Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

An anti-piracy group representing publishers in Russia has filed a complaint against Google with the European Commission. According to the letter, Google fails to remove piracy-enabling apps from Google Play, creating barriers to entry for legal platforms. The complaint, however, is far from straightforward. Google Play and Apple’s App Store host millions of apps that serve the vast majority of hand-held devices in operation today. Most of these software tools cause no problems for rightsholders but some either directly infringe the rights of copyright holders or enable users to do the same. In response to legitimate copyright complaints, these apps are removed, but for several rightsholders in Russia, not enough is being done. Google Takes Some Apps Down But Grants Others “Immunity” According to the Association for the Protection of Copyright on the Internet (AZAPI), an anti-piracy group representing publishers in Russia, Google needs to up its game. AZAPI general manager Maxim Ryabyko acknowledges that over the past two years, Google has indeed removed 60 mobile applications following complaints. However, apps that belong to larger platforms have been “granted immunity” and remain available to the public, facilitating piracy as they go. In response, AZAPI’s clients – which include Eksmo-AST (which together hold 30% of the Russian market) and Hachette subsidiary Azbuka-Atticus – have filed a complaint with the European Commission, claiming that the Google is abusing its dominant position to the detriment of the publishers who want more business from Europe. Russian news outlet Kommersant obtained a copy of the letter, which was sent to Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition. It complains that Google has failed to remove applications from its Google Play store that are popular among Russian-speaking residents of Europe but facilitate copyright infringement. The Applications in Question Do Not Have a Focus on Piracy While AZAPI’s headline argument sounds relatively straightforward, the details reveal a complex situation. The apps listed in the complaint are published by large Internet companies and are presented and utilized as general-purpose tools. None have a clear or main focus on copyright-infringing activity. AZAPI says that the problematic apps are operated by messaging and communications company Telegram, social network for old friends and classmates Odnoklassniki, user-generated article service Wattpad, plus email service Mail.ru and YouTube, which needs no introduction. The failure to remove these apps from Google Play creates barriers to entry to the European market for applications offering legal content, which include Storytel, Bookmate and LitRes, the complaint alleges. In comments to Kommersant, AZAPI’s Maxim Ryabyko said that something needs to be done. “The Russian-speaking audience in Europe communicates on Odnoklassniki and other social networks, and while it provides access to a large number of pirated copies of books, it remains inaccessible to legal services. Meanwhile, the scale of consumption of legal e-books in Russia is growing,” he said. Offers to Remove Pirate Content En Masse Were Ignored While Google-owner YouTube and Telegram have yet to comment on the complaint, Odnoklassniki said it had tried to solve the problem with AZAPI but its efforts appeared to fall on deaf ears. A representative from the company said that AZAPI had been repeatedly asked to supply an “exhaustive list” of pirated content on the basis Odnoklassniki would prevent it from being made available via its application. That list never materialized, so they continue to process individual takedown notices on request. Furthermore, Bookmate – one of the legal platforms that is allegedly being damaged by the availability of pirate content on platforms like Odnoklassniki – doesn’t agree with the position taken by AZAPI. Dissent In The Ranks: No Barrier to Entry, Says eBook Service “This is not at all a barrier to our development in Europe,” Bookmate CEO Andrey Baev told Kommersant. “Mechanisms equivalent to the DMCA have long been provided, which work great and to which everyone responds, including Google. The same goes for WattPad, which works very clearly at the request of copyright holders. Pirated copies are downloaded on torrents, but this does not apply to applications,” he added. While the company is yet to respond, it seems extremely unlikely that Google will remove the applications listed in the complaint. Not only do they have overwhelming non-infringing uses, but the companies that operate them respond directly to copyright infringement complaints, which allows rightsholders to remove or block content from becoming available. While it’s hard to second-guess AZAPI’s goals here, one possibility is that it may be seeking to compel these platforms to enter into some kind of official licensing deal. But whatever the motivation, the complaint is now with the European Commission, which will draw its own conclusions, ones that could take a considerable time to reach.

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Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Pirate IPTV service Area 51 disappeared offline late June with a message that its operators had decided to move on to other things. We can now reveal that the service was shut down by the Hollywood and Netflix-powered MPA and the global anti-piracy coalition Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment. Running in their own niche alongside traditional streaming portals and torrent sites, pirate IPTV services have, over the past several years, become the “next big thing” in online piracy. With relatively humble roots there are now seemingly hundreds of suppliers, some near the top of the tree with others simply rebranded versions of similar services. It’s reportedly a billion-dollar business in the United States alone but one service that recently stopped adding to that tally was Area 51. Area 51 Announces its Shutdown In late June, customers of Area 51 began receiving emails with the sender marked as ‘[email protected]’, denoting one of the streaming platform’s official domains. It revealed that after several years of active service, Area 51 would be shutting down. “We have been forced to make this very difficult decision, and close Area 51. We had quite a run, and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without customers like you,” the email began. With little other information available through public channels, speculation that the service may have run into legal trouble wasn’t far away. However, when pirate IPTV platforms disappear, they usually do so fairly tidily, but that wasn’t the case here. The email from Area 51 indicated that another “amazing company” called Outer Limits would be taking over all of Area 51’s customer accounts, suggesting that subscriptions wouldn’t simply be lost. Indeed, former Area 51 clients were told to log into the Outer Limits site (outerlimits.info) with their current client area login credentials. Resurrections/Rebranding Don’t Sit Well With Copyright Holders Soon after, customers received another email, again from Area 51. This gave more information, stating that some of the team had decided to “move on to other ventures” while some had “just decided to focus more on our families.” However, earlier references to using Outer Limits were gone, replaced with a new brand purportedly taking over – Singularity Media. “Hello and welcome to Singularity Media. We have taken over your account from your existing IPTV provider,” an email from the provider to its new customers explained. “Your account remains the same and we are now looking after it for you. This means your logins remain the same.” The announcement was certainly curious. If Area 51 had been subjected to legal threats from any credible entertainment anti-piracy group, directing customers to a new pirate service would be forbidden under the terms of any agreement following a normal cease-and-desist order. So, given the rumors that some or all of the Area 51 team may have been personally served with orders to shut down, it wasn’t really a surprise when reports surfaced days later that Singularity Media would be shutting down too. Its URL is still dead but we can now reveal that Area 51 was indeed subjected to legal threats. Domains Seized By the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment Area 51 operated various aspects of its service from several domains, including area-51-hosting.host. In addition to being identified as the sender of the ‘shutdown’ email, this domain acted as a sales portal for Area 51, offering packages at $10 per month up to a yearly subscription of $120. After almost two months of uncertainty, we now confirm that the ownership of this domain has now been transferred from the Area 51 team and into the hands of the MPA which represents the major Hollywood studios and Netflix. As previously reported on numerous occasions, including the shutdown of the Vaders service, when the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment arranges for a domain to be seized, it is transferred to the custody of the MPA. < We can also confirm that at least two other domains previously operated by Area 51 are also in the hands of the MPA, including area51tv.stream and theuforepo.us. The latter, a reference to ‘the UFO repo’, was deployed by Area 51 as a repository to host various APKs and plug-ins used to access the service. A Simple Shutdown – Or Will the Area 51 Mystery Continue to Unfold? In common with its Nevada-based namesake, the now-confirmed shutdown of Area 51 has the potential to fuel more conspiracy theories. The big question, of course, is whether this matter is now over as far as the massive global anti-piracy coalition ACE is concerned or if there’s more action to come. One only has to look at the sudden shut down of the Vaders IPTV service last year and the official announcement, arriving months later, that revealed that Vaders’ operators had agreed to pay ACE members $10m in damages. Whether that will be repeated here remains a mystery. At this stage, it’s hard to say precisely what aspect of the Area 51 service was focused on by ACE lawyers but given recent lawsuits, including one against Clear View Media first reported by TF last week, Area 51’s VOD offering seems a likely candidate.

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Welcome to InviteHawk

Welcome to InviteHawk

Google Translation: Notice We just deleted a portion of single episodes and some broken torrrents, don’t delete the collections, please continue seeding

Welcome to InviteHawk

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DONATION Hello members, hope you are well while Coronavirus has been spreaded all over the world. It has a serious impact on the economy and really affected my finances to keep UHDBits survive in next years. I have to deal with this, what I need to pay are annual rent server in September and renew domain in November So this is the 1st time I ask you guys to help me by donation. Thanks all. On behalf of UHDBits. N***

Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller 'Tenet' will be one of the first blockbusters to debut on the big screen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent takedown notices from Warner Bros. show that the movie studio is keeping a close eye on leaked footage. This will likely be the case for the official release as well, which presents some pressing piracy concerns. In recent months many films have skipped the box office due to the coronavirus pandemic, while others have been delayed. The latter applies to Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated sci-fi thriller ‘Tenet‘ that was initially scheduled for release in July. Tenet’s Staggered Release Schedule After several delays, Warner Bros. has now decided on the official and presumably final premiere dates. The film will premiere on August 26 in many countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. Other countries, including the US, Russia and China, will have to wait a week longer and in Japan, Tenet will officially debut on September 18. These staggered releases aren’t unusual. That said, in an increasingly globalized society, it creates extra tension. With movie fans craving for a blockbuster big-screen experience, it’s frustrating to see others enjoying it first. Perfect Storm for Piracy This tension has motivated people to turn to pirate sites in the past, as these don’t have release delays. This could be a problem for Tenet as well, according to an unnamed anti-piracy veteran who spoke with Variety. “In some ways ‘Tenet’ is a perfect storm for piracy, in that it has raised expectations, both about the film itself and the cinema experience,” the anti-piracy veteran said. “Also, it has limited availability and suffers from a staggered release.” Whether piracy will indeed become a massive problem is up for debate. If there is a leak, it will likely be a low-quality camcorded version. While there certainly is a demand for those, hardcore fans will probably prefer to wait a week or two to enjoy it in its full glory. Warner Bros. will face a much bigger problem when a high-quality leak surfaces. However, those are very rare nowadays. Warner Bros. Takes Down Leaked Footage That said, it is clear that the movie studio is keeping a close eye on potential leaks. Over the past few days, Warner Bros. sent several takedown notices to remove exclusive Tenet footage that appeared online. The footage in question is from a prologue to Tenet, which appeared in theaters during the re-release of Inception in recent weeks. Nolan fans published copies of it online, including on Reddit, but these were swiftly pulled by Warner Bros. The movie studio also reached out to Google on several occasions, asking it to remove the exclusive footage from Google Drive, where people shared it publicly and privately. These files were subsequently removed by Google for violating its terms of service. The takedowns show that Warner Bros. is vigilant and movie theaters may have to employ more strict anti-piracy measures for the premiere as well. Variety reached out to several exhibitors around the world, but none appear to have received any special instructions thus far. That said, they are likely more than happy to go the extra mile if needed. “Warner Bros. hasn’t specifically mentioned [piracy], but we’re aware of that and are taking extra steps because Chris Nolan is trusting us with ‘Tenet.’ We’re going to do everything we can to help him out,” one international exhibitor said. It’s certainly possible that camcorded copies of Tenet will appear online later this month. However, based on similar releases in the past, we expect that the massive piracy boom will take place when the first high-quality copies come out. That could take a few more months.