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Just as discussion moves away from the punitive measures that did little to curtail piracy in the last decade, an Australian minister has urged a return. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull says that in order to send a clear message, rightsholders need to "roll up their sleeves" and strategically sue some "moms, dads and students." When countries and major rightsholders have announced their new anti-piracy strategies in recent times, several approaches have become apparent. Instead of pure head-on attacks against websites, their finances are being undermined through deals with advertisers and their sites blocked online. Rather than attempting to batter ISPs into submission through the courts, partnerships are sought instead. And when it comes to the end user, it’s largely education and more education. In Australia the debate is familiar. On top of a legal framework to have websites blocked at network level, rightsholders are now seeking friendly cooperation from ISPs in order to deliver a message to subscribers that content should be purchased, not pirated. The debate is well underway with the government seeking input from interested parties. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been putting pressure on rightsholders to ramp up their game in respect of pricing and availability too, which is definitely a step in the right direction. But yesterday, during a televised interview with Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News, Turnbull made comments that transport the debate back many years, raising the specter of tough punitive action to send an anti-piracy message. At first things started as expected, with the Minister telling Sky that people need to be educated. He raised the usual shoplifting and stealing analogies, noting that taking content from supermarkets is no different from downloading content online. Then, after outlining New Zealand’s “three strikes” system, he noted that if content owners are suffering losses, then it should be them who foot the bill for any introduced anti-piracy measures. Content owners aside, few would disagree there. Turnbull also noted that disconnections for persistently pirating Internet users would be met with a lot of resistance so were probably off the table, but then the bombshell. “Rightsholders are not keen on taking people to court, because it doesn’t look good, because it’s bad publicity. What happens if the person you sue is a single mother, what happens if it’s a teenager, what happens if it’s a retiree on a low income?” Turnbull said. “The bottom line is though, rightsholders are going to have to be tactical about who they take to court, who they want to sue.” Education, it seems, only goes so far in Turnbull’s eyes. In addition there will need to be punishments for those who don’t get the message and that in turn will help to solve the problem. “What you do is that when you raise awareness of this, and as people recognize that there is a risk that they will be sued, and have to pay for what they have stolen, then the level of infringement and theft will decline,” the Minister said. So who should the rightsholders “strategically” target? “It is absolutely critical that rightsholders…are prepared to actually roll their sleeves up and take on individuals. They have got to be prepared to sue people. Sue moms and dads and students who are stealing their content. They can’t expect everybody else to do that for them,” Turnbull said. This kind of aggression from a key Minister in this debate is bound to raise alarm bells. As rightholders head down the cooperation and education route, here is a clear sign that the government thinks that yet more legal action against the public will solve the problem. It won’t, and ISPs such as iiNet almost certainly won’t like the sound of this either. Whether this will hurt cooperation moving forward remains to be seen, but it’s likely to paint a picture of a government and an industry holding up new carrots, but keeping the same old tired stick in reserve, just in case. The whole interview can be seen here. ←Previous Post…

Government communication obtained through a Freedom of Information inquiry reveals that several people have asked the authorities to shut down The Pirate Bay. The requests were originally sent to the FBI, who were also contacted by a mother looking for advice on how to deal with the pirating father of her son. There is no doubt that copyright holders repeatedly press the authorities to take action against The Pirate Bay. So, when a Pirate Bay-related Freedom of Information request was sent to Homeland Security’s National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, we expected to see letters from the major music labels and Hollywood studios. Interestingly that was not the case. Late June Polity News asked Homeland Security to reveal all information the center holds on the notorious torrent site. Earlier this week the responses were received, mostly consisting of requests from individuals to shut down The Pirate Bay. In total the center received 15 emails, and all appear to have been forwarded by the FBI, where they were apparently first sent. Some of the emails only list a few pirate site domains but others are more specific in calling for strong action against The Pirate Bay. “Why don’t you seize all THE PIRATE BAY domains? Starting with thepiratebay.se. You have no idea how much good that would do to writers, artists, musicians, designers, inventors, software developers, movie people and our global economy in general,” one email reads. The emails are all redacted but the content of the requests sometimes reveals who the sender might be. The example below comes from the author of “The Crystal Warrior,” which is probably the New Zealand author Maree Anderson. “The Pirate Bay states that it can’t be held responsible for copyright infringement as it is a torrent site and doesn’t store the files on its servers. However the epub file of my published novel The Crystal Warrior has been illegally uploaded there,” the email reads. The author adds that she takes a strong stand against piracy, but that her takedown notices are ignored by The Pirate Bay. She hopes that the authorities can take more effective action. “Perhaps you would have more luck in putting pressure on them than one individual like myself. And if you are unable to take further action, I hope this notification will put The Pirate Bay in your sights so you can keep an eye on them,” the author adds. Most of the other requests include similar calls to action and appear to come from individual copyright holders. However, there is also a slightly more unusual request. The email in question comes from the mother of a 14-year-old boy whose father is said to frequently pirate movies and music. The mother says she already visited an FBI office to report the man and is now seeking further advice. Apparently she previously reached out to the MPAA, but they weren’t particularly helpful. “MPAA only wanted to know where he was downloading and could not help. I ask you what can I do, as a parent, to prevent a 14-year-old from witnessing such a law breaking citizen in his own home?” the mother writes. “It is not setting a good example for him and I don’t think that it is right to subject him to this cyber crime. Devices on websites used: www.piratebay.com for downloads and www.LittleSnitch.com so he won’t be detected. This is not right. Any help would be appreciated,” she adds. All of the revealed requests were sent between 2012 and 2014. Thus far, however, the Department of Homeland Security nor the FBI have taken any action against the Pirate Bay. Whether the pirating dad is still on the loose remains unknown for now, but chances are he’s still sharing music and movies despite the FBI referral. Tagged in: fbi, tpb

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Divergent‘ tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier.' 'The Expendables 3' completes the top three. This week we have three newcomers in our chart. Divergent 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 (2) Divergent 7.2 / trailer 2 (…) Captain America: The Winter Soldier 8.1 / trailer 3 (1) The Expendables 3 (DVDscr) ?.? / trailer 4 (8) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (TS) 8.3 / trailer 5 (5) The Amazing Spider-Man 2 7.4 / trailer 6 (3) The Other Woman 6.5 / trailer 7 (…) 22 Jump Street (TS) 7.8 / trailer 8 (4) Need For Speed 7.1 / trailer 9 (…) Batman: Assault on Arkham 7.4 / trailer 10 (7) Noah 6.3 / trailer

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Russia's controversial anti-piracy law. Figures released by Russia's telecoms agency reveal that in the past year 12 sites, mainly torrent trackers, were blocked under the legislation. Critics say that web-blocking has changed very little, with pirate content just as easy to find as before. Following intense pressure from local and international rightsholders, on August 1, 2013, Russia introduced a brand new anti-piracy law. The key strength of the legislation is that provides a mechanism for sites to be blocked should they not comply with rightsholder takedown requests within 72 hours. This element of the framework caused widespread fear and speculation. Would thousands of sites, some carrying legitimate content, find themselves censored at the hands of over-broad legislation tipped heavily in favor of “corporate interests”? Frankly, no. Concern that rightsholders would stampede to court to quickly wipe out as many sites as possible proved unfounded. Out of 19 complaints filed in the first three weeks of the law, just 11 were correctly presented and processed. Torrent site Rutor.org was one of the earliest casualties. After five months in action, rightsholders had filed around 75 official complaints. In 30 cases the targeted sites complied with official removal orders and in 19 others a decision was taken by the authorities to block offending URLs. Then, just six months later, Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov announced that the law was having the required effect. “The law has actually brought us serious results,” he said. “We found that [the law's introduction] resulted in an increase of 30% in the number of people who pay for legal content. This is a major achievement. Our country plans to increase the number of consumers of legal content on the Internet to 30 million people by 2018.” Critics remain doubtful of the dramatic turnaround and throughout the year there has been little downturn in the number of rightsholders complaining about piracy. Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the new law’s introduction and it’s fair to say there were no festivities. According to figures obtained by Izvestia from telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor, during the past year the Moscow City Court imposed preliminary interim measures against 175 sites following copyright complaints. The Court went on to block a total of 12 file-sharing related domains, most of them BitTorrent trackers. This number is far below the numbers predicted one year ago. Perhaps unsurprisingly a far greater number of IP addresses were eventually blocked, 99 in total. “This is due to the fact that the sites tried to avoid blocking by migrating to other IP-addresses that Roscomnadzor also monitors and places on the registry,” a spokesman said. But despite all the complaints and blocking, pirated content is still easy to find, a key issue that doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. Nevertheless, the watchdog says that things are improving. “If you want to find illegal content on the web, you still can today. But rightsholders now have the opportunity to make an impact on legal grounds, which is most critical for them in terms of the spread of pirated content. They are also beginning to unite to close pirated resources for longer,” the spokesman said. Furthermore, fears expressed by search engines that the law would negatively impact the web have not come to pass. “As for the dissatisfaction shown by Internet companies following the entry into force of the law, neither Google, Mail.ru, or Yandex has suffered from it. Many areas, where earlier there was illegal content, are now beginning to build into legitimate businesses.” But despite positivity from the watchdog, critics remain. “If you want to download any movie and can spend five minutes and still download it, then the law has brought no benefits,” Wikimedia executive director Stanislav Kozlovsky told Izvestia. “Also remaining are the problems caused by the very principle of blocking IP-addresses. If a pirate site is suddenly blocked, it costs nothing to move to a different address. This problem is solved in just a day.” Only time will tell if Russia’s legislative moves will pay off in the end, but if the first 12 months are anything to go by, they will have to wait considerably longer yet.

Last week The Expendables 3 leaked online and thousands shared it illegally. While most sat in the shadows, David Pierce, an editor at The Verge, admitted to engaging in what amounts to the criminal distribution of an unreleased copyright work. Is it now OK to confess to jailable offenses as long as they're piracy-related? Last week’s leak of The Expendables 3 was a pretty big event in the piracy calendar and as TF explained to inquiring reporters, that is only achieved by getting the right mix of ingredients. First and foremost, the movie was completely unreleased meaning that private screenings aside, it had never hit a theater anywhere in the world. Getting a copy of a movie at this stage is very rare indeed. Secondly, the quality of the leaked DVD was very good indeed. Third, and we touched on this earlier, are the risks involved in becoming part of the online distribution mechanism for something like this. Potentially unfinished copies of yet-to-be-released flicks can be a very serious matter indeed, with custodial sentences available to the authorities. And yet this week, David Pierce, Assistant Managing Editor at The Verge, wrote an article in which he admitted torrenting The Expendables 3 via The Pirate Bay. PIRATE CONFESSIONS – UNCUT “The Expendables 3 comes out August 15th in thousands of theaters across America. I watched it Friday afternoon on my MacBook Air on a packed train from New York City to middle-of-nowhere Connecticut. I watched it again on the ride back. And I’m already counting down the days until I can see it in IMAX,” he wrote. Pierce’s article, and it’s a decent read, talks about how the movie really needs to be seen on the big screen. It’s a journey into why piracy can act as promotion and how the small screen experience rarely compensates for seeing this kind of movie in the “big show” setting. Pierce is a great salesman and makes a good case but that doesn’t alter the fact that he just admitted to committing what the authorities see as a pretty serious crime. The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 refers to it as “the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.” The term “making it available” refers to uploading and although one would like to think that punishments would be reserved only for initial leakers (if anyone), the legislation fails to specify. It seems that merely downloading and sharing the movie using BitTorrent could be enough to render a user criminally liable, as this CNET article from 2005 explains. So with the risks as they are, why would Pierce put his neck on the line? Obviously, he wanted to draw attention to the “big screen” points mentioned above and also appreciates plenty of readers. It’s also possible he just wasn’t aware of the significance of the offense. Sadly, our email to Pierce earlier in the week went unanswered so we can’t say for sure. But here’s the thing. There can be few people in the public eye, journalists included, who would admit to stealing clothes from a Paris fashion show in order to promote Versace’s consumer lines when they come out next season. And if we wrote a piece about how we liberated aHonda Type R prototype from the Geneva Motor Show in order to boost sales ahead of its consumer release next year, we’d be decried as Grand Theft Auto’ists in need of discipline. What this seems to show is that in spite of a decade-and-a-half’s worth of “piracy is theft” propaganda, educated and eloquent people such as David Pierce still believe that it is not, to the point where pretty serious IP crimes can be confessed to in public. At the very least, the general perception is that torrenting The Expendables 3 is morally detached from picking up someone’s real-life property and heading for the hills. And none of us would admit to the latter, would we? Hollywood and the record labels will be furious that this mentality persists after years of promoting the term “intellectual property” and while Lionsgate appear to have picked their initial targets (and the FBI will go after the initial leakers), the reality is that despite the potential for years in jail, it’s extremely unlikely the feds will be turning up at the offices of The Verge to collar Pierce. Nor will they knock on the doors of an estimated two million other Expendables pirates either. And everyone knows it. As a result, what we have here is a crazy confession brave article from Pierce which underlines that good movies are meant to be seen properly and that people who pirate do go on to become customers if the product is right. And, furthermore, those customers promote that content to their peers, such as the guy on the train who looked over Pierce’s shoulder when he was viewing his pirate booty. “He won’t be the last person I tell to go see The Expendables 3 when it hits theaters in August,” Pierce wrote. “And I’ll be there with them, opening night. I know the setlist now, I know all the songs by heart, but I still want to see the show.” Pierce’s initial piracy was illegal, no doubt, but when all is said and done (especially considering his intent to promote and invest in the movie) it hardly feels worthy of a stay in the slammer. I venture that the majority would agree – and so the cycle continues.

People sometimes ask how the artists will get paid if - no, when - the copyright monopoly is abolished. This question is not based on facts. Every time somebody questions the copyright monopoly, and in particular, whether it’s reasonable to dismantle freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of information, and the privacy of correspondence just to maintain a distribution monopoly for an entertainment industry, the same question pops up out of nowhere: “How will the artists get paid?”. The copyright industry has been absolutely phenomenal in misleading the public in this very simple matter, suggesting that artists’ income somehow depend on a distribution monopoly of publishers. If the facts were out, this debate would have been over 20 years ago and the distribution monopoly already abolished quite unceremoniously. There are three facts that need to be established and hammered in whenever somebody asks this question. First: Less than one percent of artists’ income comes from the copyright monopoly. Read that sentence again. The overwhelming majority of artists get their income today from student loans, day jobs, unemployment benefits, and so on and so forth. One of the most recent studies (“Copyright as Incentive”, in Swedish as “Upphovsrätten som incitament”, 2006) quotes a number of 0.9 per cent as the average income share of artists that can be directly attributed to the existence of the copyright monopoly. The report calls the direct share of artists’ income “negligible”, “insignificant”. However, close to one hundred per cent of publishers’ income – the income of unnecessary, parasitic middlemen – is directly attributable to the copyright monopoly today. Guess who’s adamant about defending it? Hint: not artists. Second: 99.99% of artists never see a cent in copyright monopoly royalties.Apart from the copyright industry’s creative accounting and bookkeeping – arguably the only reason they ever had to call themselves the “creative industry” – which usually robs artists blind, only one in ten thousand artists ever see a cent in copyright-monopoly-related royalties. Yes, this is a real number: 99% of artists are never signed with a label, and of those who are, 99% of those never see royalties. It comes across as patently absurd to defend a monopolistic, parasitic system where only one in ten thousand artists make any money with the argument “how will the artists make money any other way?”. Third: Artists’ income has more than doubled because of culture-sharing. Since the advent of hobby-scale unlicensed manufacturing – which is what culture-sharing is legally, since it breaks a manufacturing monopoly on copies – the average income for musicians has risen 114%, according to a Norwegian study. Numbers from Sweden and the UK show the same thing. This shift in income has a direct correlation to hobby-based unlicensed manufacturing, as the sales of copies is down the drain – which is the best news imaginable for artists, since households are spending as much money on culture before (or more, according to some studies), but are buying in sales channels where artists get a much larger piece of the pie. Hobby-based unlicensed manufacturing has meant the greatest wealth transfer from parasitic middlemen to artists in the history of recorded music. As a final note, it should be told that even if artists went bankrupt because of sustained civil liberties, that would still be the way to go. Any artist that goes from plinking their guitar in the kitchen to wanting to sell an offering is no longer an artist, but an entrepreneur; the same rules apply to them as to every other entrepreneur on the planet. Specifically, they do not get to dismantle civil liberties because such liberties are bad for business. But as we see, we don’t even need to take that into consideration, for the entire initial premise is false. Kill copyright, already. Get rid of it. It hurts innovation, creativity, our next-generation industries, and our hard-won civil liberties. It’s not even economically defensible.

The Federation Against Copyright Theft has claimed yet another victim on the private torrent site scene. In order to avoid being dragged through the courts, this week the admin of TorrentShack will close down the site and hand over its domain to the Hollywood-backed anti-piracy group. When it comes to closing down torrent sites, two anti-piracy groups stand out as achieving that in numbers. Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has closed dozens of smaller sites located in the Netherlands and the Federation Against Copyright Theft has been carrying out similar work in the UK. FACT’s tactics of hunting down, identifying and then threatening torrent site operators have proven very successful in the past. The impact of having FACT’s representatives at the front door has resulted in the closure of many sites, while emailed threats have only added to the tally. Yesterday came news of another closure, this time of TorrentShack, a long-standing and loved-by-many private tracker. The exact mechanism of FACT’s contacts with the site’s operator haven’t been made public, but it’s clear that the anti-piracy group has placed the site under a lot of pressure. “It seems once again that FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) have gone after the small site rather than those that make thousands each and every month in profit,” the site’s operator announced over the weekend. “I have been under investigation by FACT for some time it seems and to avoid being dragged through the courts and having huge legal fee’s I have to adhere to their demands.” FACT’s usual demands involve closing the site and handing over the site’s domain, and in TorrentShack’s (TSH) case they have kept to their usual format. “They have said that I need to hand them over the domain to this site and to cease my involvement with running such a site. If I comply then any and all charges against me will be dropped,” TSH’s admin explained. It’s predicted that the TorrentShack.net domain will be handed over to FACT during the next few days. It’s possible a FACT ‘warning’ page will replace the site but many ‘seized’ domains simply lie dormant. While the site’s users will no doubt be disappointed by the site’s closure, those concerned about FACT getting their hands on the site’s database can rest easy – the TSH admin has assured users that no such request has been made. “In simple terms, the Domain is simply the URL you type in to visit the site. It has no connection with your accounts, your security. There is no reason fro anyone to worry,” TSH assures site users. “It’s been a great run and I have really enjoyed what we have done here over the last few years. I want to thank everyone that has made it possible. I guess I proved that what they said ‘Couldn’t’ be done…. Actually ‘Could’ be done.” OpenTrackers has further information on the site here.

Continuing its attacks on piracy-related domains, the UK Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit has shut down the proxy service Immunicity and several torrent site proxies. The domain names have been suspended by their registrar eNom and now display a banner warning that the police are investigating the matter. Since last year City of London Police have been working together with copyright holders to topple sites that provide or link to pirated content. The police started by sending warning letters to site owners, asking them to go legit or shut down. Late last year this was followed by a campaign targeted at domain registrars, asking them to suspend the domain namesof several “illegal” sites. A few days ago police sent out another round of requests to U.S.-based domain name registrar eNom, asking it to suspend the domains of several allegedly infringing sites. Although the requests were made without a court order or other authority, eNom has complied and effectively shut down the sites. Among the new targets is Immunicity, a general proxy server that was set up as a censorship circumvention tool. The police action against Immunicity is concerning as the service merely allows users to route their traffic through a proxy network, much like other anonimizing services such as TOR and VPNs do. The service itself doesn’t host or link to infringing content. In addition in Immunicity the Pirate Bay proxy Piratereverse.info and KickassTorrents proxies Kickassunblock.info and Katunblock.com were taken down as well. The same happened with movie2kproxy.com, h33tunblock.info and several other sites. The DNS entries of the domains have all been replaced and now point at a PIPCU IP-address which displays a warning banner. Based on letters that were sent out to registrars previously, the police accuse proxy services and sites of running a criminal operation. While no court order has been obtained, PIPCU claims to have launched an investigation into the sites and has asked the domain registrar to cooperate. “The owners of the aforementioned domains are suspected to be involved in the criminal distribution of copyrighted material either directly or indirectly and are liable to prosecution under UK law for the following offences: Conspiracy to Defraud, Offences under the Fraud Act 2006, Copyright, Design & Patents Act 1988,” PIPCU states. “Should a conviction be brought for the above offences, UK courts may impose sentences of imprisonment and/or fines. PIPCU has criminal and civil powers in UK law to seize money, belongings and any property in connection with these offences.” It’s important to note that the City of London Police has no authority to order domain registrars to take action since there is no court order or other warrant underlying the request. However, it turns out that police letterhead is sometimes enough to throw due process concerns overboard. TorrentFreak has asked PIPCU for a comment on the most recent actions, but we have yet to hear back.

A series of ads created by a New Zealand-based ISP has been rejected by Sky TV on copyright grounds. The ban on the ads, which contain references to a VPN-like service providing access to geo-blocked content such as Netflix, has been decried as "unjustified and petty" by ISP Slingshot. For millions of Internet users around the world the Internet has broken down geographical borders like no other invention in history. Nevertheless, for those looking to consume entertainment online, digital checkpoints still exist in many countries. Restricting content availability to certain ranges of IP addresses, or ‘geo-blocking’ as it’s know, allows content providers to dictate who gets access to films, TV shows and music, at what price, and when. As a result, citizens of countries such as Australia regularly complain that they’re denied content quickly and then charged more for it when it arrives. As expected, however, many citizens choose to break down these borders by using VPNs and proxies, which enable them to access services such as Netflix regardless of their region. Last month, Kiwi ISP Slingshot admitted that its VPN-like ‘Global Mode’ service was actually designed to provide its customers with access to Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix US, and BBC iPlayer. Now it appears that the admission will have consequences for Slingshot after a major broadcaster refused to run its ads on copyright grounds. A spokeswoman for Sky TV confirmed to Stuff that a series of advertisements containing references to Slingshot’s Global Mode were rejected by the company. “We are a business that pays people who create television so we are against any form of piracy or the undermining of intellectual property rights,” Sky TV spokeswoman Kirsty Way said. Slingshot general manager Taryn Hamilton decried the move as “unjustified and petty” and said there would be no need for Global Mode if providers would offer content in a timely fashion at a fair price. “When and if local companies manage to finally crack that, then there will be no need for the service. But, until that time, people will use services like Global Mode so that they can see decent TV without having to get a second mortgage,” Hamilton said.

The IFPI has given Austria's largest ISPs less than two weeks to block some of the world's largest torrent sites. Five local ISPs have been told by the music industry group that following a European Court of Justice ruling earlier this year, they must now restrict subscriber access to The Pirate Bay, Isohunt.to, 1337x and H33t. A long-running legal case involving an Austrian anti-piracy group, a local ISP, and both the Supreme Court and European Court of Justice came to an end this July. The case, which centered around the now-defunct movie site Kino.to, concluded with both courts agreeing that provided any action is both balanced and proportional, Internet service providers could be forced to block copyright-infringing websites. Taking that decision and running with it, the IFPI in Austria has now written to the country’s largest Internet service providers with demands that they block several of the world’s largest torrent sites. In a letter dated today, five ISPs were given less than two weeks to block subscriber access to ThePirateBay,se, isoHunt.to, 1337x.to and H33t.to. IFPI says the sites are “internationally known piracy portals” which have already been blocked in UK, Belgium, Ireland, Finland and Denmark. The music industry group, which protects the rights of the world’s largest recording labels, notes that its blocking request is reasonable given that the sites’ engage in the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material for profit. “The foundation for website-blocking in Austria was created following a four year process involving the European Court of Justice,” IFPI’s Franz Medwenitsch added in a statement. “The sites are all internationally known, structurally-infringing BitTorrent portals. Of course, we do not want to have access to the Internet itself blocked, only access to these four sites.” The ISPs have been given until August 14 to implement the blockades, but whether they will have any effect remains to be seen. The Pirate Bay, the world’s most-blocked torrent site, recently informed TF that despite years of blockages, its traffic has doubled overall.

OVH, a French hosting company with datacenters all around the world, has been sued for copyright infringement at a federal court in California. The complaint filed by adult magazine publisher Perfect 10 accuses the hosting provider of servicing several "pirate" websites as well as allowing infringing traffic to pass through its Internet backbone. Perfect 10 are no strangers to lawsuits. From 2005 to the present day they have sued several huge companies for either allegedly using their images without permission or somehow being connected to infringements. Notable among them are Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Giganews, Megaupload, Depositfiles Mastercard, Visa and Leaseweb. While Perfect 10 lacks a clear victory, it has achieved several settlements which has motivated the company to continue its legal crusade. Late last week the publisher moved on to its next target, hosting company OVH. In their complaint Perfect 10 accuses the French company of providing hosting services to several websites that store pirated copies of their images. “Defendants host and provide Internet connectivity and other essential services to websites, including infringing websites operated in California that have infringed tens of thousands of Perfect 10 Copyrighted Works,” the complaint states. According to Perfect 10, OVH currently hosts over a dozen websites which store their work without permission, including celeb.to, celebforum.to, daily-ladies.com, gallery-dump.com, erooups.com, gophoto.us, hatuncenter.net, imagechunk.com, sualize.us, imgmaster.net, imagerise.com, ohfree.net, pixhost.eu and redblow.com. The magazine publisher argues that OVH is directly responsible for these copyright infringements committed by its customers. The company says it sent 17 DMCA notices to OVH since 2011, identifying more than 12,000 infringing images, and believes the hosting provider should have taken the URLs in question offline. “Defendants could have and should have ended the infringement by processing Perfect 10’s DMCA notices and removing the infringing images or by refusing to host the identified allegedly infringing websites, among other things,” the complaint explains. “Defendants have failed to take such action and have failed to remove the infringing material that Perfect 10 has identified in its DMCA notices. Defendants’ conduct has caused, and continues to cause, severe and irreparable harm to Perfect 10,” they add. The allegation doesn’t come as a surprise as hosting providers generally don’t take action based on DMCA takedown notices. Instead, they forward them to their clients, who are then responsible for resolving the issue. However, it appears that Perfect 10 wants to challenge this safe harbor principle. Interestingly, OVH’s hosting services are not the only problem. In addition to the pirate sites, the company is also accused of passing on copyright-infringing Internet traffic of Google and other third-party sites through its American backbone. “Third-party websites located in the United States, including Google.com, msn.com, yahoo.com, and blekko.com, among many others, have copied, distributed, and/or displayed thousands of infringing Perfect 10 Copyrighted Works hosted by Defendants. Defendants host and provide Internet connectivity and other essential services for these websites,” the complaint reads. In an accusation that pretty much targets the core of the Internet, Perfect 10 believes that OVH should have taken action against the infringing files that pass through or are hosted in its network. Because OVH failed to do so, the publisher claims that it suffered significant losses and is now demanding the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement. In theory this could get quite expensive. With a total of 1256 listed infringements OVH is facing up to $188 million in damages. However, considering Perfect 10′s track record in court the magazine publisher will probably be happy to settle for a tiny fraction of that.

Watch Dogs Release date: March Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 Ubisoft's Watch Dogs is a game that was meant to be released in 2013 alongside the PS4 and Xbox One. A brand new IP, Watch Dogs is an open world game with roleplaying and stealth elements. It's comparable with Deus Ex in some respects, letting you get through situations in different ways based on the skills of your character. Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/best-new-g...2syGtWG.99

At E3 Gaming Convention, Microsoft Shifts Emphasis of Xbox One Console to Games LOS ANGELES — The latest video game consoles can play Internet radio, Netflix movies and YouTube video clips. But Sony and Microsoft, gearing up for a blistering battle in retail stores this holiday season, are reassuring consumers that their consoles are very much about games, too. That message was particularly forceful from Microsoft at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, game convention here, where the biggest companies in the games business show many of the products they will release later in the year. A year ago, Microsoft was promoting its Xbox One as an all-in-one entertainment system for the living room, one that could play games and then seamlessly shift to let people watch television, and change the channels with voice commands. On Monday, though, Microsoft shifted the conversation decisively back to games, announcing a lineup of almost two dozen titles, many of them hard-core shooting games, to be released on the Xbox this year, including an anthology of classic games based on the Halo science-fiction shooter series. At an event marking the start of the E3 game convention, Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft’s Xbox business, received a vigorous round of applause when he declared that Microsoft would dedicate the event entirely to games. Credit Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press “Our goal is to make Xbox One the best place to play games in this generation,” said Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft’s Xbox business, who received vigorous applause when he declared that Microsoft would dedicate the event entirely to games. While the change in emphasis may seem subtle, it comes after Microsoft was forced to respond to the success of Sony, its main competitor in the games business. Both companies introduced their new game systems in November, but Sony’s PlayStation 4 has held a decisive lead on Microsoft from the beginning. Microsoft said Monday that the company has sold more than five million Xbox Ones. Last month, Sony said it has sold more than seven million PlayStation 4s. At its own event Monday evening, Sony revealed its own slate of upcoming games for the PlayStation 4, including Little Big Planet 3, a new version of a popular adventure game with a character called Sackboy. Sony also said Grand Theft Auto V, a huge hit released previously for older consoles, will be released on the PlayStation 4 in the fall. It will also be published for Xbox One and PCs. Andrew House, the president and chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment, said the company’s vision is to make sure that its console is “above all else the place to play.” But Sony placed a spotlight on its broader entertainment ambitions, too. The company said it would produce original television content that will be streamed over the Internet to its console, including a show based on “Powers,” a graphic novel about two homicide detectives who investigate superheroes. Microsoft has announced similar plans for original shows. Sony has also sought to out-innovate Microsoft with plans, announced previously, to develop a virtual reality headset, called Project Morpheus, that will immerse PlayStation 4 players in 3-D worlds. Part of Microsoft’s disadvantage came from being more ambitious about the technology in the Xbox One, which includes the Kinect camera and microphone device. The Kinect allows people to play games and operate other functions with body movements and voice commands, and has been included with the console. The extra technology translated into a $499 price tag for the Xbox One, $100 more than for the PlayStation 4. Sony deftly exploited that and other missteps by Microsoft to portray itself as the more gamer-friendly console maker. In response, Microsoft recently announced it planned to introduce a $399 console without Kinect, which went on sale Monday. “They’re back on message,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, referring to the change in Microsoft’s emphasis. Game developers still seem eager to create products for Microsoft’s system. The company and its partners showed new versions of “Assassin’s Creed” and “Call of Duty,” two blockbuster franchises that are likely to be big sellers this holiday season. One of the most enthusiastic responses Microsoft got was for the Halo anthology, “Halo: The Masterchief Collection,” which will allow people to play four older installments of the series on the Xbox One console with improved graphics. Microsoft will not release an entirely new version of Halo, known as “Halo 5: Guardians,” until next year. But Microsoft said people purchasing the anthology would be able to participate in a test of the multiplayer abilities of the new game later this year. Microsoft showed another exclusive Xbox game called “Sunset Overdrive,” a kinetic shooting game set in an apocalyptic urban landscape populated by mutants. Sony and Microsoft have both enjoyed strong sales of their new systems, partly because a third competitor, Nintendo, has struggled with its latest console, the Wii U. All three are being forced to adapt to a market where smartphones and tablets are becoming the most common devices for playing games. In an interview, Mr. Spencer of Microsoft commended Sony for its strong showing since it introduced the PlayStation 4. He said he had no intention of allowing his competitor to keep a lead on Microsoft. “I’m in this to win,” he said.

Popcorn Time Gives Users Anonymity With a Free Built-In VPN One of the Popcorn Time forks has included a free VPN option in its software, allowing users to hide their IP-addresses from the public, This feature is a response to copyright trolls, who regularly send settlement requests to users who pirate movies via BitTorrent. popcornThe Popcorn Time phenomenon took the Internet by storm earlier this year. The software became the subject of hundreds of news articles, as it offered P2P streaming in an easy to use Netflix-style interface. Overwhelmed by the response the original team quickly retired. However, since the code is open source, many competing forks quickly adopted the project, each taking it in a different direction. Time4Popcorn is one of the most users reincarnations of Popcorn Time. The team behind the project has introduced several new features to their version, including TV-show listings and Android support. These changes definitely increased the appeal of the application, but there was a threat lurking around the corner. In common with all other BitTorrent-based software, copyright holders are actively monitoring the activities of people who pirate their works. This already resulted in fines for German users of a Popcorn Time fork, but users in the United States and other regions where copyright trolls are active face the same risk. To counter this “threat” the Time4Popcorn team decided to implement a VPN feature, for free. “Throughout these last months we realized that making the ultimate watching experience for everyone is important. However, something that is even more important to us is that everyone will be able to get this experience without risking themselves,” the Time4Popcorn team tells TorrentFreak. The news about the settlement requests prompted the developers to include a VPN option to anonymize use of their client. This week the feature was added to the latest 4.2 Alpha release. By clicking a lock icon users can quickly connect and disconnect the built-in protection. Although it may take some more time before a stream starts playing, it appears to work just fine. “Thanks to the new VPN feature everyone from anywhere in the world will be able to use Popcorn Time, worry free. That makes us very happy,” the team tells us. The VPN itself is not run by the Popcorn Time team. Instead, they came to an agreement with the VPN provider Kebrum, who are offering their services for free. TorrentFreak reached out to Kebrum to find out why they agreed to join the project. “There are not a lot of opportunities in life to be a part of a revolution and we have recognized this opportunity. One of the main goals of the company is to bring back the anonymity to the internet,” Kebrum’s Martin tells us. “We believe Popcorn Time is the revolution that will change the entertainment industry forever. And now, with our help, Popcorn Time can do for the world of internet anonymity the same as they will do for the world of entertainment.” This revolution does come at a cost for the company, as it has to pick up the bills. However, Kebrum believes that the brand exposure will make up for this investment. The traffic shouldn’t be a problem for the company, as it has plenty of resources available. “From our experience and the expected usage stats provided by Popcorn Time, we believe that the resources we allocated for Popcorn Time users should be enough in order to give a good and fast download experience. Our servers are prepared to handle the traffic,” Martin says. As with all other features, the VPN functionality is released as open source under a GPL-V3 license. The Time4Popcorn team plans to inform its users about the new VPN feature in the coming days, and once it’s included in the stable release older versions will update automatically.

Post: #1 Popcorn Time For Music Really Has To Be Pretty Epic Popcorn Time for movies really shook things up earlier this year, so a comparable product for free music would also be huge, right? Well actually one exists already but it's just not having the same kind of impact. While pirates once easily had the upper hand with music, competing with legal services is getting harder. ilovemusic]At this very moment, anyone with a keyboard and access to the Internet can listen to pretty much any track currently available. Much to the annoyance of the music industry, most of that music can be found with a simple Google search and if it’s already been deleted from there, switching to Yahoo does the trick. Hundreds of sites lie a click away, many offering access to millions of free MP3s. While there’s no doubt that plenty of people use them, there’s no absolute need to access music from unauthorized sources anymore, even if the listener is payment averse. YouTube, for example, works very well indeed, even for the biggest selling tracks. The story for movies is quite different. Sure, there are unauthorized services a few clicks away but even the hottest torrent sites represent a daunting prospect for Joe Public. Streaming sites bridge the usability gap somewhat with their advanced presentation and simple interfaces but often spoil the viewing experience with waves of popups, fake download buttons and other intrusive advertising. Then earlier this year Popcorn Time arrived, offering the power of torrents under the hood and a Netflix-style quality interface on top. Unlike its legal competitor, however, the latest spinoff versions of the software have no restrictions on content availability. When all the angles are considered, this software pretty much beats the professionals at their own game – no wonder Hollywood wants to kill it. It was with excitement, then, that news of a “Popcorn Time for music” reached our ears recently. Called HipHop, the tool has actually been out for a number of weeks already but recently received renewed exposure on Hacker News. The tool has a decent interface and boasts free access to 45 million tracks, that’s better than iTunes and most of the official streaming services around today So where are the dozens of news articles charting HipHop’s rise to fame in the way they did with Popcorn Time? Thing is, apart from a token mention here and there, there aren’t any. This isn’t because people don’t like music or that HipHop doesn’t do what it claims, because it does. Maybe it’s because free access to music and music alone simply doesn’t cut it these days. While pirates have run rings around Hollywood for some time and in some ways continue to do so, in the music sector services like Spotify and even YouTube are doing a much better job than the majority of mainstream pirate alternatives. Sure, anyone can head over to MP3Skull, MP3Juices or GoSong and grab free MP3s all day, but aren’t we demanding more these days? YouTube provides not only the music but the videos to accompany them. Spotify provides great content discovery opportunities, unrivaled multi-device convenience and is completely free at entry level. It’s been in development for years and it performs better than HipHop in every way. It’s competing with free and winning. While a Popcorn Time or similar for movies is likely to prove attractive for many years to come due to Hollywood’s archaic release restrictions and unfriendly pricing, pirates are really going to have to up their game to make a Spotify beater for music. While someone might appear with something amazing, at this point we have to consider that it might never happen. That in itself is quite extraordinary.

Pirate Bay Traffic Doubles Despite ISP Blockades In recent years the entertainment industries have pushed hard to get The Pirate Bay blocked in various countries. Despite these efforts the notorious torrent site has managed to double its visitors. The United States remains the most popular traffic source while roughly 9% of all users access the site through a proxy. tpb-logoThe Pirate Bay is without doubt one of the most censored websites on the Internet. Courts all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site and this list continues to expand. Denmark was one of the first countries to block The Pirate Bay, but the biggest impact came in 2012 when major ISPs in the UK and the Netherlands were ordered to deny their users access to the site. The entertainment industries have characterized these blockades as a major victory and claim they’re an efficient tool to deter piracy. The question that has thus far remained unanswered, however, is how Pirate Bay’s traffic numbers are being affected. Is the site on the verge of collapsing? As it turns out, The Pirate Bay hasn’t stopped growing at all. On the contrary, The Pirate Bay informs TorrentFreak that visitor numbers have doubled since 2011. The graph below shows the growth in unique visitors and pageviews over the past three years. The Pirate Bay chose not to share actual visitor numbers, but monthly pageviews are believed to run into the hundreds of millions.

Chrome Blocks uTorrent as Malicious and Harmful Software Google's Chrome browser has started to block downloads of the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent. Those who attempt to download the software are told that it's malicious and harmful, hinting that the website might have been hacked. maliciousutorrWith millions of new downloads per month uTorrent is without a doubt the most used BitTorrent client around. However, since this weekend the number of installs must have dropped quite a bit after Google Chrome began warning users away from the software. According to Chrome the BitTorrent client poses a serious risk. “uTorrent.exe is malicious and Chrome has blocked it,” the browser informs those who attempt to download the latest stable release. Chrome does give users the option to restore the file but not without another warning. The browser is convinced that the file is harmful and suggests that the uTorrent website may have been hacked. “This file will harm your computer. Even if you have downloaded files from this website before, the website may have been hacked. Instead of recovering this file you can retry the download later.” The first reports of Chrome’s block came in three days ago and at the time of writing the problems persist. The warnings appear for the latest stable release (3.4.2.32354) and no other releases appear to be affected. Currently there is no indication why the software has been flagged, but a scan by more than 50 of the most popular anti-virus services reveals no active threats. Google’s safe browsing diagnostic page claims that the uTorrent website was involved in malware distribution in recent months, but no further details on the nature of the supposed malware are provided. “This site has hosted malicious software over the past 90 days. It infected 4 domain(s), including kioskea.net/, ziggi.uol.com.br/, majorgeeks.com/,” the diagnostics page reads. This isn’t the first time that uTorrent has reported problems with Chrome. The same happened late last year when the malware blocking feature was still in beta. At the time uTorrent parent company BitTorrent Inc. managed to resolve the issues after several days. Thus far, none of the developers have responded to user complaints in the uTorrent forums. Update We discovered that uTorrent occasionally serves other versions as well, these are not blocked. The vast majority of the downloads are still blocked though. utorrent latest stable release: http://www.utorrent.com/downloads/win

Vuze Releases Leap, a Simple and Lightweight Torrent Client The makers of the popular file-sharing software Vuze have released a brand new BitTorrent client. Vuze Leap is a dummy-proof application with a simple interface, which uses minimal resources. According to the company there is a massive demand for a clean and straightforward BitTorrent client. Vuze_bw_logoVuze is one of the most recognized BitTorrent brands. Their client is used by millions of people each day and has a steadily growing user-base. In recent years Vuze’s core BitTorrent client has evolved into an advanced download solution with every complex feature heavy BitTorrent users could wish for. The downside of being so complete is that the application can be quite overwhelming to newcomers. In addition the application is somewhat of a resource hog. The Vuze team has taken these complaints to heart and coded “Vuze Leap,” a brand new client that is both simple and lightweight. “We sought to deliver a simpler experience as a counterpart to the powerful, full-featured core Vuze BitTorrent Client that has pleased millions of users for years. Even with file-sharing being a part of internet usage for years, we continued to hear, from some users a desire to have a simpler experience that was less resource intensive,” Vuze’s Claude Tolbert tells TorrentFreak. Today the first Vuze Leap beta is unveiled to the public. The torrent client works out of the box. Users are presented with a big search box which they can use to search for torrents without having to leave the application. When a search term is entered, Vuze Leap will automatically search for matching content on Google, the Internet Archive and elsewhere. This can then be downloaded with a single click. After a download is completed users can play media files directly from the client, or navigate to the download folder as they would do with other torrent clients. Vuze Leap automatically categorizes files into various categories to keep the library organized. Vuze’s new BitTorrent client is best suited to less tech-savvy users who don’t necessarily need all the advanced features the core Vuze client has to offer. Through its simpler interface Vuze Leap should make BitTorrent more accessible to people who are new to torrents. “We believe that Vuze Leap extends usability to users who may be new to filesharing or don’t require the power and functionality that the core Vuze BitTorrent Client provides. However, both provide an outstanding experience to users,” Tolbert says. TorrentFreak tested the application and it works as advertised. It certainly feels much lighter and faster than the core Vuze client. The built-in search is handy as well, although users may have to scroll down to get the best search results, which often come from Google. The application is currently only available for Windows but support for other operating systems is expected to follow in the future. Those who are interested in taking Vuze Leap for a spin can download the latest beta release after signing up for the beta test. The download link comes with the confirmation email.

Expendables 3 Leaks Online, 100K+ Copies Down in Hours The Expendables 3, featuring every action hero known to man, was set for an August 15 debut but has appeared online in near DVD quality. In just 12 hours, more than 100,000 copies have been downloaded. It's worth bearing in mind, however, that production company Nu Image sued those who downloaded the original movie. expendables3You’d have to be enjoying a Mars residency not to know that all big (and most small) movies get leaked online. If it’s available in a cinema, someone, somewhere will have a copy in a matter of days and it’s just a question of when, not if, it appears on the Internet. As such, these events aren’t particularly big news but every now and again one comes along to make people sit up and listen. Several hours ago, July 24, 2014, marked one such notable leaking event. Featuring every action hero known to man, from Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wesley Snipes, Jason Statham and Jet Li, to UFC stars Randy Couture and Ronda Rousey, Expendables 3 was always going to be a hit. However, the plan was to have it become a hit on the big screen before breaking into the home market. That is not going to happen. Around twelve hours ago, a near perfect copy of The Expendables 3 appeared online and it’s already a smash hit with home audiences. Screenshot from the leak Figures gathered by TorrentFreak reveal that more than 100,000 200,000 (update) people have downloaded the presumed ‘DVD screener’ copy using BitTorrent alone, and at one point in excess of 65,000 users were engaged in transfers on a single torrent. These stats push the leak well ahead of the initial pre-release popularity of the infamous X-Men Origins: Wolverine leak back in 2009 and once the news begins to spread today, things are only going to get worse. Needless to say, the folks at distributor Lionsgate are going to be absolutely furious. While ‘cams’ are an annoyance, most movie-goers won’t want to destroy the movie experience by watching them. High-quality copies like this one are a different matter altogether and the soaring download numbers are a testament to that. No blurry cams here, high-quality all the way So who is behind the leak? At this stage it’s impossible to point the finger at the person who obtained the DVD copy. However, we can take a look at who brought the copy to the wider public Internet. When leaks come from a so-called ‘Scene’ source it’s possible to track the copy at least as far back as the group that placed it online but with so-called P2P releases, as is the case with Expendables 3, that’s not quite so easy. However, the initial and most popular copy appears to be attributable to an entity known as Drarbg. Drarbg has accounts on several major torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay, and is one of the most prolific BitTorrent releasers online today. Many presume that this is a single person, but Drarbg has previously indicated that it’s a group of individuals working together as a team. Drarbg, as the name suggests, has affiliations with RARBG, a popular public torrent site. It seems likely that this high-profile, high-quality leak will become a talking point in the hours, weeks and months to come and will probably be seized upon as a prime example of why piracy crackdowns are needed. However, there is also another angle to be aware of. Nu Image, the production company behind all three Expendables titles, sued previous downloaders of its titles. Will history repeat itself? Time will tell…. Update: Downloads climbing well over 200K copies now…