An ISP that won a prolonged legal battle against a Hollywood-affiliated anti-piracy group has rejected plans to introduce three strikes and site blocking. Today, ISP iiNet is also urging citizens to pressure the government and fight back against the "foreign interests" attempting to dictate Australian policy. pirate-cardLast month Australia’s Attorney-General George Brandis labeled his citizens the worst pirates on the planet and vowed to help content holders turn that position around. But Brandis’ industry-leaning position soon became clear as he repeatedly refused to answer questions as to whether he’d properly consulted with consumer groups. Brandis has, however, consulted deeply with the entertainment industries. His proposals for solving the piracy issue are straight out of the MPAA and RIAA cookbook – three strikes and account terminations for errant Internet users plus ISP blockades of torrent and similar sites. The reason why the debate over these measures has dragged on so long is down to the defeat of the studios in their legal battle against ISP iiNet. That case failed to render the ISP responsible for the actions of its subscribers and ever since iiNet has provided the most vocal opposition to tough anti-piracy proposals. Today, iiNet Chief Regulatory Officer Steve Dalby underlined that stance with a call for consumers to fight back against “foreign interests.” “The Hollywood Studios have been relentlessly lobbying the Australian Government on a range of heavy-handed solutions, from a ‘three strikes’ proposal, through to website filtering – none of which take consumers’ interests into account,” Dalby explains. On three strikes, Dalby notes that even though customers will be expected to pick up the bill for its introduction, there’s no evidence that these schemes have curtailed piracy or increased sales in any other country. “This leaves us asking why Hollywood might think this approach would work in Australia when it doesn’t even work in their own patch,” he says. While Dalby believes that the studios’ imposition of ‘three-strikes’ will do little to solve the problem, his opposition to overseas interference is perhaps most visible in his attitudes towards site blocking. “Why would the Australian government let a foreign company dictate which websites our citizens can access? Are our legislators captured by foreign interests? Should we allow American commercial interest to dictate Australian national policy?” he questions. Perhaps inevitably, Dalby says that piracy has only blossomed in Australia due to a failure to serve the market, and the studios must address that first. “Copyright holders have shown us that they’re not interested in new models for Australians, despite the success of services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu in the USA,” he explains. “The pattern of US traffic Internet now depends on what content is made available via legitimate distribution channels like Netflix, rather than on the Pirate Bay. Giving your competitor a ten-year head start distributing a ‘free’ alternative is pretty stupid. No wonder the content industry is uncompetitive, with that attitude.” Demand for legal content exists, Dalby says, but only if consumers aren’t subjected to release delays and uncompetitive pricing. “And that’s the fundamental difference between iiNet and the rights holders. They want to tackle how customers are pirating content. We want them to look at why, and then move forward, addressing the cause, not the symptom,” he says. Alongside calls for Australians to lobby their MPs, Dalby says he hopes that Hollywood and the government decide to take a more positive approach to solving the problem. “Until that time, we’ll continue to push for a better future for Australian content users, one removed from the constraints being discussed in Canberra,” he concludes. Dalby’s attack on the proposals currently on the table shows that a voluntary agreement between iiNet and rightsholders is as far away as ever, an indication that the years-long battle is far from over.

The Alamo Drafthouse movie theater chain has banned Google Glass on fears they could be used for piracy. The company's CEO says a ban has been under consideration for some time, but now that the devices are being brought into their premises, the time is now right to permanently ban their active use in screenings. Ever since the concept became public there have been fears over potential misuse of Google Glass. The advent of the wearable computer has sparked privacy fears and perhaps unsurprisingly, concerns that it could be used for piracy. Just this January the FBI dragged a man from a movie theater in Columbus, Ohio, after theater staff presumed his wearing of Google Glass was a sign that he was engaged in camcorder piracy. While it’s possible the device could be put to that use, it’s now less likely that patrons of the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater chain will be able to do so without being noticed. Speaking with Deadline, company CEO and founder Tim League says the time is now right to exclude the active use of Glass completely. “We’ve been talking about this potential ban for over a year,” League said. “Google Glass did some early demos here in Austin and I tried them out personally. At that time, I recognized the potential piracy problem that they present for cinemas. I decided to put off a decision until we started seeing them in the theater, and that started happening this month.” According to League, people won’t be forbidden from bringing Google Glass onto the company’s premises, nor will they be banned from wearing the devices. Only when the devices are switched on will there be a problem. “Google Glass is officially banned from drafthouse auditoriums once lights dim for trailers,” League explained yesterday. Asked whether people could use them with corrective lenses, League said that discretion would be used. “It will be case by case, but if it is clear when they are on, clear when they are off, will likely be OK,” he said. But despite the theater chain’s apparent flexibility towards the non-active use of the device, the ban does seem to go further than the official stance taken by the MPAA following the earlier Ohio incident. “Google Glass is an incredible innovation in the mobile sphere, and we have seen no proof that it is currently a significant threat that could result in content theft,” the MPAA said in a statement. However, recording a movie in a theater remains a criminal offense in the United States, so the decision as to whether a crime has been committed will be the decision of law enforcement officers called to any ‘camming’ incident. Given then the MPAA’s statement, it will be interesting to see if the studios will encourage the police to pursue cases against future Google Glass users.

The RIAA's latest tax filings reveal that the anti-piracy group's revenue has hit a record low as membership dues from record labels continue to decline. But despite the downward trend RIAA CEO Cary Sherman received nearly $500,000 in bonuses in addition to his million dollar salary. riaa-logoThe RIAA has submitted its latest tax filing to the IRS, covering the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, which provides some background on how the organization is faring. Continuing the trend from recent years the total revenue of the anti-piracy group dropped once again, to $24.2 million. This is a record low in recent history, and down more than 50% compared to four years ago. The drop is a direct result of the decrease in membership dues the RIAA receives from the record labels, which makes up almost its entire budget. Apparently the labels have decided to put less money into anti-piracy efforts, or stop the payments altogether. On the plus side there is a small amount of income from anti-piracy settlements, including that obtained through the Limewire lawsuit. In 2012/2013 the “anti-piracy restitution” proceeds were $170,880, which is relatively low considering that the Limewire case alone was settled for $105 million. Thanks to continuing employee cutbacks and lower legal fees the RIAA is still financially healthy. The reported loss over the reported year was $170,000, but this is easily covered by the $14 million in total assets. The organization employed 58 people in 2012 and the total salary costs amounted to $11.6 million. Previously, the music industry group had well over 100 employees. The RIAA’s Washington Office riaa-office1 The RIAA’s chief executive Cary Sherman is the highest paid employee with a salary of just over a million dollars. In addition, the RIAA boss received several bonuses which totaled $498,000. Also high up the payment roster are Senior Executive Vice President Mitch Glazier, General Counsel Steve Marks and Executive Vice President International Neil Turkewitz, making over half a million dollars each. Looking at other costs we see that the money spent on lobbying efforts remains static at roughly $2 million. Legal fees are just under $1 million, which is about the same as last year. However, four years ago legal fees were a massive $16 million, making the cutback in legal efforts one of the main cost savers. While the RIAA’s revenue continues to drop, the overall decline is relatively modest when compared to last year. This suggests that the group has more or less finished its financial reorganization, and that the RIAA will now go forward with fewer lawsuits and employees. The anti-piracy group may have halved in size over the last four years, which is significant, but there are no signs that it will disband entirely. The full 2012/2013 filing, obtained by TorrentFreak, is available here.

I have 3tb external harddrive attached to my asus rt66u router plus 600gb connected to my tv both are nearly full :wacko: :D

Welcome to the fold enjoy your time here ant questions just ask :)​

Welcome to the fold enjoy your time here any questions just ask :)​

thanks & rep added pm sent :)

would love a formula monkey account please :)

I have a few invites pm sent mate ;)

sounds good Ethan will give them a try :)

Thanks to the "six strikes" program, leading ISPs in the U.S. now hold databases containing allegations of infringement against their customers. That data was supposed to be private, but now the most prolific filer of copyright lawsuits in the U.S. is trying to obtain information from Comcast in order to build a case against an alleged porn pirate. comcastIn just a few days time the controversial Copyright Alert System (CAS) will have been operational for 15 months. A cornerstone of the system sees the major labels and movie studios sending notices of infringement to ISPs which they in turn forward to their subscribers. Records of these notices are then held in a database, which copyright holders in the six-strike scheme may subsequently use in legal action, if they feel that is appropriate. “The Content Owner Representatives [MPAA / RIAA] or any other member of the Participating Content Owners Group may use such reports or data as the basis for seeking a Subscriber’s identity through a subpoena or order or other lawful process,” the agreement reads. Trouble is, any data on file is at risk of being accessed by a third party if they can convince a judge they have good reason to obtain it. And that’s exactly what the largest filer of copyright complaints in the United States is now attempting to do. Malibu Media is well-known as a filer of many lawsuits against alleged file-sharers. Indeed, earlier this week the company was featured in an article which confirmed its status as the most prolific filer of copyright lawsuits in the entire United States. In a case which has been documented by FightCopyrightTrolls since its initial February 2013 filing, Malibu has been struggling to pin an infringement on Kelley Tashiro, a middle-aged female nurse from Indianapolis. Faced with an uphill battle, Malibu has now turned to Tashiro’s ISP, Comcast, to find out what information it holds on her. Perhaps inevitably, Malibu is attempting to find out whether or not the IP address allocated to Tashiro has ever been subject to infringement allegations by other copyright holders. In addition to details of any DMCA notices forwarded, Malibu has asked a judge to order the release of data being held as part of the Copyright Alerts System. “DMCA notices and six strike notices are relevant because these notices may prove a pattern of infringement or notice that infringement is occurring or both,” Malibu writes in its motion. In an indication of just how desperate Malibu has become, the company also wants details of Tashiro’s bandwidth consumption, as if that somehow indicates whether she is an infringer or not. “Bandwidth usage is relevant because people who are heavy BitTorrent users use significantly more bandwidth than normal internet users,” the company’s sweeping generalization reads. In summary, Malibu points out to the court that without this and other items of information from Comcast they have no chance of winning the case, another indication of how flimsy IP address-only evidence is now being viewed. Whether Comcast will comply or not remains to be seen. A similar case in April 2013 which demanded information from Verizon was subsequently dropped.

German researchers have noticed an alarming development in the BitTorrent ecosystem. Since last week, the number of users on the BitTorrent DHT has doubled in size. The exact reason for the increase hasn't been confirmed, but all signs point to a bug in a recent uTorrent release. Day in and day out dozens of millions of people use BitTorrent to share files online. Most of these transfers are coordinated by public trackers such as OpenBitTorrent, but torrents also work without trackers thanks to Mainline DHT. The BitTorrent Mainline DHT creates a network of users through which people can find peers sharing the same file. This makes the BitTorrent ecosystem more stable, especially since public trackers tend to go offline every now and then. Since it was first introduced nearly a decade ago the BitTorrent DHT has been growing steadily. However, this changed last week when researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology noticed a dramatic increase in peers. “Since 2010, the DHT size has been relatively stable. It grew from 6 million to around 10 million, but that’s it,” says Konrad Jünemann, researcher of the Decentralized Systems and Network Services research group. “This suddenly changed last week we saw a sudden increase in participating peers. I double checked our measurement engine, but everything seems to be fine, so the DHT was indeed growing,” he adds. As it turns out, the number of peers in the DHT had more than doubled in a few days. The graph below shows this surge in peers as observed by the German research group. dhtSize_Since_2014-03-14 (2) Initially the researchers were clueless about the sudden increase. There were a few possible explanations, such as malware distributors using the network, or changes in a popular BitTorrent client for example. After contacting several developers, they learned that the latter was the most plausible option. Arvid Norberg, one of the developers of BitTorrent’s uTorrent client, explained that a recent change in client may have resulted in a bug which resulted in “flapping” node IDs. “We have some indications that this is caused by an issue in our node-ID function. We have had a mechanism to tie the node ID to one’s external IP address. We’ve had this feature for a while but made some tweaks to it recently,” Norberg wrote on a mailing list. If this is indeed the case, then it could cause serious performance issues for the DHT, as people would get IP-addresses that are no longer online. Currently, however, there is no evidence that this is indeed the case. TorrentFreak asked BitTorrent Inc. for more details early this week, but this far our inquiries remained unanswered. The same is true for a bug report from a user in the support forums. Perhaps the mystery will be solved in the days to come.

Bogus copyright claims on YouTube are getting more and more prevalent, but they only get exposure when they do damage to high-profile targets. Michael Tiemann is the Chief of Open Source Affairs at Redhat Inc. and apparently he can't use Creative Commons music in his uploads without being bombarded with copyright claims. tiemannAs the largest user-generated content site, YouTube employs ContentID, a system that scans uploads and compares them to a list of works in its databases. If a match is found YouTube can take a variety of actions, from disabling the upload entirely to allowing third-party rightsholders to monetize the content. Sadly, the system is not foolproof, especially when it is fed false data. Only recently a user was hit with bogus claims from a digital distributor after they wrongly claimed monetization rights over a public domain JFK speech. Yesterday the scattergun approach to claiming rights on content people simply don’t own hit an inappropriate target, to say the least. Michael Tiemann is Vice President of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat Inc, the 6,000 employee giant behind many open source enterprise products including Red Hat Linux. Apparently, even a man with Tiemann’s credentials and copyright awareness can’t escape bogus YouTube claims. After creating a video recently, Tiemann decided to set it to music. Quite appropriately he headed off to ccMixter, a site which originated as a Creative Commons site a decade ago and one which provides samples, remixes and a cappella tracks under Creative Commons licenses. sunrayTiemann selected Sunray, a track available under a CC-BY-NC 3.0 Creative Commons license, married it to his video and uploaded it to YouTube. Things didn’t go well. Straight after the upload a user called “RouteNote” claimed copyright ownership over Tiemann’s video. He filed an immediate dispute and RouteNote promptly dropped the claim. But then things started to get silly. “I posted new versions of the video that were shorter, but using the same music, and lo, I received several more claims from routenote (and others!),” Tiemann explains. “I disputed those, which routenote initially released. But here’s where things are broken: less than a day after they released the claim, they filed a new claim, against the same song, in the same video.” So who are RouteNote? The YouTube user account is linked to a network of 53 channels totaling 21,717,873 views. It links to RouteNote.com, a company offering digital distribution services. “RouteNote is the leading digital music distributor in the UK” the company claims. TorrentFreak contacted RouteNote to find out why they’re plaguing Tiemann, but at the time of publication we’ve received no response. But for the Red Hat Open Source chief, however, the nightmare continues. “In the mean time, others have filed claims against that song, which I have disputed, and some of those others have released their claims. They have subsequently filed claims against the new versions of the video that contain the same songs,” Tiemann explains. Making matters worse, AdRev, a company that claims to be “the leading ContentID and Network partner on YouTube”, has also claimed copyright over Tiemann’s upload. But while RouteNote initially dropped their claims, AdRev have not. “Another entity, AdRev, has rejected my dispute, despite me providing the URL to my source material,” Tiemann explains. For AdRev, complaints about their copyright claims are nothing new. Their Twitter account is littered with questions about why they are monetizing other people’s content or having strikes placed on their YouTube accounts. In this instance a problem took more than a month to sort out. Since AdRev rejected his dispute Tiemann now needs to appeal, but as this exchange shows, the company is not initially responsive. adrev1 Add the risk of getting a YouTube account strike if it all goes bad, Tiemann wonders what effect this is having on creators. “So now I need to file an appeal, which puts my account at risk of a copyright strike. How many others have abandoned the fight at this point? How many Creative Commons artists are seeing their works abandoned because of this bad behavior on the YouTube frontier?” While alleged infringers are quick to be punished by the YouTube system, there is no come back on those making the erroneous complaints. This is something that YouTube definitely needs to address. “Banks got into a lot of trouble for robo-signing mortgages. I think that all this robo-enforcement of copyright is going to end badly for everybody, too,” Tiemann concludes.

After a rival group beat them to the release of a new game, this week legendary crackers/pirates Skidrow complained that their work had been 'pirated'. While that's fairly ironic in itself, the group went on to reveal some of the reasons why it doesn't protect its code. Just like its DRM counterpart, Skidrow 'piracy' protection causes difficulties for end users. warezIt’s very common for the entertainment industries to get their collective undergarments in a twist over piracy, so it makes an interesting change to see the same kinds of emotions spill over onto the other side of the piracy fence. It all began a couple of weeks ago with the release of the Redlynx / Ubisoft motorcross game Trials Fusion. Released on all the top platforms mid April, the race was immediately on for a so-called ‘Scene’ group to remove its copy protection and release a pirated version. On April 16 the group ‘MoNGoLS’ released the game on XBox 360 and eight days later a group called ‘CODEX’ released the Windows version. Scene records show that CODEX have only been around since February this year yet they managed to beat other leading groups on this particular release. Was that due to them being clever and working hard, or was there another explanation? According to one of the most famous cracking/piracy groups on the Internet, CODEX cheated their way to the win. Skidrow is one of the most famous groups around and is responsible for the cracking and release of hundreds of games over the years. On April 27, three days after the CODEX release of Trials Fusion, Skidrow released their own version. Then, the day after, revealed why that had been necessary. According to Skidrow, CODEX had – shock, horror – PIRATED Skidrow’s work. “While looking inside their emulation code, we discovered something that was about to shock us completely,” Skidrow explained in an announcement this week. “It was OUR work, OUR emulator.” But how could Skidrow be so sure? Apparently the group employs rudimentary watermarking. “CODEX must be stupid to think that we don’t mark our code, but we had it clean on our screens, that CODEX are thieves of our Ubisoft emu. 99 percent of all their API calls in the code are identical with ours.” Just to be sure, Skidrow say they also plant “several stealth API calls, that identify and tag” their work. Those were apparently found inside CODEX emulation DLLs. For those who understand it, the proof is apparently revealed in the image below. CODEX “[The image] shows the original function written by the coder, using a global variable for another function. Basically, the way the coder wrote the API to set the flag is unique, and [this is] simply copy and paste of our code by CODEX,” Skidrow say. But while the irony of one group complaining about the pirating (or plagiarizing) of another’s work is pretty obvious, this week Skidrow revealed something else of interest. The group said that while previously it had taken measures to protect its cracks and emulators and obfuscate their code, it had decided to stop doing so when the code got in the way of enjoying the release. “In the past we used to protect our creations, but lately we have found out that even the most functional [encryption] tools have certain limits when it comes to preventing them from stealing CPU resources,” Skidrow revealed. “Furthermore we have noticed that some people that use our releases, sometimes have issues with our work being notified as dangerous, when they run them on machines with certain antivirus, spam, spyware programs etc. Therefore we have decided to let our work, which is OUR work, be as clean and direct as you can get it.” So there you have it. Even the swarthiest of game pirates get upset when people “steal” their code, and not even leading experts in consumer DRM cracking can get their own ‘DRM’ working without negatively affecting the gaming experience. Intriguing indeed…..

In an ongoing battle between the makers of the B-movie Elf-Man and an alleged copyright infringer, the defendant's attorney has raised questions about the evidence provided by the tracking outfit. Among other issues, there are doubts whether the German-based company has the proper paperwork to operate as a private investigator. elf-manMass-piracy lawsuits have been dragging on for years in the US, involving hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders. All of these cases are initiated with an IP address as the main piece of evidence. This address is usually collected by a file-sharing monitoring company using software to connect to the BitTorrent swarm where the infringing files are shared. A common problem with this evidence is that it generally can’t identify a movie pirate. In fact, some evidence gathering techniques are so sloppy that it’s not even possible to confirm whether the ISP account connected to the IP-address was actively sharing the pirated file in question. This issue has also been brought to the attention of the court in the ongoing case between the “Elf-Man” movie studio and Ryan Lamberson. The counsel of Lamberson has been trying to get more information on how the “investigators” gathered their evidence, but thus far without result. This week the attorney submitted a motion to compel, hoping that the court would order the movie studio to have the German-based Michael Patzer and Daniel Macek testify in Spokane, Washington, so they can answer crucial questions about evidence collection. Among other things, the defendant would like to know how the tracking outfit can be so sure that the IP-address wasn’t spoofed, and how they know that the defendant was the one who used the IP-address to share the film. The defendant’s attorneys doubt that the tracking software is capable of doing this. “Apparently, Mr. Patzer’s software does not account for the numerous ‘false positive’ possibilities, including the accuracy of the harvested IP addresses, even though the person in the swarm may be ‘spoofing’ his or her IP address, since certain bit torrent software allows for IP address spoofing,” defendant’s attorneys write. “Apparently, the software has no way to verify the actual person who might be in the swarm, even if the IP address is accurate. The software does not engage the person in the swarm to inquire as to the reason for the activity, including fair use reasons for being in the swarm. Indeed, there are no corroborating witnesses at all…” In addition, the defendant’s legal team doubts that the “investigators,” who are closely involved with numerous lawsuits in the United States, have a proper license. “The investigators are engaged in activity which is covered by the Washington State Private Investigator statutory provisions, but there is no evidence that Messrs. Patzer or Macek are licensed or bonded [under theState’s regulatory scheme governing private investigators],” they write. The Washington State legislature defines a “private investigator agency” as an entity “engaged in the business of detecting, discovering, or revealing” “evidence to be used before a court,” which appears to be exactly what they are doing. It wouldn’t be the first time that the PI angle has caused trouble for a file-sharing monitoring firm. Several years ago the RIAA’s technology partner MediaSentry was found to have acted illegally in several states because it operated without the appropriate and required paperwork. It will be interesting to see how this angle is played out in the current case. Generally speaking these tracking outfits, which are often the main drivers of these types of lawsuits, are not too eager to talk. Whether they have something to hide remains to be seen. A recent presentation from the “Anti-Piracy Management Company,” which is believed to be spinoff of the same tracking outfit Michael Patzer and Daniel Macek are connected to, is telling. “Paragraph 2 in regards to software consultant (i.e., he can talk about software issues), & we’re hoping the judge won’t question his qualifications too much,” the leaked presentation reads, seemingly referring to Macek. To be continued.

Legal action aimed at forcing local ISPs to block The Pirate Bay has been dismissed by the Icelandic Supreme Court. Four local entertainment industry groups sought an injunction, but as mere distributors of content the Court found that three of the complainants lacked the necessary rights. Following in the footsteps of copyright groups around Europe, last year representatives of the music and movie industry in Iceland decided to take action against The Pirate Bay. Several copyright groups, including the local RIAA equivalent ‘STEF’ and MPAA equivalent ‘SMAIS’, filed a complaint with the police last October. Their aim was to obtain an injunction compelling local Internet service providers to block not only TPB, but also the largest Iceland-focused private BitTorrent tracker, Deildu.net. “Blocking access to websites that offer a wide range of entertainment without permission of the copyright holders has been proven effective in neighboring countries, and has a strong foundation in EU legislation,” the groups said. The request for an injunction, filed by four entertainment industry groups against five local ISPs including Vodafone, was initially rejected by a Reykjavík magistrate. As a result the case ended up in the District Court of Reykjavik in March but was dismissed when the Court decided that only music group STEF had the rights to claim injunctive relief. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court which handed down its decision this week. Affirming the decision of the District Court, the Supreme Court highlighted problems in two key areas. Firstly, it appears that once the district magistrate rejected the original blocking request, the matter should have been referred to the District Court within a week. It took the entertainment groups twelve days, well outside the requirements prescribed by law. Furthermore, while the complaint was filed in the names of four organizations, only one was recognized by the Supreme Court as having the right to bring this kind of complaint. While it was agreed that music group STEF has lawful standing to fight in court, the others had only local distribution rights. “The fact remains that STEF can make these injunction requests. But not all of these groups together,” lawyer Tómas Jónsson told local media. After the Supreme Court’s rejection the case can now return to the District Court where it’s likely that STEF will continue the process alone. If it succeeds the net result will be no different than if all parties had obtained an injunction. Whether the Court will subsequently grant a blockade of The Pirate Bay remains to be seen though, as this type of injunction is yet to be tested under Icelandic copyright law.

HBO is cracking down on unauthorized copies of Game of Thrones that have appeared online over the past weeks. The TV-network has sent Google several takedown requests to remove thousands of links from its search engine. Interestingly enough, the requests also list the popular show's official trailers. thronesGame of Thrones is without a doubt the most pirated TV-show on the Internet. The popular series entered its fourth season early April and broke the record of most people sharing a pirated copy simultaneously. While several people connected to Game of Thrones have noted that piracy might actually benefit the show, HBO executives are clamping down on widespread piracy nonetheless. Over the past few weeks the TV-network has sent dozens of takedown requests to Google, listing thousands of allegedly pirated copies of their work. Many of these are links to torrent sites and streaming portals where recent episodes can be downloaded for free. With these takedown requests HBO hopes to make it harder for people to find unauthorized copies. However, a careful inspection of the notices by TorrentFreak reveals that promotional material such as trailers are also being censored. Unfortunately for HBO, Google happily processed these requests and removed the “infringing” trailers from their search results. As can be seen below, a search for “Game of Thrones trailer torrent” includes a notice that several results have been removed on copyright grounds. GoT trailer torrent search results gottrailertorrent Looking at the individual notices, it becomes clear that these are indeed links to promotional trailers which should be freely available to the public. The DMCA notice pictured in the screenshot below lists several of these URLs, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. GoT trailer takedowns gotdmca The current crackdown on Game of Thrones runs counter to comments from director David Petrarca who said that piracy generates much-needed “cultural buzz.” These dubious takedowns may create a buzz as well, but probably not the kind HBO is hoping for. As for the trailer takedowns, we expect that these have been taken down in error. That wouldn’t be HBO’s first mistake either, as the company previously tried to censor their own website HBO.com because it apparently contained infringing content. Perhaps their automated takedown tools need some further adjustments? Tagged in: DMCA, game of thrones, google

After landing an early victory last week against Quentin Tarantino in their leaked screenplay row, Gawker is facing a new attack. In an amended complaint, Tarantino accuses Gawker of committing not only contributory infringement, but also direct infringement, after it illegally downloaded his script from a file-hosting site. Earlier this month, news publication Gawker and Quentin Tarantino traded early blows in their dispute over the the leak of a screenplay to Tarantino’s potential upcoming movie The Hateful Eight. The background is relatively straightforward. Someone leaked the script “within Hollywood circles” without Tarantino’s permission, Gawker asked its readers for a link to a copy and was told where to find it on a file-hosting site. The publication grabbed a copy itself to ensure it was the real deal, and then wrote an article titled “Here is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script” which contained links to the infringing file. Tarantino’s legal team asked Gawker to take down the links so that others wouldn’t be tempted to download the script, Gawker refused, and an enraged Tarantino launched legal action. Last week, however, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter kicked out Tarantino’s lawsuit which alleged contributory infringement against Gawker after the director failed to allege a supporting and necessary claim for direct infringement. Now Tarantino is back with an amended complaint that supplements allegations of contributory infringement by going straight after Gawker as a direct infringer, claiming that the publication made use of Tarantino’s script after illegally downloading it from a file-hosting site. “Gawker…utilized the unauthorized infringing PDF copy of the Screenplay to disseminate portions of and/or content from the unpublished work. Accordingly, Gawker is liable to Tarantino for direct copyright infringement,” it reads. The complaint also reiterates claims that having heard of the initial leak (apparently at this point restricted to Hollywood insiders), Gawker called out to its “47 million monthly United States readers” in an attempt to find someone willing “to infringe Tarantino’s copyright” by “asking and inducing anyone to leak and provide Gawker with an unauthorized infringing copy of the Screenplay.” Tarantino’s legal team adds that “Gawker’s solicitation and direct inducement for copyright infringement worked, as, by the next day, Gawker itself obtained a PDF of the Screenplay” which had been stored on the Anonfiles.com site. The new claims of direct infringement in this amended complaint rest on the moment Gawker accessed this file and confirmed its authenticity. “Gawker itself illegally downloaded to its computers an unauthorized infringing PDF copy of the Screenplay — read it and learned that the PDF download document was 146 pages — directly infringing Tarantino’s copyright,” the complaint reads. Interestingly, Tarantino’s legal team also suggest that the while the script had been stored “privately” on Anonfiles by another direct infringer, Gawker went on to make up a story claiming that the file had already been made public. Gawker “…fabricated a ‘story’ that the script had been made publicly available online so that Gawker could then trumpet to the world and begin promoting itself as the very first source for the public to be able to obtain the entire Screenplay,” the complaint reads. As a direct result of Gawker’s actions several other people illegally downloaded the script, Tarantino’s legal team claim, adding that even after the file had been removed from Anonfiles after a DMCA complaint (rendering the link in the Gawker article useless), the publication re-published links to the same script that had been uploaded elsewhere. In their prayer for relief Tarantino’s legal team seek damages in excess of $1m plus statutory damages, plus an injunction against Gawker forbidding the unauthorized use of the leaked script. Gawker is yet to comment on the amended complaint.

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3471346341 Thanks rep & thanks added

Law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, pioneers of the BitTorrent copyright troll cases in the United States, have thrown in the towel. The law firm conceded defeat in a fraud and abuse case that was brought against them by an alleged pirate, and were ordered to pay nearly $40,000. far-cryEarly 2010 the law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver brought mass-piracy lawsuits to the United States. The law firm teamed up with several film studios and sued tens of thousands of alleged BitTorrent users. A few months after the first cases were started the tables were turned. One of the alleged pirates sued the lawyers for fraud, abuse and extortion, due to their role in the “copyright troll” scheme. Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver were named in a class-action lawsuit together with movie studio Achte/Neunte and the German tracking company GuardaLey, who together went after thousands of people who allegedly downloaded and shared the movie ‘Far Cry’ using BitTorrent. Through the lawsuit, spearheaded by Dmitriy Shirokov, the troll victims were seeking relief based on 25 counts including extortion, fraudulent omissions, mail fraud, wire fraud, computer fraud and abuse, racketeering, fraud upon the court, fraud on the Copyright Office, copyright misuse and unjust enrichment. Among other things, the “copyright trolls” were accused of building their case on shoddy evidence and a false copyright registration. Last year the Massachusetts District Court denied the class action, which meant the case continued with Shirokov as the only plaintiff. This severely limited the scope of the verdict. However, after more than three years Shirokov did win his case. During the proceedings, where the law firm remained as the only defendant, it became clear that Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver could not present critical pieces of evidence. The company claimed that the requested documents were lost in a computer crash. As a result, the law firm had no other option than to concede defeat, which it did through an offer of judgement. In a recent ruling Judge George O’Toole ordered Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver to pay $39,909.95, which includes attorney fees. TorrentFreak spoke with Jason Sweet, whose firm Booth Sweet represented Shirokov. Sweet notes that the outcome is a “bittersweet victory,” as the class action status was denied earlier. Also, the awarded fees are a far cry from those requested. Nevertheless, Shrirokov and his legal team are happy with the outcome. Their main goal was to make it harder for copyright trolls to operate in Massachusetts, and they believe that was achieved. “The case did accomplish what we wanted it to. That is, to deter others from starting similar cases in Massachusetts. It served its purpose,” Sweet tells TF. While the case does not mark the end of copyright trolling schemes in the United States, it won’t make them any easier either. As for Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, they will now have to pay their dues. The law firm has left the copyright trolling trade already, and the recent verdict makes it unlikely that they will ever return.

New research carried out by analysts from Intelligent Content Protection concludes that 90 percent of the top pirate sites link to malware or other unwanted software. In addition, two-thirds of the websites are said to link to credit card scams. Entertainment industry groups hope the findings will motivate people to choose legal options instead. scamMost seasoned visitors of torrent sites and streaming portals know that many of the “download” and “play” buttons present are non-functional, at least in the regular sense. In fact, many of these buttons link to advertisements of some sort, ranging from relatively harmless download managers to dubious services that ask for one’s credit card details. A new report backed by the UK entertainment industry has looked into the prevalence of these threats. The study, carried out by the anti-piracy analysts of Intelligent Content Protection (Incopro), found that only 1 of the 30 most-visited pirate sites didn’t link to unwanted software or credit card scams. According to a press release released this morning, the research found that of the 30 top pirate sites, “90% contained malware and other ‘Potentially Unwanted Programmes’ designed to deceive or defraud unwitting viewers.” The “Potentially Unwanted Programmes” category is rather broad, and includes popups and ads that link to download managers. In addition, the report links one-third of the sites to credit card fraud. “The rogue sites are also rife with credit card scams, with over two-thirds (67%) of the 30 sites containing credit card fraud,” the press release states. While it’s true that many pirate sites link to malware and other dubious products, the sites themselves don’t host any of the material. For example, none of the top pirate sites TorrentFreak tested were flagged by Google’s Safebrowsing tool. This nuance is left out of the official announcement, but the executive summary of the report does make this distinction. “We did not encounter the automatic injection of any malicious program on the sites that we scanned. In all instances, the user must be tricked into opening a downloaded executable file or in the case of credit card fraud, the user needs to actively enter credit card details,” Incopro writes. downloadnow Most of the malware and “potentially” unwanted software ends up on users’ computers after they click on the wrong “download” button and then install the presented software. In many cases these are installers that may contain relatively harmless adware. However, the researchers also found links to rootkits and ransomware. The allegation of “credit card fraud” also requires some clarification. Incopro told TorrentFreak that most of these cases involve links to services where users have to pay for access. “There were 17 separate credit card schemes that were detected through our scanning, with many appearing to be similar or possibly related. Five of the sites had instances of two credit card fraud/scam sites, with the remaining 15 containing one credit card fraud/scam site,” Incopro told us. “An example is someone visits one of the pirate sites and clicks a ‘Download’ or ‘Play now’ button, which is actually an advert appearing on the page, which then asks for payment details to access the content.” This is characterized as “fraud” because these “premium” streaming or download services can result in recurring credit card charges of up to $50 per month, without an option to cancel. The report, which isn’t available to the public, was commissioned by the UK film service FindAnyFilm and backed by several industry groups. Commenting on the findings, FACT’s Kieron Sharp noted that those who fall for these scams are inadvertently funding organized crime. “Not only are you putting your personal security at risk, by using pirate websites you could be helping fund the organised criminal gangs who run these sites as a front for other cyber scams,” Sharp says. It is clear that the research is used for scaremongering. Regular users of these sites know all too well what buttons not to click, so they are not affected by any of the threats. However, there’s no denying that some pirate sites deliberately place these “ads” to confuse novice and unsuspecting visitors. Those visitors may indeed end up with adware, malware or run into scam services. This isn’t in any way a new phenomenon though, it has been going on for more than a decade already. Ironically, the same anti-piracy groups who now warn of these threats are making them worse by cutting pirate sites off from legitimate advertisers.

Only downloaded ride along & Frozen lol

he top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ tops the chart this week, followed by ‘That Awkward Moment’ 'Vampire Academy' completes the top three. capt-americaThis week we have four newcomers in our chart. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the most downloaded movie this week. The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart. Ranking (last week) Movie IMDb Rating / Trailer torrentfreak.com 1 (5) Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Cam/TS) 8.3 / trailer 2 (…) That Awkward Moment 6.2 / trailer 3 (…) Vampire Academy 6.3 / trailer 4 (1) Son of Batman 6.3 / trailer 5 (2) The Machine 6.3 / trailer 6 (…) Her 8.2 / trailer 7 (…) Rio 2 (HDTS) 6.8 / trailer 8 (3) The Physician 7.3 / trailer 9 (4) Ride Along 6.4 / trailer 10 (9) Frozen 8.1 / trailer

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