup, TorrentBytes, Seventorrents, Torrents.fm, Yourbittorrent, Tor Movies , Demonoid, torrent.cd, Vertor, Rar BG, bittorrent.am, btdigg.org, btloft.com, bts.to, limetorrents.com, nowtorrents.com, picktorrent.com, seedpeer.me, torlock.com, torrentbit.net, torrentdb.li, torrentdownload.ws, torrentexpress.net, torrentfunk.com, torrentproject.com, torrentroom.com, torrents.net, torrentus.eu, torrentz.cd, torrentzap.com, vitorrent.org.Megashare, Viooz, Watch32, Zmovie, Solarmovie, Tubeplus, Primewire, Vodly, Watchfreemovies, Project-Free TV, Yify-Torrents, 1337x, Bitsnoop, Extratorrent, Monova, Torrentcrazy, Torrentdownloads, Torrentreactor, Torrentz, Ambp3, Beemp3, Bomb-mp3, Eemp3world, Filecrop, Filestube, Mp3juices, Mp3lemon, Mp3raid, Mp3skull, Newalbumreleases, Rapidlibrary, EZTV, FirstRowSports, Download4all, Movie2K, KickAssTorrents, Fenopy, H33T and The Pirate Bay.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103248
title: Music Group Wants ISPs to Spy on Customers to Stop Piracy
uri: Music-Group-Wants-ISPs-to-Spy-on-Customers-to-Stop-Piracy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/HLZTvCLDcSM/
content:
<p><img src="media/dbb74c88.aus.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/aus.jpg" width="250" height="159" class="alignright">Following intense pressure from the Australian government, ISPs were warned that they had to come up with a solution to online piracy or face a legislative response.</p>
<p>In collaboration with some rightsholders, last month a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/aussie-isps-advocate-three-strikes-solution-to-piracy-150220/">draft code</a> was tabled by ISPs which centered on a three-strikes style system for dealing with peer-to-peer file-sharers using systems including BitTorrent.</p>
<p>In a response to the code just submitted by the Australasian Music Publishers Association (<a href="http://www.ampal.com.au">AMPAL</a>) &#8211; which counts EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing and  Warner/Chappell Music among its members &#8211; the companies accept that the proposals are moving in the right direction but suggest boosting them in a number of ways.</p>
<p>Firstly, in an attempt to plug the so-called &#8216;incorporation&#8217; loophole, the publishers say that all Internet subscribers should be subjected to the graduated response scheme, not just residential customers. While that suggestion could cause all kinds of problems for businesses and providers of public wi-fi systems, that&#8217;s just the tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p>AMPAL says it recognizes that the code requires rightsholders to do their own online monitoring of file-sharers. It&#8217;s a practice employed around the world in every jurisdiction where &#8220;strikes&#8221; systems are in place. However, the publishers would prefer it if the draft code was amped up to the next level.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Code does not place a general obligation on ISPs to monitor and detect online copyright infringement,&#8221; the publishers write. &#8220;AMPAL submits that ideally the Code should include such a duty using ISPs&#8217; monitoring and filtering techniques.&#8221;</p>
<p>The publishers don&#8217;t elaborate on their demands but even in this form they are troubling to say the least.</p>
<p>While rightsholders currently monitor only file-sharers distributing content without permission, in theory and to meet AMPAL requirements ISPs may have to monitor the activity of all customers. Not only that, the &#8216;filtering&#8217; aspect would mean that ISPs become much more than mere conduits of information, a real problem for those seeking to avoid being held liable for infringing activity.</p>
<p>But AMPAL&#8217;s plans for ISPs go further still. Not only should they be pro-active when it comes to monitoring and warning subscribers, ISPs should also use technology to actively block access to infringing content on other levels.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Code does not require ISPs to block access to infringing material. AMPAL submits that ideally the Code should include provisions obliging ISPs to take such action following provision of the relevant information by Rights Holders and/or following discovery of copyright infringing websites by ISPs&#8217; monitoring and filtering techniques,&#8221; the publishers write.</p>
<p>Again, AMPAL provides no elaboration, but on face value these suggestions will horrify ISPs. The premise is that after being told by a rightsholder that specific content is infringing, ISPs should use filtering technology to stop its subscribers from sharing that content. Difficult &#8211; if not impossible.</p>
<p>Furthermore, ISPs should be both responsive to rightsholder request and pro-active when it comes to the practice of blocking &#8216;infringing&#8217; websites. Who decides the criteria for such blocking isn&#8217;t detailed, but presumably AMPAL feels well placed to do so and that the ISPs should do its bidding.</p>
<p>When it comes to dealing with subscribers, AMPAL is also seeking penalties for those who persistently disregard infringement notices. The current proposals allow rightholders to request the details of errant subscribers after they get caught sharing content three times, smoothing the way for legal action. But AMPAL wants more.</p>
<p>&#8220;AMPAL submits that ideally additional options should be available to Rights Holders in the form of sanctions or mitigation procedures to be imposed on Account Holders,&#8221; the publishers write.</p>
<p>&#8220;Rights Holders are severely limited in the realistic damages that they can recover. Litigation in this area is costly and difficult particularly for the small to medium enterprises that make up a large proportion of all rights holders.&#8221;</p>
<p>Describing the draft code as &#8220;an important initial step&#8221;, AMPAL says that a revised code to incorporate its demands should be implemented in the future.</p>
<p>&#8220;Only with a concerted effort by ISPs, Rights Holders and government can the damaging effects of online copyright infringement be addressed,&#8221; the trade group concludes.</p>
<p>Finally, in its submission to the draft code the BBC expresses concern that subscribers could use <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">VPN technology</a> to circumvent the whole system.</p>
<p>&#8220;The code is ill equipped to deal with consumers who spoof or mask their IP addresses to avoid detection, behaviour that we believe will increase as a result of an introduction of a notice scheme,&#8221; the BBC <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/bbc-warns-of-australians-avoiding-piracy-code/">said</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103310
title: Perfect 10 Ordered to Pay Giganews $5.6m After Failed Copyright Battle
uri: Perfect-10-Ordered-to-Pay-Giganews-5-6m-After-Failed-Copyright-Battle
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Yol3-oFYNrY/
content:
<p><img src="media/85e3d070.giganews.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/giganews.png" width="267" height="149" class="alignright">Adult publisher Perfect 10 has developed a reputation for <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/?s=giganews">making a business</a> out of suing Internet services for alleged copyright infringement.</p>
<p>In recent years the company has targeted Google, Amazon, MasterCard and Visa, RapidShare and Depositfiles, plus hosting providers LeaseWeb and OVH.</p>
<p>Perfect 10 has secured private settlements from several of these companies but has never succeeded in a contested court case. The company hoped that a new suit against Usenet provider Giganews would provide a much-needed victory, but the whole thing has turned into a disaster.</p>
<p>In November 2014 a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California found that Giganews was not liable for the infringing activities of its users and last month Perfect 10 was roundly criticized for <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/giganews-wins-perfect-10-copyright-battle-150209/">multiple failings</a> by the same Court.</p>
<p>“Perfect 10 failed to produce any evidence supporting its claim of direct<br>
infringement,” the Judge wrote, adding that it also “failed to produce any evidence supporting its claim of indirect infringement.”</p>
<p>While that was a particularly poor way to lose a case, a punishing costs ruling handed down yesterday rubbed salt into Perfect 10&#8217;s wounds. The United States District Court for the Central District of California ordered the publisher to pay Giganews $5.6m in attorney&#8217;s fees and costs.</p>
<p>Outlining his perception of Perfect 10&#8217;s business model, Judge Andre Birotte Jr said that the company hadn&#8217;t behaved like a wronged copyright holder.</p>
<p>&#8220;Perfect 10’s undisputed conduct in this action has been inconsistent with a party interested in protecting its copyrights. All of the evidence before the Court demonstrates that Perfect 10 is in the business of litigation, not protecting its copyrights or &#8216;stimulat[ing] artistic creativity for the general public good&#8217;,&#8221; the Judge wrote.</p>
<p>But that was just the beginning.</p>
<p>&#8220;Perfect 10 has never been a self-sustaining business, and to date, has lost more  than $50 million dollars, if not more. However, this loss appears to be largely intended by Perfect 10’s President and CEO Norman Zada, who described Perfect 10 [..] as a &#8216;tax writeoff&#8217;,&#8221; Judge Birotte added.</p>
<p>&#8220;In fact, Zada [said] that he &#8216;needed [Perfect 10] to offset money he made in the market&#8217; and &#8216;needed the loss&#8217; to represent how small businesses couldn’t make money because of piracy on the Internet.&#8221;</p>
<p>Just how far Perfect 10 has immersed itself in copyright litigation is made in clear in the ruling, with the Judge noting that more than half of the company&#8217;s revenues had been derived from settlements and default judgments, with Zada spending &#8220;eight hours a day, 365 days a year&#8221; on litigation.</p>
<p>&#8220;Indeed, Zada admitted that, in the past, Perfect 10 has expressly purchased copyrights from other copyright holders &#8216;because [Perfect10] thought they would be helpful in [its] litigation efforts&#8217;,&#8221; the Judge added.</p>
<p>Also of note is that in many of its cases Perfect 10 criticized online service providers for not responding adequately to its complaints under the DMCA, but in Tuesday&#8217;s ruling the Judge makes it very clear that Perfect 10 is the party at fault.</p>
<p>&#8220;Perfect 10 has a long, documented history of sending service providers inadequate takedown notices under the DMCA that fail to identify specific infringing material, and then bringing suit for the service providers’ failure to respond to deficient DMCA takedown notices,&#8221; the Judge wrote.</p>
<p>While the victory will be sweet for Giganews, the company will be particularly pleased with Judge Birotte&#8217;s recognition of Perfect 10&#8217;s attack on its business model.</p>
<p>&#8220;Perfect 10’s unmeritorious claims against the leading Usenet service provider in the country posed a serious threat to the public&#8217;s access to free and competitive expression,&#8221; the Judge wrote.</p>
<p>In a statement sent to TorrentFreak, Giganews co-Founder Ron Yokubaitis welcomed the ruling.</p>
<p>“This judgment is a complete victory for Giganews, a validation of Usenet as one of the foundational protocols of the Internet, and a recognition of the users who rely on it every day,” he said.</p>
<p>“Online service providers and Internet companies are under assault from copyright trolls like Perfect 10, but we have followed the DMCA since its inception, and are proud to have stood up to the meritless claims of a serial litigator who was hoping for an easy pay day.”</p>
<p>The big question now is where Perfect 10 goes from here. With its business strategy now a record of the Court it seems likely that potential future targets will be less intimidated and settlements less forthcoming. </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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103282
title: Five Cyberlocker Operators Jailed For Spreading ‘Depraved Culture”
uri: Five-Cyberlocker-Operators-Jailed-For-Spreading-Depraved-Culture
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ekpeIZKVNx0/
content:
<p><img src="media/0ad856e6.ryushare.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ryushare.jpg" width="180" height="81" class="alignright">Three years ago file-hosting site Ryushare was a rising star in the so-called cyberlocker scene. Operating healthy affiliate and rewards schemes the site became a magnet for those looking to upload popular content.</p>
<p>After mere months online the site was already pressing the market leaders and by early 2013 was looking to break into the Alexa 500. Progress continued for another year but in April 2014 the site suddenly disappeared without explanation.</p>
<p>Rumors began to circulate that the site&#8217;s operators had been arrested but it took weeks for the arrival of an official announcement. The Vietnamese government eventually delivered the news that Ryushare had been closed down following the arrest of site owner Nguyen Duc Nhat plus three of his associates. Cars, motorcycles, and around $350,000 were seized.</p>
<p>While arrests are not a particularly unusual development in file-sharing cases, copyright issues weren&#8217;t at the heart of the site&#8217;s problems. It transpired that the authorities had taken offense at the huge amounts of &#8220;depraved content&#8221; being made available via the site.</p>
<p>Following the arrest of another individual, five men stood trial in Vietnam this month for their crimes.</p>
<p><center><br>
<h5>The Ryushare defendants on trial</h5>
<p><img src="media/f6b46168.ryushare1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ryushare1.png" alt="ryushare-def"></center></p>
<p>The court heard that the vast majority of the site&#8217;s 803,000 users didn&#8217;t pay a cent to access Ryushare, but around 77,500 VIP members paid between 10 euros per month and 60 euros per year for special access to the service. And it paid to introduce new VIP members to the site, with up to 60% of the sign up fee paid back to referrers.</p>
<p>The authorities claim that this system of commissions, VIP accounts and access to free (largely pornographic) content was the driving force behind the operation and the reason that people took the time to upload so much to the site. And it was profitable to do so, the prosecution said.</p>
<p>The Court was told that since Ryushare&#8217;s inception in 2012, 32-year-old site creator Nguyen Duc Nhat generated profits of around $7m, collected via payment processing company OnePAY. Around $230,000 was paid out to four individuals who uploaded around 18,000 porn titles to the site.</p>
<p>The numbers aren&#8217;t particularly surprising considering the size of the Ryushare operation. According to a <a href="http://www.techz.vn/thu-ve-152-ty-dong-nho-phat-tan-du-lieu-den-ylt42287.html">local report</a> the site hosted more than 11.3 million files hosted on 700 servers hired from companies located in France and the Netherlands.</p>
<p>This Monday the five defendants &#8211; Nguyen Duc Nhat, 32, Huu Hieu Le, 29, Ty Le Van, 27, Vu Ich Nguyen, 30, and Vinh Quoc Doan Van, 32 &#8211; were found guilty and handed custodial sentences ranging from nine months to three and half years. The five also received relatively small fines totaling a few thousand dollars.</p>
<p>But while the original Ryushare operators are now behind bars, the site itself returned several months ago and remains online today. While it hasn&#8217;t yet retained its former standing in terms of traffic, its business model appears untouched and currently charges exactly the same rates for premium membership.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103288
title: Netflix Wants to Make VPN Piracy Obsolete
uri: Netflix-Wants-to-Make-VPN-Piracy-Obsolete
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/MNWWtnxaIt4/
content:
<p><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">After years of waiting, Netflix officially launches in Australia today. </p>
<p>As a result, the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-users-pirating-netflix-scare-tv-networks-140303/">tens of thousands</a> of Aussie “VPN-pirates” who already used the U.S. version through a loophole, can now use it legally in their home country. </p>
<p>While Netflix&#8217;s rollout is a step in the right direction, the content selection will also be somewhat of a disappointment to those who are used to the U.S. offering. Because of complicated licensing agreements Netflix has a much more limited content library Down Under.</p>
<p>For the movie and TV studios <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-cracks-down-on-vpn-and-proxy-pirates-150103/">geographical licensing agreements</a> are a core part of their business. However, it also means that many Aussie pirates won&#8217;t be canceling their VPN subscriptions just yet. </p>
<p>Speaking out on the controversial VPN use, Netflix CEO <a href="http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/03/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-on-the-nbn-piracy-and-launching-in-australia/">Reed Hastings says</a> that the problem can be fixed if the industry starts to offer the same content globally, without artificial barriers.</p>
<p>According to Hastings the VPN issue is a relatively small problem compared to traditional forms of piracy, and relatively easy to make obsolete.</p>
<p>“The VPN thing is a small little asterisk compared to piracy,” Reed notes. &#8220;Piracy is really the problem around the world.&#8221; </p>
<p>According to Netflix the &#8216;VPN pirates&#8217; are willing to pay, they just can&#8217;t get what they want through their local Netflix. </p>
<p>&#8220;The basic solution is for Netflix to get global and have its content be the same all around the world so there’s no incentive to [use a VPN]. Then we can work on the more important part which is piracy,&#8221; Hastings says.</p>
<p>The availability issue is fixable, Hastings believes, although it&#8217;s questionable whether Hollywood is ready to switch to global licensing deals. </p>
<p>Lacking availability is at the root of both traditional and VPN piracy and Netflix hopes that the industry will address this problem. If that&#8217;s done, they can focus on those pirates who simply don&#8217;t want to pay.</p>
<p>“The key thing about piracy is that some fraction of it is because [users] couldn’t get the content. That part we can fix. Some part of piracy however is because they just don’t want to pay. That’s a harder part. As an industry, we need to fix global content,” Netflix&#8217;s CEO says.</p>
<p>Hastings&#8217; comments are in line with the stance of Europe&#8217;s Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip. The EU commissioner previously called for the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/eu-commissioner-wants-to-abolish-netflix-geoblocking-150227/">abolition</a> of Netflix&#8217;s geographical restrictions in Europe, labeling them as &#8220;discrimination&#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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103340
title: “VPN Friendly” Aussie Pirate Site Blocking Draft Unveiled
uri: VPN-Friendly-Aussie-Pirate-Site-Blocking-Draft-Unveiled
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/iBbQIPsPZd4/
content:
<p><img src="media/a48beb7d.stopstop.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/stopstop.jpg" alt="stopstop" width="180" height="120" class="alignright size-full wp-image-81719">During December 2014, Attorney-General George Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull asked the Australian Cabinet to approve the development of a new legal mechanism which would allow rightsholders to obtain site-blocking injunctions against ISPs. Today that legislation was introduced to parliament.</p>
<p>Kept under wraps until this morning, the site-blocking elements of the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 are likely to please rightsholders with their significant reach.</p>
<p><strong>Injunctions against providers</strong></p>
<p>In order to apply for an injunction against an ISP, rightsholders need to show that the provider in question provides access to &#8220;an online location&#8221; outside Australia and that the &#8220;location&#8221; infringes or facilitates infringement of copyright. The location&#8217;s primary purpose must be to infringe copyright, &#8220;whether or not in Australia&#8221;.</p>
<p>Aside from the rightsholder and ISP, operators of &#8220;locations&#8221; (the word &#8216;site&#8217; is not used, presumably to add breadth) will be given the option to apply to become party to any proceedings.</p>
<p>Once an injunction is handed down against an ISP it will be required to take &#8220;reasonable steps&#8221; to disable access to the infringing site. What amounts to reasonable will almost certainly be the subject of further discussion as any over-broad moves could result in collateral damage and bad PR.</p>
<p><strong>Issues determining whether sites/locations become blocked</strong></p>
<p>Currently there are 11 areas that the Court will examine when deciding whether to hand down an injunction. The key issues involve intent, in particular whether a location/site&#8217;s primary purpose is to infringe and the flagrancy of any infringement.</p>
<p>In a nod to BitTorrent and similar indexes around today (Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents and Usenet sites, for example), the Court will consider whether the location &#8220;makes available or contains&#8221; any &#8220;directories, indexes or categories of the means to infringe, or facilitate an infringement of, copyright.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Court will also consider whether the operator of the &#8220;location&#8221; demonstrates &#8220;disregard&#8221; for copyright. In the case of The Pirate Bay, for example, that should be easy to show but for others such as KickassTorrents &#8211; which removes masses of content following rightsholder request &#8211; the line becomes more wavy.</p>
<p>That being said, removing content alone won&#8217;t be enough to save a site from the blocklist. The Court will also take into consideration whether a site has already been blocked on copyright infringement or related grounds anywhere else on the planet. That immediately puts at least <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-blocking-more-than-100-pirate-sites-after-new-court-order-150324/">110 UK-blocked sites</a> in the spotlight.</p>
<p>Other issues to be considered are more focused on the needs of the public, such as whether blocking a resource would be &#8220;proportionate&#8221;, in the public interest, or likely to have a &#8220;an impact&#8221; on third parties. Who will be allowed to have an input into these matters is not detailed but participating in court proceedings could prove prohibitively expensive for smaller groups.</p>
<p><strong>Additional matters</strong></p>
<p>The draft caters for injunctions to have a limited duration, and be rescinded or varied upon application. While ISPs will be expected to spend money on implementing injunctions, they won&#8217;t be liable for any costs in relation to injunction proceedings, unless they wish to take part. Unless rightsholders go overboard or there is public outcry, it seems unlikely that Aussie ISPs will choose to do so. </p>
<p><strong>VPN friendly</strong></p>
<p>While the draft is now up for debate and amendment, changes are reported to have been introduced as late as last week, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/aussie-pirate-site-blocking-law-could-be-passed-this-week-159317/">delaying</a> its introduction. According to <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/no-limits-rights-holders-could-potentially-block-hundreds-of-piracy-websites-in-australia-with-a-single-strike-20150326-1m3y6c.html">SMH</a> the legislation was worded in such a way that VPN providers could have been eligible for blocking if the Court decided they were facilitating infringement.</p>
<p>&#8220;In an area such as this if you are not really specific you end up catching a lot more stuff than you are potentially targeting,&#8221; a source explained.</p>
<p>Of course, the current draft could still scoop up a VPN provider if it marketed itself as a service designed for piracy, but there are few if any that are that naive today.</p>
<p><strong>Overall</strong></p>
<p>As it currently stands the draft appears to have &#8216;teeth&#8217; and the scope to take down any significant &#8216;pirate&#8217; site or service on the planet, at least as far as regular Aussie Internet subscribers are concerned and provided their ISPs have the technical ability.</p>
<p>Another rightsholder-pleasing aspect of the Bill is the lack of limits being placed on the number of sites that can be blocked in a single injunction. While it may make sense to have the facts heard against a few well-known sites in an initial order, subsequent orders could potentially list hundreds of additional sites alongside comment that they are &#8220;structurally similar&#8221; to those already presented.</p>
<p>Also of interest is the continued use of the words &#8220;online location&#8221; instead of &#8220;site&#8221;. This is likely in preparation for new technologies, or perhaps even some of the decentralized technologies already available today.</p>
<p>There will now be a six week consultation period for additional submissions and tweaks.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103342
title: U.S. Government Wins Dozens of Millions From Kim Dotcom
uri: U-S-Government-Wins-Dozens-of-Millions-From-Kim-Dotcom
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/cjRRubYw4ig/
content:
<p><img src="media/9a9629f5.megaupload-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/megaupload-logo.jpg" alt="megaupload-logo" width="250" height="208" class="alignright size-full wp-image-95191">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>Megaupload&#8217;s defense heavily protested the request but was found to have no standing, as Dotcom and his colleagues can be seen as <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-brands-kim-dotcom-fugitive-spies-others-141120/">fugitives</a>.</p>
<p>A few hours ago District Court Judge Liam O’Grady ordered a default judgment in favor of the U.S. Government. This means that the contested assets, which are worth an estimated $67 million, now belong to the United States. </p>
<p>&#8220;It all belongs to the U.S. government now. No trial. No due process,&#8221; Dotcom informs TF.</p>
<p>More than a dozen Hong Kong and New Zealand bank accounts have now been forfeited (<a href="media/c08e2572.forfeitdotcom.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/forfeitdotcom.pdf">pdf</a>) including some of the property purchased through them. The accounts all processed money that was obtained through Megaupload&#8217;s alleged illegal activities.</p>
<p>The list of forfeited assets further includes several luxury cars, such as a silver Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM and a 1959 pink Cadillac, two 108″ Sharp LCD TVs and four jet skis.</p>
<p>The memorandum issued by Judge O&#8217;Grady repeats many of the allegations in the original indictment. It lists links to infringing materials that could be found on the site and claims that Megaupload purposefully obfuscated its illegal intent. </p>
<p>Dotcom refutes these claims as &#8220;Hollywood nonsense&#8221; and maintains that Megaupload was operating legally and cooperated with copyright holders when required.</p>
<p>&#8220;The default judgment is so thick with DOJ and Hollywood nonsense that one might think they drafted it,&#8221; Dotcom says. </p>
<p>The New Zealand based entrepreneur believes that it&#8217;s been an unfair battle thus far, and with his assets now going to the U.S. it&#8217;s certainly not getting any easier.</p>
<p>But while the ruling is a huge blow, it also opens up the possibility to have the case reviewed by a higher court.</p>
<p>&#8220;For the first time we get the opportunity to test the decisions of this Judge at a higher court. Because of the way his previous rulings were designed he made an appeal impossible. But we now can and probably will appeal O&#8217;Grady&#8217;s decision on fugitive disentitlement and forfeiture,&#8221; Dotcom notes. </p>
<p>For now, however, the successful forfeiture request is the U.S. Government&#8217;s first major victory against Megaupload. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Dotcom and his fellow Megaupload defendants are still waiting to hear whether they will be sent to the U.S. to stand trial. The extradition hearing will start early June, after a request from Dotcom&#8217;s lawyers to postpone it was <a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/269380/dotcom-hearing-delay-turned-down">turned down</a> earlier this 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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103314
title: Popular Torrent and Streaming Sites Blocked in Denmark
uri: Popular-Torrent-and-Streaming-Sites-Blocked-in-Denmark
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Zs2CHUYx-ME/
content:
<p><img src="media/07db73b3.stop-blocked.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/stop-blocked.jpg" alt="stop-blocked" width="200" height="168" class="alignright size-full wp-image-72076">For nearly a decade Denmark has been a testbed for pirate site blockades. The first blocks were ordered back in 2006 after music industry group IFPI filed a complaint targeting the Russian MP3 sites AllofMP3 and MP3sparks.</p>
<p>Not much later Denmark became the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-blocked-by-isp-080204/">first European country</a> to force an ISP to block access to The Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>After some small additions during the years that followed, a Danish Court has now ordered another round of pirate site blocks, the largest one thus far. </p>
<p>Following a complaint from the local Rights Alliance (<a href="http://www.rettighedsalliancen.dk/">RettighedsAlliancen</a>) group the blocklist was updated with 12 popular torrent, streaming and MP3 download sites. </p>
<p>The new domains are free-tv-video-online.me, watchseries.lt ,solarmovie.is, tubeplus.me, mp3vip.org, rarbg.com, extratorrent.cc, isohunt.to, eztv.ch, kickass.to, torrentz.eu and music-bazaar.com.</p>
<p>Due to a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/isps-agree-voluntary-pirate-site-blocks-141011/">recent agreement</a> the sites will be blocked by all ISPs, even those not mentioned in the lawsuit. Late last year Rights Alliance and the telecommunications industry signed a Code of Conduct which ensures that blockades are put in place country-wide. </p>
<p>Speaking with TF, Rights Alliance head Maria Fredenslund says that their primary goal is to limit piracy through education. For this reason, the blocking page includes links to legal stores and services.</p>
<p>&#8220;Right Alliance doesn&#8217;t merely take an enforcement approach. We want to understand user behavior offer people legal alternatives,&#8221; Fredenslund says.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are quite happy that there are so many people who are looking for online entertainment. Our goal is to steer them in the right direction, instead of simply blocking access,&#8221; she adds.</p>
<p>For the affected sites there will be a drop in Danish visitors. Interestingly, however, not all site owners are disappointed. </p>
<p>TF spoke with the operator of one of the torrent sites on condition of anonymity. He says that these blocking efforts are free advertising and that users can still access the blocked domains through proxies or anonymizing services. </p>
<p>&#8220;Blocking is the greatest thing that can happen to a site. It is free advertising for your site. People want the things they can&#8217;t have,&#8221; the operator says. </p>
<p>&#8220;Whoever is blocking the sites is actually doing us a favor by telling the users that they can&#8217;t open the site, thus making the users want to open the site even more.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rights Alliance sees things differently and points to the results of a test on the effectiveness of blocking efforts.</p>
<p>&#8220;There are clear signs that our approach works. A recent test revealed that if people were warned that they had attempted to visit an unauthorized site, 84% chose not to continue,&#8221; Fredenslund tells us.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/6019d4f4.danishnudge.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/danishnudge.png" alt="danishnudge" width="576" height="276" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103375"><br>
</center></p>
<p>The test in question was conducted at various Danish schools. Instead of completely blocking access the schools inserted a notification which allowed users to visit legal alternatives or continue to the illegal sites. The majority of the people who saw this notice decided not to visit the page.</p>
<p>Whether the result will also translate to people&#8217;s non-monitored home connections is not clear. In any case, the new blockades in Denmark are throwing up an extra hurdle. </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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103477
title: Block Pirate Bay in 72 Hours, Spanish Court Tells ISPs
uri: Block-Pirate-Bay-in-72-Hours-Spanish-Court-Tells-ISPs
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/8E6OcRgR5tY/
content:
<p><img src="media/0e036607.pirate-bay.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg" width="200" height="207" class="alignright">When it comes be being blocked on copyright grounds, no site in the world can come close to the &#8216;achievements&#8217; of The Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>The infamous &#8216;pirate&#8217; domain is blocked in more than a dozen countries including the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Italy, Finland, Belgium and Portugal, to name just a few.</p>
<p>After a ruling today from Madrid&#8217;s Central Administrative Litigation Court No. 5, the torrent site can now add Spain to its ever-growing collection.</p>
<p>Due to the site&#8217;s failure to respond to rightsholder requests to remove links to copyrighted material in a timely manner as required by Spain&#8217;s copyright law, ISPs are now required to block their subscribers from accessing the site.</p>
<p>According to a statement issued by Promusicae, the trade association that represents more than 90 percent of the Spanish recorded music industry, the decision comes two and a half years after the Association of Intellectual Rights Management (AGEDI) submitted a complaint against Neij LMT Holdings, the company behind several Pirate Bay-related domains.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is the first blocking of a website dedicated to pirating music and other content that takes place in Spain under the so-called <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/website-blocking-law-implemented-by-new-spanish-government-120102/">Sinde Law</a>,&#8221; the group said in a statement.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.elmundo.es/cultura/2015/03/27/551581dee2704e6f138b4577.html">Elmundo</a> the injunction requires ISPs to block thepiratebay.org, thepiratebay.net, thepiratebay.se and thepiratebay.com within 72 hours.</p>
<p>Early this year <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/spanish-government-orders-pirate-bay-blockade-150127/">ISP Vodafone blocked</a> The Pirate Bay in Spain believing that it was required to do so. Amid confusion, Vodafone lifted the block and said it would wait for a warrant before blocking the site again.</p>
<p>From early next week the site should be inaccessible to most Internet users in Spain, a situation likely to spark traffic to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">other key sites</a> and the take up of <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">VPN services</a>.</p>
<p>Like all countries in the world, Spain had a taste of a Pirate Bay free world<br>
after the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">site was shutdown</a> in December 2014.  Almost two months passed before it <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-back-online-150131/">reappeared</a> at the end of January.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103370
title: DHS / ICE and City of London Police Make Piracy Fight Official
uri: DHS-ICE-and-City-of-London-Police-Make-Piracy-Fight-Official
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ccGg5-nOniA/
content:
<p><img src="media/e3c9075a.icesmall.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/icesmall.jpg" width="205" height="154" class="alignright">Some of the first major signs that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) had entered the online piracy fight came with the shuttering of streaming site <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/ninjavideo-founder-sentenced-to-22-months-in-prison-120106/">NinjaVideo</a> and the seizing of several piracy-related domains in the summer of 2010. Months later a torrent search engine was also <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent-search-engine-domain-and-more-101126/">targeted</a>.</p>
<p>By January 2014 a total of 2,713 domains had been taken down on various infringement grounds and as a result the now infamous ICE seizure banner has been viewed in excess of 122 million times.</p>
<p>On the other side of the Atlantic, City of London Police have also forced the suspension of hundreds of domains alleged to be involved in copyright and trademark infringement. In particular the integrated Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/?s=pipcu">PIPCU</a>) has generated plenty of headlines over the past couple of years, many of them relating to file-sharing, video streaming and similar operations.</p>
<p>After dealings dating back 10 years, ICE and City of London Police this week decided to formalize their &#8220;special relationship&#8221; with the signing of an official Memorandum of Understanding focusing on their shared interest in reducing IP related crime.</p>
<p>Signed by Homeland Security Investigations&#8217; London Attaché Matthew Etre and City of London Police Commissioner Adrian Leppard, the MOU focuses on enhancing collaboration on major investigations between the two law enforcement bodies.</p>
<p>“International cooperation among law enforcement agencies is crucial to effectively combating intellectual property crime,&#8221; said Etre.</p>
<p>&#8220;This memorandum of understanding between HSI and the City of London Police formalizes a long-standing and mutually beneficial partnership in the fight against these global criminal networks.&#8221;</p>
<p>ICE says that with their shared focus on tackling IP crime the launch of PIPCU in September 2013 brought a &#8220;new dimension&#8221; to the trans-Atlantic partnership. Just over year later the partnership was bearing high-profile fruit.</p>
<p><img src="media/31176dbb.cityoflondonpolice.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cityoflondonpolice.jpg" alt="cityoflondonpolice" width="200" height="82" class="alignright size-full wp-image-71397">After a pristine copy of The Expendables 3 appeared online ahead of its release in 2014, an HSI referral led to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-police-arrest-two-for-the-expendables-3-movie-leak-141125/">PIPCU arresting two men</a> last November in connection with the leak.</p>
<p>Collaboration like this will continue, the agencies say, with HSI and PIPCU agents now meeting twice yearly in the Hague, Netherlands, to exchange intelligence on websites distributing content illegally.</p>
<p>“Our partnership with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigation has already directly led to the suspension of hundreds of illegally operating websites and the arrest of several people,&#8221; said Police Commissioner Adrian Leppard.</p>
<p>&#8220;I look forward to the MOU we have signed taking our partnership to a new level of collaboration which in turn will make life more difficult for intellectual property criminals who continue to offend in our two countries and many others around the world.”</p>
<p>PIPCU&#8217;s most recent file-sharing related arrest came last month when the unit raided the world&#8217;s most prolific UFC and WWE content uploader. Known online as Sir Paul, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/police-arrest-worlds-most-prolific-ufc-and-wwe-pirate-150318/">the man was arrested</a> at his Leicestershire home after uploading thousands of shows using BitTorrent. No ICE involvement was detailed at the time, but it&#8217;s likely that a complaint originating from the United States prompted the move.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103406
title: After Eliminating Music Piracy, Norway Hits ‘First’ Movie Site
uri: After-Eliminating-Music-Piracy-Norway-Hits-First-Movie-Site
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/KsH7IHB_QEw/
content:
<p><img src="media/2c1d8b90.norkse.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/norkse.jpg" alt="norkse" width="190" height="190" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103422">Due to the borderless nature of the Internet, online piracy is very much an international affair. The world&#8217;s most popular torrent and streaming sites attract audiences from all around the globe.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, there are hundreds of smaller sites that have a much more geographically restricted aims in mind as they cater to mainly local audiences. Norway&#8217;s Norskfilm.net was one such site.</p>
<p>The site appeared on the radar of anti-piracy group Rights Alliance (Rettighetsalliansen) during the past year although at one point appears to be have been hosted in the United States. Offering international movies and TV shows on top of local content and subtitles, Norskfilm soon became the subject of a criminal investigation.</p>
<p>Following hundreds of tweets announcing the latest movies, last month the site&#8217;s Twitter account fell silent and soon after the site itself disappeared. Rights Alliance chief Willy Johansen now says that was due to his organization closing down its very first &#8216;pirate&#8217; website.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is the first time we have succeeded in halting a page operated from Norway,&#8221; Johansen told <a href="http://www.nrk.no/kultur/forste-norske-piratside-stengd-av-politiet-1.12283295">local media</a> Friday.</p>
<p>Lawyer Torje Arneson confirmed that Vestfold Police had raided the home of a 20-year-old man and seized computer and telecommunications equipment. After questioning the man confessed and was subsequently charged with copyright infringement offenses.</p>
<p>While Norwegian police have previously <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/police-in-file-sharing-raids-across-europe-wikileaks-host-targeted-100907/">investigated</a> &#8216;scene&#8217; groups and anti-piracy companies have chased down key individuals in <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/supreme-court-rules-file-sharers-identity-handed-to-movie-companies-100704/">special file-sharing cases</a>, in recent years raids against websites have been pretty much non-existent.</p>
<p>Instead, groups like Rights Alliance have focused on pushing for <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/new-internet-anti-piracy-law-goes-live-in-norway-130701/">fresh legislation</a> enabling them to monitor file-sharing networks and have ISPs block sites at the subscriber level.</p>
<p>But according to Johansen it&#8217;s still not enough. As it stands today the flow of pirate movies simply cannot be stopped and with the advent of services such as Popcorn Time and their increasing popularity in Scandinavia, there can only be one solution.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think we need a change of legislation,&#8221; Johansen <a href="http://www.nrk.no/kultur/foler-seg-truet-av-piratkopiert-strommefilm-1.12173835">says</a>.</p>
<p>But is that really needed? According to figures from the music industry, almost certainly not.</p>
<p>During December 2014 music industry group IFPI conducted a nationwide survey among under 30-year-olds and discovered that just 4% of respondents were using illegal file-sharing platforms to obtain music. A similar 2009 IFPI survey returned a figure of 70%. The reason for the drop? Improved legal music platforms.</p>
<p>“We are now offering services that are both better and more user-friendly than illegal platforms. In [the past] five years, we have virtually eliminated illegal file sharing in the music industry,” said IFPI Norway chief Marte Thorsby.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/hollywoods-release-delays-breed-pirates-150202/">as highlighted</a> again last month, the movie industry is still painting itself into a corner. Instead of making content freely available from the start, its windowing business model ensures that the public is kept waiting for months to be granted access to content. This only fuels piracy.</p>
<p>Fix that and there will not only be no need for new laws in Norway, but also less need for Rights Alliance to shut down its second pirate movie site.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103443
title: Court Orders ISP to Disconnect Internet Pirates
uri: Court-Orders-ISP-to-Disconnect-Internet-Pirates
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/UCLULYTWQJQ/
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 legal action against local ISP Eircom when the ISP agreed to force a so-called &#8220;three strikes&#8221; regime on subscribers.</p>
<p>The agreement saw IRMA-affiliated labels including Sony, Universal and Warner tracking Eircom subscribers online and Eircom forwarding infringement notices to alleged pirates. It was envisioned that those caught three times would be disconnected from the Internet.</p>
<p>In a follow-up move IRMA tried to force another ISP, UPC, to implement the same measures. UPC fought back and over the past several years the matter has dragged on through the Irish legal system.</p>
<p>In January 2015 the case was again <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/record-labels-try-to-force-isp-to-disconnect-pirates-150113/">before the Commercial Court</a>, with IRMA looking to force a so-called &#8220;graduated response&#8221; scheme onto UPC and the ISP trying to avoid one and its costs.</p>
<p>The High Court handed down its ruling Friday and it amounts to a massive victory for the labels, a depressing defeat for UPC, and a major concern for the rest of Ireland&#8217;s ISPs.</p>
<p>Brushing aside arguments by UPC that it&#8217;s not an ISP&#8217;s job to police its subscribers&#8217; activities online, Justice Brian Cregan sided almost entirely with the labels.</p>
<p>&#8220;The current generation of writers, performers and interpreters of music cannot have their livelihoods destroyed by advances in technology which allow persons to breach their constitutional rights with impunity,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>After ordering UPC to implement a &#8220;three strikes&#8221; system including the disconnection of repeat offenders, the Judge then informed the ISP it would be picking up most of the bill.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/upc-ordered-to-install-three-strikes-antipiracy-system-31100262.html">Independent.ie</a> the system will cost between 800,000 euros and 940,000 euros to set up. UPC offered to pay 25% of these costs but the Judge disagreed and ordered the ISP to pay 80%.</p>
<p>But it doesn&#8217;t end there. Yearly running costs are estimated to be between 200,000 and 300,000 euros or, to put it another way, close to one euro for each of UPC&#8217;s 360,000 subscribers.</p>
<p>Then, in a move apparently aimed at keeping costs down, the Judge ordered that the number of warning notifications going out to subscribers should be capped at 2,500 per month instead of the 5,000 originally proposed. That means that even if the staggering setup costs are ignored, each notice could cost 10 euros to send out.</p>
<p>The case was adjourned until next month to allow UPC and the labels to prepare submissions on how Justice Cregan&#8217;s order will be implemented. In the meantime the rest of Ireland&#8217;s ISPs will be nervously checking their bank balances in the event that they too are required to implement a similarly costly system.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102717
title: Why Game Of Thrones Will Be The Most Pirated TV-Show, Again
uri: Why-Game-Of-Thrones-Will-Be-The-Most-Pirated-TV-Show-Again
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/391yOQNGrok/
content:
<p><img src="media/0bc92b46.got5.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/got5.jpg" alt="got5" width="250" height="168" class="alignright size-full wp-image-102724">Mid April the first episode of Game of Thrones&#8217; fifth season will find its way onto dozens of torrent sites. </p>
<p>Like previous years, a few hours later millions of people will have downloaded this unofficial release.</p>
<p>Traditionally, pirates have used &#8220;availability&#8221; as an excuse to download movies and TV-shows from illegal sources. In some countries there is simply no legal option available, the arguments often go.</p>
<p>To remove this piracy incentive HBO has made sure that the new Game of Thrones series is available in as many countries as possible. The company recently announced that it will air in <a href="http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/10/8184071/hbo-game-of-thrones-piracy-apple">170 countries</a> roughly at the same time as the U.S. release. </p>
<p>This decision is being framed as an anti-piracy move and may indeed have some effect. However, availability is not the only reason why so many people choose to download the show from unauthorized sources.</p>
<p>In fact, if we look at the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/game-of-thrones-premiere-triggers-piracy-craze-140407/">list of countries</a> where most Game of Thrones downloaders came from last year, we see that it was legally available in all of these countries. </p>
<p>Data gathered during the first 12 hours of the season 4 premiere revealed that most downloads originated from Australia, followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands. So there must be something else going on.</p>
<p>Pricing perhaps?</p>
<p>The price tag attached to many of legal services may be <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/why-people-pirate-game-of-thrones-a-global-cost-breakdown-140413/">too high for some</a>. In Australia, for example, it cost $500 to follow last year&#8217;s season and in the U.S. some packages were priced as high as $100 per month.</p>
<p>This year there is some positive change to report in the US, as iTunes now offers a $15-per-month subscription without the need for a cable subscription. But if the steep prices remain in most countries it&#8217;s unlikely that the piracy rates will drop significantly. </p>
<p>This is nothing new for HBO of course. The company has probably considered offering separate and cheaper Game of Thrones packages, but while this may result in less pirates it will also severely hurt the value of their licensing deals and full subscription plans. </p>
<p>And aside from the financials, piracy also has it upsides.</p>
<p>Game of Thrones director David Petrarca previously admitted that piracy generated <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-doesnt-hurt-game-of-thrones-director-says-130227/">much-needed “cultural buzz”</a> around his show. Similarly, Jeff Bewkes, CEO of HBO’s parent company Time Warner, noted that piracy resulted in more subscriptions for his company and that receiving the title of “most-pirated” was “<a href="http://torrentfreak.com/game-of-thrones-piracy-better-than-an-emmy-time-warner-ceo-says-130808/">better than an Emmy.</a>”</p>
<p>All in all it&#8217;s safe to say that Game of Thrones will be crowned the most pirated TV-show <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/most-pirated-tv-show-of-2014-141225/">again</a> in 2015. The only uncertainty right now is whether it will break last year&#8217;s BitTorrent &#8220;swarm record,&#8221; which <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/game-thrones-season-finale-sets-piracy-record-140616/">currently stands</a> at 254,114 simultaneous sharers.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103276
title: Cox Refuses to Reveal Financials in “Repeat Infringer” Piracy Case
uri: Cox-Refuses-to-Reveal-Financials-in-Repeat-Infringer-Piracy-Case
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/7hce3j-nELs/
content:
<p><img src="media/015f41e0.cox-logo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cox-logo.png" alt="cox-logo" width="200" height="99" class="alignright size-full wp-image-68146">Every month copyright holders and anti-piracy groups send hundreds of thousands of takedown notices to Internet providers.</p>
<p>These notifications have to be forwarded to individual account holders under the DMCA law, to alert them that their connection is being used to share copyrighted works without permission. </p>
<p>Cox Communications is one of the ISPs that forwards these notices. The ISP also implemented a strict <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/cox-targets-pirates-with-10-strikes-program-130408/">set of rules</a> of its own accord to ensure that its customers understand the severity of the allegations.</p>
<p>According to some copyright holders, however, Cox&#8217;s efforts are falling short. Last December BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/cox-communications-sued-for-not-disconnecting-pirates-141128/">sued</a> the ISP because it fails to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. </p>
<p>The companies, which control the publishing rights to songs by Katy Perry, The Beatles and David Bowie among others, <a href="media/05920dca.gov.uscourts.vaed.310858.1.0.pdf" data-original-source="http://ia601407.us.archive.org/30/items/gov.uscourts.vaed.310858/gov.uscourts.vaed.310858.1.0.pdf">claim</a> that Cox has given up its DMCA safe harbor protections due to this inaction.</p>
<p>The case is a critical test for the repeat infringer clause of the DMCA and the safe harbor protections ISPs enjoy. In recent weeks both parties have started the discovery process to gather as many details as they can for the upcoming trial. </p>
<p>Cox, for example, is looking into the ownership of the 1,000 works for which they received seven million DMCA takedown notices. In addition, the ISP also wants an expert opinion on the source code of the Rightscorp&#8217;s crawler that was used to spot the alleged infringements.  </p>
<p>For their part, BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music have asked for details on Cox&#8217;s policy towards repeat copyright infringers and extensive details on the company&#8217;s financials. The ISP believes the latter request is too broad and as a result is refusing to produce the requested documents.</p>
<p>In a response the music companies have filed a motion asking the federal court to force the ISP to comply (<a href="media/d12e9c05.coxcash.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/coxcash.pdf">pdf</a>). Among other things, they argue that the financial details are needed to calculate damages and show that Cox has a financial motive to keep persistent pirates on board. </p>
<p>&#8220;The financial information that Cox refused to produce is directly relevant to Cox’s strong motivation for ignoring rampant infringement on its network because ignoring this infringement results in a financial benefit to Cox,&#8221; they argue.</p>
<p>&#8220;Moreover, Cox’s financial motivation for refusing to take meaningful actions against its repeat infringing customers is important to both the knowledge element of contributory infringement and the financial benefit element of vicarious liability,&#8221; the music groups add. </p>
<p>In its response Cox states that the rightsholders&#8217; demands are too broad (<a href="media/d12e9c05.coxcash.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/coxcash.pdf">pdf</a>) since the documents requested include those related to the ISP&#8217;s market share, capital expenditures, profits per customer for each service, and so forth. According to Cox most of the information is irrelevant to this case.</p>
<p>&#8220;Plaintiffs’ document requests seek virtually every financial record that Cox maintains about its internet Customers and its provision of internet services,&#8221; Cox notes. </p>
<p>The ISP says it&#8217;s willing to share some financial detail but with a far more limited scope than demanded by the rightsholders.</p>
<p>&#8220;To be clear, Cox has been and remains willing to produce high-level, aggregate financial data of the kind that courts permit in cases involving statutory copyright damages, for example corporate tax returns. But Plaintiffs have never offered to entertain even minor limitations to the scope of their discovery requests, making any compromise effectively impossible,&#8221; the ISP notes. </p>
<p>The court has yet to decide how many of its financial secrets Cox must reveal but judging from the demands being made from both sides, it&#8217;s clear that we can expect more fireworks during the months to come. </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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103278
title: MPAA Wanted Less Fair Use In Copyright Curriculum
uri: MPAA-Wanted-Less-Fair-Use-In-Copyright-Curriculum
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/wquRj79h7WQ/
content:
<p><img src="media/9da32040.gr3.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/gr3.png" alt="gr3" width="242" height="139" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103428">During the summer of 2013 we <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-and-riaa-to-teach-copyright-at-kindergartens-130918/">voiced our doubts</a> about an <a href="http://www.copyrightinformation.org/resources-faq/what-do-teachers-need-to-know/">initiative</a> from the Center for Copyright Information (CCI).</p>
<p>The group, which has the MPAA and RIAA as key members, had just started piloting a kindergarten through sixth grade curriculum on copyright in California schools.</p>
<p>The curriculum was drafted in collaboration with <a href="http://www.ikeepsafe.org/">iKeepSafe</a> and aims to teach kids the basics of copyright. Unfortunately, the lesson materials were rather one-sided and mostly ignored fair use and the more flexible copyright licences Creative Commons provides.</p>
<p>These concerns were <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/11/entertainment/la-et-ct-piracy-education-20131111">picked up</a> by the mainstream press, creating a massive backlash. The CCI and other partners emphasized that the pilot was tested with an early draft and promised that the final curriculum would be more balanced.</p>
<p>In the months that followed the lesson plans indeed got a major overhaul and last summer the  “Copyright and Creativity for Ethical Digital Citizens” curriculum was finalized.</p>
<p>As reported previously, the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-and-riaa-teach-copyright-in-elementary-schools-now-with-fair-use-140906/">new and improved version</a> was indeed expanded to discuss fair use principles and Creative Commons licenses. However, as far as Hollywood is concerned it now includes too much discussion on fair use.</p>
<p>TorrentFreak received a copy of a leaked email the MPAA&#8217;s Howard Gantman sent to various insiders last summer, explaining what happened. It starts off by mentioning the negative response to the leak and states that the MPAA and RIAA will try to keep a low profile in future, probably to prevent another wave of critique.</p>
<p>&#8220;After there was serious negative commentary on twitter, blogs and by news columnists who are not strong supporters of copyright last fall when a draft version of the curriculum was leaked accidentally by iKeepSafe – a determination was made to try to release this in a way that would keep a low profile for any MPAA or RIAA involvement,&#8221; Gantman writes. </p>
<p>The copyright holder groups and CCI decided to let iKeepSafe and its PR firm handle the media, something which eventually came to pass. Continuing the conversation Gantman explains that the lesson materials were heavily edited to include a broader and more diverse perspective on copyright. </p>
<p>&#8220;The curriculum that has been produced also went through numerous rounds of edits and debate involving a wide range of organizations with differing views on copyright,&#8221; Gantman writes.  </p>
<p>According to the MPAA, the end result is a compromise that includes more fair use than they had wanted, but still good enough to teach kids how to behave ethically on the Internet.</p>
<p>&#8220;So the end result contains sections on fair use that are more extensive than we would use if we drafted the curriculum ourselves. But overall, the effort will hopefully lead to an active program within our schools to help get kids to understand what it means to behave ethically on the Internet,&#8221; Gantman adds.</p>
<p>By comparing the first pilot materials with the final curriculum it becomes clear that nearly all additions are about fair use. </p>
<p><center><strong>Grade 4 lesson handout</strong><br></br></center><center><img src="media/03d659d7.shareinggrade4.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/shareinggrade4.png" alt="shareinggrade4" width="696" height="401" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103425"></center></p>
<p>For example, where children were initially warned against using copyrighted images and music from the Internet in Powerpoint presentations, they are now told that this is totally fine, as long as the material is only shown in class.</p>
<p>Similar changes have been made throughout the entire curriculum, as we documented in our <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-and-riaa-teach-copyright-in-elementary-schools-now-with-fair-use-140906/">earlier coverage</a>. </p>
<p>The question that remains is whether these extensive changes would have been made if the pilot materials hadn&#8217;t leaked in advance. That will probably remain a secret, but at least it&#8217;s clear that Hollywood got more fair use than they hoped for.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103488
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 03/30/15
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-03-30-15
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/LuAfauJjrqs/
content:
<p><img src="media/38ec2ede.interst.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/interst.jpg" alt="interst" width="300" height="212" class="alignright size-full wp-image-102856">This week we have two newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Interstellar is the most downloaded movie for the third 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-pirated-movies-week-032315/">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/interstellar_2014/">Interstellar</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxOhd4qlnA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cinderella_2013/">Cinderella</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1661199/">7.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRuHM6rLSF8">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/exodus_gods_and_kings/">Exodus: Gods and Kings</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1528100/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8YsulfxVI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(10)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/seventh_son/">Seventh Son</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1121096/">5.7</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXiNkOjM7oM">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/into_the_woods_2014/">Into The Woods</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjy5MK1X70">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(9)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/paddington_2014/">Paddington</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1109624/">7.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-d-V9jXYDE">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(6)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fifty_shades_of_grey/">Fifty Shades of Grey</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322441/">3.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfZWFDs0LxA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(8)</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> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2917388/">6.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Fv5StfAxA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/focus_2014/">Focus</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381941/">6.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxCRgtdAuBo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kidnapping_mr_heineken/">Kidnapping Mr Heineken</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeTbosqNayQ">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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103495
title: Once You Accept File-Sharing Is Here To Stay, You Can Focus On All The Positive Things
uri: Once-You-Accept-File-Sharing-Is-Here-To-Stay-You-Can-Focus-On-All-The
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/sVAvXOURpKU/
content:
<p><img src="media/d5dfcfd6.diskette.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/diskette.png" alt="diskette" width="250" height="162" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103497">People started sharing files with each other &#8211; text, games, music &#8211; as soon as there was a storage medium you could copy. </p>
<p>Originally, this meant the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette">compact cassette</a> which was used for music and programs for the first <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64">home computers</a>. Cassette decks at the time had a convenient copy mechanism where you&#8217;d insert an original in one slot, a blank tape in another slot, and press a prominent &#8220;copy&#8221; button to get an analog replica &#8211; not perfect, if it was music, but if it was a digital computer file, it would be readable and usable. The one-push copy was even a sales point.</p>
<p>Everybody had their circle of friends who contributed to the common collection between them, and we&#8217;d always be carrying some copy of something else we anticipated was in demand. People would copy something from you more or less every day. You would copy things from several people pretty much every day.</p>
<p>Copyparties were huge fests where hundreds of teens (or pre-teens) rented a school building for a weekend, brought their entire catalog of tapes and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk">diskettes</a>, an equivalent amount of blank media, and just copied everything they could from each other instead of sleeping. These copyparties frequently had pallets of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolt_Cola">Jolt Cola</a> for sale.</p>
<p>In this setup, completely before the Internet, if something in high demand was published, it would take three days on average for that piece of media to get to everybody who wanted it.</p>
<p><strong>In other words, in a complete shutdown of the Internet where people go back to sharing by copying media by hand, the very best the copyright industry can hope for is three days until saturation instead of today&#8217;s one day.</strong> It&#8217;s almost funny how the copyright industry still delays releases by weeks if not months between neighboring countries and think they can determine who gets to see what when. That was never the case, and won&#8217;t ever be the case.</p>
<p>File sharing is here to stay and the reason it&#8217;s still traceable is mostly because the risk of getting caught by stale, obsolete, and outdated laws is <a href="http://falkvinge.net/2013/02/09/youre-still-more-likely-to-get-hit-by-lightning-than-convicted-from-sharing-culture/">considerably lower</a> than the risk of getting struck by lightning. There&#8217;s no real push to improve it, like there was right after Napster shut down. But let&#8217;s imagine for a moment if there was a real push to move sharing back under the radar.</p>
<p>Today, the storage of an ordinary mobile phone can effectively store all music except the most narrow. And with fourth-generation Bluetooth, it can wirelessly &#8211; and tracelessly! &#8211; share all of it to all mobile phones in a 50-meter range. Subway cars, cafés, even cars at red light stops become torrent swarms without somebody acting &#8211; or even noticing. The notion of being able to stop, control, or contain this files under &#8220;what&#8217;s the weather like on your planet?&#8221;.</p>
<p>Not only that, but the best-generation scenario that the copyright industry can ever hope for is the equivalent of a shutdown of the entire internet. That would mean a regression from today&#8217;s 24-hour saturation to a pre-internet 72-hour saturation. Think about that. The <em>best conceivable scenario</em> for the copyright industry, if they really manage to destroy the entire Internet, is that it would take three days instead of one day for something to get shared to everybody who wants it.</p>
<p>Moore&#8217;s Law further suggests that in a decade or so, an ordinary mobile phone will also have capacity to store most TV and movies ever made.</p>
<p>So once you accept that file-sharing is here to stay for good, and that any attempt to contain it is a Canutian attempt to order the tide back, you can let go of that and instead focus on all the positive aspects of that development:</p>
<p>The income is there for artists. In fact, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/artists-make-more-money-in-file-sharing-age-than-before-100914/">more than twice</a> the income is there for artists with file-sharing. There&#8217;s no need to fret and worry about that development, no need to hunt license fees for every copy manufactured without a license. Rather, as soon as you realize that chasing license fees for every copy is actually a cashflow net negative, you&#8217;ll start to chill and realize the revenue is still there. (Well, not for the parasitic middlemen: not for the actual copyright industry. But artists have always hated those with a passion.) As a significant bonus, you won&#8217;t be turning your customers into enemies.</p>
<p>But more importantly, it means that every human being has 24/7 access to humanity&#8217;s collective knowledge and culture, and that every human being is able to add to that pool. That&#8217;s the equivalent of when the first public libraries opened in 1850, but on an enormously larger scale. Even though the copyright industry is trying again and again to burn this Library of Alexandria, it&#8217;s worth more than pause to consider what a huge leap ahead for humanity this really is.</p>
<p>And while the copyright industry may order the tide held back, waging war against future generations is rarely a winning proposition in the long run.</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>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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103510
title: KickassTorrents Celebrates ‘Happy Torrents Day’
uri: KickassTorrents-Celebrates-Happy-Torrents-Day
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/LBhT8nJyaGk/
content:
<p><img src="media/0100afa1.HTD.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/HTD.jpg" alt="HTD" width="225" height="114" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103512">With millions of unique visitors per day KickassTorrents (KAT) has become the most-used torrent site on the Internet, beating even The Pirate Bay. </p>
<p>The site also has a very active community of torrent aficionados from all over the world. On March 30th the site staff and its members come together to celebrate their beloved pastime on &#8220;<a href="https://kickass.to/blog/post/happy-torrents-day-2015/">Happy Torrents Day</a>.&#8221;</p>
<p>The event was started by KAT administrator Mr. Pink. Initially it was a small celebration but over the years it has turned into a recurring tradition with many thousands of people participating. </p>
<p>TF spoke with Mr. Pink who notes that Torrents Day is a celebration of file-sharing. With the news being dominated by lawsuits, domain name trouble and torrent takedowns, this day is focuses of the positive.</p>
<p>&#8220;The main purpose is to get everybody to believe that what we do is worth fighting for. Everybody is equal. Yes it started on Kickass with us but it&#8217;s not about us. It&#8217;s about every person that believes in file sharing,&#8221; Mr. Pink says.</p>
<p>In recent weeks a lot of torrents have disappeared from the site as a result of an <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-users-fight-back-against-dmca-takedown-purge-150201/">increase in DMCA takedown notices</a>. The idea behind Torrent Day is to get people focused on something positive again.</p>
<p>&#8220;The DMCA is clamping down on us hard lately. And it&#8217;s becoming tougher so we need to give the userbase something to believe in,&#8221; Mr. Pink notes. </p>
<p>In celebration of the festive day several challenges and initiatives have been launched. A Happy Torrents Day album has been released for example, as well as the first issue of KAT&#8217;s official magazine &#8220;<a href="https://kickass.to/the-katalyst-issue-1-march-2015-t10425733.html">The KATalyst</a>.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><img src="media/dbb952f9.happy-torrents-day.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/happy-torrents-day.jpg" alt="happy-torrents-day" width="553" height="340" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103514"></center></p>
<p>Besides KAT, Torrents Day is spreading to other sites as well. ExtraTorrent, another large community, previously joined in and is expected to do the same again this year. </p>
<p>If everything goes according to plan Torrents Day 2015 is expected to drive a lot of traffic to the site and perhaps set several new records. </p>
<p>&#8220;The support from other sites and the KAT team has been amazing,&#8221; Mr. Pink says. &#8220;We expect the site&#8217;s traffic and upload records to be broken today. We have a few ideas up our sleeves to make that happen.&#8221;</p>
<p>Records or not, judging from the activity on KAT&#8217;s website there&#8217;s definitely <a href="https://kickass.to/community/special-day-celebration-forum/">plenty of interest</a>. So to all those who are celebrating: Happy Torrents Day!</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103502
title: New Pirate Bay Blockade Foiled By Simple DNS Trick
uri: New-Pirate-Bay-Blockade-Foiled-By-Simple-DNS-Trick
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/7DpB3zrI8F4/
content:
<p><img src="media/0e036607.pirate-bay.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg" width="200" height="207" class="alignright">One of the major strategies of the world&#8217;s leading entertainment companies is to have sites like The Pirate Bay blocked at the ISP level. The idea is that when subscribers can&#8217;t access &#8216;pirates&#8217; sites they will flock to legal alternatives.</p>
<p>While there can be little doubt that some will take the opportunity to test out Netflix or Spotify (should they be available in their region), other users will be less ready to take the plunge.</p>
<p>In Spain, where online piracy is reportedly more widespread than most other European countries, users faced a Pirate Bay problem on Friday when a judge ordered the country&#8217;s service providers <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/block-pirate-bay-in-72-hours-spanish-court-tells-isps-150327/">to block the site</a> within 72 hours.</p>
<p>Some ISPs blocked the site immediately, provoking questions of where to get free content now that The Pirate Bay is off-limits. Of course, there are plenty of <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">alternatives</a> but for those a little more determined, access to TPB was just a click or two away.</p>
<p>The problem is that for whatever reasons, thus far Spanish ISPs are only implementing a Pirate Bay ban on the most basic of levels. In the UK, for example, quite sophisticated systems block domain names and IP addresses, and can even automatically monitor sites so that any blocking counter-measures can be handled straight away. But in Spain users are finding that blocks are evaded with the smallest of tweaks.</p>
<p>By changing a computer or router&#8217;s DNS settings, Spaniards are regaining access to The Pirate Bay in an instant. Both <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using">Google&#8217;s DNS</a> and <a href="https://use.opendns.com/">OpenDNS</a> are reported as working on several Spanish discussion forums.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve [followed the instructions] and in two minutes you can enter Pirate Bay. And I am a computer illiterate and have no idea what a DNS is,&#8221; a user of a gaming forum <a href="http://33bits.gamestribune.com/foro/off-topic/un-juez-ordena-el-bloqueo-de-the-pirate-bay-en-espana/15/">writes</a>.</p>
<p>Another user, who moved away from his ISP&#8217;s DNS a while ago, wasn&#8217;t even aware that  any block had been put in place.</p>
<p>&#8220;If the block is using DNS, I would not call that blocking, really. I&#8217;ve been using the DNS of Google for years and I have not even noticed anything,&#8221; he notes.</p>
<p>While Spaniards will be pleased that the blockade is easily circumvented, it&#8217;s the reaction to the news that&#8217;s perhaps the most interesting aspect. News that the site is being blocked is hardly being welcomed, but there is a definite absence of panic among those who are supposed to be some of Europe&#8217;s most hardcore pirates.</p>
<p>Whether that&#8217;s chiefly down to the weak blocking method being employed by some ISPs is up for debate, but having seen blocks do little to stop file-sharers across Europe &#8211; particularly in the UK where the practice is widespread &#8211; the Spanish probably see no real reason to break into a cold sweat just yet.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103529
title: Filmmakers Demand Cash From Popcorn Time Pirates
uri: Filmmakers-Demand-Cash-From-Popcorn-Time-Pirates
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/pd_toQdNzfQ/
content:
<p><img src="media/3b9dbdf1.popcornt.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/popcornt.png" alt="popcornt" width="237" height="106" class="alignright size-full wp-image-101106">After suing hundreds of alleged downloaders in the United States, the makers of Dallas Buyers Club expanded their legal campaign <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/dallas-buyers-club-wants-cash-european-pirates-141222/">to Europe</a> late last year. </p>
<p>The first cases were brought in Denmark, with anti-piracy lawfirm Maqs demanding fines of roughly 250 euros per infringement. </p>
<p>After collecting several successful payments the scheme is now getting traction locally, especially following reports that Popcorn Time has become more popular than Netflix.</p>
<p>&#8220;You could say that the &#8216;Dallas Buyers Club&#8217; letters have been a success in the number of inquiries that have come in,&#8221; Maqs&#8217; lawyer Jeppe Brogaard Clausen <a href="http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/kultur/film/dansk-film-skruer-bissen-paa-vil-sende-regninger-til-danske-netpirater">told DR</a>, noting that new letters are still being sent out for Dallas Buyers Club.</p>
<p>One of the filmmakers interested in the &#8220;speculative invoicing&#8221; scheme is Danish producer Ronnie Fridthjof. Together with other industry players he&#8217;s determined to go after Popcorn Time users.</p>
<p>&#8220;I had hoped that politicians and the police would take care of such matters, but unfortunately that hasn&#8217;t happened. When my business is threatened, I am more or less forced to do something,&#8221; Fridthjof tells <a href="http:///beep.tv2.dk/nyheder/2015-03-26-danske-boeder-paa-vej-til-brugere-af-popcorn-time">TV2</a>.</p>
<p>While Popcorn Time is specifically mentioned as a target, the action will affect regular BitTorrent users as well. After all, Popcorn Time streams films by connecting to regular torrent swarms.</p>
<p>The new fines are expected to be sent out this summer. The first ones will be around 1,000 to 2,000 Danish krone ($150 to $300), and will increase if recipients fail to respond. As a last resort the filmmakers are considering whether to take alleged pirates to court. </p>
<p>According to some users streaming films via Popcorn Time is seen as something in a legal gray area. Fridthjof, however, has no doubt that it&#8217;s against the law.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is absolutely crazy that people believe it is legal. It is in no way! It is comparable buying and selling counterfeit goods right next to an official store,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>Similarly, the filmmaker doesn&#8217;t buy the excuse that people use Popcorn Time because the legal services don&#8217;t have the latest films. That doesn&#8217;t justify grabbing something for free, he says.</p>
<p>&#8220;We must be able to choose which business model we want, and it must not be guided by unlawful acts. We will not make a business model that competes with free content,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>Legal threats against Popcorn Time users are not new. In the U.S. lawsuits against BitTorrent pirates are quite common, and in Germany Popcorn Time related &#8216;fines&#8217; have also been <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/popcorn-time-users-get-fined-copyright-trolls-140515/">issued</a>.</p>
<p>Responding to these developments, various Popcorn Time variants have warned their users over possible legal repercussions and have started offering anonymizing options. Both popcorntime.io and popcorn-time.se now have built-in <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">VPN</a> support. </p>
<p>For now there are still many people using Popcorn Time without anonymizing services, so there will still be plenty of people to fine.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> The same scheme may be <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.619433/popcorn-time-faktura">coming to Sweden as well</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103555
title: UK IP Chief Wants ISPs to Police Piracy Proactively
uri: UK-IP-Chief-Wants-ISPs-to-Police-Piracy-Proactively
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/kQ_o2074QaI/
content:
<p><img src="media/4d28e669.uk-flag.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/uk-flag.jpg" alt="uk-flag" width="200" height="179" class="alignright size-full wp-image-86005">Mike Weatherley, a Conservative MP and Intellectual Property Adviser to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, has pushed various copyright related topics onto the political agenda since early last year.</p>
<p>Previously Weatherley suggested that search engines should <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-ip-chief-google-blacklist-pirate-sites-140530/">blacklist pirate sites</a>, kids should be <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-ip-chief-wants-schools-to-teach-copyright-ethics-and-morals-141011/">educated</a> on copyright ethics, and that persistent file-sharers should be <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-considers-throwing-persistent-internet-pirates-in-jail-140123/">thrown in jail</a>.</p>
<p>In his latest proposal the UK MP targets information society service providers (ISSPs) including ISPs, who he believes could do more to fight piracy. The just-released 18-page report stresses that these companies have a moral obligation to tackle copyright infringement and can&#8217;t stand idly by.</p>
<p>The report (<a href="media/b403faac.Safe-harbour-provisions-and-online-service-providers-FINAL.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/Safe-harbour-provisions-and-online-service-providers-FINAL.pdf">pdf</a>) draws on input from various pro-copyright groups including the MPAA, BPI, and the Music Publishers Association. It offers various recommendations for the UK Government and the EU Commission to strengthen their anti-piracy policies.</p>
<p>One of the key points is to motivate Internet services and providers to filter content proactively. According to the report it&#8217;s feasible to &#8220;filter out infringing content&#8221; and to detect online piracy before it spreads.</p>
<p>The UK Government should review these systems and see what it can do to facilitate cooperation between copyright holders and Internet service providers.</p>
<p>&#8220;There should be an urgent review, by the UK Government, of the various applications and processes that could deliver a robust automated checking process regarding illegal activity being transmitted,&#8221; Weatherley advises.</p>
<p>In a related effort, Weatherley notes that Internet services should not just remove the content they&#8217;re asked to, but also police their systems to ensure that similar files are removed, permanently.</p>
<p>&#8220;ISSPs to be more proactive in taking down multiple copies of infringing works, not just the specific case they are notified of,&#8221; he recommends.</p>
<p>&#8220;This would mean ISSPs actively taking down multiple copies of the same work which are hosted on its services, not just the individual copy which is subject to the complaint. The MPA believe this principle could be extended further still to ensure that all copies of the infringing work are not just taken down&#8230;,&#8221; Weatherley explains.</p>
<p>This type of filtering is already used by YouTube, which takes down content based on fingerprint matches. However, the report suggests that regular broadband providers could also filter infringing content.</p>
<p>Concluding, Weatherley admits that it&#8217;s all too easy to simply demand that ISPs take the role of policemen, but at the same time he stresses that they have a &#8220;moral responsibility&#8221; to do more. </p>
<p>The UK MP presents an analogy of a landlord whose property is used for illegal activities. The landlord cannot be held liable for these activities, but he may have to take action if a third-party reports it.</p>
<p>&#8220;If the landlord is told that the garage is being used for illegal activity, and that this information is from a totally reliable source, then does the landlord have a moral obligation to report it?&#8221; </p>
<p>&#8220;I would argue that it is the duty of every citizen or company to do what they can to stop illegal activity and therefore the answer is, yes, the landlord should report the activity,&#8221; Weatherley notes.</p>
<p>Weatherley also believes that protecting the rights of copyright holders has priority over a &#8220;no monitoring&#8221; principle that would ensure users&#8217; privacy. That is, if the monitoring is done right. </p>
<p>&#8220;There is also the question as to whether society will want to have their private activities monitored (even if automatically and entirely confidentially) and whether the trade off to a safer, fairer internet is a price worth paying to clamp down on internet illegal activity. My ‘vote’ would be “yes” if via an independent body &#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>Overall, the recommendations will be welcomed by the industry groups who provided input. The report is not expected to translate directly into legislation, but they will be carefully weighed by the UK Government and the EU Commission when taking future decisions. </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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103560
title: Nintendo Nukes Fan-Made Super Mario 64 HD Browser Game
uri: Nintendo-Nukes-Fan-Made-Super-Mario-64-HD-Browser-Game
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/LC_0DtPW3OI/
content:
<p><img src="media/c185d573.mario64.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mario64.jpg" alt="mario64" width="180" height="180" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103564">While 3D games had been around for a couple of decades prior to its release, the launch of Super Mario 64 alongside Nintendo&#8217;s then flagship console N64 in 1996 was a gaming moment to behold.</p>
<p>Coupled with its revolutionary controller, the N64&#8217;s hardware placed flesh on Mario&#8217;s traditional 2D bones, bringing the iconic character into the 3D world in a way no other game had previously managed.</p>
<p>Little wonder then that the gaming media was filled with delight late last week when news <a href="http://www.dsogaming.com/news/super-mario-64-first-level-recreated-in-unity-engine-playable-in-your-browser/">broke</a> that the game&#8217;s most iconic level had been recreated by developer <a href="https://roystanross.wordpress.com/super-mario-64-hd/">Roystan Ross</a>.</p>
<p>Not only had Bob-Omb Battlefield been brought back to life in full HD, but also via the Unity Engine meaning that players were given the first ever chance to play the game via a web browser &#8211; a black magic achievement by 1996 standards.</p>
<p>But just as <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=unity+super+mario+64&#038;ie=utf-8&#038;oe=utf-8#q=unity+super+mario+64&#038;tbm=nws">dozens of stories</a> were heralding the return of the king, Nintendo has gatecrashed the party and shut down the fun.</p>
<p>In a complaint sent by Nintendo of America via attorneys at the Miller Nash Graham &#038; Dunn LLP lawfirm, the game company has ordered CDN outfit Cloudflare to disable access to the site hosting the popular browser version of the game.</p>
<p>&#8220;The copyrighted work at issue is Nintendo&#8217;s Super Mario 64 video game (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0000788138), including but not limited to the audiovisual work, computer program, music, and fictional character depictions,&#8221; the company told Cloudflare.</p>
<p>&#8220;The web site at http://mario64-erik.u85.net/Web.html displays, and allows users to play, an electronic game that makes unauthorized use of copyright-protected features of Nintendo&#8217;s Super Mario 64 video game.  Nintendo requests that CloudFlare, Inc. immediately disable public access to http://mario64-erik.u85.net/Web.html.&#8221;</p>
<p>In an email to the person operating the server (not Ross himself), Cloudflare said that it had revealed the name of the actual host to Nintendo&#8217;s lawyers and forwarded the complaint to the host itself.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have provided the name of your hosting provider to the reporter. Additionally, we have forwarded this complaint to your hosting provider as well,&#8221; Cloudflare advised.</p>
<p>The complaint from Nintendo was enough to take the browser version immediately offline.</p>
<p>&#8220;Thank you for forwarding the request to me. I was hosting this work for a good friend who is an avid fan, and built the project from scratch as a tech demo. As mentioned on the original blog post, and noted in various big name media press, there is no intention to monetize this, ever,&#8221; the hoster told Cloudflare. </p>
<p>&#8220;All back-end properties hosting the original files have been updated and files removed. I trust that the issue is fully rectified.&#8221;</p>
<p>But while the browser edition is now well and truly offline following Cloudflare&#8217;s intervention,  the desktop versions <a href="https://roystanross.wordpress.com/super-mario-64-hd/">remain available</a> hosted by Mediafire and with mirrors provided by Microsoft. </p>
<p>Whether they&#8217;re next on the takedown list remains to be seen but Nintendo&#8217;s actions thus far will be viewed as a real loss by gaming fans around the world. The release of a browser version of a single level of this iconic game was a real achievement and consigning it to history a crying shame.</p>
<p>That being said, it seems more than likely that replacements won&#8217;t be far away.</p>
<p><center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e8-2TF3Okyw" 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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103591
title: Netflix Plans ‘Free Tier’ After Absorbing Popcorn Time
uri: Netflix-Plans-Free-Tier-After-Absorbing-Popcorn-Time
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Xv538nVaRu8/
content:
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-69714" src="media/b310fc7c.netflix-logo.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/netflix-logo.png" alt="netflix-logo" width="200" height="121">Over the past year the rise to fame of Popcorn Time has become one of the video entertainment industry&#8217;s hottest topics, with various iterations of the project becoming huge successes in their own right.</p>
<p>Of course, this fame has put the Popcorn Time brand on a collision course with content creators and distributors, with numerous threats of legal action regularly making the headlines. However, behind the scenes a different end game has been in the planning for some time.</p>
<p>Popcorn Time has become almost universally known as the &#8216;Netflix for Pirates&#8217;, a moniker that eventually led the California-based streaming service to refer to Popcorn Time as a competitor earlier this year. <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/netflix-sees-popcorn-time-as-a-serious-competitor-150121/">The admission</a> was the first time that the company had noted synergies with its pirate counterpart and one that signaled the arrival of today&#8217;s announcement.</p>
<p>TorrentFreak can now reveal that Netflix has struck a surprise deal with the people behind <a href="https://popcorntime.io/">PopcornTime.io</a>, one of the leading Popcorn Time forks. It marks the end of litigation threats and a move towards cooperative development.</p>
<p>While the price tag is relatively modest at just $11.5m, Netflix has big plans for Popcorn Time that have already been tried and tested in the music industry.</p>
<p>Noting that Spotify now has 60 million users operating on its free tier and more and more choosing to upgrade every month, Netflix intends to leverage the &#8216;cool&#8217; reputation enjoyed by Popcorn Time to attract paying users to its premium service.</p>
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-89282" src="media/b134dbd9.popcorn.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/popcorn.png" alt="popcorn" width="203" height="102">&#8220;Today we&#8217;re here to announce that Popcorn Time has been acquired by Netflix for $11.5 million. While to many of you that may come as a surprise, and worry that Popcorn Time will change because of this, you don&#8217;t need to worry,&#8221; the Popcorn Time team said in a statement.</p>
<p>&#8220;Popcorn Time itself won&#8217;t change to the users, it will still be the same app you&#8217;ve all come to love over the last year. However, working with Netflix means we can develop updates and fixes faster and bring you new features more regularly.&#8221;</p>
<p>While its understood that Netflix designers and engineers will have both creative and technical input into the development of Popcorn Time moving forward, the current team will continue to work on the project to ensure users&#8217; needs are met.</p>
<p>&#8220;The current team will continue to work on Popcorn Time as always. Our goal has always been about bringing you the latest content at home as quickly as possible with all the great features you&#8217;ve come to love,&#8221; the team say.</p>
<p>While the deal appears to have been sealed in the past few days, TF sources say that the whole thing was close to collapse only last month.</p>
<p>In an eleventh hour move, Netflix negotiators demanded that the open source PopcornTime.io project become closed source in all future releases. An outraged team reportedly threatened to pull out, rejecting the $50m offer that had originally been on the table.</p>
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-103620" src="media/4daa023b.popflix.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/popflix.png" alt="popflix" width="180" height="61">Eventually a compromise was reached but it resulted in a near $40m reduction in Netflix&#8217;s offer, &#8220;a price worth paying&#8221; according to the team who insist that open source principles come first. All money received from Netflix will be returned to the project over the next several years.</p>
<p>Various new names have been tabled for the project including current front-runner Popflix, but it&#8217;s understood that Popcorn Time will be maintained as a separate brand for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p><em><strong>UPDATE</strong>: [April 2] As many guessed, this article was an April Fools joke.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103626
title: ‘Pirate Bay Alternatives’ Articles Anger Movie Companies
uri: Pirate-Bay-Alternatives-Articles-Anger-Movie-Companies
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/iX9pLttk580/
content:
<p><img src="media/2a43984f.pirate-bay.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg" alt="pirate bay" width="200" height="207" class="alignright size-full wp-image-53470">After being blocked by ISPs in more than a dozen European territories, The Pirate Bay has now been rendered inaccessible in Spain following orders from a local court.</p>
<p>On Friday, Madrid’s Central Administrative Litigation Court No. 5 gave local service providers just 72 hours to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/block-pirate-bay-in-72-hours-spanish-court-tells-isps-150327/">stop providing access</a> to the infamous site, with several responding much more quickly.</p>
<p>It soon became evident that the &#8216;ban&#8217; was <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/new-pirate-bay-blockade-foiled-by-simple-dns-trick-159030/">easily circumvented</a> by Internet users savvy enough to change their DNS settings, but access to &#8216;pirate&#8217; content isn&#8217;t only available through The Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>As a result &#8216;Pirate Bay Alternatives&#8217; articles began appearing in local media, much as they have done in other countries subjected to ISP blocks. But while these popular lists are usually met with industry silence, in Spain they appear to have touched a nerve.</p>
<p>Founded in 1903, daily newspaper <a href="http://abc.es">ABC</a> published an online article titled &#8220;Other Options After Closing The Pirate Bay&#8221;. It drew an immediate response from Jaume Ripoll Vaquer, co-founder of legal video streaming site <a href="https://www.filmin.es/">Filmin.com</a></p>
<p>&#8220;I see @ abc_es also continues the fashion of publicizing [sites that send traffic] to unauthorized content. Congratulations guys,&#8221; he <a href="https://twitter.com/JaumeRV/status/582178309301223424">wrote</a> on Twitter.</p>
<p>While that criticism seems to have done the trick (ABC withdrew the article, Google cache <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5joxoim6OggJ:www.abc.es/tecnologia/redes/20150328/abci-pirate-alternativas-201503271952.html+&#038;cd=1&#038;hl=es&#038;ct=clnk">here</a>), others weren&#8217;t so easily deterred.</p>
<p>Published by <a href="http://www.elconfidencial.com/tecnologia/2015-03-27/alternativas-a-the-pirate-bay-donde-puedes-descargar-torrents-en-espanol_587669/">El Confidencial</a>, &#8220;Alternatives to The Pirate Bay: Where You Can Download Torrents in Spanish&#8221;</em> provoked direct criticism from Paramount Pictures.</p>
<p>In comments to <a href="http://www.eldiario.es/hojaderouter/shortcut/The_Pirate_Bay-alternativas-descargas-torrents_6_372422758.html">ElDiario</a>, Paramount Pictures&#8217; promotions manager <a href="https://es.linkedin.com/in/lauraruiz">Laura Ruiz Andrino</a> said that financially supporting publications that direct their readers to places where illegal content can be obtained is not something that should be entertained.</p>
<p>And in <a href="https://twitter.com/LauraRuiz1505/status/582181229728002048">a message</a> to media managers at Universal Pictures and Sony Pictures, <a href="https://es.linkedin.com/in/lauraruiz">Andrino</a> suggested that if sites like El Confidencial and ABC choose to support &#8220;illegal downloading&#8221;, perhaps companies opposed to that stance should consider an advertising boycott. Another Filmin co-founder agreed.</p>
<p>&#8220;When buying advertising one should also look at ethics, not only the audience,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/jctous/status/582441215255298048">he wrote</a>.</p>
<p>Fighting back, Alfredo Pascual, chief editor of the technology section of El Confidencial told <a href="http://hojaderouter.com/">HojaDeRouter</a> that the withdrawal of advertising could be viewed as an attack on the media&#8217;s right to inform.</p>
<p>&#8220;They end up attacking freedom of expression,&#8221; Pascual said. &#8220;My intention with this article is simply to show that the closure of sites is not a way to solve the problem. For every website that is closed there will be other ten, and this will be the never ending story until there is [a legal] offer that can meet the demand.&#8221;</p>
<p>Noting that threats had been made to withdraw press passes from his publication&#8217;s culture section, Pascual remains defiant.</p>
<p>&#8220;With each closing [of a website] I intend to publish another list [of alternative sites],&#8221; the editor 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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103280
title: Pirate Bay To Open Its Own .PIRATE Domain Name Registry
uri: Pirate-Bay-To-Open-Its-Own-PIRATE-Domain-Name-Registry
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/GlSp7XVfN0I/
content:
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-53470" src="media/2a43984f.pirate-bay.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg" alt="pirate bay" width="200" height="207">The Pirate Bay&#8217;s <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/?attachment_id=103612">parent company</a> Reservella Ltd. has started the registration process for a new gTLD with a .PIRATE extension.</p>
<p>Responding to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/music-industry-demands-action-against-pirate-domain-names-130311/">increased pressure</a> from the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-pushes-icann-policy-changes-target-pirate-domains-150227/">MPAA</a> and RIAA on the domain name industry, the torrent site hopes to break away from the rules and regulations which forced it to move to several new domains in recent years.</p>
<p>&#8220;We can no longer trust third party services and registries, who are under immense pressure from the copyright lobby. So we decided to apply for our very own gTLD and be a true Pirate registry,&#8221; TPB&#8217;s Winston informs TF.</p>
<p>The new registration is currently being processed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the main oversight body for the Internet’s global domain name system which accepts <a href="http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/">new gTLD proposals</a>.</p>
<p><center><strong>.PIRATE application</strong></center><center><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103334" src="media/7ba3ca04.pirapri1.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirapri1.png" alt="pirapri1" width="611" height="787"></center>If the new TLD is finalized the Pirate Bay team plans to open registrations to the public. While it has to agree to some oversight formalities and ICANN agreements, the .PIRATE domains are expected to be less prone to censorship.</p>
<p>&#8220;The ultimate goal is to create a true PIRATE hydra. This means that we will allow other sites to register .PIRATE domain names too. Staying true to our pirate roots the domains can be registered anonymously without charge,&#8221; Winston tells us.</p>
<p>The Pirate Bay crew has prepared the application in secret, setting the wheels in motion nearly a year ago. Ideally, the process would have been finished by late January but a police raid and persistent hosting problems caused some delay.</p>
<p>&#8220;Things are looking good so far, but we&#8217;re not there yet. Fingers crossed. Let&#8217;s hope nothing foolish happens,&#8221; Winston concludes.</p>
<p>For the time being, however, The Pirate Bay will continue operating from the Swedish based .SE domain name. A transition to the .PIRATE domain is expected to take place this summer, at the earliest.</p>
<p>The MPAA and RIAA couldn&#8217;t be reached for a comment on today&#8217;s news, but it&#8217;s expected that they will do everything within their power to block Pirate Bay&#8217;s deviant plans.</p>
<p><em><strong>UPDATE</strong>: [April 2] As many guessed, this article was an April Fools joke.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103449
title: Movie Licensing Group Demands $350K From Schools
uri: Movie-Licensing-Group-Demands-350K-From-Schools
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/21aRBBpDGYI/
content:
<p><img src="media/c9e6482e.cash1.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/cash1.jpg" alt="cash" width="200" height="121" class="alignright size-full wp-image-24443">In many countries there are exceptions to copyright law that allow those in education to use copyrighted material to further their studies.</p>
<p>Those exceptions often have limits but copying for research, comment and reporting purposes are generally allowed while teachers are able to make multiple copies of content to hand out to their students.</p>
<p>Following the tabling of a new intellectual property law in Spain, last December the Department of Education sent out a circular reminding schools that the showing of audiovisual content outside strict &#8220;fair use&#8221; parameters is completely banned.</p>
<p>While airing short clips should be ok, the government had become concerned that schools stepping over the mark could be forced to obtain prior authorization to show content or might even find themselves being sued. That resulted in the decision-making body in the autonomous region of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_(Spain)">Galicia</a> striking a private licensing deal with rightsholders from the movie industry.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://praza.gal/cultura/9093/os-centros-de-ensino-reciben-cartas-esixindo-o-pagamento-dun-canon-pola-proxeccion-de-filmes/">Praza.gal</a> the existence of the deal was revealed in a letter (<em><a href="media/f6916dde.skm_c454e15032513240.pdf" data-original-source="http://praza.gal/xornal/uploads/skm_c454e15032513240.pdf">pdf</a></em>) sent to schools this week by the local CEO of the worldwide Motion Picture Licensing Corporation.</p>
<p>The letter revealed that MPLC was willing to license each student for the price of 1.25 euros per year. While that doesn&#8217;t sound much in isolation, there are 260,000 students in the region making a grand total of 325,000 euros ($350,000) to be sent to MPLC&#8217;s movie and TV show company <a href="http://www.mplc.org/page/producer-list">members</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.cig-ensino.gal">CIG-Ensino</a> union has reacted furiously to the news and is now calling for local authorities to prohibit the collection of any monies and ensure that audiovisual resources for use as teaching and learning aids remain free.</p>
<p>&#8220;[Schools and teachers] should not to pay any tax for doing their job and should be able to continue using all kinds of tools that are needed to do their jobs as effectively as possible,&#8221; the union said.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is incomprehensible to try to limit the task of educating exclusively to the use of the textbooks and reducing the use of resources such as film, music, documentaries in classrooms.&#8221;</p>
<p>MPLC has not yet commented on the news.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103662
title: Pirate Bay Clone Offloads Banking Trojan Via WordPress Blogs
uri: Pirate-Bay-Clone-Offloads-Banking-Trojan-Via-WordPress-Blogs
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/xIQbaYvRiCg/
content:
<p><img src="media/474f64f3.openbay.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/openbay.png" alt="openbay" width="222" height="154" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103667">After the Pirate Bay was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">raided</a> last December hundreds of clones appeared online. </p>
<p>Many of these sites used the open source <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/open-bay-now-everyone-can-run-pirate-bay-copy-141219/">&#8220;Open Bay&#8221; project</a>, which allows people to set up their own clone in just a few clicks. </p>
<p>Now, several months later one of the clones has gone rogue. As reported by <a href="https://blog.malwarebytes.org/exploits-2/2015/04/compromised-wordpress-sites-launch-drive-by-attacks-off-pirate-bay-clone/">Malwarebytes</a>, several compromised WordPress blogs are being injected with an iframe that loads thepiratebay.in.ua.</p>
<p>At first sight this seems odd, since the site looks just like any other Open Bay clone. However, this one is being used to offload a rather dangerous exploit kit.</p>
<p>&#8220;We found the real reason behind this pretty quickly. The Pirate Bay clone is actively pushing the Nuclear exploit kit with an iframe and will infect vulnerable visitors via drive-by download attacks,&#8221; Malwarebytes senior security researcher Jérôme Segura <a href="https://blog.malwarebytes.org/exploits-2/2015/04/compromised-wordpress-sites-launch-drive-by-attacks-off-pirate-bay-clone/">writes</a>.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/7b606858.exploitclone.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/exploitclone.png" alt="exploitclone" width="965" height="395" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103664"></center></p>
<p>The malicious content is passed on to users&#8217; computers via <a href="http://malware.dontneedcoffee.com/2015/01/unpatched-vulnerability-0day-in-flash.html">a known Flash exploit</a>. The payload being pushed by the Pirate Bay clone is linked to a banking trojan.</p>
<p>Interestingly, most other sites relying on the Open Bay project are experiencing issues as well. The main oldpiratebay.org site is currently down, and other clones don&#8217;t have any content. </p>
<p>TF asked the people behind the Open Bay project for a comment and we will update this article if we hear back. For now, we haven&#8217;t heard any reports indicating that more Pirate Bay clones are pushing exploit kits.</p>
<p>At the time of writing it&#8217;s still unclear how the iframe is being injected into the WordPress sites. A likely explanation appears to be outdated WordPress code or an old plugin.</p>
<p>People are advised to avoid the compromised Pirate Bay clone directly and WordPress users should make sure that they&#8217;re running the latest version of the blogging platform.</p>
<p>&#8220;To avoid getting their sites hacked, WordPress users need to check that they are running the latest WP install and that all their plugins are up to date,&#8221; Jérôme Segura notes.</p>
<p>&#8220;Other proper hygiene tips such as strong passwords and avoiding public wifi when logging into your site should also be applied,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>More technical details and analyses can be found at the <a href="https://blog.malwarebytes.org/exploits-2/2015/04/compromised-wordpress-sites-launch-drive-by-attacks-off-pirate-bay-clone/">Malwarebytes blog</a>. </p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p><sup><em>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/huskyte/7512877940/">Michael Theis</a></em></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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103687
title: Microsoft Hits Halo Online Modders With Copyright Complaint
uri: Microsoft-Hits-Halo-Online-Modders-With-Copyright-Complaint
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/J0OwCpXZJNM/
content:
<p><img src="media/369350fe.haloonline.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/haloonline.jpg" alt="haloonline" width="180" height="136" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103694">Last week Microsoft announced the existence of Halo Online. The all-new game will provide a free-to-play online multiplayer experience on PC.</p>
<p>&#8220;Halo Online is powered by a highly modified version of the Halo 3 engine and optimized for smooth performance on lower-end PCs,&#8221; the company <a href="https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/community/blog-posts/halo-online-closed-beta-launching-in-russia">said</a>.</p>
<p>While the announcement was welcomed by PC gamers everywhere, not all had reason to celebrate. Due to launch later in the spring, Halo Online is destined to be restricted to players in Russia only, at least for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>&#8220;Right now our focus is on learning as much as we can from the closed beta period in Russia. Theoretically, any expansion outside of Russia would have to go through region-specific changes to address player expectations,&#8221; the company said.</p>
<p>Of course, &#8216;player expectations&#8217; can take many forms but predictably not having to wait patiently in line while geo-restrictions are lifted is one of them. The first signs of cracks appearing came when a YouTuber called &#8216;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvYxU7svxJx7AGlwl8qBGDg">Noble</a>&#8216; uploaded footage after modders Gamecheat13 and Lord Zedd reportedly <a href="http://www.vg247.com/2015/03/30/leaked-halo-online-gameplay-shows-weapons-maps-and-more/">obtained a build</a> of the title.</p>
<p><img src="media/794d677b.eldoritologo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eldoritologo.jpg" alt="eldoritologo" width="180" height="175" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103696">Since then other modders have been dissecting Halo Online to unlock features, with one team creating a game launcher titled &#8216;ElDorito&#8217; (a play on the &#8216;Eldorado&#8217; main executable for Halo:Online) to ease the process.</p>
<p>“We’re really working on building a framework for the game to be playable, as well as a custom console with a plethora of features we believe are necessary to the game,” team member Pyong told <a href="http://www.se7ensins.com/forums/threads/el-dorito-the-launcher-that-is-bringing-modern-halo-to-the-pc.1307824/">Se7ensins</a>.</p>
<p>With the launcher undergoing development via Github, things were progressing smoothly. Until yesterday that is, when Microsoft rolled out the big guns and stopped the project in its tracks.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have received information that the domain listed above, which appears to be on servers under your control, is offering unlicensed copies of, or is engaged in other unauthorized activities relating to, copyrighted works published by Microsoft,&#8221; the company wrote in a DMCA notice to Github.</p>
<p>While that statement is almost certainly accurate, the notice from Microsoft is somewhat confusing in that it refers to ElDorito being the company&#8217;s property.</p>
<p>&#8220;The above copyright work(s) [ElDorito] is being made available for copying, through downloading, at the above location without authorization from the copyright owner or exclusive licensee,&#8221; the company adds.</p>
<p>But whatever the ins-and-outs, Microsoft still feels it has a valid complaint and has ordered Github to disable access to ElDorito to &#8220;prevent the illegal reproduction and distribution of this copyrighted work(s) via your company&#8217;s services.&#8221;</p>
<p>As can be seen from the image below, Github has already <a href="https://github.com/DEElekgolo/ElDorito/releases/latest">complied</a>.</p>
<p><img src="media/fe1db58d.eldorito.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eldorito.png" alt="eldorito" width="650" height="229" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-103690"></p>
<p>While Microsoft were quick to hit the ElDorito project on Github, strangely there appears to have been less effort to take down the actual game files. The project&#8217;s <a href="https://halowiki.llf.to/index.php?title=Main_Page">wiki</a> doesn&#8217;t host the leaked content, but it does offer a valuable pointer.</p>
<p>&#8220;Since we can&#8217;t actually post the link to the Halo Online download, you&#8217;ll have to look for it elsewhere,&#8221; the wiki explains.</p>
<p>The word &#8216;elsewhere&#8217; helpfully links to a Pastebin page which in turn displays a link to Mega.co.nz where someone has uploaded the 2.1GB zip file. It probably won&#8217;t be there for long.</p>
<p>But for those hoping that the ElDorito project will continue, that seems unlikely, at least in the short-term. The team is reportedly a bit spooked by Microsoft&#8217;s intervention and are waiting for things to cool down before making any decisions.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103685
title: Megaupload Freezes MPAA and RIAA Lawsuits For Six Months
uri: Megaupload-Freezes-MPAA-and-RIAA-Lawsuits-For-Six-Months
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/b6bRkNUa_0Q/
content:
<p><img src="media/9a9629f5.megaupload-logo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/megaupload-logo.jpg" alt="megaupload-logo" width="250" height="208" class="alignright size-full wp-image-95191">Well over three years have passed since Megaupload was shutdown, but aside from Andrus Nomm&#8217;s <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-programmer-sentenced-to-a-year-in-prison-150213/">plea deal</a> there has been little progress in the criminal proceedings. </p>
<p>Dotcom and his fellow Megaupload defendants are still waiting to hear whether they will be sent to the U.S. to stand trial. </p>
<p>The extradition hearing is currently scheduled to start early June after a request from Dotcom&#8217;s lawyers to postpone was <a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/269380/dotcom-hearing-delay-turned-down">turned down</a> last month.</p>
<p>But there&#8217;s more legal trouble for the defunct file-hosting service. In addition to the criminal case, Megaupload and Kim Dotcom were sued last year by the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/now-the-riaa-sues-megaupload-for-massive-copyright-theft-140411/">major record labels</a> and Hollywood’s <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-demand-millions-megaupload-new-lawsuit-140408/">top movie studios</a>. </p>
<p>Fearing that they might influence criminal proceedings, Megaupload&#8217;s legal team previously managed to put these civil actions on hold. </p>
<p>After being delayed for a year the proceedings were expected to continue this month. However, since the extradition hearing has yet to take place, Megaupload asked the court to freeze the MPAA and RIAA cases until October.</p>
<p>This week District Court Judge Liam O&#8217;Grady granted the request under the same conditions as the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-cases-put-on-hold-but-asset-freezing-still-an-option-140611/">previous order</a>. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/57cc2409.staymega.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/staymega.jpg" alt="staymega" width="601" height="366" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103706"></center></p>
<p>The ruling means that both the MPAA and RIAA cases will now be delayed for another six months. The movie and music studios consented to the freezing request, which made it a relatively straightforward decision.</p>
<p>A stay has not yet been granted in a third civil suit filed by the music group Microhits. In this separate case Megaupload&#8217;s legal team was ordered to present an oral argument in support of its motion, which will take place later this month. </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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103634
title: AMC Goes After “The Walking Dead” Spoiler Pirates
uri: AMC-Goes-After-The-Walking-Dead-Spoiler-Pirates
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/aFR0mawq1AA/
content:
<p><img src="media/f51ce921.spoilingdead.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/spoilingdead.png" alt="spoilingdead" width="200" height="200" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103641">With dozens of millions of viewers around the world The Walking Dead is one of the most popular TV-series around. The series just ended its fifth season and is scheduled to return next fall.</p>
<p>In common with most popular shows, The Walking Dead has a dedicated group of followers who&#8217;re constantly on the lookout for spoilers and possible directions the series may take. </p>
<p>One of the sources that has done well on this front is &#8220;<a href="http://www.thespoilingdeadfans.com/">The Spoiling Dead Fans</a>.&#8221; The people behind the site have posted inside information and many spoiler videos in recent weeks, helped by unnamed sources.</p>
<p>&#8220;There is no amount of &#8216;thanks&#8217; that we could ever give to our sources for everything they have done. We truly appreciate every bit of info they have shared with us throughout the seasons,&#8221; the group wrote <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SpoilingDeadFans/posts/471525193002624">on Facebook</a> this week.</p>
<p>While the fan community does generate plenty of buzz for The Walking Dead, AMC is not happy with all material they publish. </p>
<p>In February the spoiler group published a <a href="https://www.google.com/#q=TWD+5.10+Sneak+Peek+%E2%80%9CFrom+A+Friend%E2%80%9D">32 second sneak peek</a> of the episode “From A Friend,” which was <a href="https://vimeo.com/119160463">uploaded</a> to Vimeo. As it contained video that had yet to air on TV it was quickly <a href="https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10464446">pulled offline by AMC</a>. </p>
<p>&#8220;AMC diligently enforces its rights in and to The Walking Dead in all forms of media and rightfully takes its responsibility for the protection of The Walking Dead very seriously,&#8221; the company <a href="media/c665aad0.RdyXriR.png" data-original-source="http://i.imgur.com/RdyXriR.png">informed</a> Vimeo.</p>
<p>And AMC didn&#8217;t stop at a takedown notice. A few days later it went to court demanding a subpoena to obtain the personal details of the alleged infringer from Vimeo, which was granted (<a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/260583159/TorrentFreak-com-TWD1">pdf</a>). </p>
<p><img src="media/00c03117.twdsub.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/twdsub.png" alt="twdsub" width="600" height="163" class="alignright size-large wp-image-103639"></center></p>
<p>When presented with the subpoena, Vimeo has few other options than to hand over all the information they have on the account holder. This includes the associated email and IP-addresses. </p>
<p>Whether the information will be sufficient to pinpoint an actual person is unknown. AMC states that it wants to protect its rights, but whether that will be achieved via legal action remains to be seen. AMC is probably most interested in finding out who the sources for the actual leaked footage and spoilers are.</p>
<p>For now, The Spoiling Dead Fans remain active through their own website and social media accounts, spoiling their way to the next season.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103756
title: Grooveshark Publishes Proactive Anti-Piracy Policy
uri: Grooveshark-Publishes-Proactive-Anti-Piracy-Policy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/uI-7beObh50/
content:
<p><img src="media/abe2d87e.grooveshark.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/grooveshark.jpg" alt="grooveshark" width="200" height="200" class="alignright size-full wp-image-33984">Throughout Grooveshark&#8217;s history the company has come to rely on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As a site that largely relies on users to upload content, the protections provided by the DMCA allow the company to operate without being held liable for the infringements of others.</p>
<p>While that&#8217;s certainly the theory, those protections are only available if strict patterns of behavior are adhered to and many conditions are met. It&#8217;s an area that has seen Grooveshark and parent company Escape Media face a string of lawsuits in recent years.</p>
<p>In response to a case involving Capitol Records and the company&#8217;s responsibilities in dealing with repeat infringers, Grooveshark has just published some interesting amendments to its anti-piracy policy.</p>
<p>&#8220;The requirements for hosting digital music evolve with every new court ruling and we regularly update our policies to remain compliant. Therefore, we are implementing the following changes until the final outcome of this case, including our expected appeal,&#8221; the company explains.</p>
<p><strong>Dealing with infringers</strong></p>
<p>Interestingly the first change sees Grooveshark shifting from a &#8220;one strike&#8221; policy to a now familiar &#8220;three strikes&#8221; arrangement. This will see Grooveshark terminating user accounts on the third offense &#8220;in order to make sure no repeat infringers can &#8216;slip through the cracks&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
<p>In the Capitol case the Court noted that while Grooveshark keeps records of all processed DMCA takedown complaints and associated users, it does not keep an &#8220;independent record&#8221; of repeat infringers. </p>
<p>&#8220;Escape does not try to identify repeat infringers and fails to keep<br>
records that would allow it to do so,&#8221; the judge said.</p>
<p>Grooveshark says it is now dealing with that criticism.</p>
<p>&#8220;In an era of simple database queries this new requirement may be redundant, but we will now create an additional independent record of repeat infringers from our existing databases, until our appeal clarifies this issue for Grooveshark and other hosting services committed to complying with the DMCA,&#8221; the company <a href="http://blog.grooveshark.com/post/115334301568/continued-commitment-to-dmca-compliance">writes</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Taking down infringing content</strong></p>
<p>While Grooveshark does takedown content quickly when asked (TorrentFreak was informed just this week that an independent artist had no issues having his music removed from the service), the company says it will now go even further.</p>
<p>&#8220;We will provide a pre-screening tool for rights-holders that provides immediate access to compare uploaded files on our servers that aren’t even yet available for end-user streaming with content owned by the rights-holder,&#8221; Grooveshark explains.</p>
<p>While no further details have been provided at this stage, on the surface this appears to be a step towards a YouTube-like Content ID system. Just how automated the system will be remains to be seen, but in some respects it appears that Grooveshark is actually prepared to go a step further.</p>
<p>In addition to removing content that matches rightsholder content (possibly by comparing fingerprint data), Grooveshark will proactively suggest additional content that it believes may also be prime for deletion.</p>
<p>&#8220;When a rights-holder provides a single file URL to the tool, they will receive a list of other files on our servers that have been found to be digitally different, but contain similar metadata,&#8221; the company explains.</p>
<p>In conclusion Grooveshark says that it hopes that its anti-piracy policies now go &#8220;well beyond&#8221; the standard required by the court, something which will allow the company to expand.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our goal remains to license every bit of audio content ever created, with ongoing commitment to operate a service that complies with the DMCA and all legal requirements as standards for hosting providers continue to evolve,&#8221; Grooveshark concludes.</p>
<p>But even as the company looks forward it still has massive legal issues to deal with. As reported by <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6523936/grooveshark-loses-again-emi-summary-judgment-copyright-infringement">Billboard</a>, Judge Alison Nathan of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York has just granted EMI Music&#8217;s motion for summary judgment in its copyright infringement case against Grooveshark parent Escape Media.</p>
<p>The case, which concerns more than 2,800 copyrighted tracks, exposes Escape Media to potential damages of $420 million. A conference on damages will now take place early May and Grooveshark will be able to appeal any judgment.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103658
title: EZTV Impostors Hope To Cash In on EZTV.it Domain
uri: EZTV-Impostors-Hope-To-Cash-In-on-EZTV-it-Domain
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/9h7IBHfFrlk/
content:
<p><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">Earlier this year EZTV <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/eztv-ditches-it-domain-after-italian-intervention-150115/">ran into trouble</a> with the Italian domain name registry NIC.it over some paperwork.</p>
<p>Facing a looming confiscation of the EZTV.it domain name, they swiftly moved to a new home using the Swiss based <a href="https://eztv.ch">EZTV.ch</a>.</p>
<p>Soon after the EZTV.it domain was suspended, but in a surprise move it became available again after a few weeks. Unfortunately for the EZTV crew it was quickly scooped up by domain squatters.</p>
<p>The domain was allegedly listed for sale at an auction where the company EZCLOUD LIMITED (Ezcloud is the same name the real EZTV used in the Whois previously) bought it for a five digit number. They then relaunched the domain using it as a reverse proxy to serve content from the original domain, with their own ads.</p>
<p>Instead of making clear that the site was a proxy, the owners <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/eztv-it-domain-compromised-by-scammers-150313/">removed all references to the real EZTV.ch</a> domain, probably in an effort to keep the traffic on board.</p>
<p>TF reached out to <a href="http://www.companydirectorcheck.com/hernandez-dominguez-emmanuel">EZCLOUD director</a> Hernandez Dominguez Emmanuel, hoping to find out more about their motivation, and we were informed that they initially planned to make a deal with the real EZTV. </p>
<p>Emmanuel sent a business proposal to EZTV offering them a percentage of the profit they made from advertisements. The other option was to buy the domain back for a larger amount, but a partnership was preferred. </p>
<p>&#8220;The business proposal to Novaking was straightforward: he pays us a slightly bigger amount than we have paid at the auction or we somehow partnership by uniting both entities: eztv.it and eztv.ch and we will earn in the course of the next months by percentage of the ads revenues,&#8221; Emmanuel tells TF. </p>
<p>EZTV&#8217;s Novaking was not interested in making a deal and made that very clear in a short reply.  </p>
<p>&#8220;Have no idea why you are trying to sound like business oriented people. I have no interest in making some crappy deals with you simply being a reverse proxy. Have fun with the domain,&#8221; Novaking wrote in a quick response.</p>
<p>In addition, EZTV banned IP-address of the impostor site so it could no longer act as a reverse proxy. However, this ban was circumvented and ETZV.it still displays recent torrents via a workaround.</p>
<p>According to Novaking it&#8217;s obvious that the impostors have bad intentions. They want people to believe that they&#8217;re the real site so they can make a profit.</p>
<p>&#8220;They basically want us to do all the work and they make money from it,&#8221; Novaking informs TF.</p>
<p>To warn people he posted a note on the official site urging users to avoid the old domain.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/14ae741d.eztvwarning.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eztvwarning.png" alt="eztvwarning" width="965" height="239" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103742"></center></p>
<p>&#8220;The scammers who own eztv.it appear to be trying to fool users to think they are the main website,&#8221; the warning reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;Take caution, and stop using their website, the correct domain is eztv.ch. Please inform your family and friends who may still be using the old domain,&#8221; it adds.</p>
<p>In response, EZCLOUD posted a message on the site inaccurately claiming that they are the real deal. </p>
<p>&#8220;The correct domain address is eztv.it as always! Please inform your family and friends who may be using other cloned domains.&#8221;</p>
<p><img src="media/6c1be9cf.eztvscamimp.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/eztvscamimp.png" alt="eztvscamimp" width="965" height="127" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103743"> </p>
<p>Considering the rift between both sides it seems unlikely that EZTV.it will be returned to its original owner anytime soon. For now it remains in possession of the impostors, something people should bear in mind.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103703
title: Google Asked to Wipe Record Breaking 100 Million Pirate Links in 2015
uri: Google-Asked-to-Wipe-Record-Breaking-100-Million-Pirate-Links-in-2015
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/hAKDlTPzs_c/
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 recent years copyright holders have overloaded Google with DMCA takedown requests targeted at the company&#8217;s search results.</p>
<p>The number of requests issued has increased dramatically. In 2011, the search engine received <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/google-takedown-notices-surge-140325/">only a few hundred</a> takedown notices per day, but in the same period it now processes more than a million &#8220;pirate&#8221; links.</p>
<p>A few days ago Google received its 100 millionth takedown request of 2015. The counter is currently at 103,218,572, which means yet another record. Last year it took a month longer to reach the same milestone. </p>
<p>If the numbers go up at the same rate throughout the year, Google will process half a billion allegedly infringing links during 2015. </p>
<p>Most of the reported links are legitimate and the associated links are often swiftly removed from Google&#8217;s search results. However, with the massive volume of reports coming in, mistakes are also made. </p>
<p>In recent weeks we have received several reports from site owners who have had their homepages removed from Google, even though they don&#8217;t link to any infringing material. </p>
<p>File-hosting service Rapidgator.net had its homepage removed for the third time, for example. And the Dutch subtitle site Ondertitel.com suffered the same fate. In neither case a counter-notice proved to be successful. However, the pages were quickly restored after TF asked Google about the errors. </p>
<p>In Google&#8217;s defense, the company must be overloaded with DMCA counter notices. But if the numbers increase this type of collateral damage will only get worse, so there has to be a reliable system in place to quickly restore falsely removed content.   </p>
<p><center><img src="media/15806323.100m2015.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/100m2015.png" alt="100m2015" width="478" height="243" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103779"></center></p>
<p>Another problem for Google are the increased levels of general complaints from copyright holders, who increasingly expect Google to do more to tackle online piracy.</p>
<p>Responding to this commentary Google implemented <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/google-will-downrank-pirate-sites-starting-next-week-141018/">a significant change</a> to its search algorithm aimed at downranking sites that often link to copyright-infringing material.</p>
<p>At the same time, however, Google also reminded copyright holders that they too can do more to prevent piracy.</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</a>.</p>
<p>“The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.”</p>
<p>Faced with complaints from both rightsholders and site owners, it&#8217;s impossible for Google to please both sides. For now, they are stuck in the middle, hoping to keep the boat afloat in a storm of takedown notices, without changing course too drastically.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103740
title: Strike Becomes Totally Dynamic With No Torrents to Takedown
uri: Strike-Becomes-Totally-Dynamic-With-No-Torrents-to-Takedown
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/NOfwS3fPk_4/
content:
<p><img src="media/84a48043.strikelogo.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/strikelogo.jpg" width="172" height="144" class="alignright">Last month we published <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/strike-public-tracker-dht-searches-presented-cleanly-150321/">an article</a> on Strike, a new torrent site with a fresh approach.</p>
<p>In addition to a less-is-more philosophy when displaying results, Strike obtains torrent data not only from all public trackers but also BitTorrent&#8217;s Distributed Hash Table (DHT), a first in the torrent world as far as we&#8217;re aware.</p>
<p>But since that piece a couple of weeks ago, Strike has been under attack from multiple directions.</p>
<p>&#8220;The first major one was a DDOS attack, I&#8217;m still not sure who or why did it, but at 300gb/s they took half of my servers offline; some are still off and will probably never come back on because of my hosting provider not wanting to deal with it,&#8221; site operator <a href="http://blog.andrew.im/">Andrew Sampson</a> informs TF.</p>
<p>But that was just the beginning. Rightsholders quickly began contacting not only Sampson, but also Cloudflare and the site&#8217;s host, complaining that Strike was infringing their copyrights. Additionally, &#8220;tons of morons&#8221; threatened to sue Strike if it didn&#8217;t stop &#8220;hosting their content&#8221;, the bemused dev explains.</p>
<p>Eventually German host Hetzner said it didn&#8217;t want to deal with any more DMCA notices. Sampson said the provider null-routed the non-commercial Strike which took down another of Sampson&#8217;s projects, <a href="http://netflixroulette.net">NetflixRoulette</a>, at the same time.</p>
<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t begin to tell you how badly that hurt my revenue stream. A company in Germany adhering to a US law and not even taking the time to investigate. Note to public: Avoid Hetzner,&#8221; Sampson says.</p>
<p>The developer says that the majority of complaints against his site were filed by anti-piracy company Entura International. Sampson says he tried to explain that his site carries no content and no torrents but simply extracts these from DHT upon user request but the company wasn&#8217;t particularly interested.</p>
<p>&#8220;I have a technical background and implement many of Strike&#8217;s technologies within the toolset of my organization, so I believe that I have a good understanding of how Strike operates,&#8221; an Entura contact told Sampson.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our copyright infringement notifications are not requesting the removal of a hash from the BitTorrent/DHT network, we know this is not possible. We are simply requesting the de-indexing or de-listing of results from your site that allow for the downloading of copyrighted content via the magnet link that you provide or .torrent files via your API/RSS.&#8221;</p>
<p>In response to the DMCA issues, Sampson says he has now taken things a step further. During the past few days the dev took the decision to stop storing any data whatsoever on Strike&#8217;s servers &#8220;except for search phrases for learning purposes.&#8221;</p>
<p>This presents an intriguing situation. Aside from some disk caching, Sampson says that Strike now operates purely on demand. When a user types in a search the site pulls the results from its usual sources and presents them in the browser window. When that browser is closed the data effectively disappears, meaning that there is nothing for anti-piracy companies to take down because it&#8217;s already gone.</p>
<p>Whether that will be enough for Entura remains to be seen. An email shared with TF suggests that the company feels that Sampson&#8217;s responsibilities go beyond compliance with the law.</p>
<p>&#8220;I understand that the listing pages might not be served via local storage on your infrastructure, that does not detract from the matter that you are providing the platform or portal for which these remote browser requests are made,&#8221; Entura told the dev.</p>
<p>&#8220;Your compliance in this matter should not be reliant on me creating a compelling case, it should instead be reliant on your good will, desire to support creative industries and comply with the law.&#8221;</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the following message now appears on the front page on <a href="http://getstrike.net/torrents/">Strike</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;If you are visiting this site for anti piracy means, just know a few things. Any content you see is because you requested it. We do not provide or offer any files. You cannot download from us. We do not store any data, all content is dynamic and on demand requested via YOUR browser. So leave us alone,&#8221; the notice reads.</p>
<p>After moving to yet another new host, Sampson thought that things might improve but during our email exchange he received more bad news. His hosting had been terminated once again.</p>
<p>&#8220;Dumb media companies, bad hosting, lack of funding, lots of development. Take your pick, Strike has been a big undertaking, one I&#8217;m not sure I really want to continue, but I know I have to for the greater good,&#8221; Sampson concludes.</p>
<p>At the time of publication Entura had not responded to TF&#8217;s requests for comment.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103748
title: Peter Sunde: The ‘Pirate Movement’ is Dead
uri: Peter-Sunde-The-Pirate-Movement-is-Dead
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Q35QkX9Xp50/
content:
<p><img src="media/269ab949.pirate-fire-burn.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-fire-burn.jpg" alt="pirate-fire-burn" width="250" height="208" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103753">Well, I for one don’t give a flying fuck. I don’t care if the “pirate movement” lives, exists or whatever. I only care about the causes. Too much focus is put on the form, liveliness and influence of groups, organizations and nostalgic icons. </p>
<p>What’s the point on spending energy and resources (not to talk about lost publicity) to discuss the meta-debate about the form of the causes? It’s just pointless.</p>
<p>You&#8217;ve all heard it. The “pirate movement” is dead, diminishing and what not. But ignore that. What are the causes that we talk about here? Freedom of information, freedom of speech, surveillance, state corruption, corporate overlords, control of our infrastructure, the right to access education and culture, plenty. Are these discussions dead? No. But are we moving anywhere with them? I’m afraid not. </p>
<p>As I&#8217;ve said numerous times over and over again, we lost those battles. Now some people are refusing to give them up, in true Monty Python spirit, claiming that their beloved “pirate movement” is not dead. Mixing apples and pears.</p>
<p>Give up the idea of pirates being cool. They’re not. My biggest regret in my part in all of this was to use the word pirate. Not even Johnny Depp can make pirates look cool &#8211; and he manages to make cocaine-dealers look awesome. Pirates are awful. And today&#8217;s pirates &#8211; the ones in Somalia &#8211; also lost their battles. Good! So let’s get rid of this stupid culture of having a stupid culture.</p>
<p>In the essence of what a pirate means today &#8211; I’m talking the political pirate &#8211; I’m all in. But I’m also so much more and I hope you guys are as well. I hope you care about the bigger picture. The “pirate movement” does not have space for that though. So why would you limit yourself to that? Why would you spend your energy and time on something that has no working big picture? It’s a subset of politics that the “movement” has been dealing with. And that’s fine, but not in the form of a party. </p>
<p>A party needs to be able to have that ideological big picture view. Who can say what the “pirate movement&#8217;s” view on immigration is? Or the war against drugs and so on? It would be different in each country. There’s no alignment here.</p>
<p>So fuck the “pirate movement”. Rename it, re-brand it, do whatever you want. Just fucking don’t be a pirate. Be something more awesome. Be a world citizen that cares about the same topics. Join other parties and make them understand the topics at hand. Infiltrate them. Cooperate and have people join all the parties in your nation, make sure they all agree. Be a fucking undercover ninja for all I care. Just don’t sing songs about pirate booty, looting and shit.</p>
<p>Anyhow, i’m pretty sure we lost the big fight. But I don’t mind you guys trying to fix it. I’m involved no matter if I want to be or not anymore &#8211; but I’m spending my time on new approaches. I’m doing art and I’m traveling to tell you all that you’re stupid. It’s fun to do that. And fun is what’s missing in your beloved “pirate movement”. </p>
<p>You’re stuck in 2005. 10 years of history on the ‘nets is an insane amount of time for being stuck. For most it’s half of your life. And you’re refusing to evolve. If that’s the message of a “pirate movement” I don’t get why anyone wants to be involved.</p>
<p>The “pirate movement” is dead &#8211; yeeey! Long live everything else. This is the only essence of what used to be a “movement” that should be there. Ignite, re-ignite, burn and ignite again. Pyromania is creative.</p>
<div style="border:2px solid #3F3F3F;width:600px;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:130px;margin-left:20px;margin-right:10px"><img src="media/936c0094.pesu.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pesu.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>Peter Sunde is the former spokesperson of The Pirate Bay. He&#8217;s currently working for the micro-payment service Flattr, the encrypted chat client Heml.is and several other technology startups.  </small></p>
<div style="float:right;position:relative;top:-12px"></div>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/brokep" class="twitter-follow-button">Follow @brokep</a></p>
</div>
<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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103804
title: ‘Halo Online’ Modders Won’t Stop For Microsoft
uri: Halo-Online-Modders-Won-t-Stop-For-Microsoft
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/BdrcpwI-v5s/
content:
<p><img src="media/369350fe.haloonline.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/haloonline.jpg" alt="haloonline" width="180" height="136" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103694">Last week Microsoft announced Halo Online, an all-new, free-to-play online multiplayer experience on PC.</p>
<p>While the upcoming late spring release generated excitement, that was tempered somewhat by the revelation that the game will be restricted to players in Russia only, at least for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>The news was met with predictable resistance from the &#8216;modding community&#8217;, the hardcore few who prefer to play Halo on their own terms. After a leaked copy of Halo Online was obtained, a tool enabling exploration of the game was uploaded to Github. It didn&#8217;t stay there long.</p>
<p>Microsoft hit Github with a DMCA takedown notice and the code platform responded by <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-hits-halo-online-modders-with-copyright-complaint-150402/">disabling access to the tool</a>, titled &#8216;ElDorito&#8217;.</p>
<p>Just before the weekend TorrentFreak caught up with the loose-knit ElDorito team who gave us the background to the leak and subsequent interest from Microsoft.</p>
<p>&#8220;Microsoft is probably quite bothered by what we&#8217;ve done already as these files were leaked. We obtained the files from a user on 4chan&#8217;s /v/ board,&#8221; team member &#8216;Woovie&#8217; told TF.</p>
<p>Sure enough, even now a post by the 4chan user in question contains a still-live link to a file hosted by Microsoft partner Innova, helpfully titled &#8216;halo_setup-ru.exe&#8217;. No takedowns in this instance.</p>
<p>&#8220;From there, user Emoose proceeded to create a hack that would allow the client to load files and thus get in game,&#8221; Woovie adds. &#8220;He has in the past done the same for Halo 2 and Halo 3 betas so he had experience with this. The files we have are definitely an early internal alpha. A lot of left over code from other Halo games.&#8221;</p>
<p>The big question is whether the copyright move from Microsoft has put the team off continuing. Initially TF was told that might be the case, but subsequent discussion painted a very different picture.</p>
<p>&#8220;In terms of DMCA/C&#038;D mitigation, we have made redundant git backups on private and public git servers. This is to ensure we will always have one working copy. These are being synchronized so that data is always the same,&#8221; Woovie explains.</p>
<p>&#8220;Further DMCAs may happen potentially, it&#8217;s not really known at the moment. Our backups will always exist though and we will continue until we&#8217;re happy.&#8221;</p>
<p>So what is motivating the ElDorito team to carry on? Aside from a passion for Halo itself, the team seems perplexed by the Russian geo-restrictions and also what they believe could turn into a free-to-play game requiring in-game purchases for players to succeed.</p>
<p>&#8220;We of course still don&#8217;t know 100% what items are purchasable with real money, but it would appear at first glance to have pay-to-win potential. We also of course want to play this game, which as far as we see, is a Russian market only game,&#8221; Woovie adds.</p>
<p>Of course, all this could mean more action from Microsoft, but team member Neoshadow42 sees the modding of leaked files as more of a service.</p>
<p>&#8220;As someone involved in game development, I&#8217;m sympathetic with some developers when it comes to copyright issues. This is different though, in my opinion,&#8221; the dev explains.</p>
<p>&#8220;The game was going to be free in the first place. The PC audience has been screaming for Halo 3 for years and years, and we saw the chance with this leak. The fact that we could, in theory, bring the game that everyone wants, without the added on stuff that would ruin the game, that&#8217;s something we&#8217;d be proud of.&#8221;</p>
<p>Refuting claims by some that the team&#8217;s actions might be damaging, Neoshadow42 says this case is different.</p>
<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t particularly see this as damaging, as some people have said. I don&#8217;t believe it for a moment, honestly. We&#8217;re working to improve people&#8217;s experience, bring it to those who wouldn&#8217;t have been able to play it anyway. I&#8217;d see that as a noble cause.&#8221;</p>
<p>But isn&#8217;t this just the same as pirating any other game and making it free to play?</p>
<p>&#8220;This whole project would be completely different in an ethical way if we had taken a paid game and reversed it for everyone to access for free,&#8221; Neoshadow42 insists.</p>
<p>&#8220;At the end of the day, El Dorito aims to deliver exactly what everyone wants. The closest thing to a Halo 3 experience as possible, but on PC. If we can manage that, I&#8217;ll be more than happy.&#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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103843
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 04/06/15
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-04-06-15
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/C8H59RYAKFM/
content:
<p><img src="media/57e18120.taken3.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/taken3.jpg" alt="taken3" width="300" height="214" class="alignright size-full wp-image-100792">This week we have five newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Taken 3 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-033015/">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/taken_3/">Taken 3</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2446042/">6.1</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuU0M2xBasc">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/interstellar_2014/">Interstellar</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxOhd4qlnA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/last_knights/">Last Knights</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2493486/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e44QilQbvB0">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_gambler_2015/">The Gambler</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039393/">6.1</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8rCHUjjqnU">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/furious_7/">Furious 7</a> (CAM)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2820852/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yISKeT6sDOg">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cinderella_2013/">Cinderella</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1661199/">7.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRuHM6rLSF8">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/exodus_gods_and_kings/">Exodus: Gods and Kings</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1528100/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8YsulfxVI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/into_the_woods_2014/">Into The Woods</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjy5MK1X70">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/careful_what_you_wish_for_2014/">Careful What You Wish For</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1629242/">5.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ibgWtcvj5A">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(7)</td>
<td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fifty_shades_of_grey/">Fifty Shades of Grey</a> </td>
<td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322441/">3.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfZWFDs0LxA">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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=102263
title: Research: Piracy Increases Literacy and Access to Knowledge
uri: Research-Piracy-Increases-Literacy-and-Access-to-Knowledge
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/oh0M_p1YD5U/
content:
<p><a href="http://thepiratesdilemma.com/download-the-book"><img src="media/db31635d.piratesdillemma.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/piratesdillemma.png" alt="piratesdillemma" width="222" height="159" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103800"></a>In Western countries piracy is often seen as a leisure tool, granting people unauthorized access to the latest hits and Hollywood blockbusters.</p>
<p>However, there are also parts of the world where piracy is frequently used as a means to gather and spread knowledge. In parts of Africa, for example, where legal access to educational books and software is often restricted or unavailable.</p>
<p>Over the years we have seen various illustrations of the educational importance of piracy in developing countries. When the e-book portal Library.nu <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/book-publishers-shut-down-library-nu-and-ifile-it-120215/">was shut down</a>, for instance, we were contacted by a United Nations worker in Kenya, who voiced his disappointment.</p>
<p>&#8220;I am very concerned about the recent injunction against library.nu. The site was particularly useful for people like me working in Nairobi, a city that has no more than four bookshops with nothing but bestsellers,&#8221; the UN worker informed TF at the time.</p>
<p>In an effort to determine how piracy affects literacy and the spread of knowledge, the African Governance and Development Institute conducted an in-depth study comparing piracy and human development data from 11 African countries. </p>
<p>The findings, presented in a <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2571787">paper</a> titled &#8220;The Impact of Software Piracy on Inclusive Human Development: Evidence from Africa&#8221; show that &#8220;software piracy increases literacy&#8221;.</p>
<p>&#8220;Adoption of tight IPRs regimes may negatively affect human development by diminishing the literacy rate and restricting diffusion of knowledge,&#8221; the authors write.</p>
<p>Not all copyright protection measures have a negative effect though, and the researchers found that is negatively linked to the human development index.</p>
<p>&#8220;Adherence to international IPRs protection treaties (laws) may not impede per capita economic prosperity and could improve life-expectancy,&#8221; the paper reads. </p>
<p>The paper reports mostly correlational data so it&#8217;s not unthinkable that countries where human development is higher have less need to pirate, as there are better alternatives. </p>
<p>The reverse effect could also apply to the literacy findings but according to the researchers this is unlikely. Researcher Simplice Asongu informed TF that his <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2529442">previous work</a> showed a causal effect from piracy on scientific publications.</p>
<p>&#8220;I tested the impact of piracy on scientific publications and established a positive causality flowing from the former to the latter,&#8221; Asongu says.</p>
<p>From that research, it was concluded that African countries with less copyright restrictions on software will substantially boost the spread of knowledge through scientific and technical publications. </p>
<p>The findings reported here are limited to the effect of software piracy, but it&#8217;s not hard to see how book piracy may also positively influence literacy and the spread of knowledge.</p>
<p>In sum, the research suggests that piracy does have its positive sides, especially in terms of human development. Still, it seems unlikely that rightsholders will take that into account when lobbying for new policy changes.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103850
title: Top Torrent Tracker Knocked Offline Over “Infringing Hashes”
uri: Top-Torrent-Tracker-Knocked-Offline-Over-Infringing-Hashes
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/iDw-JHBSSt0/
content:
<p><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">In recent years <a href="http://tracker.coppersurfer.tk/">Coppersurfer.tk</a> has quickly become one of the most used BitTorrent trackers.</p>
<p>Running on the beerware-licensed <a href="http://erdgeist.org/arts/software/opentracker/">Opentracker</a> software, the standalone tracker offers a non-commercial service which doesn&#8217;t host or link to torrent files themselves.</p>
<p>The free service coordinates the downloads of 10 million people at any given point in time, processing roughly billions of connections per month.</p>
<p>However, since last weekend Coppersurfer.tk has been offline. Responding to a complaint from Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, hosting provider <a href="https://www.leaseweb.com/">LeaseWeb</a> suddenly pulled the plug.</p>
<p>According to a LeaseWeb rep &#8220;torrents are illegal&#8221; and the company had no other option than to shut down the tracker. </p>
<p>This came as quite a surprise to the operator, since his service doesn&#8217;t link to or host torrent files. In fact, Coppersurfer doesn&#8217;t know what titles are tracked or where all the corresponding torrents are stored. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/1810d4e4.coppers.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/coppers.png" alt="coppers" width="600" height="312" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103855"></center></p>
<p>Hoping to resolve the matter the tracker operator reached out to <a href="http://anti-piracy.nl/">BREIN</a>, pointing out that he provided a content neutral service. However, the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group disagreed. </p>
<p>One of the problems for BREIN is that The Pirate Bay uses Coppersurfer as a default tracker. This means that all torrents shared through the site are automatically tracked by the service. </p>
<p>&#8220;Your claim that a tracker can be compared to a neutral internet service provider is not correct. The Coppersurfer tracker is far from neutral. You are aware that your tracker is used for torrents of illegal websites like ThePiratebay,&#8221; BREIN&#8217;s Pieter Haringsma <a href="media/86d791bb.breinmail.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/breinmail.png">replied</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;There is no question about the fact that ThePirateBay is an illegal website, which is being blocked in numerous countries and, whose founders have been sentenced to jail. You know that your tracker is added automatically to all the torrents that are uploaded to that website,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>Interestingly, BREIN is willing to make a deal with the tracker owner if he agrees to blocklist infringing hashes. In addition, BREIN demands that the owner identifies himself claiming that all commercial services are required to so under the European <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0031:en:HTML">e-commerce directive</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;That is why you have the obligation to check [The Pirate Bay] and blacklist all illegal titles of that site, because you know that your tracker is added automatically to all the torrents that are uploaded to that website,&#8221; Haringsma wrote.</p>
<p>&#8220;Once you have stepped out of anonymity and have implemented measures to avoid illegal use of your tracker by blacklisting illegal torrents from ThePiratebay, BREIN is prepared to discuss the terms of a proper [takedown] procedure that Coppersurfer should put in place, including e.g. enforceable penalties,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>The Coppersurfer operator is surprised by the broad demands and has chosen not to comply. </p>
<p>If a standalone tracker should ban hashes, should browsers and torrent clients do the same? He also fails to see how a non-profit service that doesn&#8217;t even require a website, can be seen as online commerce.</p>
<p>While LeaseWeb is no longer an option, the tracker operator hopes to put the service back online at another hosting company. Another option would be to donate it to an organization that&#8217;s dedicated to protecting free speech digital rights.</p>
<p>&#8220;My plans now are to seek a new home. I&#8217;m searching for a cheap server with 100Mbps/unmetered connection,&#8221; he informs TF. </p>
<p>&#8220;I could also give the tracker for free to any organization related to free speech and human progress,&#8221; he adds. </p>
<p>TF contacted LeaseWeb for a clarification on the &#8220;torrents are illegal&#8221; but at the time of publication we hadn&#8217;t heard back. The above example suggests, however, that hosting torrent related services in the Netherlands is getting more difficult. </p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Leaseweb sent us the following comment.</p>
<p><em>Through our services companies, LeaseWeb provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service around the world. LeaseWeb Netherlands adheres to the Dutch Notice-and-Take-Down (<a href="media/4eedd559.164_NTD_CodeOfConduct_EN.pdf" data-original-source="https://www.dhpa.nl/assets/documenten/164_NTD_CodeOfConduct_EN.pdf">NTD</a>) procedure. When LeaseWeb Netherlands receives a complaint as part of this procedure, our Abuse Prevention department notifies the customer mentioned in the complaint, asking him to respond within a certain timeframe. If we receive no response, we will continue with the rest of the NTD procedure, which may result in the suspension of services.</p>
<p>On Friday 27 March, Brein sent a notification to LeaseWeb Netherland’s Abuse Prevention department, thereby initiating the Dutch Notice-and-Takedown (NTD) procedure. LeaseWeb notified the customer in question, asking him to respond within 24 hours. As the notification was sent to the customer on a Friday afternoon, we decided to extend the reaction time until Monday 30 March. On that date, we had received no response. As a result, our services provided to that customer were suspended, at which point the domain http://tracker.coppersurfer.tk/ became unreachable.</p>
<p>Afterwards, the customer responded. With the customer’s consent, we brought him in direct contact with Brein to resolve their differences. We now await the outcome of their discussion before proceeding further.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103838
title: ISP Teksavvy Appeals in Hurt Locker Piracy Case
uri: ISP-Teksavvy-Appeals-in-Hurt-Locker-Piracy-Case
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/xEiyrZxEHfY/
content:
<p><img src="media/a212e388.hurt-locker-law.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/hurt-locker-law.jpg" width="222" height="148" class="alignright">After numerous experiments elsewhere, notably in the US, two years ago Voltage Pictures took its turn piracy-into-profit business model to Canada.</p>
<p>The company&#8217;s targets were 2,000 Internet subscribers at local ISP Teksavvy. The early stages of the case saw the ISP dig in its heels while bringing on board the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) with the aim of protecting consumers from potentially large fines.</p>
<p>While CIPPIC was allowed to intervene, the subscribers&#8217; identities were ordered to be handed over and with that in hand the arguments turned to who would have to pay for proceedings thus far.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Voltage Pictures&#8217; and Teksavvy&#8217;s assessments were at the opposite ends of the spectrum, with the former saying that should it pay around $884.00 and the latter claiming a few hundred thousand dollars, $346,480.68 to be exact.</p>
<p>In the event the court rejected both sides&#8217; claims, but the ruling was far away from Teksavvy&#8217;s expectations. The <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/exposing-canadian-pirates-costs-11-per-ip-address-150319/">Federal Court told Voltage to pay $21,557</a> &#8211; $17,057 in technical administrative costs plus $4,500 in legal fees &#8211; associated with the IP-address lookups.</p>
<p>After being awarded just 6% of its original claim, it comes as little surprise that the ISP has now filed an appeal against the decision.</p>
<p>Teksavvy says that Prothonotary Aronovitch&#8217;s decision to disallow the large majority of its claim was flawed in that it was &#8220;based upon a wrong principle, an error of law and/or misapprehensions of the fact that cannot reasonably be supported by the evidence.&#8221;</p>
<p>Outlining its case, the ISP says that Prothonotary Aronovitch improperly interpreted the scope of an earlier decision by Prothonotary Aalto concerning Norwich order (disclosure order) jurisprudence, including the nature of costs to which an innocent third-party respondent (Teksavvy in this case) is entitled.</p>
<p>The ISP further asserts that Prothonotary Aronovitch relied on &#8220;irrelevant jurisprudence&#8221; to justify excluding Teksavvy&#8217;s costs and disallowing costs on the basis they amounted to the &#8220;costs of doing business.&#8221;</p>
<p>In support of several other complaints and claims, Teksavvy <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/260438916/CF-No-T-2058-12-TekSavvy-Ats-Voltage-Notice-of-Motion-Re-Appeal-March-27-2015-1">demands</a> a four-hour hearing to outline why it should achieve the following:</p>
<p>&#8211; An order which awards Teksavvy &#8220;reasonable legal costs, administrative costs and disbursements&#8221; or an amount the Court deems &#8220;just and appropriate&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8211; An order which awards Teksavvy its costs in the previous hearing before Prothonotary Aronovitch</p>
<p>&#8211; An award for the costs of this appeal, plus any &#8220;further and other relief&#8221; the court might deem &#8220;just&#8221;</p>
<p>Commenting on Teksavvy&#8217;s decision to appeal, copyright lawyer Howard Knopf says that the ISP&#8217;s earlier decision to &#8220;take no position&#8221; on the original Voltage disclosure application may have cost the company dearly.</p>
<p>&#8220;This appears to have been a key factor in the Federal Court’s refusal to reward TekSavvy and its counsel with almost $180,000 in legal fees,&#8221; Knopf <a href="http://excesscopyright.blogspot.ca/2015/04/voltage-teksavvy-and-cost-of-taking.html">writes</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;Ironically, if TekSavvy had actually opposed Voltage’s motion, it may well have been in a much better position to successfully seek costs. Prothonotary Aronovitch cites [<a href="http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2004/2004fc488/2004fc488.html">a similar case</a>] where two the ISPs actively opposed the disclosure motion. In that case, the Court ultimately denied the motion but awarded the costs of the motion to the third-party ISPs who had opposed it.&#8221;</p>
<p>So while the parties battle it out under appeal, there is still the matter of the consumers who are expecting a letter through the post from Voltage Pictures. Those letters still haven&#8217;t gone out and before they do so their content much be approved by the court. While that may offer recipients some protection, the end game is almost guaranteed &#8211; demands for some kind of cash settlement to avoid supposed legal action.</p>
<p>And according to Voltage counsel James Zibarras, that be could more costly than people might have been led to believe.</p>
<p>Discussions thus far have indicated that statutory damages in such cases sit at $5,000. However, Zibarras says that plaintiffs can also opt for actual damages instead. These take into consideration damages caused by those who distribute content as well as upload, he says.</p>
<p>“And this is the thing, the people that Voltage goes after… technically aren’t downloaders. What Voltage goes after is people that make their product available for upload,” Zibarras <a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/1919187/canadians-who-illegally-download-movies-may-be-risking-more-than-previously-thought/">says</a>.</p>
<p>“Once you switch to actual [damages], then there’s no cap, it’s whatever we can prove.&#8221;</p>
<p>While that assertion is refuted by lawyer Howard Knopf, one thing is for certain. Voltage certainly sees dollar signs in this action and it&#8217;s not going to be giving up anytime soon.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103883
title: iiNet loses Dallas Buyers Club Piracy Case
uri: iiNet-loses-Dallas-Buyers-Club-Piracy-Case
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/mm7ladzOZTc/
content:
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-83513" src="media/d45c68ed.dallas.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/dallas.jpg" alt="dallas" width="180" height="180">Back in 2012, the <a title="iiNet: ISP Not Liable For BitTorrent Piracy, High Court Rules" href="http://torrentfreak.com/iinet-isp-not-liable-for-bittorrent-piracy-high-court-rules-120420/">Australian High Court ruled</a> that ISP iiNet was not responsible for the copyright infringements of its customers. Stymied by that ruling, many Australian file-sharers breathed a sigh of relief, as Antipodean users are usually amongst the last to get content, forgotten in the long-tail of media distribution.</p>
<p>Conversely, it also meant that they were one of the last English-speaking (and English common-law) countries to see the appearance of so-called &#8216;Speculative Invoicing&#8217;, more commonly known as copyright trolling. However, “Down Under” couldn&#8217;t escape forever, and eventually the trolls washed up on the shore, <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/australians-face-fines-for-downloading-pirate-movies-141022/" target="_blank">in the shape of</a> mega-troll “Dallas Buyers Club” (DBC).</p>
<p>The model should be familiar to most of our readers. A company (or its representative) joins a BitTorrent swarm, and “observes” a number of peers on the torrent. It then applies for a court order for the ISP to hand over the identities behind all those IP addresses so they can be pressured for cash settlement.</p>
<p>The big question was whether the Australian courts would allow for the discovery of subscriber details but in a decision released just minutes ago the courts said ‘yes’. Letters to be sent out to the 4,726 consumers involved will first have to be approved by the court, a move designed to reduce DBC&#8217;s ability to <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-game-piracy-the-propaganda-the-evidence-and-the-damages-080821/">overstate</a> the case and the potential penalties involved.</p>
<p>Following a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-court-slaps-restrictions-on-copyright-trolling-140221/">similar ruling in Canada</a> last February, this is the second time these kinds of restrictions have been placed on Dallas Buyers Club/Voltage Pictures. UK &#8216;trolls&#8217; are also subjected to the same oversight in their initial letters to consumers but subsequent correspondence flies completely under the radar with no court involvement.</p>
<p>In today&#8217;s case the judge also ruled that the privacy of the 4726 accounts should be protected but placed no cap on damages. The precise restrictions and justifications will become clear when the verdict is published later today.</p>
<p>The case comes amid growing regulations, with the Australian Government pushing for a 3-strikes system</a> as well as <a title="“VPN Friendly” Aussie Pirate Site Blocking Draft Unveiled" href="http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-friendly-aussie-pirate-site-blocking-draft-unveiled-150326/">site-blocking legislation</a>. These two things, combined with today’s ruling, means that VPN use is expected to skyrocket in Australia.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103893
title: Popcorn Time Releases iOS App Tomorrow, No Jailbreak Needed
uri: Popcorn-Time-Releases-iOS-App-Tomorrow-No-Jailbreak-Needed
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/nciLbfX_olM/
content:
<p><img src="media/3b9dbdf1.popcornt.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/popcornt.png" alt="popcornt" width="237" height="106" class="alignright size-full wp-image-101106">In just a year the Popcorn Time brand has managed to establish itself as one of Hollywood&#8217;s main threats, and even <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-sees-popcorn-time-as-a-serious-competitor-150121/">Netflix fears</a> the open source project.</p>
<p>One of the big appeals, aside from the easy-to-use interface, is the fact that it&#8217;s available on many platforms and devices. Now, there&#8217;s a brand new release that will extend this list. </p>
<p>On its one year anniversary tomorrow the <a href="http://popcorn-time.se/">Popcorn-Time.se</a> fork will release an installer for non-jailbroken iOS devices. This means that anyone with an iPhone or iPad can install the popular app.</p>
<p>&#8220;We intentionally postponed our one year celebration since we wanted to celebrate it with this groundbreaking release the world has been waiting for,&#8221; the Popcorn-Time.se team tells TF.</p>
<p>The Popcorn Time fork already had an iOS app, which they released a few months ago. However, the new one is special as it can be installed on any device.</p>
<p>The developers say they use a new custom installer that can add apps to iOS devices without requiring a jailbreak. Popcorn Time&#8217;s <a href="http://popcorn-time.se/ios.html">dedicated iOS page</a> will link to the new installer starting tomorrow </p>
<p>&#8220;The beauty is in the simplicity of this installer,&#8221; the team says.</p>
<p>&#8220;All a user will need to do to get Popcorn Time on a non jailbroken iOS device is to download the &#8216;iOS installer&#8217; to his desktop computer, connect his iOS device to the computer with a USB cable, and then just follow simple instructions that will download the app on the iOS device.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><strong>Popcorn Time on iOS</strong><br></br></center><center><img src="media/3c190ad2.ios_installer.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/ios_installer.jpg" alt="ios_installer" width="950" height="1000" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-103928"></center></p>
<p>In addition to watching films and TV-series on mobile devices, the iOS app also supports playback on Chromecast and Apple TV, similar to the desktop application. </p>
<p>According to the developers, however, having the option to easily add apps to iOS devices without a jailbreak is the main &#8216;revolution&#8217; of this new release. And Popcorn Time is just the start.</p>
<p>&#8220;The team we worked with on this solution has already launched <a href="http://iosinstaller.com">this website</a> with one clear intention in mind: To fight the closed ecosystem Apple has created, screening and choosing for us what we can or cannot install on the devices we purchased and paid top dollar for,&#8221; the team tells TF.</p>
<p>This means that many more non-Apple-approved apps may come to iOS devices in the future. Needless to say, Apple is not going to like this, but the team says that the developers are prepared for battle.</p>
<p>&#8220;The installer guys have no doubt that this will be a long journey, playing &#8216;cat and mouse&#8217; with Apple that probably won&#8217;t like them breaking their closed eco-system. But seeing their work now and future updates for the installer they&#8217;re already working on, we&#8217;re sure they&#8217;re ready for any obstacle Apple will throw their way,&#8221; they note.</p>
<p>TF tried a closed alpha release of the new installer and it works as advertised. The Popcorn Time app does indeed install without any hassle. The only limitation is that the installer requires a Windows machine, but the Mac version is expected to be ready later this month.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how Apple responds to the new revelations. In any case, it&#8217;s clear that the list of Popcorn Time enemies just got longer.</p>
<p>Stay tuned&#8230;</p>
<p><center><strong>Breaking Apple&#8217;s ecosystem</strong><br></br></center><center><img src="media/eca32c21.iosinstall-1024x732.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/iosinstall-1024x732.jpg" alt="iosinstall" width="694" height="496" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-103945"></center></p>
<p>deviant</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103932
title: Spanish Court Orders First Pirate Music Site Block
uri: Spanish-Court-Orders-First-Pirate-Music-Site-Block
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/SD4raIiBz6M/
content:
<p><img src="media/909dc47b.goear.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/goear.jpg" alt="goear" width="160" height="160" class="alignright size-full wp-image-103938">After long maintaining a reputation for being one of the softest countries in Europe on piracy, in recent years Spain has really toughened up its approach to online infringement.</p>
<p>Last month the strength of new legislation became evident when a Madrid court gave local Internet service providers <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/block-pirate-bay-in-72-hours-spanish-court-tells-isps-150327/">just 72 hours to block</a> notorious torrent site The Pirate Bay (TPB).</p>
<p>The legal action against TPB was launched by the Association of Intellectual Rights Management (AGEDI) last year, but that wasn&#8217;t the only domain in the anti-piracy group&#8217;s sights. AGEDI and music group Promusicae had also been targeting Goear, an unlicensed music streaming service providing access to an estimated four million tracks.</p>
<p><img src="media/21abcd71.goear.png" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/goear.png" alt="goear" width="650" height="340" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-103936"></p>
<p>Early efforts to bring down the site didn&#8217;t go to plan when a Madrid court refused to issue an order to block the site&#8217;s IP address back in March 2014. Undeterred, AGEDI responded with an appeal and complaint to the country&#8217;s Intellectual Property Commission.</p>
<p>Complaining that <a href="http://www.goear.com/">Goear</a> provides access to copyrighted music without any permission from artists or rightsholders, AGEDI built a case highlighting commercial aspects of the site, particularly its advertising efforts which offered to put products in front of three million registered users via &#8220;millions of quality impressions.&#8221;</p>
<p>Goear had previously actioned some copyright takedowns, AGEDI said, but it was never enough to keep up with the rate that infringing content reappeared on the site.</p>
<p>After reviewing the case the National Court has now sided with AGEDI. Handing down an order similar to that issued last month in respect of The Pirate Bay, local ISPs have been given just 72 hours to block the site at the subscriber level. Currently the Goear website is hosted in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>&#8220;This new resolution adds to the one recently handed down in Spain against The Pirate Bay and confirms web blockades as the only effective measure to eliminate the websites that violate intellectual property rights,&#8221; said Promusicae and AGEDI president, Antonio Guisasola.</p>
<p>&#8220;The block against Goear means that the site will no longer be able to profit from the works of others. I always insist on the absolute need to act decisively to stop these kinds of sites that represent true unfair competition to other [authorized sites] that offer all the guarantees for consumers and producers of music.&#8221;</p>
<p>Whether local users will rush to unblock the site will remain to be seen. There are many dozens of similar portals offering access to the same level of content, none of which appear to be shutting down anytime soon.</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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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feed_id: http://torrentfreak.com/?p=103890
title: Warner Bros Denies “Abuse” in Piracy Settlement Scheme
uri: Warner-Bros-Denies-Abuse-in-Piracy-Settlement-Scheme
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/14xTjbXdmQA/
content:
<p><img src="media/5cca3fa3.warner2.jpg" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/warner2.jpg" alt="warner" width="275" height="177" class="alignright size-full wp-image-94882">Two years ago Warner Bros. teamed up with Rightscorp to send small fines to U.S. Internet subscribers whose accounts were used to share copyrighted material.</p>
<p>At the time the Hollywood studio <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-were-fining-file-sharers-who-use-non-six-strike-isps-130607/">informed us</a> that it was meant as a &#8220;discouragement of future unauthorized activity,&#8221; but the speculative invoicing strategy was met with great criticism. </p>
<p>Hoping to stop the practices, several Internet subscribers joined a class action lawsuit against Rightscorp and its clients. The complaint includes a long list of violations regarding Rightscorp’s debt collection practices, violating both the FDCPA and the Rosenthal Act.</p>
<p>“Among other wrongful conduct: Rightscorp has engaged in telephone harassment and abuse; made various false and misleading representations; engaged in unfair collections practices; failed to provide validation and required notices relating to the debts..,” the complaint reads.</p>
<p>In addition, the complaint raises the issue of Rightscorp’s controversial <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/rightscorp-finds-shortcut-expose-alleged-bittorrent-pirates-140405/">DMCA subpoenas</a> which demand that smaller ISPs should hand over personal details of their subscribers. Thus far most ISPs have complied, but according to the complaint these requests are a “sham and abuse” of the legal process.</p>
<p>In a recent filing at a California District Court, Warner Bros. has now responded to the allegations for the first time. The movie studio submitted a motion asking the court to strike or dismiss the abuse of process claims (<a href="media/70164e9a.war3.pdf" data-original-source="http://torrentfreak.com/images/war3.pdf">pdf</a>). </p>
<p>According to Warner Bros and Rightscorp the settlement demand letters are protected under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. As a result, the claimed abuse would violate the company&#8217;s free speech and petitioning rights.</p>
<p>The DMCA subpoena was also obtained correctly, the defendants claim. Despite previous rulings to the contrary, Rightscorp and Warner believe that their &#8216;novel&#8217; interpretation of the law may prove to be successful. </p>
<p>&#8220;&#8230;the subpoena complained of was used to identify a copyright infringer — which is the express purpose of DMCA subpoenas as interpreted by the courts of this Circuit — and therefore does not constitute an &#8216;abuse&#8217; of process,&#8221; the motion reads.</p>
<p>Finally, Warner and Rightscorp argue that the alleged abuse of process should be protected under the litigation privilege, which immunizes them from liability.</p>
<p>&#8221; &#8230;even assuming, contrary to the law, that misuse of a subpoena could constitute an abuse of process, Plaintiff’s claim here is barred by the litigation privilege. California’s broad litigation privilege immunizes lawyers and parties from any liability arising from litigation-related communications,&#8221; the defendants write. </p>
<p>While the lawsuit is still in its early stages, it will be crucial for the future of the piracy settlement scheme in the United States. But even if this legal battle is won, there will be more trouble ahead.</p>
<p>A few weeks ago the company and its clients were also <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/rightscorp-robocalls-150220/">sued for</a> violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by placing intimidating robocalls and text messages.</p>
<p>Warner Bros. and Rightscorp&#8217;s current motion to strike and dismiss the abuse claims will be heard by the court early next month. </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/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">anonymous VPN services</a>.</p>
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