Dutch Internet service providers Ziggo and XS4ALL have been ordered to block The Pirate Bay. A ruling handed down today by The Court of The Hague compels the ISPs to block the infamous site within 10 days or face significant fines. The blocks will remain in place pending a final decision from the Supreme Court. Three years ago in 2014, The Court of The Hague handed down its decision in a long-running case which had previously forced two Dutch ISPs, Ziggo and XS4ALL, to block The Pirate Bay. Ruling against local anti-piracy outfit BREIN, which brought the case, the Court decided that a blockade would be ineffective and also restrict the ISPs’ entrepreneurial freedoms. The Pirate Bay was unblocked while BREIN took its case to the Supreme Court, which in turn referred the matter to the EU Court of Justice for clarification. This June, the ECJ ruled that as a platform effectively communicating copyright works to the public, The Pirate Bay can indeed be blocked. The ruling meant there were no major obstacles preventing the Dutch Supreme Court from ordering a future ISP blockade. Clearly, however, BREIN wanted a blocking decision more quickly. A decision handed down today means the anti-piracy group will achieve that in just a few days’ time. The Hague Court of Appeal today ruled (Dutch) that the 2014 decision, which lifted the blockade against The Pirate Bay, is now largely obsolete. “According to the Court of Appeal, the Hague Court did not give sufficient weight to the interests of the beneficiaries represented by BREIN,” BREIN said in a statement. “The Court also wrongly looked at whether torrent traffic had been reduced by the blockade. It should have also considered whether visits to the website of The Pirate Bay itself decreased with a blockade, which speaks for itself.” As a result, an IP address and DNS blockade of The Pirate Bay, similar to those already in place in the UK and other EU countries, will soon be put in place. BREIN says that four IP addresses will be affected along with hundreds of domain names through which the torrent platform can be reached. The ISPs have been given just 10 days to put the blocks in place and if they fail there are fines of 2,000 euros per day, up to a maximum of one million euros. “It is nice that obviously harmful and illegal sites like The Pirate Bay will be blocked again in the Netherlands,” says BREIN chief Tim Kuik. “A very bad time for our culture, which was free to access via these sites, is now happily behind us.” Today’s interim decision by the Court of Appeal will stand until the Supreme Court hands down its decision in the main case between BREIN and Ziggo / XS4ALL. Looking forward, it seems extremely unlikely that the Supreme Court will hand down a conflicting decision, so we’re probably already looking at the beginning of the end for direct accessibility of The Pirate Bay in the Netherlands. https://torrentfreak.com/block-the-pirate-bay-within-10-days-dutch-court-tells-isps-170922/

Following in the footsteps of The Pirate Bay, pirate streaming link site Alluc has also added a cryptocurrency miner, hoping to generate some extra revenue through its visitors. This begs the question: Are these cryptocurrency miners the future for pirate sites? Last weekend The Pirate Bay surprised friend and foe by adding a Javascript-based cryptocurrency miner to its website. The miner utilizes CPU power from visitors to generate Monero coins for the site, providing an extra revenue source. Initially, this caused the CPUs of visitors to max out due to a configuration error, but it was later adjusted to be less demanding. Still, there was plenty of discussion on the move, with greatly varying opinions. Some criticized the site for “hijacking” their computer resources for personal profit, without prior warning. However, there are also people who are happy to give something back to TPB, especially if it can help the site to remain online. Aside from the configuration error, there was another major mistake everyone agreed on. The Pirate Bay team should have alerted its visitors to this change beforehand, and not after the fact, as they did last weekend. Despite the sensitivities, The Pirate Bay’s move has inspired others to follow suit. Pirate linking site Alluc.ee is one of the first. While they use the same mining service, their implementation is more elegant. Alluc shows how many hashes are mined and the site allows users to increase or decrease the CPU load, or turn the miner off completely. Alluc.ee miner Putting all the controversy aside for a minute, the idea to let visitors mine coins is a pretty ingenious idea. The Pirate Bay said it was testing the feature to see if it’s possible as a replacement for ads, which might be much needed in the future. In recent years many pirate sites have struggled to make a decent income. Not only are more people using ad-blockers now, the ad-quality is also dropping as copyright holders actively go after this revenue source, trying to dry up the funds of pirate sites. And with Chrome planning to add a default ad-blocker to its browser, the outlook is grim. A cryptocurrency miner might alleviate this problem. That is, as long as ad-blockers don’t start to interfere with this revenue source as well. Interestingly, this would also counter one of the main anti-piracy talking points. Increasingly, industry groups are using the “public safety” argument as a reason to go after pirate sites. They point to malicious advertisements as a great danger, hoping that this will further their calls for tougher legislation and enforcement. If The Pirate Bay and other pirate sites can ditch the ads, they would be less susceptible to these and other anti-piracy pushes. Of course, copyright holders could still go after the miner revenues, but this might not be easy. TorrentFreak spoke to Coinhive, the company that provides the mining service to The Pirate Bay, and they don’t seem eager to take action without a court order. “We don’t track where users come from. We are just providing servers and a script to submit hashes for the Monero blockchain. We don’t see it as our responsibility to determine if a website is ‘valid’ and we don’t have the technical capabilities to do so,” a Coinhive representative says. We also contacted several site owners and thus far the response has been mixed. Some like the idea and would consider adding a miner, if it doesn’t affect visitors too much. Others are more skeptical and don’t believe that the extra revenue is worth the trouble. The Pirate Bay itself, meanwhile, has completed its test run and has removed the miner from the site. They will now analyze the results before deciding whether or not it’s “the future” for them. https://torrentfreak.com/are-cryptocurrency-miners-the-future-for-pirate-sites-170921/

Google has signed a deal with the audio-visual industry in France to more effectively target piracy on YouTube. The agreement, reached with anti-piracy outfit ALPA with government oversight, will see rightsholders gaining direct access to takedown mechanisms. Google will also provide financial support and training. Once upon a time, people complaining about piracy would point to the hundreds of piracy sites around the Internet. These days, criticism is just as likely to be leveled at Google-owned services. YouTube, in particular, has come in for intense criticism, with the music industry complaining of exploitation of the DMCA in order to obtain unfair streaming rates from record labels. Along with streaming-ripping, this so-called Value Gap is one of the industry’s hottest topics. With rightsholders seemingly at war with Google to varying degrees, news from France suggests that progress can be made if people sit down and negotiate. According to local reports, Google and local anti-piracy outfit ALPA (l’Association de Lutte Contre la Piraterie Audiovisuelle) under the auspices of the CNC have signed an agreement to grant rightsholders direct access to content takedown mechanisms on YouTube. YouTube has granted access to its Content ID systems to companies elsewhere for years but the new deal will see the system utilized by French content owners for the first time. It’s hoped that the access will result in infringing content being taken down or monetized more quickly than before. “We do not want fraudsters to use our platforms to the detriment of creators,” said Carlo D’Asaro Biondo, Google’s President of Strategic Relationships in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The agreement, overseen by the Ministry of Culture, will see Google provide ALPA with financial support and rightsholders with essential training. ALPA president Nicolas Seydoux welcomed the deal, noting that it symbolizes the “collapse of the wall of incomprehension” that previously existed between France’s rightsholders and the Internet search giant. The deal forms part of the French government’s “Plan of Action Against Piracy”, in which it hopes to crack down on infringement in various ways, including tackling the threat of pirate sites, better promotion of services offering legitimate content, and educating children “from an early age” on the need to respect copyright. “The fight against piracy is the great challenge of the new century in the cultural sphere,” said France’s Minister of Culture, Françoise Nyssen. “I hope this is just the beginning of a process. It will require other agreements with rights holders and other platforms, as well as at the European level.” According to NextInpact, the Google agreement will eventually encompass the downgrading of infringing content in search results as part of the Trusted Copyright Removal Program. A similar system is already in place in the UK. https://torrentfreak.com/google-signs-unprecedented-agreement-to-tackle-youtube-piracy-170921/

U.S. Internet provider Windstream has given up on its preemptive "piracy liability" case against BMG and Rightscorp. The ISP hoped to get legal clarity after it was accused of direct and contributory copyright infringement, but after an initial setback and subsequent appeal, it has now dropped the case. Can an Internet provider be held liable for subscribers who share pirated files? Yes, a Virginia federal jury ruled two years ago. This verdict caused great uncertainty in the ISP industry, as several companies suddenly realized that they could become the next target. Internet provider Windstream is among the companies that are worried about the fallout. With 1.1 million subscribers nationwide, it is one of the larger Internet providers in the United States. As such, it receives takedown notices on a regular basis. Many of these notices come from music rights group BMG, which accused Windstream and its subscribers of various copyright infringements. These notices are issued by the monitoring outfit Rightscorp and often come with a settlement demand for the account holders. When Windstream refused to forward these notices, as it’s not required to do so by law, BMG and Rightscorp increased the pressure. They threatened that the ISP could be liable for millions of dollars in piracy damages for failing to disconnect repeat infringers. Faced with this threat, Windstream filed a request for declaratory judgment at a New York District Court last year, requesting a legal ruling on the matter. This preemptive lawsuit didn’t turn out as planned for the ISP. In April the court ruled that there is no ‘actual controversy’ and that it can’t issue a hypothetical and advisory opinion without concrete facts. As such, the case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Windstream didn’t throw in the towel right away though and appealed the verdict. The ISP argued that the $150,000 in damages per infringement BMG claimed caused a real controversy. “BMG’s accusations were not idle threats in light of the undisputed fact that BMG had recently obtained a $25,000,000 recovery against another conduit ISP based on similar claims,” the ISP wrote in a brief last month. “Thus, the undisputed facts conclusively establish that an actual controversy exists to support Windstream’s request for a declaration that it is not liable for any alleged infringement of BMG’s copyrights.” Despite Windstream’s initial persistence, something changed in recent weeks. Without any prior signs in the court docket, the company has now asked the Judge to dismiss the case entirely, with both parties paying their own costs. “Windstream respectfully requests that this Court dismiss in full Windstream’s present appeal with prejudice against BMG and Rightscorp, with each party bearing its own costs in this appeal.” While there is no mention of a settlement of any kind, BMG and Rightscorp do not oppose the request. This effectively means that the case is over. The same previously happened in a similar lawsuit, where Internet provider RCN demanded a declaratory judgment. This means that all eyes are once again on the case between BMG and Cox Communications, which got this all started and is currently under appeal. https://torrentfreak.com/windstream-gives-up-preemptive-fight-over-isps-piracy-liability-170920/

Reports coming out of China indicate that another citizen has been caught up in the country's VPN dragnet. The software developer reportedly set up a VPN for his own use but sensing demand, sold access to the service to third parties. Despite making just $164 from his business, he was arrested and detained for three days. Early 2017, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that due to Internet technologies and services expanding in a “disorderly” fashion, regulation would be needed to restore order. Announcing measures to strengthen network information security management, the government said it would begin a “nationwide Internet network access services clean-up.” Months later, it became evident that authorities were taking an even more aggressive stance towards Virtual Private Networks, since these allow citizens to evade the so-called Great Firewall of China. The government said that in future, operating such a service without a corresponding telecommunications license would constitute an offense. Now, according to local news reports, a citizen who apparently failed to heed the government’s warnings has fallen foul of the new rules. The Nanjinger reports that a software developer, named as Mr. Zhao from Nanjing, was arrested August 21 for contravening the new laws on VPN licensing. Zhao reportedly told authorities he’d initially set up the VPN for his own use in order to access content hosted abroad, which presumably involved circumventing China’s firewall. However, once he recognized there was a demand, the developer decided to let others use the service for a small fee. The prices he asked were indeed small – just $1.50 per month or around $18 for two years’ service. Based on reported total revenues of just $164 for the entire business, it’s possible he had around 100 customers, or indeed far fewer. What will happen to the man isn’t clear but he’ll be keen to avoid the fate of Deng Jiewei, who previously ran a small website through which he’d sold around $2,100 worth of VPN software. Early September it was reported that the 26-year-old had been sentenced to nine months in prison for offering tools that enable people to “visit foreign websites that cannot be accessed via a domestic (mainland) IP address.” These cases are part of an emerging pattern in China centered around the supply and sale of VPN products and services. Back in July, Apple began banning VPN applications from its iOS store in China. The company reported that the apps contained content that is illegal locally, thereby violating the company’s policies. https://torrentfreak.com/another-chinese-developer-arrested-for-selling-vpn-access-170920/

New data not only reveals that stream ripping remains the music industry's main piracy threat, but it's growing too. IFPI's latest music consumer insight report shows that more than a third of all Internet subscribers use stream rippers to access unlicensed music. Free music is easy to find nowadays. Just head over to YouTube and you can find millions of tracks including many of the most recent releases. While the music industry profits from the advertisements on many of these videos, it’s not happy with the current state of affairs. Record labels complain about a “value gap” and go as far as accusing the video streaming platform of operating a DMCA protection racket. YouTube doesn’t agree with this stance and points to the billions of dollars it pays copyright holders. Still, the music industry is far from impressed. Today, IFPI has released a new music consumer insight report that highlights this issue once again, while pointing out that YouTube accounts for more than half of all music video streaming. “User upload services, such as YouTube, are heavily used by music consumers and yet do not return fair value to those who are investing in and creating the music. The Value Gap remains the single biggest threat facing the music world today and we are campaigning for a legislative solution,” IFPI CEO Frances Moore writes. The report also zooms in on piracy and “stream ripping” in particular, which is another YouTube and Google related issue. While this phenomenon is over a decade old, it’s now the main source of music piracy, the report states. A survey conducted in the world’s leading music industry markets reveals that 35% of all Internet users are stream rippers, up from 30% last year. In total, 40% of all respondents admitted to obtaining unlicensed music. 35% stream ripping (source IFPI) This means that the vast majority of all music pirates use stream ripping tools. This practice is particularly popular among those in the youngest age group, where more than half of all Internet users admit to ripping music, and it goes down as age increases. Adding another stab at Google, the report further notes that more than half of all pirates use the popular search engine to find unlicensed music. Stream rippers are young (source IFPI) TorrentFreak spoke to former RIAA executive Neil Turkewitz, who has been very vocalabout the stream ripping problem. He now heads his own consulting group that focuses on expanding economic cultural prosperity, particularly online. Stream ripping is a “double whammy,” Turkewitz says, as it’s undermining both streaming and distribution markets. This affects the bottom line of labels and artists, so YouTube should do more to block stream rippers and converters from exploiting the service. “YouTube and Alphabet talk of their commitment to expanding opportunities for creators. This is an opportunity to prove it,” Turkewitz informs TF. “Surely the company that, as Eric Schmidt likes to say, ‘knows what people want before they know it’ has the capacity to develop tools to address problems that inhibit the development of a robust online market that sustains creators.” While stream ripping remains rampant, there is a positive development the music industry can cling to. Two weeks ago the major record labels managed to take down YouTube-MP3, the largest ripping site of all. While this is a notable success, there are many sites and tools like it that continue business as usual. https://torrentfreak.com/stream-ripping-piracy-goes-from-bad-to-worse-music-industry-reports-170919/

The Federation Against Copyright Theft, in conjunction with the police and Intellectual Property Office, has released a new report on the state of Internet piracy in the UK. Estimates suggest that at least a million set-top devices providing access to pirated material have been sold over the past two years, with 25% of the public consuming illicit content overall. With the devices hitting the headlines on an almost weekly basis, it probably comes as no surprise that ‘pirate’ set-top boxes are quickly becoming public enemy number one with video rightsholders. Typically loaded with the legal Kodi software but augmented with third-party addons, these often Android-based pieces of hardware drag piracy out of the realm of the computer savvy and into the living rooms of millions. One of the countries reportedly most affected by this boom is the UK. The consumption of these devices among the general public is said to have reached epidemic proportions, and anecdotal evidence suggests that terms like Kodi and Showbox are now household terms. Today we have another report to digest, this time from the Federation Against Copyright Theft, or FACT as they’re often known. Titled ‘Cracking Down on Digital Piracy,’ the report provides a general overview of the piracy scene, tackling well-worn topics such as how release groups and site operators work, among others. The report is produced by FACT after consultation with the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, Intellectual Property Office, Police Scotland, and anti-piracy outfit Entura International. It begins by noting that the vast majority of the British public aren’t involved in the consumption of infringing content. “The most recent stats show that 75% of Brits who look at content online abide by the law and don’t download or stream it illegally – up from 70% in 2013. However, that still leaves 25% who do access material illegally,” the report reads. The report quickly heads to the topic of ‘pirate’ set-top boxes which is unsurprising, not least due to FACT’s current focus as a business entity. While it often positions itself alongside government bodies (which no doubt boosts its status with the general public), FACT is a private limited company serving The Premier League, another company desperate to stamp out the use of infringing devices. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to argue with some of the figures cited in the report. “At a conservative estimate, we believe a million set-top boxes with software added to them to facilitate illegal downloads have been sold in the UK in the last couple of years,” the Intellectual Property Office reveals. Interestingly, given a growing tech-savvy public, FACT’s report notes that ready-configured boxes are increasingly coming into the country. “Historically, individuals and organized gangs have added illegal apps and add-ons onto the boxes once they have been imported, to allow illegal access to premium channels. However more recently, more boxes are coming into the UK complete with illegal access to copyrighted content via apps and add-ons already installed,” FACT notes. “Boxes are often stored in ‘fulfillment houses’ along with other illegal electrical items and sold on social media. The boxes are either sold as one-off purchases, or with a monthly subscription to access paid-for channels.” While FACT press releases regularly blur the lines when people are prosecuted for supplying set-top boxes in general, it’s important to note that there are essentially two kinds of products on offer to the public. The first relies on Kodi-type devices which provide on-going free access to infringing content. The second involves premium IPTV subscriptions which are a whole different level of criminality. Separating the two when reading news reports can be extremely difficult, but it’s a hugely important to recognize the difference when assessing the kinds of sentences set-top box suppliers are receiving in the UK. Nevertheless, FACT correctly highlights that the supply of both kinds of product are on the increase, with various parties recognizing the commercial opportunities. “A significant number of home-grown British criminals are now involved in this type of crime. Some of them import the boxes wholesale through entirely legal channels, and modify them with illegal software at home. Others work with sophisticated criminal networks across Europe to bring the boxes into the UK. “They then sell these boxes online, for example through eBay or Facebook, sometimes managing to sell hundreds or thousands of boxes before being caught,” the company adds. The report notes that in some cases the sale of infringing set-top boxes occurs through cottage industry, with suppliers often working on their own or with small groups of friends and family. Invetiably, perhaps, larger scale operations are reported to be part of networks with connections to other kinds of crime, such as dealing in drugs. “In contrast to drugs, streaming devices provide a relatively steady and predictable revenue stream for these criminals – while still being lucrative, often generating hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, they are seen as a lower risk activity with less likelihood of leading to arrest or imprisonment,” FACT reports. While there’s certainly the potential to earn large sums from ‘pirate’ boxes and premium IPTV services, operating on the “hundreds of thousands of pounds a year” scale in the UK would attract a lot of unwanted attention. That’s not saying that it isn’t already, however. Noting that digital piracy has evolved hugely over the past three or four years, the report says that the cases investigated so far are just the “tip of the iceberg” and that many other cases are in the early stages and will only become known to the public in the months and years ahead. Indeed, the Intellectual Property Office hints that some kind of large-scale enforcement action may be on the horizon. “We have identified a significant criminal business model which we have discussed and shared with key law enforcement partners. I can’t go into detail on this, but as investigations take their course, you will see the scale,” an IPO spokesperson reveals. While details are necessarily scarce, a source familiar with this area told TF that he would be very surprised if the targets aren’t the growing handful of commercial UK-based IPTV re-sellers who offer full subscription TV services for a few pounds per month. “They’re brazen. Watch this space,” he said. FACT’s full report, Cracking Down on Digital Piracy, can be downloaded here (pdf) https://torrentfreak.com/a-million-pirate-boxes-sold-in-the-uk-during-the-last-two-years-170919/

Earlier this year, domains owned by third-party Kodi addon platform TVAddons were transferred to a law firm. This prompted concerns, in what was then an information black hole, that something nefarious was underway. While it's clear today that isn't the case, some users refuse to be convinced while others seem happy to throw fuel on the fire. A few months ago, TVAddons was without doubt the leading repository for third-party Kodi addons. During March, the platform had 40 million unique users connected to the site’s servers, together transferring a petabyte of addons and updates. In June, however, things started to fall apart. After news broke that the site was being sued in a federal court in Texas, TVAddons disappeared. It was assumed these events were connected but it later transpired the platform was being used in Canadaas well, and that was the true reason for the downtime. While it’s easy to be wise after the event, in hindsight it might’ve been better for the platform to go public about the Canadian matter quite a bit sooner than it did. Of course, there are always legal considerations that prevent early disclosure, but when popular sites disappear into a black hole, two plus two can quickly equal five when fed through the web’s rumor machine. Things weren’t helped in July when it was discovered that the site’s former domains had been handed over to a Canada-based law firm. Again, no official explanation was forthcoming and again, people became concerned. If this had been a plaintiff’s law firm, people would’ve had good reason to worry, since it would have been technically possible to spy on TVAddons’ users. However, as the truth began to filter out and court papers became available, it soon became crystal clear that simply wasn’t the case. The bottom line, which is backed up by publicly available court papers, is that the law firm holding the old TVAddons domains is not the law firm suing TVAddons. Instead, it was appointed by the court to hold TVAddons’ property until the Canadian lawsuit is brought to a conclusion, whenever that might be. “They have a legal obligation to protect our property at all cost, and prevent anyone (especially the law firm who is suing is) from gaining access to them,” saysTVAddons. “The law firm who is holding them is doing nothing more than protecting our property until the time that it will finally be returned after the appeal takes place.” Unfortunately, assurances provided by TVAddons and information published by the court itself hasn’t been enough to stop some people fearing the worst. While the facts have plenty of support on Twitter and Facebook, there also appears to be an element who would like to see TVAddons fail in its efforts to re-establish itself. Only time will tell who will win that battle but in the meantime, TVAddons has tried to cover all the bases in an update post on its blog. https://torrentfreak.com/tvaddons-a-law-firm-is-not-spying-on-our-kodi-users-170918/

The MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry groups are unhappy with how Ukraine is handling online piracy. The country has become a safe haven for many pirate sites, they say. In a recommendation to the US Government the copyright holder groups recommend suspending or withdrawing several trade benefits until the situation improves. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) is recommending that the U.S. Government should suspend Ukraine’s GSP trade benefits, claiming that the country doesn’t do enough to protect the interests of copyright holders. Last year Ukraine enjoyed $53.7 million in unilateral duty-free benefits in the US, while US companies suffering millions of dollars in losses in Ukraine due to online piracy, they argue. The IIPA, which includes a wide range of copyright groups including the MPAA, RIAA, BSA and ESA, characterizes the country as a safe harbor for pirate sites. While physical piracy was properly addressed ten years ago after a previous sanction, digital piracy remains rampant. One of the main problems is that local hosting companies are offering their services to a wide variety of copyright-infringing websites. Without proper enforcement, more and more websites have moved their services there. “By allowing these problems to fester for years, weak digital enforcement has resulted in an exponential increase in the number of illegal peer-to-peer (‘P2P’) hosting and website-based Internet piracy sites, including some of the world’s largest BitTorrent sites located in Ukraine,” IIPA writes. “Some Internet pirates have purposefully moved their servers and operations to Ukraine in the past few years to take advantage of the current lawless situation. Many of these illegal services and sites target audiences throughout Europe and the United States.” The copyright holders highlight the defunct ExtraTorrent site as an example but note that there are also many other torrent sites, pirate streaming sites, cyberlockers, and linking sites in Ukraine. While pirate sites are hosted all over the world, the problem is particularly persistent in Ukraine because many local hosting companies fail to process takedown requests. This, despite repeated calls from copyright holders to work with them. “Many of the websites offering pirated copyright materials are thriving in part because of the support of local ISPs,” IIPA writes. “The copyright industries have, for years, sought private agreements with ISPs to establish effective mechanisms to take down illegal websites and slow illegal P2P traffic. In the absence of legislation, however, these voluntary efforts have generally not succeeded, although, some ISPs will delete links upon request.” In order to make real progress, the copyright holders call for new legislation to hold Internet services accountable and to make it easier to come after pirate sites that are hosted in Ukraine. “Legislation is needed to institute proper notice and takedown provisions, including a requirement that service providers terminate access to individuals (or entities) that have repeatedly engaged in infringement, and the retention of information for law enforcement, as well as to provide clear third party liability regarding ISPs.” In addition to addressing online piracy, IIPA further points out that the collecting societies in Ukraine are not functioning properly. At the moment there are 18 active and competing organizations, creating a chaotic situation where rightsholders are not properly rewarded, they suggest. IIPA recommends that the U.S. Government accepts its petition and suspends or withdraws Ukraine’s benefits until the country takes proper action. Ukraine’s Government, for its part, informs the US Government that progress is being made. There are already several new laws in the works to improve intellectual property protection. The issue is one of the Government’s “key priorities,” they state, hoping to avert any sanctions. — IIPA’s full submission to the US Trade Representative is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/ukraine-faces-call-us-trade-sanctions-over-online-piracy-170918/

Back in June, MPAA, Amazon, Netflix, CBS, HBO, BBC, Sky, Bell Canada, CBS, Hulu, Lionsgate, Foxtel, Village Roadshow, and many more, revealed the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a brand new initiative to tackle piracy on a global scale. Today, TorrentFreak can reveal the deal behind this massive operation. The idea of collaboration in the anti-piracy arena isn’t new but an announcement this summer heralded what is destined to become the largest project the entertainment industry has ever seen. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) is a coalition of 30 companies that reads like a who’s who of the global entertainment market. In alphabetical order its members are: Amazon, AMC Networks, BBC Worldwide, Bell Canada and Bell Media, Canal+ Group, CBS Corporation, Constantin Film, Foxtel, Grupo Globo, HBO, Hulu, Lionsgate, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Millennium Media, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, SF Studios, Sky, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Star India, Studio Babelsberg, STX Entertainment, Telemundo, Televisa, Twentieth Century Fox, Univision Communications Inc., Village Roadshow, The Walt Disney Company, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. The aim of the project is clear. Instead of each company considering its anti-piracy operations as a distinct island, ACE will bring them all together while presenting a united front to decision and lawmakers. At the core of the Alliance will be the MPAA. “ACE, with its broad coalition of creators from around the world, is designed, specifically, to leverage the best possible resources to reduce piracy,” outgoing MPAA chief Chris Dodd said in June. “For decades, the MPAA has been the gold standard for antipiracy enforcement. We are proud to provide the MPAA’s worldwide antipiracy resources and the deep expertise of our antipiracy unit to support ACE and all its initiatives.” Since then, ACE and its members have been silent on the project. Today, however, TorrentFreak can pull back the curtain, revealing how the agreement between the companies will play out, who will be in control, and how much the scheme will cost. Power structure: Founding Members & Executive Committee Members Netflix, Inc., Amazon Studios LLC, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios LLC, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, are the ‘Founding Members’ (Governing Board) of ACE. These companies are granted full voting rights on ACE business, including the approval of initiatives and public policy, anti-piracy strategy, budget-related matters, plus approval of legal action. Not least, they’ll have the power to admit or expel ACE members. All actions taken by the Governing Board (never to exceed nine members) need to be approved by consensus, with each Founding Member able to vote for or against decisions. Members are also allowed to abstain but one persistent objection will be enough to stop any matter being approved. The second tier – ‘Executive Committee Members’ – is comprised of all the other companies in the ACE project (as listed above, minus the Governing Board). These companies will not be allowed to vote on ACE initiatives but can present ideas and strategies. They’ll also be allowed to suggest targets for law enforcement action while utilizing the MPAA’s anti-piracy resources. Rights of all members While all members of ACE can utilize the alliance’s resources, none are barred from simultaneously ‘going it alone’ on separate anti-piracy initiatives. None of these strategies and actions need approval from the Founding Members, provided they’re carried out in a company’s own name and at its own expense. Information obtained by TorrentFreak indicates that the MPAA also reserves the right to carry out anti-piracy actions in its own name or on behalf of its member studios. The pattern here is different, since the MPAA’s global anti-piracy resources are the same resources being made available to the ACE alliance and for which members have paid to share. Expansion of ACE While ACE membership is already broad, the alliance is prepared to take on additional members, providing certain criteria are met. Crucially, any prospective additions must be owners or producers of movies and/or TV shows. The Governing Board will then vet applicants to ensure that they meet the criteria for acceptance as a new Executive Committee Members. ACE Operations The nine Governing Board members will meet at least four times a year, with each nominating a senior executive to serve as its representative. The MPAA’s General Counsel will take up the position of non-voting member of the Governing Board and will chair its meetings. Matters to be discussed include formulating and developing the alliance’s ‘Global Anti-Piracy Action Plan’ and approving and developing the budget. ACE will also form an Anti-Piracy Working Group, which is scheduled to meet at least once a month. On a daily basis, the MPAA and its staff will attend to the business of the ACE alliance. The MPAA will carry out its own work too but when presenting to outside third parties, it will clearly state which “hat” it is currently wearing. Much deliberation has taken place over who should be the official spokesperson for ACE. Documents obtained by TF suggest that the MPAA planned to hire a consulting firm to find a person for the role, seeking a professional with international experience who had never been previously been connected with the MPAA. They appear to have settled on Zoe Thorogood, who previously worked for British Prime Minister David Cameron. Money, money, money Of course, the ACE program isn’t going to fund itself, so all members are required to contribute to the operation. The MPAA has opened a dedicated bank account under its control specifically for the purpose, with members contributing depending on status. Founding/Governing Board Members will be required to commit $5m each annually. However, none of the studios that are MPAA members will have to hand over any cash, since they already fund the MPAA, whose anti-piracy resources ACE is built. “Each Governing Board Member will contribute annual dues in an amount equal to $5 million USD. Payment of dues shall be made bi-annually in equal shares, payable at the beginning of each six (6) month period,” the ACE agreement reads. “The contribution of MPAA personnel, assets and resources…will constitute and be considered as full payment of each MPAA Member Studio’s Governing Board dues.” That leaves just Netflix and Amazon paying the full amount of $5m in cash each. From each company’s contribution, $1m will be paid into legal trust accounts allocated to each Governing Board member. If ACE-agreed litigation and legal expenses exceed that amount for the year, members will be required to top up their accounts to cover their share of the costs. For the remaining 21 companies on the Executive Committee, annual dues are $200,000 each, to be paid in one installment at the start of the financial year – $4.2m all in. Of all dues paid by all members from both tiers, half will be used to boost anti-piracy resources, over and above what the MPAA will spend on the same during 2017. “Fifty percent (50%) of all dues received from Global Alliance Members other than the MPAA Member Studios…shall, as agreed by the Governing Board, be used (a) to increase the resources spent on online antipiracy over and above….the amount of MPAA’s 2017 Content Protection Department budget for online antipiracy initiatives/operations,” an internal ACE document reads. Intellectual property As the project moves forward, the Alliance expects to gain certain knowledge and experience. On the back of that, the MPAA hopes to grow its intellectual property portfolio. “Absent written agreement providing otherwise, any and all data, intellectual property, copyrights, trademarks, or know-how owned and/or contributed to the Global Alliance by MPAA, or developed or created by the MPAA or the Global Alliance during the Term of this Charter, shall remain and/or become the exclusive property of the MPAA,” the ACE agreement reads. That being said, all Governing Board Members will also be granted “perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive licenses” to use the same under certain rules, even in the event they leave the ACE initiative. Terms and extensions Any member may withdraw from the Alliance at any point, but there will be no refunds. Additionally, any financial commitment previously made to litigation will have to be honored by the member. The ACE agreement has an initial term of two years but Governing Board Members will meet not less than three months before it is due to expire to vote on any extension. To be continued…… With the internal structure of ACE now revealed, all that remains is to discover the contents of the initiative’s ‘Global Anti-Piracy Action Plan’. To date, that document has proven elusive but with an operation of such magnitude, future leaks are a distinct possibility. https://torrentfreak.com/inside-the-mpaa-netflix-amazon-global-anti-piracy-alliance-170918/

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Transformers: The Last Knight'. 'Baby Driver' completes the top three. This week we have three newcomers in our chart. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is the most downloaded movie for the second week in a row. 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 Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart. THIS WEEK’S MOST DOWNLOADED MOVIES ARE: Movie Rank Rank last week Movie name IMDb Rating / Trailer Most downloaded movies via torrents 1 (1) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales 6.9 / trailer 2 (…) Transformers: The Last Knight 5.2 / trailer 3 (…) Baby Driver 8.0 / trailer 4 (3) Wonder Woman 8.2 / trailer 5 (2) Hitman’s Bodyguard 7.2 / trailer 6 (4) The Mummy 2017 5.8 / trailer 7 (…) It 8.0 / trailer 8 (5) The Big Sick 6.9 / trailer 9 (6) Despicable Me 3 6.4 / trailer 10 (9) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 8.0 / trailer

Anti-piracy organizations have come up with a wide variety of measures to combat copyright infringement over the years, with varying results. Enlisting the public to track down pirates in exchange for Bitcoin bounties is one of the more exotic ways, but according to eBook publisher Erudition, it's a great way to tackle this growing problem. And they're not alone. When we first heard of the idea to use Bitcoin bounties to track down pirated content online, we scratched our heads. Snitching on copyright infringers is not a new concept, but the idea of instant cash rewards though cryptocurrency was quite novel. In theory, it’s pretty straightforward. Content producers can add a unique identifying watermark into movies, eBooks, or other digital files before they’re circulated. When these somehow leak to the public, the bounty hunters use the watermark to claim their Bitcoin, alerting the owner in the process. This helps to spot leaks early on, even on networks where automated tools don’t have access, and identify the source at the same time. Two years have passed and it looks like the idea was no fluke. Custos, the South African company that owns the technology, has various copyright holders on board and recently announced a new partnership with book publisher Erudition Digital. With help from anti-piracy outfit Digimarc, the companies will add identifying watermarks to eBook releases, counting on the bounty hunters to keep an eye out for leaks. These bounty hunters don’t have to be anti-piracy experts. On the contrary, pirates are more than welcome to help out. “The Custos approach is revolutionary in that it attacks the economy of piracy by targeting uploaders rather than downloaders, turning downloaders into an early detection network,” the companies announced a few days ago. “The result is pirates turn on one another, sowing seeds of distrust amongst their communities. As a result, the Custos system is capable of penetrating hard-to-reach places such as the dark web, peer-to-peer networks, and even email.” Devon Weston, Director of Market Development for Digimarc Guardian, believes that this approach is the next level in anti-piracy efforts. It complements the automated detection tools that have been available in the past by providing access to hard-to-reach places. “Together, this suite of products represents the next generation in technical measures against eBook piracy,” Weston commented on the partnership. TorrentFreak reached out to Custos COO Fred Lutz to find out what progress the company has made in recent years. We were informed that they have been protecting thousands of copies every month, ranging from pre-release movie content to eBooks. At the moment the company works with a selected group of “bounty hunters,” but they plan to open the extraction tool to the public in the near future, so everyone can join in. “So far we have carefully seeded the free bounty extractor tool in relevant communities with great success. However, in the next phase, we will open the bounty hunting to the general public. We are just careful not to grow the bounty hunting community faster than the number of bounties in the wild require,” Lutz tells us. The Bitcoin bounties themselves vary in size based on the specific use case. For a movie screener, they are typically anything between $10 and $50. However, for the most sensitive content, they can be $100 or more. “We can also adjust the bounty over time based on the customer’s needs. A low-quality screener that was very sensitive prior to cinematic release does not require as large a bounty after cam-rips becomes available,” Lutz notes. Thus far, roughly 50 Bitcoin bounties have been claimed. Some of these were planted by Custos themselves, as an incentive for the bounty hunters. Not a very high number, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not working. “While this number might seem a bit small compared to the number of copies we protect, our aim is first and foremost not to detect leaks, but to pose a credible threat of quick detection and being caught.” People who receive content protected by Custos are made aware of the watermarks, which may make them think twice about sharing it. If that’s the case, then it’s having effect without any bounties being claimed. The question remains how many people will actively help to spot bounties. The success of the system largely depends on volunteers, and not all pirates are eager to rat on the people that provide free content. On the other hand, there’s also room to abuse the system. In theory, people could claim the bounties on their own eBooks and claim that they’ve lost their e-reader. That would be fraud, of course, but since the bounties are in Bitcoin this isn’t easy to prove. That brings us to the final question. What happens of a claimed bounty identifies a leaker? Custos admits that this alone isn’t enough evidence to pursue a legal case, but the measures that are taken in response are up to the copyright holders. “A claim of a bounty is never a sufficient legal proof of piracy, instead, it is an invaluable first piece of evidence on which a legal case could be built if the client so requires. Legal prosecution is definitely not always the best approach to dealing with leaks,” Lutz says. Time will tell if the Bitcoin bounty approach works… https://torrentfreak.com/can-an-army-of-bitcoin-bounty-hunters-deter-pirates-170917/

Last week, the developers of Kodi revealed that Geoff Gavora, someone unconnected with the project, had registered the Kodi trademark in Canada. Surprisingly, it appears that Gavora's Kodi business involves the promotion and distribution of addons that are banned by Kodi itself for supplying infringing content. But that isn't the only thing interesting about this entrepreneur. The Kodi team, operating under the XBMC Foundation, announced last week that a third-party had registered the Kodi trademark in Canada and was using it for their own purposes. That person was Geoff Gavora, who had previously been in communication with the Kodi team, expressing how important the software was to his sales. “We had hoped, given the positive nature of his past emails, that perhaps he was doing this for the benefit of the Foundation. We learned, unfortunately, that this was not the case,” XBMC Foundation President Nathan Betzen said. According to the Kodi team, Gavora began delisting Amazon ads placed by companies selling Kodi-enabled products, based on infringement of Gavora’s trademark rights. “[O]nly Gavora’s hardware can be sold, unless those companies pay him a fee to stay on the store,” Betzen explained. Predictably, Gavora’s move is being viewed as highly controversial, not least since he’s effectively claiming licensing rights in Canada over what should be a free and open source piece of software. TF obtained one of the notices Amazon sent to a seller of a Kodi-enabled device in Canada, following a complaint from Gavora. Take down Kodi from Amazon, or pay Gavora So who is Geoff Gavora and what makes him tick? Thanks to a 2016 interview with Ali Salman of the Rapid Growth Podcast, we have a lot of information from the horse’s mouth. It all began in 2011, when Gavora began jailbreaking Apple TVs, loading them with XBMC, and selling them to friends. “I did it as a joke, for beer money from my friends,” Gavora told Salman. “I’d do it for $25 to $50 and word of mouth spread that I was doing this so we could load on this media center to watch content and online streams from it.” Intro to the interview with Ali Salman Soon, however, word of mouth caused the business to grow wings, Gavora claims. “So they started telling people and I start telling people it’s $50, and then I got so busy so I start telling people it’s $75. I’m getting too busy with my work and with this. And it got to the point where I was making more jailbreaking these Apple TVs than I was at my career, and I wasn’t very happy at my career at that time.” Jailbreaking was supposed to be a side thing to tide Gavora over until another job came along, but he had a problem – he didn’t come from a technical background. Nevertheless, what Gavora did have was a background in marketing and with a decent knowledge of how to succeed in customer service, he majored on that front. Gavora had come to learn that while people wanted his devices, they weren’t very good at operating XBMC (Kodi’s former name) which he’d loaded onto them. With this in mind, he began offering web support and phone support via a toll-free line. “I started receiving calls from New York, Dallas, and then Australia, Hong Kong. Everyone around the world was calling me and saying ‘we hear there’s some kid in Calgary, some young child, who’s offering tech support for the Apple TV’,” Gavora said. But with things apparently going well, a wrench was soon thrown into the works when Apple released the third variant of its Apple TV and Gavorra was unable to jailbreak it. This prompted him to market his own Linux-based set-top device and his business, Raw-Media, grew from there. While it seems likely that so-called ‘Raw Boxes’ were doing reasonably well with consumers, what was the secret of their success? Podcast host Salman asked Gavora for his ‘networking party 10-second pitch’, and the Canadian was happy to oblige. “I get this all the time actually. I basically tell people that I sell a box that gives them free TV and movies,” he said. This was met with laughter from the host, to which Gavora added, “That’s sort of the three-second pitch and everyone’s like ‘Oh, tell me more’.” “Who doesn’t like free TV, come on?” Salman responded. “Yeah exactly,” Gavora said. The image below, taken from a January 2016 YouTube unboxing video, shows one of the products sold by Gavora’s company. Raw-Media Kodi Box packaging (note Kodi logo) Bearing in mind the offer of free movies and TV, the tagline on the box, “Stop paying for things you don’t want to watch, watch more free tv!” initially looks quite provocative. That being said, both the device and Kodi are perfectly capable of playing plenty of legal content from free sources, so there’s no problem there. What is surprising, however, is that the unboxing video shows the device being booted up, apparently already loaded with infamous third-party Kodi addons including PrimeWire, Genesis, Icefilms, and Navi-X. The unboxing video showing the Kodi setup Given that Gavora has registered the Kodi trademark in Canada and prints the official logo on his packaging, this runs counter to the official Kodi team’s aggressive stance towards boxes ready-configured with what they categorize as banned addons. Matters are compounded when one visits the product support site. As seen in the image below, Raw-Media devices are delivered with a printed card in the packaging informing people where to get the after-sales services Gavora says he built his business upon. The cards advise people to visit No-Issue.ca, a site setup to offer text and video-based support to set-top box buyers. No-Issue.ca (which is hosted on the same server as raw-media.ca and claimed officially as a sister site here) now redirects to No-Issue.is, as per a 2016 announcement. It has a fairly bland forum but the connected tutorial videos, found on No Issue’s YouTube channel, offer a lot more spice. Registered under Gavora’s online nickname Gombeek (which is also used on the official Kodi forums), the channel is full of videos detailing how to install and use a wide range of addons. The No-issue YouTube Channel tutorials But while supplying tutorial videos is one thing, providing the actual software addons is another. Surprisingly, No-Issue does that too. Filed away under the URL http://solved.no-issue.is/ is a Kodi repository which distributes a wide range of addons, including many that specialize in infringing content, according to the Kodi team. The No-Issue repository A source familiar with Raw-Media’s devices informs TF that they’re no longer delivered with addons installed. However, tools hosted on No-Issue.is automate the installation process for the customer, with unlisted YouTube Videos (1,2) providing the instructions. XBMC Foundation President Nathan Betzen says that situation isn’t ideal. “If that really is his repo it is disappointing to see that Gavora is charging a fee or outright preventing the sale of boxes with Kodi installed that do not include infringing add-ons, while at the same time he is distributing boxes himself that do include the infringing add-ons like this,” Betzen told TF. While the legality of this type of service is yet to be properly tested in Canada and may yet emerge as entirely permissible under local law, Gavora himself previously described his business as operating in a gray area. “If I could go back in time four years, I would’ve been more aggressive in the beginning because there was a lot of uncertainty being in a gray market business about how far I could push it,” he said. “I really shouldn’t say it’s a gray market because everything I do is completely above board, I just felt it was more gray market so I was a bit scared,” he added. But, legality aside (which will be determined in due course through various cases 1,2), the situation is still problematic when it comes to the Kodi trademark. The official Kodi team indicate they don’t want to be associated with any kind of questionable addon or even tutorials for the same. Nevertheless, several of the addons installed by No-Issue (including PrimeWire, cCloud TV, Genesis, Icefilms, MoviesHD, MuchMovies and Navi-X, to name a few), are present on the Kodi team’s official ban list. The fact remains, however, that Gavora successfully registered the trademark in Canada (one month later it was transferred to a brand new company at the same address), and Kodi now have no control over the situation in the country, short of a settlement or some kind of legal action. Kodi matters aside, though, we get more insight into Gavora’s attitudes towards intellectual property after learning that he studied gemology and jewelry at school. He’s a long-standing member of jewelry discussion forum Ganoskin.com (his profilelinks to Gavora.com, a domain Gavora owns, as per information supplied by Amazon). Things get particularly topical in a 2006 thread titled “When your work gets ripped“. The original poster asked how people feel when their jewelry work gets copied and Gavora made his opinions known. “I think that what most people forget to remember is that when a piece from Tiffany’s or Cartier is ripped off or copied they don’t usually just copy the work, they will stamp it with their name as well,” Gavora said. “This is, in fact, fraud and they are deceiving clients into believing they are purchasing genuine Tiffany’s or Cartier pieces. The client is in fact more interested in purchasing from an artist than they are the piece. Laying claim to designs (unless a symbol or name is involved) is outrageous.” Unless that ‘design’ is called Kodi, of course, then it’s possible to claim it as your own through an administrative process and begin demanding licensing fees from the public. That being said, Gavora does seem to flip back and forth a little, later suggesting that being copied is sometimes ok. “If someone copies your design and produces it under their own name, I think one should be honored and revel in the fact that your design is successful and has caused others to imitate it and grow from it,” he wrote. “I look forward to the day I see one of my original designs copied, that is the day I will know my design is a success.” From their public statements, this opinion isn’t shared by the Kodi team in respect of their product. Despite the Kodi name, software and logo being all their own work, they now find themselves having to claw back rights in Canada, in order to keep the product free in the region. For now, however, that seems like a difficult task. TorrentFreak wrote to Gavora and asked him why he felt the need to register the Kodi trademark, but we received no response. That means we didn’t get the chance to ask him why he’s taking down Amazon listings for other people’s devices, or about something else that came up in the podcast. “My biggest weakness, I guess, is that I’m too ethical about how I do my business,” he said, referring to how he deals with customers. Only time will tell how that philosophy will affect Gavora’s attitudes to trademarks and people’s desire not to be charged for using free, open source software. https://torrentfreak.com/kodi-trademark-troll-has-interesting-views-on-co-opting-other-peoples-work-170917/

A copyright troll outfit in the UK, which has been trying to extract payments from alleged pirates for years, is having another bite at the cherry. Golden Eye International is writing to people who previously refused to pay up, citing a separate case in which an individual agreed to pay them £1000 after a court battle. But, as always, the company is only revealing half the story. Our coverage of Golden Eye International dates back more than five years. Much like similar companies in the copyright troll niche, the outfit monitors BitTorrent swarms, collects IP addresses, and then heads off to court to obtain alleged pirates’ identities. From there it sends letters threatening legal action, unless recipients pay a ‘fine’ of hundreds of pounds to settle an alleged porn piracy case. While some people pay up, others refuse to do so on the basis they are innocent, the ISP bill payer, or simply to have their day in court. Needless to say, a full-on court battle on the merits is never on the agenda. Having gone quiet for an extended period of time, it was assumed that Golden Eye had outrun its usefulness as a ‘fine’ collection outfit. Just lately, however, there are signs that the company is having another go at reviving old cases against people who previously refused to pay. A post on Slyck forums, which runs a support thread for people targeted by trolls, reveals the strategy. “I dealt with these Monkeys last year. I spent 5 weeks practically arguing with them. They claim they have to prove it based on the balance of probability’s [sic]. I argue that they actually have to prove it was me,” ‘Matt’ wrote in August. “It wasn’t me, and despite giving them reasonable doubt it wasn’t me. (I’m Gay… why would I be downloading straight porn?) They still persuaded it, trying to dismiss anything that cast any doubt on their claim. The emails finished how I figured they would…. They were going to send court documentation. It never arrived.” After months of silence, at the end of August this year ‘Matt’ says GoldenEye got in touch again, suggesting that a conclusion to another copyright case might encourage him to cough up. He says that Golden Eye contacted him saying that someone settled out of court with TCYK, another copyright troll, for £1,000. “My thoughts…Idiots and doubt it,” ‘Matt’ said. “Honestly, I almost cried I thought I had got rid of these trolls and they are back for round two.” This wasn’t an isolated case. Another recipient of a Golden Eye threat also revealed getting contacted by the company, also with fresh pressure to pay. “You may be interested to know that a solicitor, acting on behalf of Robert Kemble in a claim similar to ours but brought by TCYK LLC, entered into an agreement to settle the court case by paying £1,000,” Golden Eye told the individual. “In view of the agreement reached in the Kemble case, we would invite you to reconsider your position as to whether you would like to reach settlement with us. We would point out, that, despite the terms of settlement in the Kemble case, we remain prepared to stand by our original offer of settlement with you, that is payment of £500.00.” After last corresponding with the Golden Eye in January after repeated denials, new contact from the company would be worrying for anyone. It certainly affected this person negatively. “I am now at a loss and don’t know what more I can do. I do not want to settle this, but also I cannot afford a solicitor. Any further advice would be gratefully appreciated as [i’m] now having panic attacks,” the person wrote. After citing the Robert Kemble case, one might think that Golden Eye would be good enough to explain the full situation. They didn’t – so let’s help them a little bit in that respect, to help their targets make an informed decision. Robert Kemble was a customer of Sky Broadband. TCYK, in conjunction with UK-based Hatton and Berkeley, sent a letter to Kemble in July 2015 asking him to pay a ‘fine’ for alleged Internet piracy of the Robert Redford movie The Company You Keep, way back in April 2013. So far, so ordinary – but here’s the big deal. Unlike the people being re-targeted by Golden Eye this time around, Kemble admitted in writing that infringement had been going on via his account. In a response, Kemble told TCYK that he was shocked to receive their letter but after speaking to people in his household, had discovered that a child had been downloading films. He didn’t say that the Redford film was among them but he apologized to the companies all the same. Clearly, that wasn’t going to be enough. In August 2015, TCYK wrote back to Kemble, effectively holding him responsible for other people’s actions while demanding a settlement of £600 to be paid to third-party company, Ranger Bay Limited. “The child who is responsible for the infringement should sign the undertakings in our letter to you. Please when replying specify clearly on the undertakings the child’s full name and age,” the company later wrote. Nice. What took place next was a round of letter tennis between Kemble’s solicitor and those acting for TCYK, with the latter insisting that Kemble had already admitted infringement (or authorizing the same) and demanding around £2000 to settle the case at this later stage. With no settlement forthcoming, TCYK demanded £5,000 in the small claims court. “The Defendant has admitted that his internet address has been used to infringe the Claimant’s copyright whereby, through the Defendant’s licencees’ use of the Defendant’s internet address, he acquired the Work and then communicated the Work in a digital form via the internet to the public without the license or consent of the Claimant,” the TCYK claim form reads. TorrentFreak understands that the court process that followed didn’t center on the merits of the infringement case, but procedural matters over how the case was handled. On this front, Kemble failed in his efforts to have the case – which was heard almost a year ago – decided in his favor. Now, according to Golden Eye at least, Kemble has settled with TCYK for £1000, which is just £300 more than their final pre-court offer. Hardly sounds like good value for money. The main point, though, is that this case wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near a court if Kemble hadn’t admitted liability of sorts in the early stages. This is a freak case in all respects and has no bearing on anyone’s individual case, especially those who haven’t admitted liability. So, for people getting re-hounded by Golden Eye now, remember the Golden Rule. If you’re innocent, by all means tell them, and stick to your guns. But, at your peril tell them anything else on top, or risk having it used against you. https://torrentfreak.com/uk-copyright-trolls-cite-hopeless-case-to-make-people-pay-up-170916/

A few hours ago a cryptocurrency miner appeared on The Pirate Bay website, using the computer resources of visitors to mine Monero coins. The operators of The Pirate Bay are testing it as a new way to generate revenue, but many users aren't happy. Four years ago many popular torrent sites added an option to donate via Bitcoin. The Pirate Bay was one of the first to jump on board and still lists its address on the website. While there’s nothing wrong with using Bitcoin as a donation tool, adding a Javascript cryptocurrency miner to a site is of a totally different order. A few hours ago many Pirate Bay users began noticing that their CPU usage increased dramatically when they browsed certain Pirate Bay pages. Upon closer inspection, this spike appears to have been caused by a Bitcoin miner embedded on the site. The code in question is tucked away in the site’s footer and uses a miner provided by Coinhive. This service offers site owners the option to convert the CPU power of users into Monero coins. The miner does indeed appear to increase CPU usage quite a bit. It is throttled at different rates (we’ve seen both 0.6 and 0.8) but the increase in resources is immediately noticeable. The miner is not enabled site-wide. When we checked, it appeared in the search results and category listings, but not on the homepage or individual torrent pages. There has been no official comment from the site operators on the issue (update, see below), but many users have complained about it. In the official site forums, TPB supermoderator Sid is clearly not in agreement with the site’s latest addition. “That really is serious, so hopefully we can get some action on it quickly. And perhaps get some attention for the uploading and commenting bugs while they’re at it,” Sid writes. Like many others, he also points out that blocking or disabling Javascript can stop the automatic mining. This can be done via browser settings or through script blocker addons such as NoScript and ScriptBlock. Alternatively, people can block the miner URL with an ad-blocker. Whether the miner is a new and permanent tool, or perhaps triggered by an advertiser, is unknown at the point. When we hear more this article will be updated accordingly. Update: We were told that the miner is being tested for a short period (~24 hours) as a new way to generate revenue. This could eventually replace the ads on the site. More info may be revealed later. https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-website-runs-a-cryptocurrency-miner-170916/

BREIN has booked another victory against a group of prolific uploaders. The Hollywood backed organization signed settlements with two people connected to the "Libra Release Team." The group in question shared hundreds of infringing movies and TV-shows on torrent and Usenet sites, focusing on the Dutch market. Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has been very active in recent years, targeting uploaders on various sharing sites and services. This week the anti-piracy group announced yet another victory against a group of frequent copyright infringers in the Netherlands. BREIN successfully tracked down and settled with two key members of the “Libra Release Team” (LRT), which is estimated to consist of eight to ten people in total. LRT is best known in the Netherlands for repackaging English movie and TV releases with Dutch subtitles. These were then shared on torrent sites and Usenet forums. According to court papers, the files in question were uploaded to place2home.org and place2home.net. However, they often spread out over other sites as well. In total, the release team has published nearly 800 titles. BREIN tracked down the founder of LRT, who had already stopped uploading, and obtained an ex-parte court order against a more recent uploader. Both have settled with the anti-piracy group for a total of 8,000 euros, an amount that takes their financial situations into account. The uploader was further summoned to and stop his activities effective immediately. If not, an ex-parte court order requires him to pay an additional penalty of €2,000 per day, up to a maximum of €50,000. The court papers don’t mention how the members were uncovered, but it is likely that they left traces to their real identities online, which is often the case. The group also recruited new members publicly, using Skype and Gmail as contact addresses. It’s unclear whether the settlements means the end of the Libra Release Team. While the targeted persons are unlikely to pick up their old habit, some of the others may still continue, perhaps under a new name. https://torrentfreak.com/brein-tracks-down-and-settles-with-libra-release-team-170916/

A popular third-party Kodi repository has become vulnerable after an outsider re-registered the GitHub account of its developer, who previously deleted his accounts. Former Kodi-addon developer MetalKettle urges people to delete his repository, stating that it's no longer safe. A few weeks ago MetalKettle, one of the most famous Kodi addon developers of recent times, decided to call it quits. Worried about potential legal risks, he saw no other option than to halt all development of third-party Kodi addons. Soon after this announcement, the developer proceeded to remove the GitHub account which was used to distribute his addons. However, he didn’t realize that this might not have been the best decision. As it turns out, GitHub allows outsiders to re-register names of deleted accounts. While this might not be a problem in most cases, it can be disastrous when the accounts are connected to Kodi add-ons that are constantly pinging for new updates. In essence, it means that the person who registered the Github account can load content onto the boxes of people who still have the MetalKettle repo installed. Quite a dangerous prospect, something MetalKettle realizes as well. “Someone has re-registered metalkettle on github. So in theory could pollute any devices with the repo still installed,” he warned on Twitter. “Warning : if any users have a metalkettle repo installed on their systems or within a build – please delete ASAP,” he added. MetalKettle warning It’s not clear what the intentions of the new MetalKettle user are on GitHub, if he or she has any at all. But, people should be very cautious and probably remove it from their systems. The real MetalKettle, meanwhile, alerted TVAddons to the situation and they have placed the repository on their Indigo blacklist of banned software. This effectively disables the repository on devices with Indigo installed. GitHub on their turn may want to reconsider their removal policy. Perhaps it’s smarter to not make old usernames available for registration, at least not for a while, as it’s clearly a vulnerability. This is also shown by another Kodi repo controversy that appeared earlier today. Another GitHub account that was reportedly deleted earlier, resurfaced today pushing a new version of the Exodus addon and other sources. According to some, the GitHub account is operated by the original Exodus developers and perfectly safe, but others warn that the name was reregistered in bad faith. https://torrentfreak.com/metalkettle-after-github-takeover-170915/

The Australian Government has proposed new copyright regulations which require copyright holders and carriage service providers to adopt a voluntary code to identify and deter online piracy. The new measures must address the ongoing piracy concerns but should not be too costly or burdensome for ISPs, the proposal clarifies. Australia has been struggling to find an adequate response to online piracy for several years, but progress has been slow. While pirate site blockades are in effect now, an earlier plan to implement a three-strikes anti-piracy regime failed. Despite this setback, Australian legislators are still determined to tackle widespread copyright infringement. The most recent effort comes through an overhaul of the country’s copyright regulations, with a new proposal (pdf) to adopt a voluntary anti-piracy code. The code would apply to carriage service providers, including Internet providers, to agree on a joint anti-piracy strategy. The voluntary code should be supported by “broad consensus” and include technical measures that are “used to protect and identify copyright material.” The proposal further stresses that the anti-piracy measures should be “non-discriminatory.” They also shouldn’t impose “substantial costs” on the service providers or “substantial burdens on their systems or networks.” The code proposal The description of the code is quite broad can include a wide variety of measures, including a new iteration of the “strikes” scheme where copyright holders report copyright infringements. A website blocking agreement, which avoids costly court procedures, also belongs to the options. An accompanying consultation paper published by the Government stresses that any monitoring measures to track infringements should not interfere with the technology used at the originating sites, ZDNet notes. While the Government pushes copyright holders and ISPs to come to a voluntary agreement, the failed “three strikes” negotiations suggest that this will be easier said than done. At the time, the Australasian Music Publishers Association (AMPAL) noted that merely warning users did not go far enough. Instead, they recommended a system where ISPs themselves would implement monitoring and filtering technology to stop piracy. It appears, however, that extensive monitoring and filtering on the ISPs’ networks goes beyond the scope of the proposed regulations. After all, that would be quite costly and place a significant burden on the ISPs. The proposed regulations are not limited to the anti-piracy code but also specify how Internet providers should process takedown notices, among other things. Before any changes are implemented or negotiations begin, the Government is first inviting various stakeholders to share their views. While it doesn’t intend to change the main outline, the Government welcomes suggestions to simplify the current proposal where possible. https://torrentfreak.com/australian-government-want-isps-to-adopt-anti-piracy-code-170915/

Fansubbing site Undertexter.se was raided by police in the summer of 2013, following complaints from Hollywood. Four years later the case has come to an end after a Swedish District Court sentenced the operator for copyright infringement. The decision confirms that the unauthorized distribution of movie subtitles is a crime in Sweden. Every day millions of people enjoy fan-made subtitles. They help foreigners understand English-speaking entertainment and provide the deaf with a way to comprehend audio. Quite often these subtitles are used in combination with pirated files. This is a thorn in the side to copyright holder groups, who see this as a threat to their business. In Sweden, Undertexter was one of the leading subtitle resources for roughly a decade. The site allowed users to submit their own translated subtitles for movies and TV shows, which were then made available to the public. In the summer of 2013, this reign came to an end after the site was pulled offline. Following pressure from Hollywood-based movie companies, police raided the site and seized its servers. The raid and subsequent criminal investigation came as a surprise to the site’s founder, Eugen Archy, who didn’t think he or the site’s users were offering an illegal service. “The people who work on the site don’t consider their own interpretation of dialog to be something illegal, especially when we’re handing out these interpretations for free,” he said at the time. The arrest made it clear that the authorities disagreed. The Undertexter founder was prosecuted for distributing copyright-infringing subtitles, risking a possible prison sentence. While Archy was found guilty this week, luckily for him he remains a free man. The Attunda District Court sentenced the now 32-year-old operator to probation. In addition, he has to pay 217,000 Swedish Kroner ($27,000), which will be taken from the advertising and donation revenues he collected through the site. While there were millions of subtitles available on Undertexter, only 74 movies were referenced by the prosecution. These were carefully selected to ensure a strong case it seems, as many of the titles weren’t commercially available in Sweden at the time. During the trial, the defense had argued that the fan-made subtitles are not infringing since movies are made up of video and sound, with subtitles being an extra. However, the court disagreed with this line of reasoning, the verdict shows. While the copyright holders may have hoped for a heftier punishment, the ruling confirms that fan-made subtitles can be seen as copyright infringements. Prosecutor Henrik Rasmusson is satisfied with the outcome, IDG reports, but he will leave the option to appeal open for now. https://torrentfreak.com/founder-of-subtitle-site-convicted-for-copyright-infringement-170914/

Actor Vishal Krishna, who also takes a prominent anti-piracy stance in the local film industry, was at the center of extraordinary scenes last night in India. Following reports that a prominent site operator had been arrested, Vishal was mobbed by excited members of the press brandishing a swathe of microphones. Clearly, Internet piracy is a big deal in India these days. While most of the headlines relating to Internet piracy are focused on North America and Europe, there are dozens of countries where piracy is a way of life for millions of citizens. India, with its booming economy and growth in technology, is certainly one of them. According to a recently published report, India now has 355 million Internet users out of a population of more than 1.3 billion. Not only is there massive room for growth, that figure is up from 277 million just two years ago. The rate of growth is astonishing. Needless to say, Indians love their Internet and increasing numbers of citizens are also getting involved in the piracy game. There are many large sites and prominent release groups operating out of the country, some of them targeting the international market. Carry out a search for DVDSCR (DVD screener) on most search indexes globally and one is just as likely to find Indian movie releases as those emanating from the West. If people didn’t know it already, India is nurturing a pirate force to be reckoned with, with local torrent and streaming sites pumping out the latest movies at an alarming rate. This has caused an outcry from many in the movie industry who are determined to do something to stem the tide. One of these is actor Vishal Krishna, who not only stars in movies but is also a producer working in the Tamil film industry. Often referred to simply by his first name, Vishal has spoken out regularly against piracy in his role at the Tamil Film Producers Council. In May, he referred to the operators of the hugely popular torrent site TamilRockers as ‘Internet Mafias’ while demanding their arrest for leaking the blockbuster Baahubali 2, a movie that pulled in US$120 million in six days. Now, it appears, he may have gotten his way. Well, partially, at least. Last evening, reports began to surface of an arrest at Chennai airport in north east India. According to local media, Gauri Shankar, an alleged administrator of Tamilrockers.co, was detained by Triplicane police. This would’ve been a huge coup for Vishal, who has been warning Tamilrockers to close down for the past three years. He even claimed to know the identity of the main perpetrator behind the site, noting that it was only a matter of time before he was brought to justice. Soon after the initial reports, however, other media outlets claimed that Gauri Shankar is actually an operator at Tamilgun, another popular pirate portal currently blocked by ISPs on the orders of the Indian government. So was it rockers or gun? According to Indiaglitz.com, Vishal rushed to the scene in Chennai to find out. Outside the police station What followed were quite extraordinary scenes outside the Triplicane police station. Emerging from the building flanked by close to 20 men, some in uniform, Vishal addressed an excited crowd of reporters. A swathe of microphones from various news outlets greeted him as he held up his hands urging the crowd to calm down. “Just give us some time, I will give you the details,” Vishal said in two languages. “Just give us some time. It is too early. I’ll just give it to you in a bit. It’s something connected to website piracy. Just give me some time. I have to give you all the details, proper details.” So, even after all the excitement, it’s unclear who the police have in custody. Nevertheless, the attention this event is getting from the press is on a level rarely seen in a piracy case, so more news is bound to follow soon. In the meantime, both TamilRockers and TamilGun remain online, operating as normal. Clearly, there is much more work to be done. https://torrentfreak.com/indian-movie-actor-mobbed-by-press-after-airport-torrent-site-arrest-170913/

In 2014, police in Germany revealed a manhunt for two brothers said to be behind streaming sites Movie4K and KinoX. Unusually, authorities claimed the pair were violent and possibly armed, hardly common traits among pirate site operators. It's now been revealed that one of the brothers has handed himself into the German embassy in Kosovo. In June 2011, police across Europe carried out the largest anti-piracy operation the region had ever seen. Their target was massive streaming portal Kino.to and several affiliates with links to Spain, France and the Netherlands. With many sites demonstrating phoenix-like abilities these days, it didn’t take long for a replacement to appear. Replacement platform KinoX soon attracted a large fanbase and with that almost immediate attention from the authorities. In October 2014, Germany-based investigators acting on behalf of the Attorney General carried out raids in several regions of the country looking for four main suspects. One raid, focused on a village near to the northern city of Lübeck, targeted two brothers, then aged 21 and 25-years-old. The pair, who were said to have lived with their parents, were claimed to be the main operators of Kinox.to and another large streaming site, Movie4K.to. Although two other men were arrested elsewhere in Germany, the brothers couldn’t be found. This was to be no ordinary manhunt by the police. In addition to accusing the brothers of copyright infringement and tax evasion, authorities indicated they were wanted for fraud, extortion, and arson too. The suggestion was that they’d targeted a vehicle owned by a pirate competitor, causing it to “burst into flames”. The brothers were later named as Kastriot and Kreshnik Selimi. Born in 1992, 21-year-old Kreshnik was born in Sweden. 25-year-old Kastriot was born in Kosovo in 1989 and along with his brother, later became a German citizen. With authorities piling on the charges, the pair were accused of being behind not only KinoX and Movie4K, but also other hosting and sharing platforms including BitShare, Stream4k.to, Shared.sx, Mygully.com and Boerse.sx. Now, almost three years later, German police are one step closer to getting their men. According to a Handelsblatt report via Tarnkappe, Kreshnik Selimi has been detained by authorities. The now 24-year-old suspect reportedly handed himself to the German embassy located in the capital of Kosovo, Prestina. The location of the arrest isn’t really a surprise. Older brother Kastriot previously published a picture on Instagram which appeared to show a ticket in his name destined for Kosovo from Zurich in Switzerland. But while Kreshnik’s arrest reportedly took place in July, there’s still no news of Kastriot. The older brother is still on the run, maybe in Kosovo, or by now, potentially anywhere else in the world. While his whereabouts remain a mystery, the other puzzle faced by German authorities is the status of the two main sites the brothers were said to maintain. Despite all the drama and unprecedented allegations of violence and other serious offenses, both Movie4K and KinoX remain stubbornly online, apparently oblivious to the action. There have been consequences for people connected to the latter, however. In December 2015, Arvit O (aka “Pedro”) who handled technical issues on KinoX, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for his involvement in the site. Arvit O, who made a partial confession, was found guilty of copyright infringement by the District Court of Leipzig. The then 29-year-old admitted to infringing 2,889 works. The Court also found that he hacked the computers of two competitors in order to improve Kinox’s market share. https://torrentfreak.com/kinox-movie4k-admin-detained-in-kosovo-after-three-year-manhunt-170912/

Last week the world's leading YouTube ripping site shut down after reaching a settlement with several major record labels and its representatives. The shutdown of YouTube-MP3 followed a lawsuit in the US, but many music industry insiders feel that it shouldn't have got that far. Instead, they want Google and YouTube to address the ripping problem at its root. With over a billion users, YouTube is the largest video portal on the Internet. The site is a blessing to thousands of content creators, but there are also concerns among rightsholders. The music industry, in particular, is not happy with the fact that music can easily be ripped from the site through external services. Last week the major record labels managed to take out YouTube-MP3, the largest ripping site of all. Still, there are many like it that continue business as usual. For many music industry insiders, who see streamripping as one of the largest piracy threats, this is a constant source of frustration. In the UK, music industry group BPI worked hard to tackle the issue proactively. Last year the organization already signed an agreement with YouTube-MP3 to block UK traffic. This limited the availability of the site locally, but the group believes that YouTube itself should take responsibility as well. Geoff Taylor, BPI’s Chief Executive, tells TorrentFreak that they, and several other industry groups, have asked YouTube to step up to help solve this problem. “BPI and other music industry bodies have been urging YouTube for several years to take effective action to block access to its servers for stream ripping sites, which infringe copyright on a huge scale and also breach YouTube’s terms of service. “There are more steps YouTube could take to prevent stream ripping but so far the music community has been forced to pursue the stream ripping sites directly,” Taylor adds. BPI is not alone in its criticism. After we broke the story last Monday, many reports followed, including an opinion piece on the industry outlet Hypebot asking why YouTube didn’t take more responsibility. In the comment section, long-time RIAA executive Neil Turkewitz, who left the organization last year, came in with a strong opinion. “This is something that Google/YouTube should have handled on its own. They were well aware of it, and didn’t need RIAA to step up to identify it as problematic,” Turkewitz notes. The former RIAA exec speaks freely on the issue in his new role. He is now the head of his own Turkewitz Consulting Group, which fittingly focuses on expanding accountability in the Internet ecosystem. “I should add, sadly, that Google is still steering people to stream rippers through auto-complete. If you search ‘YouTube,’ one of the first auto-complete recommendations you get is “YouTube to MP3!” Turkewitz states. “C’mon Google, what’s with that? Not only have they not disabled access to available stream rippers, but they are driving traffic to them. That is inexcusable,” he adds. Google’s “suggestions” In YouTube’s defense, the company isn’t completely apathetic when it comes to the stream-ripping problem. They have threatened legal action against YouTube-MP3 and similar sites in the past and implemented some restrictive measures. Still, they never went to court and, restrictions or not, the problem didn’t go away. TorrentFreak contacted YouTube to hear their stance on the issue, but at the time of publication we haven’t heard back. While many of the frustrations are not played out in public, it is clear that the stream-ripping problems further complicate the relationship between the labels and YouTube’s parent company Google. In recent years, rightsholders have called out Google on many occasions over copyright-infringing content on YouTube, in their search engine results, and on their cloud hosting services. While the company has made several changes to accommodate the concerns, the critique hasn’t gone away. https://torrentfreak.com/music-industry-urges-youtube-to-block-stream-rippers-170911/

The semi-private BitTorrent tracker Demonoid returned from the ashes earlier this year and is slowly rebuilding its community. The site's founder, who's back in charge once again, is working on a new and improved version of the site and hopes Demonoid will one day return to its former glory. Demonoid has been around for well over a decade but the site is not really known for having a stable presence. Quite the opposite, the torrent tracker has a ‘habit’ of going offline for weeks or even months on end, only to reappear as if nothing ever happened. Earlier this year the site made another one if its trademark comebacks and it has been sailing relatively smoothly since then. Interestingly, the site is once again under the wings of a familiar face, its original founder Deimos. Deimos decided to take the lead again after some internal struggles. “I gave control to the wrong guys while the problems started, but it’s time to control stuff again,” Deimos told us earlier. Since the return a few months back, the site’s main focus has been on rebuilding the community and improving the site. Some may have already noticed the new logo, but more changes are coming, both on the front and backend. “The backend development is going a bit slow, it’s a big change that will allow the server to run off a bunch of small servers all over the world,” Deimos informs TorrentFreak. “For the frontend, we’re working on new features including a karma system, integrated forums, buddy list, etc. That part is faster to build once you have everything in the back working,” he adds. Demonoid’s new logo Deimos has been on and off the site a few times, but he and a few others most recently returned to get it back on track and increase its popularity. While the site has around eight million registered users, many of these have moved elsewhere in recent years. “I want to to see the community we had back. Don’t know if it’s possible but that’s my aim,” Deimos says, admitting that he may not stay on forever. Many torrent sites have come and gone in recent years, but they are still here today. Looking back, Demonoid has come a long way. What many people don’t know, is that it was originally a place to share demo tapes of metal bands. Hence the name DEMOnoid. “It originally started as a modified PHP based forum that allowed posting of .torrent files. At some point, we started using a full torrent indexing script written in PHP that included a tracker, and started building the first version of the indexing site it is today,” Deimos says. The site required users to have an invite to sign up, making it a semi-private tracker. This wasn’t done to encourage people to maintain a certain ratio, as some other trackers do, but mostly to keep unsavory characters away. “The invitation system was implemented to keep spammers, trolls and the like out,” Deimos says. “Originally it was due to some very problematic people who happened to have a death metal band, back in the DEMOnoid days. “We try to keep it open as often as possible but when we start to get these kinds of issues, we close it,” he adds. In recent years, the site has had quite a few setbacks, but Deimos doesn’t want to dwell on these in public. Instead, he prefers to focus on the future. While torrent sites are no longer at the center of media distribution, there will always be a place for dedicated sharing communities. Whether Demonoid will ever return to its former glory is a big unknown for now, but Deimos is sure to do his best. https://torrentfreak.com/demonoid-hopes-to-return-to-its-former-glory-170910/

Aside from distributing content or having a successful website, most pirates want to stay a step ahead of authorities and companies dedicated to their demise. In a new report detailing the role social media plays in spreading unlicensed content, anti-piracy outfit FACT reveals the key things pirates do to hinder their investigations. Dedicated Internet pirates dealing in fresh content or operating at any significant scale can be pretty sure that rightsholders and their anti-piracy colleagues are interested in their activities at some level. With this in mind, most pirates these days are aware of things they can do to enhance their security, with products like VPNs often get discussed on the consumer side. This week, in a report detailing the challenges social media poses to intellectual property rights, UK anti-piracy outfit Federation Against Copyright Theft published a list of techniques deployed by pirates that hinder their investigations. Fake/hidden website registration details “Website registration details are often fake or hidden, which provides no further links to the person controlling the domain and its illegal activities,” the group reveals. Protected WHOIS records are nothing new and can sometimes be uncloaked by a determined adversary via court procedures. However, in the early stages of an investigation, open records provide leads that can be extremely useful in building an early picture about who might be involved in the operation of a website. Having them hidden is a definite plus for pirate site operators, especially when the underlying details are also fake, which is particularly common practice. And, with companies like Peter Sunde’s Njalla entering the market, hiding registrations is easier than ever. Overseas servers “Investigating servers located offshore cause some specific problems for FACT’s law-enforcement partners. In order to complete a full investigation into an offshore server, a law-enforcement agency must liaise with its counterpart in the country where the server is located. The difficulties of obtaining evidence from other countries are well known,” FACT notes. While FACT no doubt corresponds with entities overseas, the anti-piracy outfit has a history of targeting UK citizens who are reportedly infringing copyright. It regularly involves UK police in its investigations (FACT itself employs former police officers) but jurisdiction is necessarily limited to the UK. It is possible to get overseas law enforcement entities involved to seize a server, for example, but they have to be convinced of the need to do so by the police, which isn’t easy and is usually reserved for more serious cases. The bottom line is that by placing a server a long way away from a pirate’s home territory, things can be made much more difficult for local investigators. Torrent websites and DMCA compliance “Some torrent website operators who maintain a high DMCA compliance rate will often use this to try to appease the law, while continuing to provide infringing links,” FACT says. This is an interesting one. Under law in both the United States and Europe, service providers are required to remove infringing content from their systems when they are notified of its existence by a rightsholder or its agent. Not doing so can render them liable, if the content is indeed infringing. What FACT appears to be saying is that sites that comply with the law, by removing infringing content when asked to, become more difficult targets for legal action. It sounds very obvious but the underlying suggestion is that compliance on the surface is used as a protective mechanism. No example sites are mentioned but the strategy has clearly hindered FACT. Current legislation too vague to remove infringing live sports streams “Current legislation is insufficient to effectively tackle the issue of websites illegally offering coverage of live sports events. Section 512 (c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) states that: upon notification of claimed infringement, the service provider should ‘respond expeditiously’ to remove or disable access to the copyright-infringing material. Most live sports events are under two hours long, so such non-specific timeframes for required action are inadequate,” FACT complains. Since government reports like these can take a long time to prepare, it appears that FACT and its partners may have already found a solution to this particular problem. Major FACT client the Premier League now has a High Court injunction in place which allows it to block infringing streams on a real-time basis. It doesn’t remove the content at its source, but it still renders it largely inaccessible in the UK. Nevertheless, FACT calls for takedowns to be actioned more swiftly, noting that “the law needs to reflect this narrow timeframe with a specified required response period for websites offering such live feeds.” Camming content directly from cinema screen to the cloud “Recent advancements in technology have made this a viable option to ‘cammers’ to avoid detection. Attempts to curtail and delete illicitly recorded film footage may become increasingly difficult with the emergence of streaming apps that automatically upload recorded video to cloud services,” FACT reports. Over the years, FACT has been involved in numerous operations to hinder those who record movies with cameras in theaters and then upload them to the Internet. Once the perpetrator has exited the theater, FACT has effectively lost the battle, but the possibility that a live upload can now take place is certainly an interesting proposition. “While enforcing officers may delete the footage held on the device, the footage has potentially already been stored remotely on a cloud system,” FACT warns. Equally, this could also prove a problem for those seeking to secure evidence. With a cloud upload, the person doing the recording could safely delete the footage from the local device. That could be an obstacle to proving that an offense had even been committed when a suspect is confronted in situ. Virtual currencies “There is great potential in virtual currencies for money launderers and illicit traders. Government and law enforcement have raised concerns on how virtual currencies can be sent anonymously, leaving little or no trail for regulators or law-enforcement agencies,” FACT writes. For many years, pirates of all kinds have relied on systems like PayPal, Mastercard, and Visa, to shift money around. However, these payment systems are now more difficult to deploy on pirate services and are more easily traced, even when operators manage to squeeze them through the gaps. The same cannot be said of bitcoin and similar currencies that are gaining in popularity all the time. They are harder to use, of course, but there’s little doubt accessibility issues will be innovated out of the equation at some point. Once that happens, these currencies will be a force to be reckoned with. The UK government’s Share and Share Alike report, which examines the challenges social media poses to intellectual property rights, can be downloaded here (pdf) https://torrentfreak.com/the-things-pirates-do-to-hinder-anti-piracy-outfits-170909/

WordPress has published new data revealing that the number of piracy takedown notices it receives has doubled in a year. Interestingly, this increase is not caused by legitimate complaints. Of all the DMCA requests copyright holders sent, a massive 78% were rejected due to mistakes or abuse. Automattic, the company behind the popular WordPress.com blogging platform, receives thousands of takedown requests from rightsholders. A few days ago the company published its latest transparency report, showing that it had processed 9,273 requests during the first half of 2017. This is more than double the amount it received during the same period last year, which is a significant increase. Looking more closely at the numbers, we see that this jump is solely due to an increase in incomplete and abusive requests. Of all the DMCA notices received, only 22% resulted in the takedown of allegedly infringing content. This translates to 2,040 legitimate requests, which is less than the 2,342 Automattic received during the same period last year. This logically means that the number of abusive and incomplete DMCA notices has skyrocketed. And indeed, in its most recent report, 78% of all requests were rejected due to missing information or plain abuse. That’s much more than the year before when 42% were rejected. Automattic’s transparency report (first half of 2017) WordPress prides itself on carefully reviewing the content of each and every takedown notice, to protect its users. This means checking whether a takedown request is properly formatted but also reviewing the legitimacy of the claims. “We also may decline to remove content if a notice is abusive. ‘Abusive’ notices may be formally complete, but are directed at fair use of content, material that isn’t copyrightable, or content the complaining party misrepresents ownership of a copyright,” Automattic notes. During the first half of 2017, a total of 649 takedown requests were categorized as abuse. Some of the most blatant examples go into the “Hall of Shame,” such as a recent case where the Canadian city of Abbotsford tried to censor a parody of its logo, which replaced a pine tree with a turd. While some abuse cases sound trivial they can have a real impact on website operators, as examples outside of WordPress show. Most recently the operator of Oro Jackson, a community dedicated to the anime series “One Piece,” was targeted with several dubious DMCA requests. The takedown notices were sent by the German company Comeso and were forwarded through their hosting company Linode. The notices urged the operator to remove various forum threads because they included words of phrases such as “G’day” and “Reveries of the Moonlight,” not actual infringing content. G’day Fearing legal repercussions, the operator saw no other option than to censor these seemingly harmless discussions (starting a thread with “G’day”!!), until there’s a final decision on the counter-notice. They remain offline today. It’s understandable that hosting companies have to be strict sometimes, as reviewing copyright claims is not their core business. However, incidents like these show how valuable the skeptical review process of Automattic is. https://torrentfreak.com/wordpress-reports-surge-in-piracy-takedown-notices-rejects-78-170909/