Movie pirates were welcomed with a few surprise gifts before and after Christmas when four new DVD Screeners leaked online. The movies were posted by infamous release group Hive-CM8, who state that they're predominantly aiming the releases at those too ill to make it to the movie theater or unable to see them locally. At the end of the year movie industry insiders traditionally receive their screener copies, which they use to vote on the Oscars and other awards. As is tradition, quite a few of these advance screeners will leak on various pirate sites. In recent years one group has drawn quite a bit of attention, due to both the timing and volume of their releases. Hive-CM8 appear to have good sources and often manage to get their hands on many prominent screeners, which are gradually released to the public. This year it started with “I Love You, Daddy,” which was dropped by the distributor after Louis C.K. was accused of sexual misconduct. Following two weeks of silence, the second release followed on Christmas Eve when “Last Flag Flying,” an American comedy-drama film, appeared online. The timing is once again carefully chosen. Hive-CM8 specifically notes that it prefers to avoid releasing on Christmas Day, but it nonetheless used the opportunity to wish people a Merry Christmas. “We decided to make one [release] before Christmas, not on Christmas we are the nice ones. In this spirit, Merry Christmas and stay tuned,” the release notes read. Last.Flag.Flying.2017.DVDScr.XVID.AC3.HQ.Hive-CM8 The ‘stay tuned’ part suggested that more were coming, and this was indeed the case. Just a few hours ago three additional screeners were posted online, and quickly made their way to public pirate sites. Screener copies of “I, Tonya,” “Lady Bird,” and “Call Me By Your Name” are now widely available online. Interestingly, it was still Christmas in parts of the world when they came out, but apparently not where Hive-CM8 are. The group again wishes its ‘followers’ a Merry Christmas but also adds that people should see these movies on the big screen to support the filmmakers. The screener releases are mostly for those who are not in the position to do so, they add. “What a nice release after Christmas. Merry Christmas to everyone, from me and TiTAN. Don´t forget watching a Screener is not like the real thing, you should still all go to the cinema and support the Producers,” the release notes read. “We are especially sharing this for the people who cant visit the cinema due to illness, or because it is a limited release that doesn’t make it to their country. So those people also can experience some award nominated movies..Enjoy.” Lady.Bird.2017.DVDScr.XVID.AC3.HQ.Hive-CM8 If previous years are any indication, the leaks won’t stop at five screeners this year. And indeed, Hive-CM8 suggests that they have many more screeners in their possession. There are still a few missing though, including Downsizing, Hostiles and Phantom Thread. “We are still missing Downsizing, Hostiles, and Phantom Thread. Anyone want to share them for the collection? Yes we want to have them all if possible, we are collectors, we don’t want to release them all,” they write. While not all screeners will come out, more are likely to follow during the weeks to come. Thus far Hive-CM8 has only given one guarantee: they’re not going to upload “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” https://torrentfreak.com/christmas-surprise-hive-cm8-leaks-more-pirated-dvd-screeners-171226/

For the sixth year in a row Game of Thrones has taken the crown for the most pirated TV-show on the Internet. The Walking Dead remains in second place, with newcomer Rick and Morty right behind. The seventh season of Game of Thrones brought tears and joy to HBO this year. It was the most-viewed season thus far, with record-breaking TV ratings. But on the other hand, the company and its flagship product were plagued by hacks, leaks, and piracy, of course. Game of Thrones’ year ends with a high, or low, depending on one’s perspective. For the sixth year in a row it has the honor of becoming the most-downloaded TV show through BitTorrent. Although there was no new swarm record, traffic-wise the interest was plenty. The highest number of people actively sharing an episode across several torrents was 400,000 at its peak, right after the season finale came online. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s no growth in piracy. BitTorrent traffic only makes up a small portion of the piracy landscape. A lot of people use streaming sites and services nowadays, which are harder to measure. While the top of this year’s list is made up of familiar names, there are also some new entries. Prison Break made a comeback, which didn’t go unnoticed by torrent fans, while Rick and Morty and Sherlock also make an appearance. — Below we have compiled a list of the most torrented TV-shows worldwide (single episode) for 2017. The ranking is compiled by TorrentFreak based on several sources, including statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers. We have decided to stop reporting download estimates. Due to various changes in the torrent index/tracker landscape it’s become more challenging to monitor downloads accurately, so a ranked overview makes most sense. Most downloaded TV-shows on BitTorrent, 2017 rank last year show torrentfreak.com 1 (1) Game of Thrones 2 (2) The Walking Dead 3 (4) The Flash 4 (6) The Big Bang Theory 5 (…) Rick and Morty 6 (…) Prison Break 7 (…) Sherlock 8 (7) Vikings 9 (9) Suits 10 (5) Arrow https://torrentfreak.com/game-of-thrones-most-torrented-tv-show-of-2017-171226/

UEFA, the governing body of football in Europe, has obtained a High Court injunction in the UK to prevent unauthorized access to matches for which it holds the rights. Six major ISPs including BT, Virgin, Sky and TalkTalk will begin blocking live pirate-broadcasted matches from February 13, 2018, and will continue until at least May 26, 2018. Earlier this year the English Premier League (EPL) obtained a unique High Court injunction which required ISPs including Sky, BT, and Virgin to block ‘pirate’ football streams in real-time. When that temporary injunction ran out, the EPL went back to court for a new one, valid for the season that began in August. After what appeared to be a slow start, the effort began to produce significant results, blocking thousands of Internet subscribers from accessing illicit streams via websites, Kodi add-ons, and premium IPTV services. Encouraged by its successes, the EPL has now been joined by an even bigger soccer organization. The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is the governing body of soccer in Europe and it too will jump onto the site and server-blocking bandwagon, almost certainly utilizing the same system being deployed by the Premier League. UEFA first had to obtain permission from the High Court. That came in the form of an application for injunction filed by the organization against ISPs BT, EE, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk, and Virgin Media. It demanded that they “take measures to block, or at least impede, access by their customers to streaming servers which deliver infringing live streams of UEFA Competition matches to UK consumers.” In other countries, ISPs have defended such cases but in the UK, the position is very different. All providers except TalkTalk actually supported the application, with BT, Sky, and Virgin filing evidence in its favor. The application seemed somewhat academic. All parties previously agreed to its terms and it was supported by the Premier League and the Formula One World Championship, whose content is also streamed illegally by some of the same servers. The High Court found that the application was broadly similar to that previously filed by the Premier League so the legal basis for granting the injunction remained the same. Citing two big rulings from the EU Court this year (one involving The Pirate Bay, the other cloud-recording service VCAST), Mr Justice Arnold said that evidence filed by the Premier League showed that a similar order had proven “very effective”. The Judge also noted that no evidence of over-blocking as a result of the previous injunctions had been presented and that this injunction would contain “an additional safeguard” in that respect. Details of this measure and almost every other technical aspect of the injunction remain confidential, as is the case with the Premier League’s efforts. Justice Arnold’s order will take effect on 13 February 2018 and last until 26 May 2018. People reliant on pirate streams for their football/soccer fix will continue to experience issues, with many having no other choice than to resort to VPNs to access blocked streams. https://torrentfreak.com/uefa-obtains-high-court-injunction-to-block-live-soccer-streaming-171226/

People looking for all kinds of files tend to visit file-sharing sites for their fix but there is another way. FilePursuit is a web and Android-based service that trawls the Internet looking for open directories and it does an incredible job. Today, TorrentFreak catches up with its creator to find out where it all started. Ask someone to name a search engine and it’s likely that 95 out of 100 will say ‘Google’. There are plenty of others, of course, but its sheer dominance means that even giants like Bing have to wait around for a mention. However, if people are looking for something special, such as video and music files, for example, there’s an interesting search engine that’s largely flying under the radar. FilePursuit, accessible via the web or directly from its dedicated Android apps, is somewhat of a revelation. What FilePursuit does is trawl the Internet looking for web servers that are not only packed with content but are readily accessible to the outside world. This means that a search on the site invariably turns up treasure troves of material, all of it for immediate and direct HTTP download. TorrentFreak caught up with the operator of the site who himself is a very interesting character. “I’m a 21-year-old undergrad student from New Delhi, India, currently studying engineering. I started this file search engine project all by myself to learn web development and this is my first project,” he informs TF. “I picked this project because I was surprised to find that there are lots of ‘open directory’ websites and no one is maintaining any type of record or database on them. There are thousands of ‘open directory’ websites containing a lot of amazing stuff not discovered yet, so I made them discoverable.” Plenty of files from almost any search FilePursuit began its life around September 2016 and since then has been receiving website submission requests (sites to be indexed by FilePursuit) from people all over the world. As such the platform is somewhat of a community effort but in respect of running the operation, it’s all done by one man. “FilePursuit saves time in two ways: by eliminating the need to find file manually, and by performing searches at high speeds efficiently. Without this, you would have to look at sites one by one and pore over the contents of each carefully – a tedious prospect,” he explains. “FilePursuit automatically compares your criteria to billions of webpages and gives you results in a fraction of a second. You can perform hundreds of searches in the course of a few minutes, altering the criteria as you narrow down results.” So if Google dominates the search space, why doesn’t it do a better job of finding files than the relatively low-key FilePursuit? Its operator says it’s all about functionality. “FilePursuit is a file search engine, it generates file links as results while other search engines give out webpages as results. However, it’s possible to search for file links directly from Google too but it’s limited to documents only. On FilePursuit you can search for almost any filetype just by selecting ‘custom’ and typing filetype in search results.” Of course, it would be impossible for FilePursuit to find any files if webmasters and server operators didn’t leave them open to the public. Considering it’s simplicity itself to find all the latest movies and TV shows widely accessible, is this a question of stupidity, kindness, carelessness, or something else? “In my opinion, most people are unaware that they have created an open directory and on the other hand some people want to share interesting files from their servers, which is very generous of them,” FilePursuit’s creator says. When carrying out searches it really is amazing what FilePursuit can turn up. Files lead to directory results and some can contain many thousands of files, from every music artist one can think of through to otherwise private text files that people really should take more care over. Other things are really quite odd. “When I look for ‘open directory’ websites, sometimes I find really amazing stuff and sometimes even bizarre stuff too. This one time, I found a collection of funeral recordings,” FilePursuit’s owner says. While even funeral recordings can have a copyright owner somewhere, it’s the more regular mainstream content that’s most easily found with the service. The site doesn’t carry any copyrighted content at all but that doesn’t mean it’s unresponsive to takedown demands. “I have more than three million file links indexed in my database so it can be a bit hard for me to check for copyrighted content. Although whenever I receive a mail from copyright holders or someone representing copyright holders, I always uphold their request of deleting the file link from my database and also explain to them that the file link they requested me to delete, that particular file may still exist.” In recent months, FilePursuit has enjoyed a significant upsurge in traffic but it’s still a relatively small player in the search engine space with around 7,000 to 10,000 hits per day. However, this clever site is able to deal with five times that traffic and upgrading servers to cope with surges can be carried out in two to three minutes, “at most.” So the big question remains – What will you find under the tree today? FilePursuit website here, Android apps (free, pro) https://torrentfreak.com/filepursuit-finds-amazing-files-all-year-round-not-just-at-christmas-171225/

There once was a time when people needed at least five subscription services to watch their favorite movies and TV shows. Hollywood bosses like Walter Scroogle believed that exclusivity was the key to wealth and success, but they were wrong. This is the story of Walter Scroogle, CEO of one of the major movie studios in Hollywood. — It begins on Christmas Eve, with Scroogle arriving home late at night. This wasn’t anything unusual, not even on a day like this. The rest of the family didn’t expect anything else and were already asleep in anticipation of the forthcoming festivities. As Scroogle sits down he suddenly notices a pile of Amazon store boxes in the corner of the room. “Thank God, he mumbles, Christmas is saved.” But it was a close call. It had been such a hectic week at work. So busy that Scroogle had totally forgot to get this year’s Christmas presents, one of the few things he arranges around the house. Luckily, modern day technology was there to save the day. Amazon had everything in stock. The new bike for his son. The tablet for his daughter. The earrings for his wife, as well as many more gifts. It took Scroogle roughly fifteen minutes to get all his Christmas shopping done. And with same-day delivery, it arrived a few hours later. “Thank God,” he said again. While a major disaster had been avoided, there were still a few presents to wrap. Apparently, there are no machines that can carefully wrap bikes. So there he was, at 2am Christmas morning, grumpily making the final preparations for the big day. Halfway through Scroogle decided to lie on the couch for a bit. Just a short while, he promised himself, not knowing what was to come. After a minute or two an exhausted Scroogle dozed off into his first dream. Inspired by what had occurred earlier that day, he dreamt about forgetting the Chrismas presents. While he appeared to be his current self, the world was different. There were no Internet stores or even large malls. He had to drive to at least ten different stores to get what he wanted, and given that it was Sunday, most were closed. Needless to say, it was a disaster. The second dream was related to something at work. A few hours earlier he’d hosted a board meeting, discussing the new streaming platform the company had launched that morning. Scoogle was one of the pioneers. He was also the one who hastily decided to pull all their content from third-party platforms, Netflix included. “Everything will be pulled tonight. We want to be exclusive again,” he’s said. The dream presented Scroogle with the darker side of his decision. It showed several families who, on Chrismas Eve, noticed that their favorite movies were no longer available. Christmas classics were removed without warning, forcing these families to take out another subscription. If the new service was even available in their region. “Not the best way to spend time on Christmas,” Scroogle thought. Scroogle was still fast asleep when the third and final dream kicked in. It was the future, apparently, as commercials for the streaming service and next year’s Christmas blockbuster were being shown on a TV. There was a Christmas tree and a family clearly amusing itself. Unfortunately for Scroogle, things didn’t turn out to be so bright. After the commercial, the latest blockbuster played, but it was not on the company’s streaming platform. Instead, it was playing through what appeared to be some kind of piracy streaming device. “They are stealing our stuff,” he thought. “And on Christmas Day too! These people are cheapskates.” Then, a deep-sounding voiceover became apparent. “No, Scroogle, the family actually pays for seven streaming services already. However, their budgets are not endless. The increasing fragmentation in the current legal streaming landscape is pushing people toward these devices. If only they could get it all from under one roof.” Then Scroogle woke up. At first, he hadn’t really processed what had happened. It was nearly 4am and he still had a few gifts to wrap, those that were so conveniently ordered a few hours earlier and delivered to his house, from one supplier. But, when it sank in, he knew that there was one thing he had to do before the family woke up. Scroogle wrote an email to the board admitting that he was wrong. “We have to keep all our content on other services and think this through after the holidays. It’s inclusive from now on, not exclusive. People should be able to see our great films without hassle,” he typed. Sent. A year later the new Christmas blockbuster was indeed released. It came out together with a brand new streaming platform, one where users could watch a massive library of all the best classics from the major studios, independents, and other services under one roof. Even the latest movies could be easily played on demand for a small one-time fee. Streaming records were broken that day, and people were smiling. — Merry Christmas everyone! https://torrentfreak.com/a-christmas-carol-when-piracy-became-irrelevant-171225/

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Justice League' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘It'. 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' completes the top three. This week we have four newcomers in our chart. Justice League is the most downloaded movie. 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 (…) Justice League 7.1 / trailer 2 (…) It 7.6 / trailer 3 (1) Kingsman: The Golden Circle 7.2 / trailer 4 (…) Bright 6.7 / trailer 5 (2) Dunkirk 8.3 / trailer 6 (3) The Mountain Between Us 6.3 / trailer 7 (…) Blade Runner 2049 (Russian audio WebRip) 8.9 / trailer 8 (8) Coco (HDTS) 8.9 / trailer 9 (5) Flatliners 5.0 / trailer 10 (4) The Foreigner 7.2 / trailer

A popular IPTV provider has announced it will stop signing up new customers following pressure from authorities in the UK. ACE TV, which is incorporated in the UK and claims to operate under UK law, says it will continue to operate but will only serve existing customers. The Federation Against Copyright Theft and partners the Premier League are thought to be behind the threats. Over the past couple of decades, piracy of live TV has broadly taken two forms. That which relies on breaking broadcaster encryption (such as card sharing and hacked set-top boxes), and the more recent developments of P2P and IPTV-style transmission. With the former under pressure and P2P systems such as Sopcast and AceTorrent moving along in the background, streaming from servers is now the next big thing, whether that’s for free via third-party Kodi plugins or for a small fee from premium IPTV providers. Of course, copyright holders don’t like any of this usage but with their for-profit strategy, commercial IPTV providers have a big target on their backs. More evidence of this was revealed recently when UK-based IPTV service ACE TV announced they were taking action to avoid problems in the country. In a message to prospective and existing customers, ACE TV said that potential legal issues were behind its decision to accept no new customers while locking down its service. “It saddens me to announce this, but due to pressure from the authorities in the UK, we are no longer selling new subscriptions. This obviously includes trials,” the announcement reads. Noting that it would take new order for just 24 hours more, ACE TV insisted that it wasn’t shutting down but would lock down the service while closing Facebook. TF sources and unconfirmed rumors online suggest that the Federation Against Copyright Theft and partners the Premier League are involved. However, ACE TV didn’t respond to TorrentFreak’s request for comment so we’re unable to confirm or deny the allegations. That being said, even if the threats came directly from the police, it’s likely that the approach would’ve been initially prompted by companies connected to FACT, since the anti-piracy outfit often puts forward names of services for investigation on behalf of its partners. Perhaps surprisingly, ACE TV is legally incorporated in the UK as Ace Hosting Limited, a fact it makes clear on its website. While easy to find, the company’s registered address is shared by dozens of other companies, indicating a mail forwarding operation rather than a place servers or staff can be found. This proxy location may well be the reason the company feels emboldened to carry on some level of service rather than shutting down completely, but its legal basis for doing so is interesting at best, precarious at worst. “This website, any content contained herein and any contract brought into being as a result of usage of this website are governed by and construed in accordance with English Law,” ACE TV’s website reads. “The parties to any such contract agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. All contracts are concluded in English.” It seems likely that ACE TV has been threatened under UK law, since that’s where it’s incorporated. That would seem to explain why its concerned about UK authorities and their potential effect on the business. On the other hand, however, the service claims to operate entirely legally, but under the laws of the United States. It even has a repeat infringer policy. “Ace Hosting operates as an intermediary to cache and deliver content hosted by others at the instruction of our subscribers. We cannot remove content hosted by others,” the company says. “As an intermediary, we are entitled to rely upon (among other things) the DMCA safe harbor available to system caching service providers and we maintain policies and procedures to terminate subscribers that would be considered repeat infringers under the DMCA.” Whether the notices on the site have been advised by a legal professional or are there to present an air of authenticity is unclear but it’s precarious for a service of this nature to rely solely on conduit status in order to avoid liability. Marketing, prior conduct, and overall intent play a major role in such cases and when all of that is aired in the cold light of day, the situation can look very different to a judge, particularly in the UK, where no similar cases have been successfully defended to date. https://torrentfreak.com/iptv-provider-stops-selling-new-subscriptions-under-pressure-from-uk-authorities-171224/

A dispute between the French recording industry and search engines Google and Bing could find the latter pair filtering searches containing the word torrent, initially in connection with three local artists. The issue is currently under discussion by the parties' lawyers. Meanwhile, a blocking injunction has just been handed down targeting several popular torrent sites. Like most countries, France is struggling to find ways to stop online piracy running rampant. A number of options have been tested thus far, with varying results. One of the more interesting cases has been running since 2015, when music industry group SNEP took Google and Microsoft to court demanding automated filtering of ‘pirate’ search results featuring three local artists. Before the High Court of Paris, SNEP argued that searches for the artists’ names plus the word “torrent” returned mainly infringing results on Google and Bing. Filtering out results with both sets of terms would reduce the impact of people finding pirate content through search, they said. While SNEP claimed that its request was in line with Article L336-2 of France’s intellectual property code, which allows for “all appropriate measures” to prevent infringement, both Google and Microsoft fought back, arguing that such filtering would be disproportionate and could restrict freedom of expression. The Court eventually sided with the search engines, noting that torrent is a common noun that refers to a neutral communication protocol. “The requested measures are thus tantamount to general monitoring and may block access to lawful websites,” the High Court said. Despite being told that its demands were too broad, SNEP decided to appeal. The case was heard in November where concerns were expressed over potential false positives. Since SNEP even wants sites with “torrent” in their URL filtered out via a “fully automated procedures that do not require human intervention”, this very site – TorrentFreak.com – could be sucked in. To counter that eventuality, SNEP proposed some kind of whitelist, NextInpact reports. With no real consensus on how to move forward, the parties were advised to enter discussions on how to get closer to the aim of reducing piracy but without causing collateral damage. Last week the parties agreed to enter negotiations so the details will now have to be hammered out between their respective law firms. Failing that, they will face a ruling from the court. If this last scenario plays out, the situation appears to favor the search engines, who have a High Court ruling in their favor and already offer comprehensive takedown tools for copyright holders to combat the exploitation of their content online. Meanwhile, other elements of the French recording industry have booked a notable success against several pirate sites. SCPP, which represents Warner, Universal, Sony and thousands of others, went to court in February this year demanding that local ISPs Bouygues, Free, Orange, SFR and Numéricable prevent their subscribers from accessing ExtraTorrent, isoHunt, Torrent9 and Cpasbien. Like SNEP in the filtering case, SCPP also cited Article L336-2 of France’s intellectual property code, demanding that the sites plus their variants, mirrors and proxies should be blocked by the ISPs so that their subscribers can no longer gain access. This week the Paris Court of First Instance sided with the industry group, ordering the ISPs to block the sites. The service providers were also told to pick up the bill for costs. These latest cases are yet more examples of France’s determination to crack down on piracy. Early December it was revealed that since its inception, nine million piracy warnings have been sent to citizens via the Hadopi anti-piracy agency. Since the launch of its graduated response regime in 2010, more than 2,000 cases have been referred to prosecutors, resulting in 189 criminal convictions. https://torrentfreak.com/might-google-class-torrent-a-dirty-word-france-is-about-to-find-out-171223/

The music industry is gravely concerned with pirate sites, but there are gaping holes in legal services as well. This is also true for the France-based streaming service Deezer, which is trying to rid the web from "hacked" versions that allow people to download music freely. Nowadays there are dozens of ways for people to pirate free music. Torrent sites, direct downloading portals, stream ripping, you name it. While the music industry tries to crack down on these unauthorized services, there are also plenty of problems close to home. Legitimate streaming platforms such as Spotify and Tidal has been used to rip music from, and the same is true for the French streaming giant Deezer. Through various applications, the public can freely access and download the entire Deezer library, completely hassle-free. Take Deezloader, for example, which makes it surprisingly easy to grab high-quality tracks, complete with proper titles and tags. Want to download a full album in one click? No problem. A custom playlist of dozens of songs? Done. Deezloader Deezer is obviously not happy with these applications. Through DMCA notices the company does its best to take them down. This week it sent a notice to the developer platform GitHub, targetting several of these tools. “The following projects, in the paragraph below, make available a hacked version of our Deezer application or a method to unlawfully download the music catalogue of Deezer, in total violation of our rights and of the rights of our music licensors,” Deezer wrote. “..therefore ask that you immediately take down the projects corresponding to the URLs below and all of the related forks by others members who have had access or even contributed to such projects.” GitHub was quick to respond and removed access to (forks of) applications such as Deezloader, DeezerDownload, Deeze, Deezerio, Deezit, and Deedown. Instead, users who try to access these repositories now see the following notice. Deezgone? While the DMCA notice helps to make these projects unavailable, at least on GitHub, the applications still work. They’re also widely available through other sites and forums. These tools have been around for a while and despite Deezer’s most recent efforts, the music’s still playing Deezer refers to the pirate applications as “hacked” versions and appears to be unable block them from accessing its own servers. That’s a worrying prospect for the company. https://torrentfreak.com/deezer-tries-to-shut-down-hacked-pirate-versions-171223/

The popular torrent meta-search engine Torrentz2 is no longer linking to external sites. This makes the site pretty much unusable for torrent scavengers. At this point, it's unknown whether it's the result of technical issues, or something else. Last year, Torrentz.eu decided to close its doors. Without prior warning, all torrent listings were removed from the meta-search engine. As is often the case with torrent sites, this gap was quickly filled. Just several hours after Torrentz has thrown the proverbial towel, several ‘copies’ popped up, eager to take its place. The most successful alternative, in terms of traffic, is the elegantly named Torrentz2.eu. Unlike many others, Torrentz2 has always been upfront with its users and never claimed to be an official resurrection. They just wanted to do what Torrentz did, or even better. This worked, as millions of users were drawn to the site. However, since a few days Torrentz2 is no longer listing any torrent links. People can still search for files, but the site only lists file details and no links to third-party sites where these can be downloaded. No links? The problems first started earlier this week and have been persistent since at least Thursday. To the broader public it’s unclear what’s causing the issue. It could very well be a technical problem that can be addressed easily, or perhaps something more severe. Interestingly, new torrent data is still being added to the site. The links to other torrent sites are missing, however, which makes it pretty much unusable. TorrentFreak reached out to the operator to find out more but we haven’t heard back yet. If we received a response the article will be updated accordingly. https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-links-disappear-from-torrentz2-171223/

This week an alleged pirate streaming service was sued in a Massachusetts federal court. The complaint was not filed by a copyright holder, but by a licensed streaming platform, which accuses the pirate service of civil conspiracy and unfair business practices, among other things. In recent years there has been a boom in video streaming services, some operating with proper licenses and others without. In a few cases, the line between legal and illegal is hard to spot for the public. When the latest Hollywood blockbusters are available for free it’s quite clear, but there are also slick-looking paid subscription services that operate without proper licenses. The latter is what eTVnet is accused of. The streaming service targets Russian speakers in the United States and is accessible via the web or streaming boxes such as Roku. However, it does so without proper licenses, a complaint filed at a Massachusetts federal court alleges. “On information and belief, the eTVnet Conspirators have illegally copied thousands of movies and are distributing them to paying customers illegally,” the complaint reads. “By populating their streaming video service with stolen, illegally copied, and infringing copyrighted content, the eTVnet Conspirators have unlawfully and unfairly gained an advantage over their competitors, including Plaintiff.” While this reads like a typical copyright infringement lawsuit, it isn’t. The complaint was filed by the Scottish company Alamite Ventures, which operates TUA.tv, a competing streaming service in the US. The company filed suit against eTVnet, which is incorporated in Canada, as well as two owners and operators of the streaming service. They stand accused of civil conspiracy, unfair business practices, and false or misleading representations of fact under the Lanham Act. “The eTVnet Conspirators deceptively market the eTVnet Service as a legal and fully licensed service,” Alamite Ventures notes. ETVNET There obviously can’t be a claim for copyright infringement damages, since Alamite is not a copyright holder, but the complaint does mention that major US companies such as HBO, Disney and Netflix are harmed as well. “Given the staggering amount of copyright infringement committed by the eTVnet Conspirators, the damage to United States-based copyright owners easily eclipses $100,000,000,” it reads. There is no calculation or evidence to back the $100 million claim, which seems quite substantial. However, according to Alamite Ventures there is no doubt that eTVnet is willingly operating a pirate service. “…the eTVnet Conspirators know that their actions are illegal and have instituted a sophisticated scheme to avoid getting caught.” “For example, the eTVnet Conspirators do not allow new users to access the stolen content library until they can verify that the new users are not “spies” or affiliated with content producers or law enforcement.” Alamite Ventures hopes the court will agree and requests damages, as well as the shutdown of eTVnet in the United States. — A copy of the full complaint is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-streaming-service-sued-by-legal-competitor-171222/

Police in Sweden have filed a formal request with domain registrar Binero to take ownership of two Pirate Bay-related domains. The move follows a decision from the Supreme Court this morning which determined that domain names constitute property that can be seized by the Swedish state. Way back in 2013, anti-piracy prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad filed a motion targeting two key Pirate Bay domain names – ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se. Ingblad filed a complaint against Punkt SE (IIS), the organization responsible for Sweden’s top level .SE domain, arguing that the domains are tools that The Pirate Bay uses to infringe copyright. In April 2015 the case was heard and a month later the Stockholm District Court ruled that The Pirate Bay should forfeit both ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se to the state. The case later went to appeal. In May 2016, the Svea Court of Appeal handed down its decision which upheld the decision of the Stockholm District Court, finding that since they assisted with crimes, the domains could be seized. With that established a question remained – should the domains be seized from Pirate Bay co-founder and domain owner Fredrik Neij or from IIS, the organization responsible for Sweden’s top-level .SE domain? The Court subsequently found that domain names should be considered a type of intellectual property, property owned by the purchaser of the domain. In this case, therefore, IIS was not considered the owner of the Pirate Bay domains, Fredrik Neij was. Neij subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the District Court and the Court of Appeal wrongly concluded that a domain name is a type of property that can be confiscated. Today the Supreme Court handed down its decision, siding with the lower courts and determining that the domains – ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se – can indeed be seized by the state. “The Supreme Court declares that the right to domain names constitutes property that may be forfeited as the Court of Appeal previously found,” its judgment reads. Since the decision was handed down, things have been moving quickly. Kjetil Jensen of Online Group, the parent company of domain registry Binero, informs TorrentFreak that the police have already moved to take over the domains in question. “Today Binero, Binero.se, (registrar for thepiratebay.se and piratebay.se) received an executive request from Swedish Police to take over ownership of the domain names thepiratebay.se and piratebay.se because the Swedish Supreme Court now allows the domain names to be seized,” Jensen says. “The WHOIS of the domain names shows that the domain names no longer have any active name servers and the next step in this process is that the Police will take over the ownership of the domain names.” WHOIS entry for ThePirateBay.se While Binero will cooperate with the authorities, the company doesn’t believe that seizure will solve the online copyright infringement problem. “Binero considers that the confiscation of a domain name is an ineffective approach to prevent criminal activity on the internet,” Jensen says. “Moving a site to another top-level domain is very easy. And even if you want to close the domain, content is still available over the internet, using both the IP address and search engines etc.” Indeed, The Pirate Bay saw this day coming a long way off and has already completely migrated to its original domain, ThePirateBay.org. Despite the ruling, the site remains fully accessible, but it appears a line has been drawn in the sand in Sweden when it comes to domains that are used to break the law. They will be easier to seize in future, thanks to this lengthy legal process. The judgment is available here (PDF, Swedish) https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-set-to-take-over-pirate-bay-domains-171222/

A man in China has been jailed a staggering five-and-a-half years for selling a VPN service without an appropriate license from the government. The man, from the Guangxi autonomous region, was also fined the equivalent of US$76,000 for supplying software and equipment to evade China's Great Firewall. The Chinese government’s grip on power is matched by its determination to control access to information. To that end, it seeks to control what people in China can see on the Internet, thereby limiting the effect of outside influences on society. The government tries to reach these goals by use of the so-called Great Firewall, a complex system that grants access to some foreign resources while denying access to others. However, technologically advanced citizens are able to bypass this state censorship by using circumvention techniques including Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). While large numbers of people use such services, in January 2017 the government gave its clearest indication yet that it would begin to crack down on people offering Great Firewall-evading tools. Operating such a service without a corresponding telecommunications business license constitutes an offense, the government said. Now we have a taste of how serious the government is on this matter. According to an announcement from China’s Procuratorate Daily, Wu Xiangyang, a resident of the Guangxi autonomous region, has just been jailed for five-and-a-half years and fined 500,000 yuan ($75,920) for building and selling access to VPNs without an appropriate license. It’s alleged that between 2013 and June 2017, Wu Xiangyang sold VPN server access to the public via his own website, FangouVPN / Where Dog VPN, and Taobao, a Chinese online shopping site similar to eBay and Amazon. The member accounts provided by the man allowed customers to browse foreign websites, without being trapped behind China’s Great Firewall. He also sold custom hardware routers that came read-configured to use the VPN service, granting access to the wider Internet, contrary to the wishes of Chinese authorities. Prosecutors say that the illegal VPN business had revenues of 792,638 yuan (US$120,377) and profits of around 500,000 yuan ($75,935). SCMP reports that the company previously boasted on Twitter at having 8,000 foreigners and 5,000 businesses using its services to browse blocked websites. This is at least the second big sentence handed down to a Chinese citizen for providing access to VPNs. Back in September, it was revealed that Deng Jiewei, a 26-year-old from the city of Dongguan in the Guangdong province, had been jailed for nine months after offering a similar service to the public for around a year. https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-provider-jailed-for-five-years-after-helping-thousands-breach-chinas-firewall-171222/

Several organizations and gaming fans are asking the Copyright Office to make a DMCA circumvention exemption for abandoned online games, to preserve them for future generations. The exemption would allow museums and libraries to offer copies of abandoned online servers, so these games won't turn to dust. The U.S. Copyright Office is considering whether or not to update the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, which prevent the public from tinkering with DRM-protected content and devices. These provisions are renewed every three years. To allow individuals and organizations to chime in, the Office traditionally launches a public consultation, before it makes any decisions. This week a series of new responses were received and many of these focused on abandoned games. As is true for most software, games have a limited lifespan, so after a few years they are no longer supported by manufacturers. To preserve these games for future generations and nostalgic gamers, the Copyright Office previously included game preservation exemptions. This means that libraries, archives and museums can use emulators and other circumvention tools to make old classics playable. However, these exemptions are limited and do not apply to games that require a connection to an online server, which includes most recent games. When the online servers are taken down, the game simply disappears forever. This should be prevented, according to The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (the MADE), a nonprofit organization operating in California. “Although the Current Exemption does not cover it, preservation of online video games is now critical,” MADE writes in its comment to the Copyright Office. “Online games have become ubiquitous and are only growing in popularity. For example, an estimated fifty-three percent of gamers play multiplayer games at least once a week, and spend, on average, six hours a week playing with others online.” During the previous review, similar calls for an online exemption were made but, at the time, the Register of Copyrights noted that multiplayer games could still be played on local area networks. “Today, however, local multiplayer options are increasingly rare, and many games no longer support LAN connected multiplayer capability,” MADE counters, adding that nowadays even some single-player games require an online connection. “More troubling still to archivists, many video games rely on server connectivity to function in single-player mode and become unplayable when servers shut down.” MADE asks the Copyright Office to extend the current exemptions and include games with an online connection as well. This would allow libraries, archives, and museums to operate servers for these abandoned games and keep them alive. The nonprofit museum is not alone in its call, with digital rights group Public Knowledge submitting a similar comment. They also highlight the need to preserve online games. Not just for nostalgic gamers, but also for researchers and scholars. This issue is more relevant than ever before, as hundreds of online multiplayer games have been abandoned already. “It is difficult to quantify the number of multiplayer servers that have been shut down in recent years. However, Electronic Arts’ ‘Online Services Shutdown’ list is one illustrative example,” Public Knowledge writes. “The list — which is littered with popular franchises such as FIFA World Cup, Nascar, and The Sims — currently stands at 319 games and servers discontinued since 2013, or just over one game per week since 2012.” Finally, several ‘regular’ gaming fans have also made their feelings known. While their arguments are usually not as elaborate, the personal pleasure people still get out of older games can’t be overstated. “I have been playing video games since the Atari 2600, for 35 years. Nowadays, game ‘museums’ — getting the opportunity to replay games from my youth, and share them with my child — are a source of joy for me,” one individual commenter wrote. “I would love the opportunity to explore some of the early online / MMO games that I spent so much time on in the past!” Game on? — Header image via MMOs.com https://torrentfreak.com/gamers-want-dmca-exemption-for-abandoned-online-games-171221/

Google has won its case against Canadian company Equustek Solutions. The search engine is not required to block content worldwide based on a Canadian Supreme Court hearing, a California Federal Court has affirmed. An important ruling for Google, which argued that freedom of speech was at stake. As the largest search engine on the Internet, Google has received its fair share of takedown requests. Over the past year, the company removed roughly a billion links from its search results. However, this doesn’t mean that Google will remove everything it’s asked to. When a Canadian court demanded the search engine to delist sites that offered unlawful and competing products of Equustek Solutions, it fought back. After several years in court, the Supreme Court of Canada directed Google to remove the websites from its search results last summer. This order wasn’t limited to Canada alone, but applied worldwide. Worried about the possible negative consequences the broad verdict could have, Google then took the case to the US, and with success. A federal court in California already signed a preliminary injunction a few weeks ago, disarming the Canadian order, and a few days ago ruled that Google has won its case. Case closed According to the California court, the Canadian Supreme court ruling violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, putting free speech at risk. It would also go against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which offers search engines and other Internet services immunity from liability for material published by others. “The Canadian order would eliminate Section 230 immunity for service providers that link to third-party websites,” the court wrote. “By forcing intermediaries to remove links to third-party material, the Canadian order undermines the policy goals of Section 230 and threatens free speech on the global internet.” After a legal battle that kept the Canadian court busy since 2014, the US case was solved rather quickly. Equustek Solutions didn’t show up and failed to defend itself, which made it an easy win. Now that the permanent injunction is signed the case will be closed. While Google still has to delist the contested pages in Canada, it no longer has to do the same worldwide. As highlighted previously, the order is very important in the broader scheme. If foreign courts are allowed to grant worldwide blockades, free speech could be severely hampered. Today it’s a relatively unknown Canadian company, but the damage could be much more severe if the Chinese Government asked Google to block the websites of VPN providers, or any other information they don’t like. https://torrentfreak.com/google-defeats-worldwide-site-blocking-order-in-us-court-171218/

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Dunkirk'. 'The Mountain Between Us' completes the top three. This week we have three newcomers in our chart. Kingsman: The Golden Circle is the most downloaded movie. 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 (2) Kingsman: The Golden Circle 7.2 / trailer 2 (1) Dunkirk 8.3 / trailer 3 (…) The Mountain Between Us 6.3 / trailer 4 (4) The Foreigner 7.2 / trailer 5 (…) Flatliners 5.0 / trailer 6 (6) American Made 7.2 / trailer 7 (3) Mother! 7.0 / trailer 8 (9) Coco (HDTS) 8.9 / trailer 9 (…) What Happened to Monday 6.9 / trailer 10 (10) Thor Ragnarok (HDTS/Cam) 8.2 / trailer

University College London, the third largest in the UK with an annual income of £1.3 billion, is offering a massive trove of copyrighted content to the public. In addition to hundreds of Hollywood and international movies, servers at the University are making available huge numbers of documentaries including the BBC's brand new Blue Planet II. If someone wants to obtain the latest movies for free, all they need to do is head over to the nearest torrent or streaming portal, press a few buttons, and the content appears in a matter of seconds or minutes, dependent on choice. Indeed, for those seeking mainstream content DRM-free, this is the only way to obtain it, since studios generally don’t make their content available in this fashion. But we know an establishment that does, on a grand scale. University College London is the third largest university in the UK. According to accounts (pdf) published this summer, it has revenues of more than £1.32 billion. Somewhat surprisingly, this educational behemoth also has a sensational multimedia trick up its considerable sleeve. The university’s website, located at UCL.ac.uk, is a polished affair and provides all the information anyone could need. However, until one browses to the Self-Access Centre, the full glory of the platform remains largely hidden. Located at resources.clie.ucl.ac.uk/home/sac/english/films, it looks not unlike Netflix, or indeed any one of thousands of pirate streaming sites around today. However, it appears to be intended for university and educational use only. UCL’s Self-Access Centre “Welcome to the Self-Access Centre materials database. Here you can find out about the English materials we have in the SAC and explore our online materials,” the site reads. “They were designed to help you improve your English skills. Most of the video materials, including films and documentaries, are now available to be watched online. Log on with your UCL id and password to watch them!” According to a university video tutorial, all content on the SAC can be viewed on campus or from home, as long as a proper login and password is entered. The material is provided for educational purposes and when viewed through the portal, is accompanied by questions, notes, and various exercises. Trouble is, the entire system is open to the wider Internet, with no logins or passwords required. A sample of the movies on offer for direct download The above image doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. In one directory alone, TorrentFreak counted more than 700 English language movies. In another, more than 600 documentaries including all episodes of the BBC’s Blue Planet II. World Cinema produced close to 90 results, with hundreds of titles voiced in languages from Arabic to Japanese to Welsh. Links can be pasted into VLC and streamed direct Quite how long this massive trove of films and TV shows has been open to the public isn’t clear but a simple Google search reveals not only the content itself, but also links to movies and other material on sites in the Middle East and social networks in Russia. Some of them date back to at least 2016 so it’s probably safe to assume that untold terabytes of data have already been liberated from the university’s servers for the pleasure of the public. https://torrentfreak.com/university-college-london-is-accidentally-running-a-huge-pirate-movie-site-171216/

Academic publishers want Sci-Hub wiped from the Internet, but thus far their efforts have failed. While several of the site's domain names were suspended in recent weeks, it appears as if the controversy is only drawing more traffic. And with plenty of alternatives in hand, it's turning into a Pirate Bay-esque game of domain name Whack-a-Mole. Sci-Hub is often referred to as the “Pirate Bay of Science,” and this description has become more and more apt in recent weeks. Initially, the comparison was made to illustrate that Sci-Hub is used by researchers to download articles for free, much like the rest of the world uses The Pirate Bay to get free stuff. There are more parallels though. Increasingly, Sci-Hub has trouble keeping its domain names. Following two injunctions in the US, academic publishers now have court orders to compel domain registrars and registries to suspend Sci-Hub’s addresses. Although there is no such court order for The Pirate Bay, the notorious torrent site also has a long history of domain suspensions. Both sites appear to tackle the problem in a similar manner. They simply ignore all enforcement efforts and bypass them with new domains and other circumvention tools. They have several backup domains in place as well as unsuspendable .onion addresses, which are accessible on the Tor network. Since late November, a lot of Sci-Hub users have switched to Sci-Hub.bz when other domains were suspended. And, when the .bz domain was targeted a few days ago, they moved to different alternatives. It’s a continuous game of Whack-a-Mole that is hard to stop. Suspended… There’s another striking similarity between TPB and Sci-Hub. Unlike other pirate sites, their founders are both vocal. In the case of Sci-Hub this is Alexandra Elbakyan, a researcher born and graduated in Kazakhstan. She recently responded to people who had trouble accessing the site. “The site is working properly, but the capitalists have started blocking Sci-Hub domains, so the site may not be accessible at the regular addresses,” she wrote on VK. Instead of complaining, Elbakyan encouraged people to do some research of their own, as there are still plenty of alternative domains up and running. And indeed, at the time of writing Sci-hub.la, Sci-hub.tv, Sci-hub.tw, Sci-hub.hk, and others can be accessed without any hassle. While Sci-Hub’s classification as the “Pirate Bay of Science” is certainly warranted, there are also differences. The Pirate Bay was raided several times and the founders were criminally prosecuted. That’s not the case for Sci-Hub. But who knows what will happen next… https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-battles-pirate-bay-esque-domain-name-whack-a-mole-171216/

The FCC has repealed U.S. net neutrality rules. As a result of today's vote, Internet providers have the freedom to restrict, or charge for, access to certain sites and services if they please. This also means that BitTorrent throttling and blocking could become commonplace once again, as it was a decade ago. In recent months, millions of people have protested the FCC’s plan to repeal U.S. net neutrality rules, which were put in place by the Obama administration. However, an outpouring public outrage, critique from major tech companies, and even warnings from pioneers of the Internet, had no effect. Today the FCC voted to repeal the old rules, effectively ending net neutrality. Under the net neutrality rules that have been in effect during recent years, ISPs were specifically prohibited from blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization of “lawful” traffic. In addition, Internet providers could be regulated as carriers under Title II. Now that these rules have been repealed, Internet providers have more freedom to experiment with paid prioritization. Under the new guidelines, they can charge customers extra for access to some online services, or throttle certain types of traffic. Most critics of the repeal fear that, now that the old net neutrality rules are in the trash, ‘fast lanes’ for some services, and throttling for others, will become commonplace in the U.S. This could also mean that BitTorrent traffic becomes a target once again. After all, it was Comcast’s ‘secretive’ BitTorrent throttling that started the broader net neutrality debate, now ten years ago. Comcast’s throttling history is a sensitive issue, also for the company itself. Before the Obama-era net neutrality rules, the ISP vowed that it would no longer discriminate against specific traffic classes. Ahead of the FCC vote yesterday, it doubled down on this promise. “Despite repeated distortions and biased information, as well as misguided, inaccurate attacks from detractors, our Internet service is not going to change,” writesDavid Cohen, Comcast’s Chief Diversity Officer. “We have repeatedly stated, and reiterate today, that we do not and will not block, throttle, or discriminate against lawful content.” It’s worth highlighting the term “lawful” in the last sentence. It is by no means a promise that pirate sites won’t be blocked. As we’ve highlighted in the past, blocking pirate sites was already an option under the now-repealed rules. The massive copyright loophole made sure of that. Targeting all torrent traffic is even an option, in theory. That said, today’s FCC vote certainly makes it easier for ISPs to block or throttle BitTorrent traffic across the entire network. For the time being, however, there are no signs that any ISPs plan to do so. If they do, we will know soon enough. The FCC requires all ISPs to be transparent under the new plan. They have to disclose network management practices, blocking efforts, commercial prioritization, and the like. And with the current focus on net neutrality, ISPs are likely to tread carefully, or else they might just face an exodus of customers. https://torrentfreak.com/fcc-repeals-u-s-net-neutrality-rules-171214/

Google Play has rejected a popular BitTorrent client because it uses the word "BitTorrent" in the full description. Apparently, Google now sees references to an open source transfer protocol as a no-go, stating that BitTorrent is another brand. While BitTorrent Inc. had the term trademarked years ago, the company didn't ask Google to take this action. In recent years we’ve written several articles on Apple’s aversion to BitTorrent-related apps in the iOS store. Until this day, no fully-featured torrent client has managed to get listed in the store, at least not permanently but Google Play has been more welcoming. The popular app store for Android devices has had a nice collection of BitTorrent apps for years, including several well-known brands. Last weekend, however, the developers of the relatively new BitTorrent client BiglyBTlearned that the term “BitTorrent” is no longer allowed. When they pushed an update of their app on Google Play they were informed that their description violated the metadata policy. “I reviewed your app and had to reject it because it violates our metadata policy. The app’s full description mentions other brands: Bittorrent.” Play Store rejection Needless to say, the BiglyBT developers were astounded. The app is created by seasoned BitTorrent developers who previously worked on Azureus and Vuze. Since BitTorrent is the name of the transfer protocol their app is using, they expected no issues. Initially, this wasn’t the case. When the app was first submitted, Google didn’t flag the description as problematic, but something apparently changed. “Looks like either Google just newly considered ‘Bittorrent’ a brand, or Bittorrent Inc has decided to enforce their name. I guess it’s not good enough anymore that bittorrent is also the protocol name,” BiglyBT developer TuxPaper informed us. It could indeed have been possible that BitTorrent Inc, which owns the relevant trademark in the US, had started to enforce it. However, that’s not the case. The San Francisco company informs TorrentFreak that they haven’t asked Google to take any action. Interestingly, BitTorrent Inc.’s own uTorrent app also disappeared from Google’s app store for a few days last month, but it’s unclear to us why this was. The app eventually returned though, and there are also plenty of other apps with BitTorrent mentions on Google Play. The good news for BiglyBT’s developers is that their app was allowed back on Google Play after they changed all “BitTorrent” mentions to “torrent.” Google rejections can happen automatically or after a manual review. If the former applies in this case, other developers may face the same issue in the future. “If it’s an automated one, then other Bittorrent Apps will also be getting this rejection the next time they update their app or play metadata,” TuxPaper notes. TorrentFreak reached out to Google for a comment on the situation but a few days have passed without a reply. So for now, it remains a mystery why Google is taking action against “BitTorrent,” and on what grounds. https://torrentfreak.com/google-play-store-rejects-app-for-using-the-word-bittorrent-171213/

A series of documents released by the US Department of State have revealed how Sweden was pressed to take action against The Pirate Bay. According to US officials, this directly led to law enforcement's decision to shut down the torrent site more than ten years ago. Sweden, meanwhile, avoided a spot on the feared US Trade Representative's 301 Watch List. It’s well known that the US Government is actively involved in copyright enforcement efforts around the globe. In some countries they’ve actively helped write copyright law. Elsewhere, U.S. authorities provide concrete suggestions for improvement, including in Sweden. After The Pirate Bay was raided for the first time, more than ten years ago, the media highlighted that the U.S. Government and Hollywood pulled strings behind the scenes. However, little was known about what this actually entailed. Today we can provide more context, thanks to a Freedom of Information request that was sent to the U.S. Department of State. While the events happened a decade ago, they show how action against The Pirate Bay was discussed at the highest political level. The trail starts with a cable sent from the US Embassy in Sweden to Washington in November 2005. This is roughly six months before the Pirate Bay raid, which eventually resulted in criminal convictions for four men connected to the site. The Embassy writes that Hollywood’s MPAA and the local Anti-Piracy Bureau (APB) met with US Ambassador Bivins and, separately, with Swedish State Secretary of Justice at the time, Dan Eliasson. The Pirate Bay issue was at the top of the agenda during these meetings. “The MPA is particularly concerned about PirateBay, the world‘s largest Torrent file-sharing tracker. According to the MPA and based on Embassy’s follow-up discussions, the Justice Ministry is very interested in a constructive dialogue with the US. on these concerns,” the cable reads. “Embassy understands that State and Commerce officials have also met with Swedish officials in Washington on the same concern,” it adds, with the Embassy requesting further “guidance” from Washington. The document adds that there has been some movement on the piracy enforcement front in Sweden, with two legal cases pending. However, those were not the targets Hollywood was looking for. “We have yet to see a ‘big fish’ tried – something the MPA badly wants to see, particularly in light of the fact that Sweden hosts the largest Bit Torrent file-sharing tracker in the world, ‘Pirate-Bay’, which openly flaunts IPR,” the cable writer comments. Interestingly, Hollywood and the authorities were aware of the fact that a case against The Pirate Bay wouldn’t be an easy one. The site never stored any infringing material directly and had proper legal backing, the cable points out. “However, it is not clear to us what constraints Sweden and even U.S. authorities would be under in pursuing a case like this when the site is legally well advised and studiously avoids storing any copyrighted material.” At the time there were some rumors that Sweden would be placed on the US Trade Representative’s 301 Watch List. This could possibly result in negative trade implications. However, in a cable written April 2006, the US Embassy in Sweden was informed that, while there were concerns, it would not be listed. Not yet at least. “We understand that a specialized organization for enforcement against Internet piracy currently is under consideration,” the cable reads, while mentioning The Pirate Bay once again. “We are encouraged by reports of ongoing efforts related to Internet piracy in Sweden; however, the increase in Pirate Bay peers, up 74 percent in just the last 7 months, demonstrates the urgent need to step up current efforts dramatically to address this issue in the near term.” Then the ‘inevitable’ happened. On May 31, 2006, The Pirate Bay was raided by 65 Swedish police officers. They entered a datacenter in Stockholm with instructions to shut down the Pirate Bay’s servers and collect vital evidence. A few weeks after the raid, the Embassy sent another cable to Washington informing the homefront on the apparent success of their efforts. “Starting with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) visit to post last fall, Embassy Stockholm has engaged intensely with our Swedish interlocutors in efforts to improve IPR enforcement, in particular with regard to Internet piracy. The actions on May 31 thus mark a significant victory for our IPR efforts.” The US clearly saw a link between their diplomatic maneuvering and the Pirate Bay raid. This link was also brought up in the media at the time, with news reports citing sources claiming that Justice Minister Bodström and his State Secretary Dan Eliasson ordered the police raid under US pressure. Interestingly, both Bodström and Eliasson denied any direct involvement of the Justice Ministry with the work of the police and prosecutors in the Pirate Bay case. While the cables make it very clear that the US wanted The Pirate Bay gone, the Embassy said that the raid went beyond their expectations, suggesting they were not directly involved. The pressure was clearly there though. In future cables, the Pirate Bay case was often mentioned, with regular updates on the media backlash and progress in the criminal investigation. According to the US Embassy in Sweden, shutting down The Pirate Bay “should not be underestimated as a sign of [Sweden’s] willingness to take action and their position against illegal piracy.” The cables also make clear that in Washington, the Pirate Bay raid was celebrated as a victory that was directly triggered by US diplomacy. In a cable sent in April 2007, the Embassy nominated one of its employees, whose name is redacted, for the State Department’s Foreign Service National (FSN) of the year award. Again, The Pirate Bay case was brought up. “REDACTED has spearheaded-work on Internet piracy enforcement in Sweden. The issue is particularly acute here as Sweden was home to the largest Internet piracy site (Pirate Bay) in the world. The work has involved extensive contacts with the Ministry of Justice, the Motion Picture Agency, as well as the Anti-Piracy Bureau.” The employee is praised for her diplomatic efforts behind the scenes which directly led to the decision to raid The Pirate Bay, the Embassy writes. “REDACTED skillful outreach directly led to a bold decision by Swedish law enforcement authorities to raid Pirate Bay and shut it down. This was recognized as a major achievement in Washington in furthering U.S. efforts to combat Internet piracy worldwide.” Despite US officials taking credit for the Pirate Bay raid, it didn’t turn out to be the success they had hoped for. The notorious torrent site was back online after three days, “flaunting IPR” bolder and braver than ever before. The press coverage was largely unfavorable towards the US Government and Hollywood, while the people behind the site were seen as heroes by many. The US Embassy in Sweden was well aware of the delicate situation but kept pushing for stronger copyright measures behind the scenes. This time even further in the background than before. “The Pirate Bay raid was portrayed as caving to USG pressure. The delicate situation made it difficult, if not counter-productive, for the Embassy to play a public role on IPR issues. Behind the scenes, the Embassy has worked well with all stakeholders,” Washington was informed February 2008. At the time, Sweden was being considered for the 301 Watch List once again. The Embassy pointed out that, given the public suspicion, this could backfire. The other option was to keep a potential watch list entry as a “looming threat” while Sweden implements the changes they’re looking for. “The USG [US Govt] has to carefully determine which course of action will be the most productive; (1) a Watch-Listing with potentially negative repercussions in future GOS [Swedish Govt.] cooperation and in the public eye; or (2) continuing to exercise influence behind the scenes, with a potential Watch-Listing looming in the background as a continued threat.” As our earlier coverage has shown, Sweden then went on to implement a list of copyright changes which also happened to be proposed by US copyright holders. Needless to say, Sweden was never placed on the US Trade Representative’s 301 Watch List. TorrentFreak spoke with Peter Sunde, one of the Pirate Bay co-founders who was indicted after the raid, and who has since served a jail sentence for his involvement with the site. He is happy to see the new information being released. This is yet more confirmation of what he and many others have known for quite some time. While former Swedish State Secretary of Justice Dan Eliasson, who now happens to be the national police commissioner, denied any direct orders from the Justice Ministry, it’s clear that US pressure made an impact. “It’s been an open secret that the USG was behind the unlawful raid against The Pirate Bay, and exerting their power with threats against Sweden like this. It’s nice to see these documents coming up, interestingly enough from the most secretive of governments,” he says. There is still a lot of information missing though. The documents mention a fifth person that was supposed to be indicted, for example, which is completely new information. Sunde hopes that Sweden will open up its secret archives as well. “I’m hoping that Sweden will not follow up and release the 747 documents they’ve classified as secret regarding this affair. The Minister of Justice at the time, Thomas Bodström, said that he would put all the cards on the table so the public would now what happened, but then classified these 747 documents as secret. “Sweden has a proud history of transparency, celebrating 250 years of freedom of the press this year, and it’s an open sore that these documents are being held as classified,” Sunde adds. — The relevant responses to the Freedom of Information request, which was submitted by Rachael Tackett and shared with TorrentFreak, are available here. https://torrentfreak.com/how-the-us-pushed-sweden-to-take-down-the-pirate-bay-171212/

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested by police in France for running a pirate TV service. The ARTV website and its associated Android app offered 176 channels belonging to Canal +, M6, TF1 Group, France Télévision Group, Paramount, Disney, and FOX. The teenager now faces up to three years in prison and a 300,000 euro fine. After more than a decade and a half in existence, public pirate sites, services, and apps remain a thorn in the side of entertainment industry groups who are determined to close them down. That trend continued last week when French anti-piracy group ALPA teamed up with police in the Bordeaux region to raid and arrest the founder and administrator of piracy service ARTV. According to the anti-piracy group, the ARTV.watch website first appeared during April 2017 but quickly grew to become a significant source of streaming TV piracy. Every month the site had around 150,000 visitors and in less than eight months amassed 800,000 registered users. “Artv.watch was a public site offering live access to 176 free and paid French TV channels that are members of ALPA: Canal + Group, M6 Group, TF1 Group, France Télévision Group, Paramount, Disney, and FOX. Other thematic and sports channels were broadcast,” an ALPA statement reads. This significant offering was reportedly lucrative for the site’s operator. While probably best taken with a grain of salt, ALPA estimates the site generated around 3,000 euros per month from advertising revenue. That’s a decent amount for anyone but even more so when one learns that ARTV’s former operator is just 16 years old. “ARTV.WATCH it’s over. ARTV is now closed for legal reasons. Thank you for your understanding! The site was indeed illegal,” a notice on the site now reads. “Thank you all for this experience that I have acquired in this project. And thanks to you who have believed in me.” Closure formalities aside, ARTV’s founder also has a message for anyone else considering launching a similar platform. “Notice to anyone wanting to do a site of the same kind, I strongly advise against it. On the criminal side, the punishment can go up to three years of imprisonment and a 300,000 euro fine. If [individual] complaints of channels (or productions) are filed against you, it will be more complicated to determine,” ARTV’s owner warns. ALPA says that in addition to closing down the site, ARTV’s owner also deactivated the site’s Android app, which had been available for download on Google Play. The anti-piracy group adds that this action against IPTV and live streaming was a first in France. For anyone who speaks French, the 16-year-old has published a video on YouTube talking about his predicament. https://torrentfreak.com/16-year-old-boy-arrested-for-running-pirate-tv-service-171211/

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Dunkirk' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle'. 'Mother!' completes the top three. This week we have four newcomers in our chart. Dunkirk is the most downloaded movie. 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 (…) Dunkirk 8.3 / trailer 2 (1) Kingsman: The Golden Circle 7.2 / trailer 3 (…) Mother! 7.0 / trailer 4 (2) The Foreigner 7.2 / trailer 5 (3) American Assassin 6.3 / trailer 6 (…) American Made 7.2 / trailer 7 (5) Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets 6.7 / trailer 8 (7) Justice League (HDTS) 7.2 / trailer 9 (…) Coco (HDTS) 8.9 / trailer 10 (9) Thor Ragnarok (HDTS/Cam) 8.2 / trailer

Popular torrent site ExtraTorrent is no more, but several torrent distribution groups carrying its name are still very much alive. ETTV and ETHD torrents are shared by millions of people every week, and they recently launched a new brand, ETMovies. Today, we ask the team how it all got started and where things go from here. Earlier this year, the torrent community was hit hard when another major torrent site suddenly shut its doors. Just a few months after celebrating its tenth anniversary, ExtraTorrent’s operator threw in the towel. While an official explanation was never provided, it’s likely that he was pressed to make this decision. The ExtraTorrent site was a safe harbor for millions of regular users, who became homeless overnight. But it was more than that. It was also the birth ground of several popular releasers and distribution groups. ETTV and ETHD turned into well-known brands themselves. While the ET is derived from ExtraTorrent, the groups have shared TV and movie torrents on several other large torrent sites, and they still do. They even have their own site now. With millions of people sharing their uploads every week, they’ve become icons and heroes to many. But how did this all come to be? We sat down with the team, virtually, to find out more. “The idea for ettv/ethd was brought up by ExtraTorrent users,” the ETTV team says. There was demand for a new group that would upload scene releases faster than the original EZTV, which was the dominant TV-torrent distribution group around 2011, when it all started. “At the time the real EZTV was still active. They released stuff hours after it was released from the scene, leaving sites to wait very long for shows to arrive in public. In no way was ettv intended for competitive purposes. We had a lot of respect for Nova and the original EZTV operators.” While ETTV is regularly referred to as a “group,” it was a one-person operation initially. Just a guy with a seedbox, grabbing scene releases and posting them on torrent sites. It didn’t take long before people got wind of the new distribution ‘group,’ and interest for the torrents quickly exploded. This meant that a single seedbox was no longer sufficient, but help was not far away. “It started off with one operator and a seedbox, but it became popular too fast. That’s when former ExtraTorrent owners stepped in to give ETTV the support and funding it needed to keep the story going.” One of the earliest ETTV uploads on ExtraTorrent In addition to the available disk space and bandwidth, the team itself expanded as well. At its height, a handful of people were working on the group. However, when things became more and more automated this number reduced again. What many people don’t realize is that ETTV and ETHD are mostly run by lines of code. The entire distribution process is automated and requires minimal intervention from the people behind it. “Ettv/Ethd is a bot, it doesn’t require human attention. It grabs what you tell the script to,” the team tells us. The bot is set up to grab the latest copies of predefined shows from private servers where the latest scene release are posted. These are transferred to the seedbox and the torrents are then pushed out to the public – on ETTV.tv, but also on The Pirate Bay and elsewhere. Everything is automated. Even most of the maintenance is taken care of by the ‘bot’ itself. When disk space is running out older content is purged, allowing fresh releases to come through. “The only persons involve with the bots are the bill payers of our new home ettv.tv. All they do check bot logs to see if it has any errors and correct them,” the team explains. One problem that couldn’t be easily solved with some code was the shutdown of ExtraTorrent. While the bills for the seedboxes were paid in advance until the end of 2017, the groups had to find a new home. “The shutdown of ExtraTorrent didn’t affect the bots from running, it just left ettv/ethd homeless and caused fans to lose their way trying to find us. Not many knew where else we uploaded or didn’t like the other sites we uploaded to.” After a few months had passed it became clear that they were not going anywhere. Quite the contrary, they started their very own site, ETTV.tv, where all the latest releases are published. ETTV.tv In the near future, the team will focus on turning the site into a new home for its followers. Just a few weeks ago it launched a new release “tag,” ETMovies, which specializes in lower resolution films with a smaller file size, for example. “We recently introduced ETMovies which is basically for SD Movies, other than that the only plan ettv/ethd has is to give a home to the members that suffered from the sudden shut down of ExtraTorrent.” Just this week, the site also expanded its reach by adding new categories such as music, games, software, and Books, where approved uploaders will publish content. While they are doing their best to keep the site up and running, it’s not a given that ETTV will be around forever. As long as there are plenty of funds and no concrete legal pressure they might. But if recent history has shown us anything, it’s that there are no guarantees. “No one is here seeking to be a millionaire, if the traffic pays the bills we keep going, if not then all we can say is (sorry we tried) we will not be the heroes that saved the day. “Again and again, the troublesome history of torrent sites is clear. It’s a war no site owner can win. If we are ever in danger, we will choose freedom. It’s not like followers can bail you out if the worst were to happen,” the ETTV team concludes. For now, however, the bot keeps on running. https://torrentfreak.com/ettv-how-an-upload-bot-became-a-pirate-hero-171210/

A group of major Hollywood studios plus Amazon and Netflix have asked a California court to halt the infringing activities of TickBox TV, a Kodi-powered streaming device. As part of their ongoing lawsuit, the companies request an injunction requiring Tickbox to remove infringing add-ons and for existing devices to be seized. 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. According to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership between Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies, Tickbox TV is one of these bad actors. Earlier this 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 come 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. “TickBox promotes and distributes TickBox TV for infringing use, and that is exactly the result of its use,” they told court this week. After the complaint was filed in October, Tickbox made some cosmetic changes to the site, removing some allegedly inducing language. The streaming devices are still for sale, however, but not for long if it’s up to the media giants. This week ACE submitted a request for a preliminary injunction to the court, hoping to stop Tickbox’s sales activities. “TickBox is intentionally inducing infringement, pure and simple. Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court enter a preliminary injunction that requires TickBox to halt its flagrantly illegal conduct immediately,” they write in their application. The companies explain that that since Tickbox is causing irreparable harm, all existing devices should be impounded. “[A]ll TickBox TV devices in the possession of TickBox and all of its officers, directors, agents, servants, and employees, and all persons in active concert or participation or in privity with any of them are to be impounded and shall be retained by Defendant until further order of the Court,” the proposed order reads. In addition, Tickbox should push out a software update which remove all infringing add-ons from the devices that were previously sold. “TickBox shall, via software update, remove from all distributed TickBox TV devices all Kodi ‘Themes,’ ‘Builds,’ ‘Addons,’ or any other software that facilitates the infringing public performances of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works.” Among others, the list of allegedly infringing add-ons and themes includes Spinz, Lodi Black, Stream on Fire, Wookie, Aqua, CMM, Spanish Quasar, Paradox, Covenant, Elysium, UK Turk, Gurzil, Maverick, and Poseidon. The filing shows that ACE is serious about its efforts to stop the sale of these type of streaming devices. Tickbox has yet to reply to the original complaint or the injunction request. While this is the first US lawsuit of its kind, the anti-piracy conglomerate has been rather active in recent weeks. The group has successfully pressured several addon developers to quit and has been involved in enforcement actions around the globe. — A copy of the proposed preliminary injunction is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-and-netflix-ask-court-to-seize-tickbox-streaming-devices-171209/