Transmission, one of the most used non-commercial BitTorrent clients, has a vulnerability that allows outsiders to gain control over people's computers. The flaw affects users who have remote control enabled with the default password. The vulnerability was revealed by a Google researcher, who plans to disclose similar remote code execution flaws in other torrent clients as well. With millions of active users, Transmission is one of the most used BitTorrent clients around, particularly for Mac users. The application has been around for more than a decade and has a great reputation. However, as with any other type of software, it is not immune to vulnerabilities. One rather concerning flaw was made public by Google vulnerability researcher Tavis Ormandy a few days ago. The flaw allows outsiders to gain access to Transmission via DNS rebinding. This ultimately allows attackers to control the BitTorrent client and execute custom code. Ormandy has published a patch, which was also shared with the private Transmission security list at the end of November. Transmission, however, has yet to address the issue in an update. The relatively slow response was the reason why Ormandy decided to make it public before Project Zero’s usual 90-day window expired, Ars highlights. This allows other projects to address the vulnerability right away. “I’m finding it frustrating that the transmission developers are not responding on their private security list,” Google’s vulnerability researcher writes. “I’ve never had an opensource project take this long to fix a vulnerability before, so I usually don’t even mention the 90 day limit if the vulnerability is in an open source project.” A member of the Transmission developer team informed Ars that they will address this ASAP, noting that the issue only affects users who have remote control enabled with the default password. This means that people who disable it or change their password can easily ‘patch’ it until the official update comes out. Interestingly, this isn’t the last BitTorrent related vulnerability Ormandy plans to expose. According to one of his tweets on the matter, this is just the “first of a few remote code execution flaws in various popular torrent clients.” Judging from a message the researcher sent late November, uTorrent is on the list as well. Apparently, the company’s security email address wasn’t set up correctly at the time, so BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen has been acting as a forwarding service. uTorrent? https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-client-transmission-suffers-remote-takeover-vulnerability-180116/

The Motion Picture Association has scored a victory in Ireland where several Internet providers have been ordered to block access to eight popular pirate sites. The websites, including 1337x.io, EZTV.ag, 123movieshub.to, putlocker.io and RARBG.to, serve millions of visitors per day. While the blockades will have some effect, they are far from perfect. Like many other countries throughout Europe, Ireland is no stranger to pirate site blocking efforts. The Pirate Bay was blocked back in 2009, as part of a voluntary agreement between copyright holders and local ISP Eircom. A few years later the High Court ordered other major Internet providers to follow suit. However, The Pirate Bay is not the only ‘infringing’ site out there. The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has therefore asked the Commercial Court to expand the blockades to other sites. On behalf of several major Hollywood studios, the group most recently targeted a group of the most used torrent and streaming sites; 1337x.io, EZTV.ag, Bmovies.is, 123movieshub.to, Putlocker.io, RARBG.to, Gowatchfreemovies.to and YTS.am. On Monday the Commercial Court sided with the movie studios ordering all major Irish ISPs to block the sites. The latest order applies to Eircom, Sky Ireland, Vodafone Ireland, Virgin Media Ireland, Three Ireland, Digiweb, Imagine Telecommunications and Magnet Networks. According to Justice Brian McGovern, the movie studios had made it clear that the sites in question infringed their copyrights. As such, there are “significant public interest grounds” to have them blocked. Irish Examiner reports that none of the ISPs opposed the blocking request. This means that new pirate site blockades are mostly a formality now. MPA EMEA President and Managing Director Stan McCoy is happy with the outcome, which he says will help to secure jobs in the movie industry. “As the Irish film industry is continuing to thrive, the MPA is dedicated to supporting that growth by combatting the operations of illegal sites that undermine the sustainability of the sector,” McCoy says. “Preventing these pirate sites from freely disturbing other people’s work will help us provide greater job security for the 18,000 people employed through the Irish film industry and ensure that consumers can continue to enjoy high quality content in the future.” The MPA also obtained similar blocks against movie4k.to, primewire.ag, and onwatchseries.to. last year, which remain in effect to date. The torrent and streaming sites that were targeted most recently have millions of visitors worldwide. While the blockades will make it harder for the Irish to access them directly, history has shown that some people circumvent these measures or simply move to other sites. Several of the targeted sites themselves are also keeping a close eye on these blocking efforts and are providing users with alternative domains to bypass the restrictions, at least temporarily. As such, it would be no surprise if the Hollywood studios return to the Commercial Court again in a few months. https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-wins-isp-blockade-against-popular-pirate-sites-in-ireland-180116/

The owner of TickBox TV, a Kodi-powered streaming device, is being sued for copyright infringement by a group of major Hollywood studios plus Amazon and Netflix. The box seller previously argued that it's operating legally but in a scathing reply the movie companies counter this assertion. The rising popularity of piracy streaming boxes has turned into Hollywood’s main piracy concern in recent months. While the hardware and media players such as Kodi are not a problem, sellers who ship devices with unauthorized add-ons turn them into fully-fledged piracy machines. According to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership comprised of Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies, Tickbox TV is one of these bad actors. Last year, ACE filed a lawsuit against the Georgia-based company, which sells set-top boxes that allow users to stream a variety of popular media. The Tickbox devices use the Kodi media player and comes with instructions on how to add various add-ons. According to ACE, these devices are nothing more than pirate tools, allowing buyers to stream copyright-infringing content. The coalition, therefore, asked the court for a permanent injunction to remove all infringing add-ons from previously sold devices. Tickbox maintained its innocence, however. The company informed the court that its box is a simple computer like any other, which is perfectly legal. According to Tickbox, they don’t have anything to do with the infringing “Themes” that users can select on their device. These themes feature several addons that link to infringing content. This explanation doesn’t sit well with the movie companies, which submitted a reply to the court late last week. They claim that Tickbox is deliberately downplaying their own role, as they are the ones who decided to make these themes accessible through their boxes. “TickBox falsely claims that the presence of these ‘Themes’ on TickBox devices ‘have nothing to do with Defendant’,” ACE’s reply reads. “To the contrary, TickBox intentionally chooses which ‘Themes’ to include on its ‘Select your Theme’ menu for the TickBox TV interface, and TickBox pushes out automatic software updates to its customers’ TickBox TV devices.” The movie companies also dispute Tickbox’s argument that they don’t induce copyright infringement because their device is “simply a small computer” that has many legitimate uses. This liability question isn’t about whether Tickbox stores any infringing material or runs pirate streams through their servers, they counter. It’s about the intended use and how Tickbox promotes its product. “TickBox’s liability arises based on its advertising and promoting TickBox TV as a tool for infringing use, and from designing and including software on the device that encourages access to infringing streams from third-party sources.” ACE notes that, unlike Tickbox claims, the current case shows a lot of parallels with previous landmark cases including Grokster and Fung [isoHunt]. The isoHunt website didn’t store and infringing material, nor was it crucial in the torrent piracy ecosystem. However, it was liable because the operator willingly facilitated copyright infringing activity. This is what Tickbox does too, according to ACE. “TickBox ‘competes’ with legitimate services by telling customers that they can access the same content available from legitimate distributors ‘ABSOLUTELY FREE’ and that customers therefore ‘will find that you no longer need those subscriptions’.” The movie companies therefore ask the court to issue the requested injunction. They want all existing devices to be impounded and Tickbox should, through an update, remove infringing addons from already sold devices. Tickbox argued that this would require them to “hack into” their customers’ boxes and delete content. ACE, however, says that this is a simple update and nothing different from what the company has done in the past. “The proposed injunction would merely obligate TickBox to make good on its halfhearted and ineffective efforts to do what it claims to have already done: remove Kodi builds with illicit addons from TickBox TV,” ACE writes. “As demonstrated by TickBox’s own, repeated software updates since the filing of Plaintiffs’ Complaint, TickBox has the means and ability to easily and remotely change what options users see and can access on their TickBox TVs.” After having heard the arguments from both sides, it’s now up to the California federal court to decide who’s right. The current case should set an important precedent. In addition to Tickbox, ACE also filed a similar lawsuit against Dragon Box. Clearly, the coalition is determined to get these alleged pirate devices off the market. — A copy of ACE’s reply is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/tickbox-clearly-promotes-and-facilitates-piracy-hollywood-tells-court-180115/

Keeping its annual tradition, the office of the United States Trade Representative has targeted some of the world's most famous 'pirate' sites in its latest report on copyright infringing venues. In addition to torrent sites like The Pirate Bay, RARBG, and RuTracker, hosting sites 4Shared and Openload come in for criticism. Again this year, a list of sites hosted in Switzerland are under attack. In its annual “Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets” the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has listed a long list of websites said to be involved in online piracy. The list is compiled with high-level input from various trade groups, including the MPAA and RIAA who both submitted their recommendations (1,2) during early October last year. With the word “allegedly” used more than two dozen times in the report, the US government notes that its report does not constitute cast-iron proof of illegal activity. However, it urges the countries from where the so-called “notorious markets” operate to take action where they can, while putting owners and facilitators on notice that their activities are under the spotlight. “A goal of the List is to motivate appropriate action by owners, operators, and service providers in the private sector of these and similar markets, as well as governments, to reduce piracy and counterfeiting,” the report reads. “USTR highlights the following marketplaces because they exemplify global counterfeiting and piracy concerns and because the scale of infringing activity in these marketplaces can cause significant harm to U.S. intellectual property (IP) owners, consumers, legitimate online platforms, and the economy.” The report begins with a page titled “Issue Focus: Illicit Streaming Devices”. Unsurprisingly, particularly given their place in dozens of headlines last year, the segment focus on the set-top box phenomenon. The piece doesn’t list any apps or software tools as such but highlights the general position, claiming a cost to the US entertainment industry of $4-5 billion a year. Torrent Sites In common with previous years, the USTR goes on to list several of the world’s top torrent sites but due to changes in circumstances, others have been delisted. ExtraTorrent, which shut down May 2017, is one such example. As the world’s most famous torrent site, The Pirate Bay gets a prominent mention, with the USTR noting that the site is of “symbolic importance as one of the longest-running and most vocal torrent sites. The USTR underlines the site’s resilience by noting its hydra-like form while revealing an apparent secret concerning its hosting arrangements. “The Pirate Bay has allegedly had more than a dozen domains hosted in various countries around the world, applies a reverse proxy service, and uses a hosting provider in Vietnam to evade further enforcement action,” the USTR notes. Other torrent sites singled out for criticism include RARBG, which was nominated for the listing by the movie industry. According to the USTR, the site is hosted in Bosnia and Herzegovina and has changed hosting services to prevent shutdowns in recent years. 1337x.to and the meta-search engine Torrentz2 are also given a prime mention, with the USTR noting that they are “two of the most popular torrent sites that allegedly infringe U.S. content industry’s copyrights.” Russia’s RuTracker is also targeted for criticism, with the government noting that it’s now one of the most popular torrent sites in the world. Streaming & Cyberlockers While torrent sites are still important, the USTR reserves considerable space in its report for streaming portals and cyberlocker-type services. 4Shared.com, a file-hosting site that has been targeted by dozens of millions of copyright notices, is reportedly no longer able to use major US payment providers. Nevertheless, the British Virgin Islands company still collects significant sums from premium accounts, advertising, and offshore payment processors, USTR notes. Cyberlocker Rapidgator gets another prominent mention in 2017, with the USTR noting that the Russian-hosted platform generates millions of dollars every year through premium memberships while employing rewards and affiliate schemes. Due to its increasing popularity as a hosting and streaming operation, Openload.co (Romania) is now a big target for the USTR. “The site is used frequently in combination with add-ons in illicit streaming devices. In November 2017, users visited Openload.co a staggering 270 million times,” the USTR writes. Owned by a Swiss company and hosted in the Netherlands, the popular site Uploaded is also criticized by the US alongside France’s 1Fichier.com, which allegedly hosts pirate games while being largely unresponsive to takedown notices. Dopefile.pk, a Pakistan-based storage outfit, is also highlighted. On the video streaming front, it’s perhaps no surprise that the USTR focuses on sites like FMovies (Sweden), GoStream (Vietnam), Movie4K.tv (Russia) and PrimeWire. An organization collectively known as the MovShare group which encompasses Nowvideo.sx, WholeCloud.net, NowDownload.cd, MeWatchSeries.to and WatchSeries.ac, among others, is also listed. Unauthorized music / research papers While most of the above are either focused on video or feature it as part of their repertoire, other sites are listed for their attention to music. Convert2MP3.net is named as one of the most popular stream-ripping sites in the world and is highlighted due to the prevalence of YouTube-downloader sites and the 2017 demise of YouTube-MP3. “Convert2MP3.net does not appear to have permission from YouTube or other sites and does not have permission from right holders for a wide variety of music represented by major U.S. labels,” the USTR notes. Given the amount of attention the site has received in 2017 as ‘The Pirate Bay of Research’, Libgen.io and Sci-Hub.io (not to mention the endless proxy and mirror sites that facilitate access) are given a detailed mention in this year’s report. “Together these sites make it possible to download — all without permission and without remunerating authors, publishers or researchers — millions of copyrighted books by commercial publishers and university presses; scientific, technical and medical journal articles; and publications of technological standards,” the USTR writes. Service providers But it’s not only sites that are being put under pressure. Following a growing list of nominations in previous years, Swiss service provider Private Layer is again singled out as a rogue player in the market for hosting 1337x.to and Torrentz2.eu, among others. “While the exact configuration of websites changes from year to year, this is the fourth consecutive year that the List has stressed the significant international trade impact of Private Layer’s hosting services and the allegedly infringing sites it hosts,” the USTR notes. “Other listed and nominated sites may also be hosted by Private Layer but are using reverse proxy services to obfuscate the true host from the public and from law enforcement.” The USTR notes Switzerland’s efforts to close a legal loophole that restricts enforcement and looks forward to a positive outcome when the draft amendment is considered by parliament. Perhaps a little surprisingly given its recent anti-piracy efforts and overtures to the US, Russia’s leading social network VK.com again gets a place on the new list. The USTR recognizes VK’s efforts but insists that more needs to be done. Social networking and e-commerce “In 2016, VK reached licensing agreements with major record companies, took steps to limit third-party applications dedicated to downloading infringing content from the site, and experimented with content recognition technologies,” the USTR writes. “Despite these positive signals, VK reportedly continues to be a hub of infringing activity and the U.S. motion picture industry reports that they find thousands of infringing files on the site each month.” Finally, in addition to traditional pirate sites, the US also lists online marketplaces that allegedly fail to meet appropriate standards. Re-added to the list in 2016 after a brief hiatus in 2015, China’s Alibaba is listed again in 2017. The development provoked an angry response from the company. Describing his company as a “scapegoat”, Alibaba Group President Michael Evans said that his platform had achieved a 25% drop in takedown requests and has even been removing infringing listings before they make it online. “In light of all this, it’s clear that no matter how much action we take and progress we make, the USTR is not actually interested in seeing tangible results,” Evans said in a statement. The full list of sites in the Notorious Markets Report 2017 (pdf) can be found below. – 1fichier.com – (cyberlocker) – 4shared.com – (cyberlocker) – convert2mp3.net – (stream-ripper) – Dhgate.com (e-commerce) – Dopefile.pl – (cyberlocker) – Firestorm-servers.com (pirate gaming service) – Fmovies.is, Fmovies.se, Fmovies.to – (streaming) – Gostream.is, Gomovies.to, 123movieshd.to (streaming) – Indiamart.com (e-commerce) – Kinogo.club, kinogo.co (streaming host, platform) – Libgen.io, sci-hub.io, libgen.pw, sci-hub.cc, sci-hub.bz, libgen.info, lib.rus.ec, bookfi.org, bookzz.org, booker.org, booksc.org, book4you.org, bookos-z1.org, booksee.org, b-ok.org (research downloads) – Movshare Group – Nowvideo.sx, wholecloud.net, auroravid.to, bitvid.sx, nowdownload.ch, cloudtime.to, mewatchseries.to, watchseries.ac (streaming) – Movie4k.tv (streaming) – MP3VA.com (music) – Openload.co (cyberlocker / streaming) – 1337x.to (torrent site) – Primewire.ag (streaming) – Torrentz2, Torrentz2.me, Torrentz2.is (torrent site) – Rarbg.to (torrent site) – Rebel (domain company) – Repelis.tv (movie and TV linking) – RuTracker.org (torrent site) – Rapidgator.net (cyberlocker) – Taobao.com (e-commerce) – The Pirate Bay (torrent site) – TVPlus, TVBrowser, Kuaikan (streaming apps and addons, China) – Uploaded.net (cyberlocker) – VK.com (social networking) https://torrentfreak.com/us-govt-brands-torrent-streaming-cyberlocker-sites-as-notorious-markets-180115/

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'The Shape of Water' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle'. 'Blade Runner 2049' completes the top three. This week we have three newcomers in our chart. The Shape of Water is the most downloaded movie again. 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 (…) The Shape of Water (DVDScr) 8.0 / trailer 2 (4) Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (HDTS) 7.3 / trailer 3 (1) Blade Runner 2049 8.9 / trailer 4 (2) Coco (DVDscr) 8.9 / trailer 5 (…) Jigsaw 6.0 / trailer 6 (3) Justice League 7.1 / trailer 7 (5) Dunkirk 8.3 / trailer 8 (…) A Bad mom’s Christmas 5.7 / trailer 9 (9) Renegades 5.5 / trailer 10 (5) Bright 6.7 / trailer

Tensions between North Korea and the United States have regularly made the news over the past months. While both countries are vastly different, their download habits show some overlap, we can reveal today. Still, North Korea's heightened interest in the Micheal Moore documentary "Where to Invade Next" does pique our interest. Due to the public nature of BitTorrent transfers, it’s easy to see what a person behind a certain IP-address is downloading. There are even entire sites dedicated to making this information public. This includes the ‘I Know What You Download‘ service we’ve covered in the past. While the data are not complete or perfect, looking at the larger numbers provides some interesting insights. The site recently released its overview of the most downloaded titles in various categories per country, for example. What stands out is that there’s a lot of overlap between countries that seem vastly different. Game of Thrones is the most downloaded TV show in America, but also in Iran, Mongolia, Uruguay, and Zambia. Other popular TV-shows in 2017, such as The Flash, The Big Bang Theory, and The Walking Dead also appear in the top ten in all these countries. On the movie side, a similar picture emerges. Titles such as Wonder Woman, The Fate of the Furious, and Logan appear in many of the top tens. In fact, browsing through the result for various countries there are surprisingly little outliers. The movie Prityazhenie does well in Russia and in India, Dangal is among the most pirated titles, but most titles appear globally. Even in North Korea, where Internet access is extremely limited, Game of Thrones is listed as the most downloaded TV-show. However, North Korea also shows some odd results, perhaps because there are only a few downloads per day on average. Browsing through the most downloaded movies we see that there are a lot of kids’ movies in the top ten, with ‘Despicable Me’ as the top result, followed by ‘Moana’ and ‘Minions’. The Hobbit trilogy also made it into the top ten. 12 most pirated movies in North Korea (2017) The most eye-catching result, however, is the Michael Moore documentary ‘Where to Invade Next.’ While the title may suggest something more malicious, in this travelogue Moore ‘invades’ countries around the world to see in what areas the US can improve itself. It’s unclear why North Koreans are so interested in this progressive film. Perhaps they are trying to pick up a few tips as well. This could also explain why good old MacGyver is listed among the most downloaded TV-series. The annual overview of ‘I Know What You Download’ is available here, for those who are interested in more country statistics. Finally, we have to note that North Korean IP-ranges have been vulnerable to hijacks in the past so you’re never 100% sure who might be using them. It might be the Russians… Image credit: KNCA https://torrentfreak.com/where-to-invade-next-popular-among-north-korean-pirates-180114/

This week it was revealed that a UK man is on the hook for at least £5,000 in settlement fees after his Sky and Facebook accounts were used to live-stream a boxing match. Forget about the supposed risks of using pirate Kodi addons, this is the kind of piracy that the UK public need to steer clear of. While it's ridiculously easy, it could land people in prison. For more than a year the British public has been warned about the supposed dangers of Kodi piracy. Dozens of headlines have claimed consequences ranging from system-destroying malware to prison sentences. Fortunately, most of them can be filed under “tabloid nonsense.” That being said, there is an extremely important issue that deserves much closer attention, particularly given a shift in the UK legal climate during 2017. We’re talking about live streaming copyrighted content on Facebook, which is both incredibly easy and frighteningly risky. This week it was revealed that 34-year-old Craig Foster from the UK had been given an ultimatum from Sky to pay a £5,000 settlement fee. The media giant discovered that he’d live-streamed the Anthony Joshua v Wladimir Klitschko fight on Facebook and wanted compensation to make a potential court case disappear. While it may seem initially odd to use the word, Foster was lucky. Under last year’s Digital Economy Act, he could’ve been jailed for up to ten years for distributing copyright-infringing content to the public, if he had “reason to believe that communicating the work to the public [would] cause loss to the owner of the copyright, or [would] expose the owner of the copyright to a risk of loss.” Clearly, as a purchaser of the £19.95 pay-per-view himself, he would’ve appreciated that the event costs money. With that in mind, a court would likely find that he would have been aware that Sky would have been exposed to a “risk of loss”. Sky claim that 4,250 people watched the stream but the way the law is written, no specific level of loss is required for a breach of the law. But it’s not just the threat of a jail sentence that’s the problem. People streaming live sports on Facebook are sitting ducks. In Foster’s case, the fight he streamed was watermarked, which means that Sky put a tracking code into it which identified him personally as the buyer of the event. When he (or his friend, as Foster claims) streamed it on Facebook, it was trivial for Sky to capture the watermark and track it back to his Sky account. Equally, it would be simplicity itself to see that the name on the Sky account had exactly the same name and details as Foster’s Facebook account. So, to most observers, it would appear that not only had Foster purchased the event, but he was also streaming it to Facebook illegally. It’s important to keep something else in mind. No cooperation between Sky and Facebook would’ve been necessary to obtain Foster’s details. Take the amount of information most people share on Facebook, combine that with the information Sky already had, and the company’s anti-piracy team would have had a very easy job. Now compare this situation with an upload of the same stream to a torrent site. While the video capture would still contain Foster’s watermark, which would indicate the source, to prove he also distributed the video Sky would’ve needed to get inside a torrent swarm. From there they would need to capture the IP address of the initial seeder and take the case to court, to force an ISP to hand over that person’s details. Presuming they were the same person, Sky would have a case, with a broadly similar level of evidence to that presented in the current matter. However, it would’ve taken them months to get their man and cost large sums of money to get there. It’s very unlikely that £5,000 would cover the costs, meaning a much, much bigger bill for the culprit. Or, confident that Foster was behind the leak based on the watermark alone, Sky could’ve gone straight to the police. That never ends well. The bottom line is that while live-streaming on Facebook is simplicity itself, people who do it casually from their own account (especially with watermarked content) are asking for trouble. Nailing Foster was the piracy equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel but the worrying part is that he probably never gave his (or his friend’s…) alleged infringement a second thought. With a click or two, the fight was live and he was staring down the barrel of a potential jail sentence, had Sky not gone the civil route. It’s scary stuff and not enough is being done to warn people of the consequences. Forget the scare stories attempting to deter people from watching fights or movies on Kodi, thoughtlessly streaming them to the public on social media is the real danger. https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-streaming-on-facebook-is-a-seriously-risky-business-180114/

It's well known that copyright holders can use DMCA notices to remove infringing content from search engines such as Google. However, it appears that torrent sites are also being targeted by fraudulent requests, possibly submitted their own competitors. Every day, copyright holders send out millions of takedown notices to various services, hoping to protect their works. While most of these requests are legitimate, the process is also being abused. Google prominently features examples of such dubious DMCA requests in its transparency report. This week we were contacted by the owner of YTS.me after he noticed some unusual activity. In recent weeks his domain name has been targeted with a series of takedown notices from rather unusual people. Senders with names such as Niklas Glockner, Michelle Williams, Maria Baader, Stefan Kuefer, Anja Herzog, and Markus Ostermann asked Google to remove thousands of YTS.me URLs. Every notice lists just one movie title, but hundreds of links, most of which have nothing to do with the movie in question. A few URLs from a single notice These submitters are all relatively new and there is no sign that they are authorized by the applicable copyright holder. This, and the long list of irrelevant URLs suggest that these DMCA notices are abusive. The owner of YTS.me believes that the senders have a clear motive. The purpose of the notices is to remove well-ranked pages and push the targeted sites down in Google’s search results. “These all are fake people names submitting fake DMCA complaints and are not authorized to submit complaints,” the YTS.me operator notes. “Even if they are real people they would have submitted, or are authorized to submit, complaints for only a few titles. Instead, they submit fake complaints and submit all the URLs possible on our website to degrade its ranking.” The question that remains is, who is responsible for these notices? Looking at the list of sites that are targeted by these abusive senders we see a pattern emerge. They all target copycats of defunct sites such as YTS and ExtraTorrent. Markus Osterman’s activity This leads the YTS.me operator to the conclusion that one of its main competitors is sending these notices. While there is no hard evidence, it seems plausible that another YTS copycat is attempting to take the competition out of Google’s search results to gain more exposure itself. YTS.me has a good idea of who the perpetrator(s) are – a person or group that also operates several other copycat sites. Thus far there’s no bulletproof evidence though, but it’s a likely explanation. In any case, the DMCA takedown requests are definitely out of order and warrant further investigation by Google. https://torrentfreak.com/are-torrent-sites-using-dmca-notices-to-quash-their-competition-180114/

This week police across Europe coordinated to shut down what is claimed to be one of the world's largest pirate IPTV networks. Following raids in Cyprus, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and Greece, TorrentFreak identified the ISP from where the illicit operation allegedly broadcast to the world. Located in a small Bulgarian town, the ISP says it is cooperating with the police to identify the suspects. This week, police forces around Europe took action against what is believed to be one of the world’s largest pirate IPTV networks. The investigation, launched a year ago and coordinated by Europol, came to head on Tuesday when police carried out raids in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece, and the Netherlands. A fresh announcement from the crime-fighting group reveals the scale of the operation. It was led by the Cypriot Police – Intellectual Property Crime Unit, with the support of the Cybercrime Division of the Greek Police, the Dutch Fiscal Investigative and Intelligence Service (FIOD), the Cybercrime Unit of the Bulgarian Police, Europol’s Intellectual Property Crime Coordinated Coalition (IPC³), and supported by members of the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA). In Cyprus, Bulgaria and Greece, 17 house searches were carried out. Three individuals aged 43, 44, and 53 were arrested in Cyprus and one was arrested in Bulgaria. All stand accused of being involved in an international operation to illegally broadcast around 1,200 channels of pirated content to an estimated 500,000 subscribers. Some of the channels offered were illegally sourced from Sky UK, Bein Sports, Sky Italia, and Sky DE. On Thursday, the three individuals in Cyprus were remanded in custody for seven days. “The servers used to distribute the channels were shut down, and IP addresses hosted by a Dutch company were also deactivated thanks to the cooperation of the authorities of The Netherlands,” Europol reports. “In Bulgaria, 84 servers and 70 satellite receivers were seized, with decoders, computers and accounting documents.” TorrentFreak was previously able to establish that Megabyte-Internet Ltd, an ISP located in the small Bulgarian town Petrich, was targeted by police. The provider went down on Tuesday but returned towards the end of the week. Responding to our earlier inquiries, the company told us more about the situation. “We are an ISP provider located in Petrich, Bulgaria. We are selling services to around 1,500 end-clients in the Petrich area and surrounding villages,” a spokesperson explained. “Another part of our business is internet services like dedicated unmanaged servers, hosting, email servers, storage services, and VPNs etc.” The spokesperson added that some of Megabyte’s equipment is located at Telepoint, Bulgaria’s biggest datacenter, with connectivity to Petrich. During the raid the police seized the company’s hardware to check for evidence of illegal activity. “We were informed by the police that some of our clients in Petrich and Sofia were using our service for illegal streaming and actions,” the company said. “Of course, we were not able to know this because our services are unmanaged and root access [to servers] is given to our clients. For this reason any client and anyone that uses our services are responsible for their own actions.” TorrentFreak asked many more questions, including how many police attended, what type and volume of hardware was seized, and whether anyone was arrested or taken for questioning. But, apart from noting that the police were friendly, the company declined to give us any additional information, revealing that it was not permitted to do so at this stage. What is clear, however, is that Megabyte-Internet is offering its full cooperation to the authorities. The company says that it cannot be held responsible for the actions of its clients so their details will be handed over as part of the investigation. “So now we will give to the police any details about these clients because we hold their full details by law. [The police] will find [out about] all the illegal actions from them,” the company concludes, adding that it’s fully operational once more and working with clients. https://torrentfreak.com/isp-were-cooperating-with-police-following-pirate-iptv-raid-180113/

A Dutch court has ordered more local ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay. The order will be valid until the Supreme Court hands down its final decision. That will be the climax of a long legal battle that started at the turn of the last decade. The Pirate Bay is arguably the most widely blocked website on the Internet. ISPs from all over the world have been ordered by courts to prevent users from accessing the torrent site, and this week the list has grown a bit longer. A Dutch court has ruled that local Internet providers KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile, Zeelandnet and CAIW must block the site within ten days. The verdict follows a similar decision from September last year, where Ziggo and XS4All were ordered to do the same. The blockade applies to several IP addresses and more than 150 domain names that are used by the notorious torrent site. Several of the ISPs had warned the court about the dangers of overblocking, but these concerns were rejected. While most Dutch customers will be unable to access The Pirate Bay directly, the decision is not final yet. Not until the Supreme Court issues its pending decision. That will be the climax of a legal battle that started eight years ago. A Dutch court first issued an order to block The Pirate Bay in 2012, but this decision was overturned two years later. Anti-piracy group BREIN then took the matter to the Supreme Court, which subsequently referred the case to the EU Court of Justice, seeking further clarification. After a careful review of the case, the EU Court of Justice decided last year that The Pirate Bay can indeed be blocked. The top EU court ruled that although The Pirate Bay’s operators don’t share anything themselves, they knowingly provide users with a platform to share copyright-infringing links. This can be seen as “an act of communication” under the EU Copyright Directive. This put the case back to the Dutch Supreme court, which has yet to decide on the matter. BREIN, however, wanted a blocking decision more quickly and requested preliminary injunctions, like the one issued this week. These injunctions will only be valid until the final verdict is handed down. — A copy of the most recent court order is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/court-expands-dutch-pirate-bay-blockade-to-more-isps-180113/

Game developer and publisher Epic has filed another copyright infringement lawsuit. This time it's against a person who 'stole' from the company by generating free V-Bucks. In a complaint filed at a California Federal court, Epic demands damages from the alleged perpetrator. Last fall, Epic Games released Fortnite’s free-to-play “Battle Royale” game mode for the PC and other platforms, generating massive interest among gamers. This also included thousands of cheaters, many of whom were subsequently banned. Epic Games then went a step further by taking several cheaters to court for copyright infringement. While the initial targets were people who coded, used or promoted cheats to gain a clear competitive advantage, this week Epic sued a different type of cheater. In a complaint filed at a California Federal court, the game publisher accuses a New Zealander of creating an exploit that allows users to get free V-bucks. V-bucks are the game’s currency and can be bought through an online store, starting at $9.99. The virtual coins allow players to purchase skins for their characteras well as other game tools. According to Epic, people who create and use these kinds of free-money exploits are stealing from the game publisher. “Players who search for and promote exploits ruin the game experience for others and undermine the integrity of Fortnite. Players who use exploits to avoid paying for items in Fortnite are stealing from Epic,” the complaint reads. V-bucks The alleged perpetrator is identified as Yash Gosai, who’s a resident of Auckland, New Zealand. Epic believes that Gosai developed the exploit which was then promoted through YouTube. “On information and belief, Gosai developed an exploit for Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode that enables players to obtain V-bucks without paying for them. Gosai created and posted a video on YouTube to advertise, promote and demonstrate the exploit,” the complaint reads. While the game company managed to get the video taken down, they’re not done with the New Zealander. They accuse Gosai of copyright infringement, breach of contract, as well as conversion. “Defendant’s videos demonstrating the exploit infringe Epic’s copyrights in Fortnite by copying, reproducing, preparing derivative works from, and/or displaying Fortnite publicly without Epic’s permission, the company writes. Epic asks the court for damages and wants the defendant to destroy all Fortnite copies and any related works. As mentioned before, this is not the first lawsuit Epic has filed against a cheater. Thus far, it has reached at least three settlements behind closed doors. Minnesota resident Charles Vraspir signed an agreement early December. Philip Josefsson from Sweden and Artem Yakovenko from Russia followed soon after. — A copy of the complaint against Gosai is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/epic-games-sues-cheater-over-stealing-fortnite-v-bucks-180112/

The popular torrent meta-search engine Torrentz2 left its millions of users confused late last year when all links to torrents suddenly disappeared. Was this the end of the site? It appears not, as the site has just been restored to its former glory. When the original Torrentz site shut down during the summer of 2016, several copies jumped in to fill its shoes. The most successful alternative, in terms of traffic, was the elegantly named Torrentz2.eu. Unlike many others, Torrentz2 has always been upfront with its users and never claimed to be an official resurrection. This approach worked, as millions of users were drawn to the site. However, just before Christmas the site suddenly removed all links to external torrent sites. Instead of a metasearch engine, it turned into a database of torrent metadata, and traffic started to drop off. The message on the site’s homepage changed as well. Instead of claiming to be “a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines,” it turned into “is a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine.” As the weeks rolled by, many people thought that the links would never return. While the homepage was updated briefly to promote a freelancer ICO, not much happened. Until this week. Just as abruptly as the torrent links disappeared last month, they were added again, returning Torrent2 to its former glory. At the time of writing, the site list links to 61,111,077 torrents on 82 domains. Torrentz2 with links So what happened here? TorrentFreak reached out to the operator of the site to find out more. He replied, but at the moment he prefers not to comment on the disappearing links incident or the site’s future. That leaves us with nothing else than speculation really. Perhaps there was a technical error, an operational change, a simple mistake, or outside intervention? We simply don’t know. The only real conclusion we can draw is that, at least for the casual observer, Torrentz2 appears to be back where it used to be. For now… https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-links-return-torrentz2-mystery-disappearance-180112/

The recently-formed Coalition Against Piracy, which counts Disney, Fox, Sony, HBO, NBCUniversal, BBC Worldwide and StarHub among its members, will tread new ground today when it attempts a private prosecution of 'pirate' Android box sellers in Singapore. In what many believe is a legal gray area, the anti-piracy outfit will seek a win in order to suppress further sales in the region. In 2017, anti-piracy enforcement went global when companies including Disney, HBO, Netflix, Amazon and NBCUniversal formed the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE). Soon after the Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) was announced. With a focus on Asia and backed by CASBAA, CAP counts many of the same companies among its members in addition to local TV providers such as StarHub. From the outset, CAP has shown a keen interest in tackling unlicensed streaming, particularly that taking place via illicit set-top boxes stuffed with copyright-infringing apps and add-ons. One country under CAP’s spotlight is Singapore, where relevant law is said to be fuzzy at best, insufficient at worst. Now, however, a line in the sand might not be far away. According to a court listing discovered by Singapore’s TodayOnline, today will see the Coalition Against Piracy’s general manager Neil Kevin Gane attempt to launch a pioneering private prosecution against set-top box distributor Synnex Trading and its client and wholesale goods retailer, An-Nahl. Gane and CAP are said to be acting on behalf of four parties, one which is TV giant StarHub, a company with a huge interest in bringing media piracy under control in the region. It’s reported that they have also named Synnex Trading director Jia Xiaofen and An-Nahl director Abdul Nagib as defendants in their private criminal case after the parties failed to reach a settlement in an earlier process. Contacted by TodayOnline, an employee of An-Nahl said the company no longer sells the boxes. However, Synnex is reportedly still selling them for S$219 each ($164) plus additional fees for maintenance and access to VOD. The company’s Facebook page is still active with the relevant offer presented prominently. The importance of the case cannot be understated. While StarHub and other broadcasters have successfully prosecuted cases where people unlawfully decrypted broadcast signals, the provision of unlicensed streams isn’t specifically tackled by Singapore’s legislation. It’s now a major source of piracy in the region, as it is elsewhere around the globe. Only time will tell how the process will play out but it’s clear that CAP and its members are prepared to invest significant sums into a prosecution for a favorable outcome. CAP believes that the supply of the boxes falls under Section 136 (3A) of the Copyright Act but only time will tell. Last December, CAP separately called on the Singapore government to not only block ‘pirate’ streaming software but also unlicensed streams from entering the country. “Within the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore is the worst in terms of availability of illicit streaming devices,” said CAP General Manager Neil Gane. “They have access to hundreds of illicit broadcasts of channels and video-on-demand content.” CAP’s 21 members want the authorities to block the software inside devices that enables piracy but it’s far from clear how that can be achieved. https://torrentfreak.com/coalition-against-piracy-launches-landmark-case-against-pirate-android-box-sellers-180112/

A Europol-led operation involving police forces from Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, and the Netherlands, has targeted one of the largest pirate IPTV operations in the world. At least three people have been arrested. Servers in Bulgaria and the Netherlands reportedly supplied the content to an estimated 500,000 subscribers worldwide, generating annual revenues of around five million euros. Live TV is in massive demand but accessing all content in a particular region can be a hugely expensive proposition, with tradtional broadcasting monopolies demanding large subscription fees. For millions around the world, this ‘problem’ can be easily circumvented. Pirate IPTV operations, which supply thousands of otherwise subscription channels via the Internet, are on the increase. They’re accessible for just a few dollars, euros, or pounds per month, slashing bills versus official providers on a grand scale. This week, however, police forces around Europe coordinated to target what they claim is one of the world’s largest illicit IPTV operations. The investigation was launched last February by Europol and on Tuesday coordinated actions were carried out in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece, and the Netherlands. Three suspects were arrested in Cyprus – two in Limassol (aged 43 and 44) and one in Larnaca (aged 53). All are alleged to be part of an international operation to illegally broadcast around 1,200 channels of pirated content worldwide. Some of the channels offered were illegally sourced from Sky UK, Bein Sports, Sky Italia, and Sky DE If initial reports are to be believed, the reach of the IPTV service was huge. Figures usually need to be taken with a pinch of salt but information suggests the service had more than 500,000 subscribers, each paying around 10 euros per month. (Note: how that relates to the alleged five million euros per year in revenue is yet to be made clear) Police action was spread across the continent, with at least nine separate raids, including in the Netherlands where servers were uncovered. However, it was determined that these were in place to hide the true location of the operation’s main servers. Similar ‘front’ servers were also deployed in other regions. The main servers behind the IPTV operation were located in Petrich, a small town in Blagoevgrad Province, southwestern Bulgaria. No details have been provided by the authorities but TF is informed that the website of a local ISP, Megabyte-Internet, from where pirate IPTV has been broadcast for at least the past several months, disappeared on Tuesday. It remains offline this morning. The company did not respond to our request for comment and there’s no suggestion that it’s directly involved in any illegal activity. However, its Autonomous System (AS) number reveals linked IPTV services, none of which appear to be operational today. The ISP is also listed on sites where ‘pirate’ IPTV channel playlists are compiled by users. According to sources in Cyprus, police requested permission from the Larnaca District Court to detain the arrested individuals for eight days. However, local news outlet Philenews said that any decision would be postponed until this morning, since one of the three suspects, an English Cypriot, required an interpreter which caused a delay. In addition to prosecutors and defense lawyers, two Dutch investigators from Europol were present in court yesterday. The hearing lasted for six hours and was said to be so intensive that the court stenographer had to be replaced due to overwork. https://torrentfreak.com/europol-hits-huge-500000-subscriber-pirate-iptv-operation-180111/

Several major Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix have filed a lawsuit against Dragon Media Inc, branding it a supplier of pirate streaming devices. The companies accuse Dragon of using the Kodi media player in combination with pirate addons to facilitate mass copyright infringement via its Dragon Box device. More and more people are starting to use Kodi-powered set-top boxes to stream video content to their TVs. While Kodi itself is a neutral platform, sellers who ship devices with unauthorized add-ons give it a bad reputation. In recent months these boxes have become the prime target for copyright enforcers, including the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership between Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies. After suing Tickbox last year a group of key ACE members have now filed a similar lawsuit against Dragon Media Inc, which sells the popular Dragon Box. The complaint, filed at a California federal court, also lists the company’s owner Paul Christoforo and reseller Jeff Williams among the defendants. According to ACE, these type of devices are nothing more than pirate tools, allowing buyers to stream copyright infringing content. That also applies to Dragon Box, they inform the court. “Defendants market and sell ‘Dragon Box,’ a computer hardware device that Defendants urge their customers to use as a tool for the mass infringement of the copyrighted motion pictures and television shows,” the complaint, picked up by HWR, reads. The movie companies note that the defendants distribute and promote the Dragon Box as a pirate tool, using phrases such as “Watch your Favourites Anytime For FREE” and “stop paying for Netflix and Hulu.” Dragon Box When users follow the instructions Dragon provides they get free access to copyrighted movies, TV-shows and live content, ACE alleges. The complaint further points out that the device uses the open source Kodi player paired with pirate addons. “The Dragon Media application provides Defendants’ customers with a customized configuration of the Kodi media player and a curated selection of the most popular addons for accessing infringing content,” the movie companies write. “These addons are designed and maintained for the overarching purpose of scouring the Internet for illegal sources of copyrighted content and returning links to that content. When Dragon Box customers click those links, those customers receive unauthorized streams of popular motion pictures and television shows.” One of the addons that are included with the download and installation of the Dragon software is Covenant. This addon can be accessed through a preinstalled shortcut which is linked under the “Videos” menu. Users are then able to browse through a large library of curated content, including a separate category of movies that are still in theaters. In theaters According to a statement from Dragon owner Christoforo, business is going well. The company claims to have “over 250,000 customers in 50 states and 4 countries and growing” as well as “374 sellers” across the world. With this lawsuit, however, the company’s future has suddenly become uncertain. The movie companies ask the California District for an injunction to shut down the infringing service and impound all Dragon Box devices. In addition, they’re requesting statutory damages which can go up to several million dollars. At the time of writing the Dragon Box website is still in on air and the company has yet to comment on the allegations. — A copy of the complaint is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-amazon-and-hollywood-sue-kodi-powered-dragon-box-over-piracy-180111/

A Washington District Court has issued a devastating order against a copyright holder of the film "Once Upon a Time in Venice," which chases alleged BitTorrent pirates for cash settlements. The Court points out that one of their experts is unqualified, doubts whether declarants even exist, and highlights that IP-address evidence may have been obtained illegally. In recent years, file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees, or face legal repercussions. These so-called “copyright trolling” efforts have been a common occurrence in the United States since the turn of the last decade. Increasingly, however, courts are growing weary of these cases. Many districts have turned into no-go zones for copyright trolls and the people behind Prenda law were arrested and are being prosecuted in a criminal case. In the Western District of Washington, the tide also appears to have turned. After Venice PI, a copyright holder of the film “Once Upon a Time in Venice”, sued a man who later passed away, concerns were raised over the validity of the evidence. Venice PI responded to the concerns with a declaration explaining its data gathering technique and assuring the Court that false positives are out of the question. That testimony didn’t help much though, as a recently filed minute order shows this week. The order applies to a dozen cases and prohibits the company from reaching out to any defendants until further notice, as there are several alarming issues that have to be resolved first. One of the problems is that Venice PI declared that it’s owned by a company named Lost Dog Productions, which in turn is owned by Voltage Productions. Interestingly, these companies don’t appear in the usual records. “A search of the California Secretary of State’s online database, however, reveals no registered entity with the name ‘Lost Dog’ or ‘Lost Dog Productions’,” the Court notes. “Moreover, although ‘Voltage Pictures, LLC’ is registered with the California Secretary of State, and has the same address as Venice PI, LLC, the parent company named in plaintiff’s corporate disclosure form, ‘Voltage Productions, LLC,’ cannot be found in the California Secretary of State’s online database and does not appear to exist.” In other words, the company that filed the lawsuit, as well as its parent company, are extremely questionable. While the above is a reason for concern, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Court not only points out administrative errors, but it also has serious doubts about the evidence collection process. This was carried out by the German company MaverickEye, which used the tracking technology of another German company, GuardaLey. GuardaLey CEO Benjamin Perino, who claims that he coded the tracking software, wrote a declaration explaining that the infringement detection system at issue “cannot yield a false positive.” However, the Court doubts this statement and Perino’s qualifications in general. “Perino has been proffered as an expert, but his qualifications consist of a technical high school education and work experience unrelated to the peer-to-peer file-sharing technology known as BitTorrent,” the Court writes. “Perino does not have the qualifications necessary to be considered an expert in the field in question, and his opinion that the surveillance program is incapable of error is both contrary to common sense and inconsistent with plaintiff’s counsel’s conduct in other matters in this district. Plaintiff has not submitted an adequate offer of proof” It seems like the Court would prefer to see an assessment from a qualified independent expert instead of the person who wrote the software. For now, this means that the IP-address evidence, in these cases, is not good enough. That’s quite a blow for the copyright holder. If that wasn’t enough the Court also highlights another issue that’s possibly even more problematic. When Venice PI requested the subpoenas to identify alleged pirates, they relied on declarations from Daniel Arheidt, a consultant for MaverickEye. These declarations fail to mention, however, that MaverickEye has the proper paperwork to collect IP addresses. “Nowhere in Arheidt’s declarations does he indicate that either he or MaverickEye is licensed in Washington to conduct private investigation work,” the order reads. This is important, as doing private investigator work without a license is a gross misdemeanor in Washington. The copyright holder was aware of this requirement because it was brought up in related cases in the past. “Plaintiff’s counsel has apparently been aware since October 2016, when he received a letter concerning LHF Productions, Inc. v. Collins, C16-1017 RSM, that Arheidt might be committing a crime by engaging in unlicensed surveillance of Washington citizens, but he did not disclose this fact to the Court.” The order is very bad news for Venice PI. The company had hoped to score a few dozen easy settlements but the tables have now been turned. The Court instead asks the company to explain the deficiencies and provide additional details. In the meantime, the copyright holder is urged not to spend or transfer any of the settlement money that has been collected thus far. The latter indicates that Venice PI might have to hand defendants their money back, which would be pretty unique. The order suggests that the Judge is very suspicious of these trolling activities. In a footnote there’s a link to a Fight Copyright Trolls article which revealed that the same counsel dismissed several cases, allegedly to avoid having IP-address evidence scrutinized. Even more bizarrely, in another footnote the Court also doubts if MaverickEye’s aforementioned consultant, Daniel Arheidt, actually exists. “The Court has recently become aware that Arheidt is the latest in a series of German declarants (Darren M. Griffin, Daniel Macek, Daniel Susac, Tobias Fieser, Michael Patzer) who might be aliases or even fictitious. “Plaintiff will not be permitted to rely on Arheidt’s declarations or underlying data without explaining to the Court’s satisfaction Arheidt’s relationship to the above-listed declarants and producing proof beyond a reasonable doubt of Arheidt’s existence,” the court adds. These are serious allegations, to say the least. If a copyright holder uses non-existent companies and questionable testimony from unqualified experts after obtaining evidence illegally to get a subpoena backed by a fictitious person….something’s not quite right. — A copy of the minute order, which affects a series of cases, is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/judge-issues-devastating-order-bittorrent-copyright-troll-180110/

Even though it's subjected to massive ISP blocking in Russia, torrent giant RuTracker refuses to give up the fight. After regular mirrors and proxies were easily scooped up by the country's blocking regime, RuTracker has a new plan. If you're a user and have a domain name to hand, the site will help you set up your very own access portal with a minimum of effort. As Russia’s largest torrent site and one that earned itself a mention in TF’s list of most popular torrent sites 2018, RuTracker is continuously under fire. The site has an extremely dedicated following but Russia’s telecoms watchdog, spurred on by copyright holders brandishing court rulings, does everything in its power to ensure that people can’t access the site easily. As a result, RuTracker’s main domains are blocked by all ISPs, meaning that people have to resort to VPNs or the many dozens of proxy and mirror sites that have been set up to facilitate access to the popular tracker. While all of these methods used to work just fine, new legislation that came into force during October means that mirror and proxy sites can be added to block lists without copyright holders having to return to court. And, following legislation introduced in November, local VPN services are forbidden from providing access to blocked sites. While RuTracker has always insisted that web blockades have little effect on the numbers of people sharing content, direct traffic to their main domains has definitely suffered. To solve this problem and go some way towards mitigating VPN and proxy bans, the site has just come up with a new plan to keep the torrents flowing. The scheme was quietly announced, not on RuTracker’s main forum, but to a smaller set of users on local site Leprosorium. The idea was that a quieter launch there would allow for controlled testing before a release to the masses. The project is called My.RuTracker and here’s how it works. Instead of blocked users fruitlessly trying to find public circumvention methods that once seen are immediately blocked, they are invited to register their own domains. These can be single use, for the person who registers them, but it’s envisioned that they’ll be shared out between friends, family, and online groups, to better make use of the resource. Once domains are registered, users are invited to contact a special user account on the RuTracker site (operated by the site’s operators) which will provide them with precise technical details on how to set up their domain (.ru domains are not allowed) to gain access to RuTracker. “In response, after a while (usually every other day), a list of NS-addresses will be sent to the registrar’s domain settings. Under this scheme, the user domain will be redirected to the RuTracker site via a dynamic IP address: this will avoid blocking the torrent tracker for a particular IP address,” the scheme envisages. According to local news resource Tjournal, 62 personal mirrors were launched following the initial appeal, with the operators of RuTracker now planning to publicly announce the project to their community. As more are added, the site will keep track of traffic from each of the personal “mirrors” for balancing the load on the site. At least in theory, this seems like a pretty innovative scheme. Currently, the authorities rely on the scale and public awareness of a particular proxy or mirror in order to earmark it for blocking. This much more decentralized plan, in which only small numbers of people should know each domain, seems like a much more robust system – at least until the authorities and indeed the law catches up. And so the cat-and-mouse game continues. https://torrentfreak.com/rutracker-reveals-innovative-plan-for-users-to-subvert-isp-blocking-180110/

A federal court in Florida has signed a default judgment against more than two dozen relatively small pirate sites. The order grants media conglomerate ABS-CBN ownership of the associated domain names. In addition, it can keep the sites' previously seized advertising revenue from networks including Google Adsense and MGID. For several decades the MPAA and RIAA have been the prime anti-piracy groups in the United States. While that may be true, there’s another player making a massive impact, while getting barely any press. ABS-CBN, the largest media and entertainment company in the Philippines, has filed a series of lawsuits against pirate sites in the US, with the popular streaming portal Fmovies as the biggest target. The company has already won several cases with damages ranging from a few hundred thousand to millions of dollars. However, the associated injunctions in these cases are perhaps even more significant. We previously covered how ABS-CBN managed to get court orders to seize domain names, without the defendants getting actively involved. This is also the case in a recent lawsuit where a Florida federal court signed a broad injunction targeting more than two dozen sites that offered the company’s content. The websites, including abscbn-teleserye.com, dramascools.com, tvnijuan.org, pinoydailyshows.com and weeklywarning.org, may not be known to a broad audience but their domain names have all been suspended, linking to a takedown message instead. What’s most interesting, however, is that the advertising revenues of these sites were previously frozen. This was done to ensure that ABS-CBN would at least get some money if the defendants failed to respond, a strategy that seems to have paid off. After the targeted site owners failed to respond, ABS-CBN requested a default judgment with damages for trademark and copyright infringement. U.S. District Court Judge Cecilia Altonaga has now signed the order, awarding the media company over a million dollars in statutory trademark infringement damages. In addition, several of the sites must also pay copyright infringement damages. Damages The default judgment also orders associated registrars and registries to hand over the domain names to ABS-CBN. Thus far several domains have been seized already, but some foreign companies have not complied, most likely because they fall outside the US jurisdiction. The most interesting part of the order, however, is that Judge Altonaga grants ABS-CBN the previously seized advertising revenues. “All funds currently restrained by the advertising services, networks, and/or platforms […], pursuant to the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in this action are to be immediately (within five business days) transferred to Plaintiffs in partial satisfaction of the monetary judgment entered herein against each Defendant,” the Judge writes. List of sites and their ad-networks The sites in question used advertising services from a variety of well-known networks, including Google Adsense, MGID, Popads, AdsKeeper, and Bidvertiser. None of these companies responded in court after the initial seizure order, suggesting that they did not object. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that a copyright holder has been granted advertising revenue from pirate sites in this manner. While it’s not known how much revenue the sites were making, there is bound to be some. This could be a common legal tactic going forward because, generally speaking, it is very hard to get money from defaulting defendants who are relatively anonymous, or living in a foreign jurisdiction. By going after the advertisers, copyright holders have a good chance of securing some money, at least. — A copy of the default judgment is available here (pdf) and all affected websites are listed below. – abscbn-teleserye.com – astigvideos.com – cinepinoy.lol – cinepinoy.ag – pinoyflix.ag – pinoyflix.lol – cinezen.me – dramascools.com – dramasget.com – frugalpinoytv.org – lambingan.cn – pinoylambingan.ph – lambingan.io – lambingans.net – latestpinoymovies.com – pinasnews.net – pinastvreplay.com – pinoybay.ch – pinoychannel.me – pinoydailyshows.com – pinoyplayback.net – pinoytvshows.net – pinoytv-shows.net – rondownload.net – sarapmanood.com – tambayanshow.net – thelambingan.com – tvnijuan.org – tvtambayan.org – vianowpe.com – weeklywarning.org – weeklywarning.com https://torrentfreak.com/media-giant-can-keep-seized-ad-revenue-from-pirate-sites-180109/

Representatives from platforms thought to include Google, Facebook and Twitter will meet with five EU Commissioners today to discuss progress in tackling the spread of illegal content online. While focus is being placed on terrorist propaganda and hate speech, intellectual property rights infringements are also high on the agenda. Thousands perhaps millions of pieces of illegal content flood onto the Internet every single day, a problem that’s only increasing with each passing year. In the early days of the Internet very little was done to combat the problem but with the rise of social media and millions of citizens using it to publish whatever they like – not least terrorist propaganda and racist speech – governments around the world are beginning to take notice. Of course, running parallel is the multi-billion dollar issue of intellectual property infringement. Eighteen years on from the first wave of mass online piracy and the majority of popular movies, TV shows, games, software and books are still available to download. Over the past couple of years and increasingly in recent months, there have been clear signs that the EU in particular wishes to collectively mitigate the spread of all illegal content – from ISIS videos to pirated Hollywood movies – with assistance from major tech companies. Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are all expected to do their part, with the looming stick of legislation behind the collaborative carrots, should they fail to come up with a solution. To that end, five EU Commissioners – Dimitris Avramopoulos, Elżbieta Bieńkowska, Věra Jourová, Julian King and Mariya Gabriel – will meet today in Brussels with representatives of several online platforms to discuss progress made in dealing with the spread of the aforementioned material. In a joint statement together with EC Vice-President Andrus Ansip, the Commissioners describe all illegal content as a threat to security, safety, and fundamental rights, demanding a “collective response – from all actors, including the internet industry.” They note that online platforms have committed significant resources towards removing violent and extremist content, including via automated removal, but more needs to be done to tackle the issue. “This is starting to achieve results. However, even if tens of thousands of pieces of illegal content have been taken down, there are still hundreds of thousands more out there,” the Commissioners writes. “And removal needs to be speedy: the longer illegal material stays online, the greater its reach, the more it can spread and grow. Building on the current voluntary approach, more efforts and progress have to be made.” The Commission says it is relying on online platforms such as Google and Facebook to “step up and speed up their efforts to tackle these threats quickly and comprehensively.” This should include closer cooperation with law enforcement, sharing of information with other online players, plus action to ensure that once taken down, illegal content does not simply reappear. While it’s clear that that the EC would prefer to work collaboratively with the platforms to find a solution to the illegal content problem, as expected there’s the veiled threat of them being compelled by law to do so, should they fall short of their responsibilities. “We will continue to promote cooperation with social media companies to detect and remove terrorist and other illegal content online, and if necessary, propose legislation to complement the existing regulatory framework,” the EC warns. Today’s discussions run both in parallel and in tandem with others specifically targeted at intellectual property abuses. Late November the EC presented a set of new measures to ensure that copyright holders are well protected both online and in the physical realm. A key aim is to focus on large-scale facilitators, such as pirate site operators, while cutting their revenue streams. “The Commission seeks to deprive commercial-scale IP infringers of the revenue flows that make their criminal activity lucrative – this is the so-called ‘follow the money’ approach which focuses on the ‘big fish’ rather than individuals,” the Commission explained. This presentation followed on the heels of a proposal last September which had the EC advocating the take-down-stay-down principle, with pirate content being taken down, automated filters ensuring infringement can be tackled proactively, with measures being taken against repeat infringers. Again, the EC warned that should cooperation with Internet platforms fail to come up with results, future legislation cannot be ruled out. https://torrentfreak.com/tech-companies-meet-ec-to-discuss-removal-of-pirate-illegal-content-180109/

The people behind TVAddons and the ZemTV Kodi addon have asked a Texas District Court to dismiss the piracy lawsuit filed by Dish Networks against them. Both defendants are foreign nationals who say they have no connection to Texas. The case, therefore, violates their due process rights, the defense argues. Last year, American satellite and broadcast provider Dish Network targeted two well-known players in the third-party Kodi add-on ecosystem. In a complaint filed in a federal court in Texas, add-on ZemTV and the TVAddons library were accused of copyright infringement. As a result, both are facing up to $150,000 in damages for each offense. While the case was filed in Texas, neither of the defendants live there, or even in the United States. The owner and operator of TVAddons is Adam Lackman, who resides in Montreal, Canada. ZemTV’s developer Shahjahan Durrani is even further away in London, UK. Their limited connection to Texas is reason for the case to be dismissed, according to the legal team of the two defendants. They are represented by attorneys Erin Russel and Jason Sweet, who asked the Court to drop the case late last week. According to their motion, the Texas District Court does not have jurisdiction over the two defendants. “Lackman and Durrani have never been residents or citizens of Texas; they have never owned property in Texas; they have never voted in Texas; they have never personally visited Texas; they have never directed any business activity of any kind to anyone in Texas […] and they have never earned income in Texas,” the motion reads. Technically, defendants can be sued in a district they have never been, as long as they “directed actions” at the state or its citizens. According to Dish, this is the case here since both defendants made their services available to local residents, among other things. However, the defense team argues that’s not enough to establish jurisdiction in this case. “Plaintiff’s conclusory allegation that Lackman and Durrani marketed, made available, and distributed ZemTV service and the ZemTV add-on to consumers in the State of Texas and the Southern District of Texas is misleading at best,” the attorneys write. If the case proceeds this would go against the US constitution, violating the defendants’ due process rights. Whether the infringement claims hold ground or not, Dish has no right to sue, according to the defense. “Defendants are citizens of Canada and Great Britain and have not had sufficient contacts in the State of Texas for this Court to exercise personal jurisdiction over them. To do so would violate the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution.” The Court must now decide whether the case can proceed or not. TorrentFreak reached out to TVAddons but the service wishes to refrain from commenting on the proceeding at the moment. Previously, TVAddons made it clear that it sees the Dish lawsuit as an attempt to destroy the Kodi addon community. One of the methods of attack it mentioned, was to sue people in foreign jurisdictions. “Most people don’t have money lying around to hire lawyers in places they’ve never even visited. This means that if a company sues you in a foreign country and you can’t afford a lawyer, you’re screwed even if you did nothing wrong,” TVAddons wrote at the time. — A copy of the motion to dismiss is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/tvaddons-and-zemtv-ask-court-to-dismiss-u-s-piracy-lawsuit-180108/

A 34-year-old man from the UK has agreed to pay Sky £5,000 after the broadcaster tracked an illegal Facebook stream of the 2017 Joshua v Klitschko fight to his account. Craig Foster, who was warned of a potential £85,000 award should the case go to court, claimed that he wasn't responsible. Backtracking, he says he now wants a fight with Sky. When people download content online using BitTorrent, they also distribute that content to others. This unlawful distribution attracts negative attention from rightsholders, who have sued hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide. Streaming is considered a much safer method to obtain content, since it’s difficult for content owners to track downloaders. However, the same can’t be said about those who stream content to the web for the benefit of others, as an interesting case in the UK has just revealed. It involves 34-year-old Craig Foster who received several scary letters from lawyers representing broadcaster Sky. The company alleged that during last April’s bout between Anthony Joshua’s and Wladimir Klitschko, Foster live-streamed the multiple world title fight on Facebook Live. Financially, this was a major problem for Sky, law firm Foot Anstey LLP told Foster. According to their calculations, at least 4,250 people watched the stream without paying Sky Box Office the going rate of £19.95 each. Tapped into Sky’s computers, the broadcaster concluded that Foster owed the company £85,000. But according to The Mirror, father-of-one Foster wasn’t actually to blame. “I’d paid for the boxing, it wasn’t like I was making any money. My iPad was signed in to my Facebook account and my friend just started streaming the fight. I didn’t think anything of it, then a few days later they cut my subscription,” Foster said. “They’re demanding the names and addresses of all my mates who were round that night but I’m not going to give them up. I said I’d take the rap.” While Foster says he won’t turn in the culprit, there’s no doubt that the fight stream originated from his Sky account. The TV giant embeds watermarks in its broadcasts which enables it to see who paid for an event, should a copy of one turn up on the Internet. As we reported last year following the Mayweather v McGregor super-fight, the codes are clearly visible with the naked eye. Sky watermarks, as seen in the Mayweather v McGregor fight While taking the rap for someone else’s infringing behavior isn’t something anyone should do lightly, it appears that Scarborough-based Foster did just that. According to Neil Parkes, who specializes in media litigation, content protection and contentious IP at Foot Anstey, Foster accepted responsibility and agreed to pay a settlement. “Mr Foster broke the law,” Parkes said. “He has acknowledged his wrongdoing, apologised and signed a legally binding agreement to pay a sum of £5,000 to Sky.” The Mirror, however, has Foster backtracking. He says he wasn’t given enough time to consider his position and now wants to fight Sky in court. “It’s heavy-handed. I’ve apologized and told them we were drunk,” Foster said. “I know streaming the fight was wrong. I didn’t stop my friend but I was watching the boxing. I’m just a bloke who had a few drinks with his friends.” Unless he can find a law firm willing to fight his corner at a hugely cut-down rate, Foster will find this kind of legal fisticuffs to be a massively expensive proposition, one in which he will start out as the clear underdog. Not only was Foster’s Sky account the originating source, both his iPad and his Facebook account were used to stream the fight. On top of what appears to be a signed confession, he also promised not to do anything else like this in future. Furthermore, he even agreed to issue an apology that Sky can use in future anti-piracy messages. Of course, Foster might indeed be a noble gentleman but he should be aware that as a civil matter, this fight would be decided on the balance of probabilities, not beyond reasonable doubt. If the judge decides 51% in Sky’s favor, he suffers a knockout along with a huge financial headache. No one wants a £5,000 bill but that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the cost implications of losing this case. https://torrentfreak.com/sky-hits-man-with-5k-fine-for-pirating-boxing-on-facebook-180108/

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Blade Runner 2049' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Coco'. 'Justice League' completes the top three. This week we have two newcomers in our chart. Blade Runner 2049 is the most downloaded movie again. 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) Blade Runner 2049 8.9 / trailer 2 (10) Coco (HDTS/DVDscr) 8.9 / trailer 3 (2) Justice League 7.1 / trailer 4 (…) Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 7.3 / trailer 5 (3) Bright 6.7 / trailer 6 (8) The Foreigner 7.2 / trailer 7 (5) Dunkirk 8.3 / trailer 8 (9) It 7.6 / trailer 9 (…) Renegades 5.5 / trailer 10 (6) Kingsman: The Golden Circle 7.2 / trailer

Pirate Bay founder and former spokesperson Peter Sunde believes that piracy will decrease over time. However, people won't be better off when online media distribution is in the hands of the powerful few. “Netflix, Spotify etc are not a solution, but a loss," he says. Ten years ago the Internet was an entirely different place. Piracy was rampant, as it is today, but the people behind the largest torrent sites were more vocal then. There was a battle going on for the right to freely share content online. This was very much a necessity at the time, as legal options were scarce, but for many it was also an idealistic battle. As the spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde was one of the leading voices at the time. He believed, and still does, that people should be able to share anything without restrictions. Period. For Peter and three others associated with The Pirate Bay, this eventually resulted in jail sentences. They were not the only ones to feel the consequences. Over the past decade, dozens of torrent sites were shut down under legal pressure, forcing those operators that remain to go into hiding. Today, ten years after we spoke to Peter about the future of torrent sites and file-sharing, we reach out to him again. A lot has changed, but how does The Pirate Bay’s co-founder look at things now? “On the personal side, all is great, and I’m working on a TV-series about activism that will air next year. On top of that of course working on Njalla, Ipredator and other known projects,” Peter says. “In general, I think that projects for me are still about the same thing as a decade ago, but just trying different approaches!” While Peter stays true to his activist roots, fighting for privacy and freedom on the Internet, his outlook is not as positive as it once was. He is proud that The Pirate Bay never caved and that they fought their cases to the end. The moral struggle was won, but he also realizes that the greater battle was lost. “I’m proud and happy to be able to look myself in the mirror every morning with a feeling of doing right. A lot of corrupt people involved in our cases probably feel quite shitty. Well, if they have feelings,” Peter says. The Pirate Bay’s former spokesperson doesn’t have any regrets really. The one thing that comes to mind, when we ask about things that he would have done differently, is to tell fellow Pirate Bay founder Anakata to encrypt his hard drive. Brokep (Peter) and Anakata (Gottfrid) Looking at the current media climate, Peter doesn’t think we are better off. On the contrary. While it might be easier in some counties to access content legally online, this also means that control is now firmly in the hands of a few major companies. The Pirate Bay and others always encouraged free sharing for creators and consumers. This certainly hasn’t improved. Instead, media today is contained in large centralized silos. “I’m surprised that people are so short-sighted. The ‘solution’ to file sharing was never centralizing content control back to a few entities – that was the struggle we were fighting for. “Netflix, Spotify etc are not a solution but a loss. And it surprises me that the pirate movement is not trying to talk more about that,” he adds. The Netflixes and Spotifies of this world are often portrayed as a solution to piracy. However, Peter sees things differently. He believes that these services put more control in the hands of powerful companies. “The same companies we fought own these platforms. Either they own the shares in the companies, or they have deals with them which makes it impossible for these companies to not follow their rules. “Artists can’t choose to be or not to be on Spotify in reality, because there’s nothing else in the end. If Spotify doesn’t follow the rules from these companies, they are fucked as well. The dependence is higher than ever.” The first wave of mass Internet piracy well over a decade ago was a wake-up call to the entertainment industry. The immense popularity of torrent sites showed that people demanded something they weren’t offering. In a way, these early pirate sites are the reason why Netflix and Spotify were able to do what they do. Literally, in the case of Spotify, which used pirated music to get the service going. Peter doesn’t see them as the answer though. The only solution in his book is to redefine and legalize piracy. “The solution to piracy is to re-define piracy. Make things available to everyone, without that being a crime,” Peter says. In this regard, not much has changed in ten years. However, having witnessed this battle closer than anyone else, he also realizes that the winners are likely on the other end. Piracy will decrease over time, but not the way Peter hopes it will. “I think we’ll have less piracy because of the problems we see today. With net neutrality being infringed upon and more laws against individual liberties and access to culture, instead of actually benefiting people. “The media industry will be happy to know that their lobbying efforts and bribes are paying off,” he concludes. — This is the second and final post in our torrent pioneers series. The first interview with isoHunt founder Gary Fung is available here. https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-netflix-and-spotify-are-a-threat-no-solution-180107/

What are the most popular torrent sites this year? As we continue a long-standing tradition, we see that The Pirate Bay remains firmly in the lead. Since a few torrent sites have left the scene recently, this year's top list also reveals some new names. Torrent sites have come and gone over past year. Now, at the start of 2018, we take a look to see what the most-used sites are in the current landscape. The Pirate Bay remains the undisputed number one. The site has weathered a few storms over the years, but it looks like it will be able to celebrate its 15th anniversary, which is coming up in a few months. The list also includes various newcomers including Idope and Zooqle. While many people are happy to see new torrent sites emerge, this often means that others have called it quits. Last year’s runner-up Extratorrent, for example, has shut down and left a gaping hole behind. And it wasn’t the only site that went away. TorrentProject also disappeared without a trace and the same was true for isohunt.to. The unofficial Torrentz reincarnation Torrentz2.eu, the highest newcomer last year, is somewhat of an unusual entry. A few weeks ago all links to externally hosted torrents were removed, as was the list of indexed pages. We decided to include the site nonetheless, given its history and because it’s still possible to find hashes through the site. As Torrentz2’s future is uncertain, we added an extra site (10.1) as compensation. Finally, RuTracker also deserves a mention. The torrent site generates enough traffic to warrant a listing, but we traditionally limit the list to sites that are targeted primarily at an English or international audience. Below is the full list of the ten most-visited torrent sites at the start of the new year. The list is based on various traffic reports and we display the Alexa rank for each. In addition, we include last year’s ranking. MOST POPULAR TORRENT SITES 1. THE PIRATE BAY The Pirate Bay is the “king of torrents” once again and also the oldest site in this list. The past year has been relatively quiet for the notorious torrent site, which is currently operating from its original .org domain name. ALEXA RANK: 104/ LAST YEAR #1 2. RARBG RARBG, which started out as a Bulgarian tracker, has captured the hearts and minds of many video pirates. The site was founded in 2008 and specializes in high quality video releases. ALEXA RANK: 298 / LAST YEAR #3 3. 1337X 1337x continues where it left off last year. The site gained a lot of traffic and, unlike some other sites in the list, has a dedicated group of uploaders that provide fresh content. ALEXA RANK: 321 / LAST YEAR #6 4. TORRENTZ2 Torrentz2 launched as a stand-in for the original Torrentz.eu site, which voluntarily closed its doors in 2016. At the time of writing, the site only lists torrent hashes and no longer any links to external torrent sites. While browser add-ons and plugins still make the site functional, its future is uncertain. ALEXA RANK: 349 / LAST YEAR #5 5. YTS.AG YTS.ag is the unofficial successors of the defunct YTS or YIFY group. Not all other torrent sites were happy that the site hijacked the popuar brand and several are actively banning its releases. ALEXA RANK: 563 / LAST YEAR #4 6. EZTV.AG The original TV-torrent distribution group EZTV shut down after a hostile takeover in 2015, with new owners claiming ownership of the brand. The new group currently operates from EZTV.ag and releases its own torrents. These releases are banned on some other torrent sites due to this controversial history. ALEXA RANK: 981 / LAST YEAR #7 7. LIMETORRENTS Limetorrents has been an established torrent site for more than half a decade. The site’s operator also runs the torrent cache iTorrents, which is used by several other torrent search engines. ALEXA RANK: 2,433 / LAST YEAR #10 8. NYAA.SI NYAA.si is a popular resurrection of the anime torrent site NYAA, which shut down last year. Previously we left anime-oriented sites out of the list, but since we also include dedicated TV and movie sites, we decided that a mention is more than warranted. ALEXA RANK: 1,575 / LAST YEAR #NA 9. TORRENTS.ME Torrents.me is one of the torrent sites that enjoyed a meteoric rise in traffic this year. It’s a meta-search engine that links to torrent files and magnet links from other torrent sites. ALEXA RANK: 2,045 / LAST YEAR #NA 10. ZOOQLE Zooqle, which boasts nearly three million verified torrents, has stayed under the radar for years but has still kept growing. The site made it into the top 10 for the first time this year. ALEXA RANK: 2,347 / LAST YEAR #NA 10.1 IDOPE The special 10.1 mention goes to iDope. Launched in 2016, the site is a relative newcomer to the torrent scene. The torrent indexer has steadily increased its audience over the past year. With similar traffic numbers to Zooqle, a listing is therefore warranted. ALEXA RANK: 2,358 / LAST YEAR #NA — Disclaimer: Yes, we know that Alexa isn’t perfect, but it helps to compare sites that operate in a similar niche. We also used other traffic metrics to compile the top ten. Please keep in mind that many sites have mirrors or alternative domains, which are not taken into account here. https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/

On an almost continual basis rightsholders are calling for tougher anti-piracy measures on top of more restrictive and punitive copyright law. It's undoubtedly a threat to current Internet freedoms as we know them. But really, is anyone truly surprised that entertainment companies still hate their content being shared for free? For more than ten years TorrentFreak has documented a continuous stream of piracy battles so it’s natural that, every now and then, we pause to consider when this war might stop. The answer is always “no time soon” and certainly not in 2018. When swapping files over the Internet first began it wasn’t a particularly widespread activity. A reasonable amount of content was available, but it was relatively inaccessible. Then peer-to-peer came along and it sparked a revolution. From the beginning, copyright holders felt that the law would answer their problems, whether that was by suing Napster, Kazaa, or even end users. Some industry players genuinely believed this strategy was just a few steps away from achieving its goals. Just a little bit more pressure and all would be under control. Then, when the landmark MGM Studios v. Grokster decision was handed down in the studios’ favor during 2005, the excitement online was palpable. As copyright holders rejoiced in this body blow for the pirating masses, file-sharing communities literally shook under the weight of the ruling. For a day, maybe two. For the majority of file-sharers, the ruling meant absolutely nothing. So what if some company could be held responsible for other people’s infringements? Another will come along, outside of the US if need be, people said. They were right not to be concerned – that’s exactly what happened. Ever since, this cycle has continued. Eager to stem the tide of content being shared without their permission, rightsholders have advocated stronger anti-piracy enforcement and lobbied for more restrictive interpretations of copyright law. Thus far, however, literally nothing has provided a solution. One would have thought that given the military-style raid on Kim Dotcom’s Megaupload, a huge void would’ve appeared in the sharing landscape. Instead, the file-locker business took itself apart and reinvented itself in jurisdictions outside the United States. Meanwhile, the BitTorrent scene continued in the background, somewhat obliviously. With the SOPA debacle still fresh in relatively recent memory, copyright holders are still doggedly pursuing their aims. Site-blocking is rampant, advertisers are being pressured into compliance, and ISPs like Cox Communications now find themselves responsible for the infringements of their users. But has any of this caused any fatal damage to the sharing landscape? Not really. Instead, we’re seeing a rise in the use of streaming sites, each far more accessible to the newcomer than their predecessors and vastly more difficult for copyright holders to police. Systems built into Kodi are transforming these platforms into a plug-and-play piracy playground, one in which sites skirt US law and users can consume both at will and in complete privacy. Meanwhile, commercial and unauthorized IPTV offerings are gathering momentum, even as rightsholders try to pull them back. Faced with problems like these we are now seeing calls for even tougher legislation. While groups like the RIAA dream of filtering the Internet, over in the UK a 2017 consultation had copyright holders excited that end users could be criminalized for simply consuming infringing content, let alone distributing it. While the introduction of both or either of these measures would cause uproar (and rightly so), history tells us that each would fail in its stated aim of stopping piracy. With that eventuality all but guaranteed, calls for even tougher legislation are being readied for later down the line. In short, there is no law that can stop piracy and therefore no law that will stop the entertainment industries coming back for harsher measures, pursuing the dream. This much we’ve established from close to two decades of litigation and little to no progress. But really, is anyone genuinely surprised that they’re still taking this route? Draconian efforts to maintain control over the distribution of content predate the file-sharing wars by a couple of hundred years, at the very least. Why would rightsholders stop now, when the prize is even more valuable? No one wants a minefield of copyright law. No one wants a restricted Internet. No one wants extended liability for innovators, service providers, or the public. But this is what we’ll get if this problem isn’t solved soon. Something drastic needs to happen, but who will be brave enough to admit it, let alone do something about it? During a discussion about piracy last year on the BBC, the interviewer challenged a caller who freely admitted to pirating sports content online. The caller’s response was clear: For far too long, broadcasters and rightsholders have abused their monopoly position, charging ever-increasing amounts for popular content, even while making billions. Piracy is a natural response to that, and effectively a chance for the little guy to get back some control, he argued. Exactly the same happened in the music market during the late 1990s and 2000s. In response to artificial restriction of the market and the unrealistic hiking of prices, people turned to peer-to-peer networks for their fix. Thanks to this pressure but after years of turmoil, services like Spotify emerged, converting millions of former pirates in the process. Netflix, it appears, is attempting to do the same thing with video. When people feel that they aren’t getting ripped off and that they have no further use for sub-standard piracy services in the face of stunning legal alternatives, things will change. But be under no illusion, people won’t be bullied there. If we end up with an Internet stifled in favor of rightsholders, one in which service providers are too scared to innovate, the next generation of consumers will never forget. This will be a major problem for two key reasons. Not only will consumers become enemies but piracy will still exist. We will have come full circle, fueled only by division and hatred. It’s a natural response to reject monopolistic behavior and it’s a natural response, for most, to be fair when treated with fairness. Destroying freedom is far from fair and will not create a better future – for anyone. Laws have their place, no sane person will argue against that, but when the entertainment industries are making billions yet still want more, they’ll have to decide whether this will go on forever with building resentment, or if making a bit less profit now makes more sense longer term. https://torrentfreak.com/no-level-of-copyright-enforcement-will-ever-be-enough-for-big-media-180107/