Tracker's Name : X-ite.me (XM) Genre : LGBTQ MOVIES / GENERAL / XXX Sign-up Link : https://x-ite.me/account-signup.php Additional information : X-ite.me (XM) is a Private Torrent Tracker for LGBTQ MOVIES / GENERAL / XXX

The Digital Economy Bill is currently at the report stage. It hasn't yet become law and could still be amended. However, as things stand those who upload any amount of infringing content to the Internet could face up to 10 years in jail. With the latest bill now published, we take a look at how file-sharers could be affected. This week, Members of Parliament debated the Report stage and Third Reading of the Digital Economy Bill in the House of Commons. The bill is broad in scope and has the ability to upset Internet users in a number of ways. As reported by The Guardian this week, if the bill passes web users in the UK will be banned from websites which portray certain sex acts, all of which are entirely legal between consenting adults in the country. Websites which fail to stop UK residents from viewing such content will be blocked. Here at TF we’ve been keeping an eye on the proposed changes to the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) which will affect people who share copyrighted content online. As previously reported, the government’s main aim is to harmonize penalties for offline infringements with those carried out online, chiefly by upping the maximum penalty from two to ten years in prison. The latest bill published this week puts some additional meat on the bones. As things stand under current law, section 107 (criminal liability for making or dealing with infringing articles) reads as follows: The latest draft amendment makes no mention of carrying out infringement during the course of business. Instead, for a person to be held criminally liable for distribution (such as uploading), they only need to have reason to believe something infringes copyright while making a personal gain, a gain for someone else, or exposing a copyright owner to the mere risk of loss. In this context, the words ‘gain’ and ‘loss’ are very important. For the avoidance of doubt, the draft sets the bar as low as it can practically go. Similar amendments are proposed for section 198 of the CDPA, which deals with ‘Criminal liability for making, dealing with or using illicit recordings’. “These are recordings made without the consent of the performer (i.e. piracy or bootlegging). Bootlegging is the recording, duplication and sale of a performance such as a live concert stage performance without the permission of the performer,” a description from the Crown Prosecution Service reads. Like the amendments to section 107, gone are the references in current legislation to offenses carried out in the course of a business. Instead, the wording closely follows the section detailed above. In common with the amendments to section 107, to be found criminally liable an infringer will only need to expose a rightsholder to the risk of loss, not an actual loss. While at several points MPs have insisted that these legislative amendments won’t target the man in the street or the casual file-sharer, there appears to be nothing in the above that excludes a person who shares a single movie, song, or indeed bootleg recording, from being branded a criminal by the state. The full draft bill can be downloaded here (pdf, 180 pages) https://torrentfreak.com/ten-years-in-jail-for-uk-internet-pirates-how-the-new-bill-reads-161204/

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In recent weeks, French police targeted two huge torrent sites, What.cd followed by the even larger Zone-Telechargement. In an interview, the general secretary of anti-piracy outfit SACEM reveals further information about the latter, including arrests, seizure of overseas servers, real estate, and luxury cars. Two weeks ago and seemingly out of the blue, popular private music tracker What.cd went offline. French military police targeted some of the site’s infrastructure at hosting provider OVH and the site responded by deleting itself. The news came as a huge disappointment to the site’s users and the wider torrent community as a whole, but French police weren’t done yet. In a follow-up action, French Gendarmerie targeted Zone-Telechargement (Download Zone), the country’s largest pirate site and 11th most-visited website in the region overall. That site went down too, closely followed by affiliated DDL site, DL-Protect. Behind all of these actions is SACEM, the Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music. This industry group has a mandate to collect and distribute royalties while protecting the copyrights of its members. And according to its general secretary, they’re only just getting started. In an interview with French news site Le Monde, David El Sayegh said that SACEM and the police hadn’t “just woken up” to pirate sites operating in France. The actions against both What.cd and Zone-Telechargement were the result of a “long process and meticulous work.” The SACEM chief said the investigation into the two million direct download link Zone-Telechargement began two years ago in partnership with another local anti-piracy outfit. It turned up a lot of useful information. “We filed a complaint in 2014, joined by ALPA (French Association for the Fight against Piracy). This process was to identify accounts, assets, servers and advertising agencies. It’s always quite a complex and sophisticated system, they are large investigations,” he said. “There were many advertisements on the site, often pornographic. [Zone-Telechargement] generated at least 1.5 million euros in sales per year, with offshore accounts located in Malta, Cyprus and Belize.” David El Sayegh said that rightsholders were looking at damages of more than 75 million euros but the operators of the site were no longer resident in France. That didn’t stop their arrests, however. Seven people were arrested on Monday in France and Andorra, with police there calling the action ‘Operation Gervais‘. “The two administrators, arrested by international mandates, had left France to settle in Andorra. Large seizures of assets were carried out: luxury cars, real estate, and savings accounts,” he said. The Gendarmerie confirmed the seizure of 450,000 euros and two cars and said that the men, both aged 24, were “repeat offenders.” Authorities in Andorra confirmed that 250,000 euros across several accounts had been frozen. “We are looking at a case of counterfeiting for profit, on a large scale,” El Sayegh continued. “These people do not pay taxes, they do not pay the rightful rightsholders, they do not respect anything. They have developed a very organized and sophisticated mechanism to voluntarily operate outside the law.” With the site targeted in France and its operators arrested in Andorra, the operation spread further afield. SACEM says that servers were also seized in Germany and as far away as Iceland, a country often associated with high levels of privacy. Of course, the recent shutdowns were very unpopular with users, but El Sayegh said that the law is on SACEM’s side. “These are counterfeit business activities, these are people who have grown rich on the backs of creators. They make millions without paying one euro to creators. They are thugs who should not have the compassion of one person, and who will answer for their acts before justice.” But while harshly criticizing site operators, El Sayegh tone was a little more moderate when speaking of their users. He asked them to consider how creators are to earn a living in the face of piracy but suggested that they’re only chasing the bigger fish. “The challenge is mainly to stop those who trade works. But the objective above all is to attack the evil at its source, and the administrators of the pirate sites,” he said. Other unnamed targets are also in SACEM’s sights. However, it seems unlikely that many sites will continue their stay in France following the events of the past couple of weeks. https://torrentfreak.com/sacem-provides-details-on-recent-torrent-site-raids-in-france-161203/

A group of prominent legal scholars has warned that the EU Commission's plans to modernize copyright law in Europe appear to be incompatible with EU law. One of the main problems is the mandatory piracy filter Internet services are required to use, which largely ignore existing case law and human rights. Last September, the European Commission published its long-awaited proposal to modernize EU copyright law. Among other things, it will require online services to do more to fight piracy. Specifically, Article 13 of the proposed Copyright Directive requires online services to monitor and filter pirated content, in collaboration with rightsholders. This means that online services, which deal with large volumes of user-uploaded content, must use fingerprinting or other detection mechanisms to block copyright infringing files. “The Commission proposal obliges such service providers to take appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure the protection of user-uploaded works, for example by putting in place content recognition technologies,” the Commission explained. The Commission stressed that the changes are needed to reinforce the negotiating position of copyright holders, so they can sign licensing agreements with services that provide access to user-uploaded content. However, the proposal is drawing wide criticism from the public, digital rights activists, and legal scholars. Just recently, a group of legal experts bundled several of their main concerns in a paper. TorrentFreak spoke with Dr. Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon, Associate Professor in IT and IP law at the University of Southampton, who is one of the authors of the paper. Stalla-Bourdillon and her colleagues warn that, in its current form, the proposal goes against existing EU law. For one, the general obligation to monitor the content that users are transmitting, directly opposes Article 15 of the E-Commerce Directive. This article prohibits general monitoring obligations for service providers. “Such an obligation [to monitor contents] goes against Article 15 of the E-commerce Directive, which prevents Member States from imposing upon intermediary providers general monitoring obligations,” she notes. More importantly, the legal scholars also note that the filtering requirement also contradict Articles 8 and 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. These articles protect people’s freedom of expression and access to information, as well as their personal data. Both articles were also cited in the Netlog filtering case that went before the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) a few years ago. At the time, the Court held that requiring an online platform to install broad piracy filters is incompatible with EU law. In the proposed Copyright Directive the filters will be put in place in collaboration with rightsholders. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the human rights dimension is largely ignored. “Requiring that filtering systems be put in place in collaboration with rightholders is not enough to eliminate these human rights challenges,” Stalla-Bourdillon says. “The CJEU did not imply in Netlog that if the database of protected works was produced in collaboration with rightholders themselves, the general obligation to monitor imposed upon the service provider would thus be transformed into a permissible, special obligation to monitor.” With their paper, the researchers are making a case for a complete re-assessment of the filtering requirement. They ask the EU Commission to carefully look at the new requirements, and make sure that they are in line with existing case law and legislation. https://torrentfreak.com/mandatory-piracy-filters-may-violate-eu-law-scholars-warn-161203/

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New research from Carnegie Mellon University shows that online piracy is not the only worry for TV distributors. Based on Downton Abbey streaming and sales data provided by PBS, the researchers find that free legal streams can significantly reduce download sales. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that free streaming options should be banned. Over the past decade, TV and movie companies have taken part in a massive experiment in which they’ve had to reinvent their business models, adopting to rapidly changing demands from consumers. The first wave of change was triggered by BitTorrent, which allowed downloading huge video files with ease, something that wasn’t possible before. The movie industry responded by offering their own online video download options, and with bandwidth getting cheaper and more readily available, streaming services soon followed. However, having legal options available is just a tiny part of the puzzle. The next challenge is to set them up in a way so that people will actually use them, while optimizing revenue long-term. For example, should you allow people to stream your content for free online? A new study by Carnegie Mellon University researchers aims to provide some empirical evidence on this issue. Using streaming and sales data for the popular show Downton Abbey, provided by PBS, they estimate the impact of free streaming on direct download (EST) sales. The results, published in a paper for the upcoming International Conference on Information Systems, show that legal streaming options can hurt download sales significantly. The researchers were able to estimate the impact in a natural experiment, since PBS was required to pull the free streams for all episodes at the same time. This means that some were streamable for more than a month, while others only for a week, or two. PBS’ free treaming window for Downton Abbey season 5 In addition, they had sales data for several seasons, allowing them to make an alternative comparison between years, where the streaming windows varied. In both cases, they show that free streaming cannibalizes download sales. “Our analysis in our primary specification indicates that availability in the free streaming window reduces EST sales by 8.4%. Using an alternative specification we find that free availability reduces EST sales by 9.9%,” they write. The negative effect is not unexpected. However, it doesn’t mean that it is wrong to offer free streaming in the long run, as there are several positive side-effects. That’s where the puzzle starts to get complicated. “For example, free streaming platforms owned by the broadcast network can draw new users to the platform, providing the network with valuable data about its viewers, and a stronger platform as consumers switch from consumption through broadcast television to online stream,” the researchers note. “Networks also benefit from advertising sponsorship on their streaming channels. Streaming platforms may also enable customer discovery of other shows, or increase overall consumer goodwill,” they add. And then there’s still piracy. While unathorized downloads and streams weren’t factored into this study, the researchers point out that previous research has shown that making content legally available decreases demand for piracy. For example, a 2015 study revealed that ABC’s decision to add their content to Hulu reduced piracy for this content. This shows that legal streaming may also have a positive long-term effect by decreasing people’s piracy habits. Although the current results are important from a managerial perspective, it might just leave more questions than it answered. In any case, the puzzle of how to offer video content while maximizing revenues in the long run, is far from solved. https://torrentfreak.com/free-tv-show-streaming-hurts-online-sales-research-finds-161201/

Topdawg Entertainment Inc., Interscope Records and Universal Music Group must pay damages after issuing false DMCA notices which damaged an artist's reputation. Montreal hip hop artist Jonathan Emile teamed up with Kendrick Lamar on a track, but the labels wrongfully took it down from YouTube, iTunes and Soundcloud. Every hour of every day, millions of DMCA-style takedown notices flood into service providers all over the globe. Google alone has received a billion in the past 12 months. While the majority of these notices comply with the law, a percentage are duplicates, erroneous, or flat-out malicious. Until recently, however, no one had ever been held to account for sending bad notices, but a case in Canada has changed that. Whyte Potter-Mäl c Topdawg Entertainment Inc. is a curious case that has its roots back in 2011 when rapper Jonathan Emile asked fellow rapper and songwriter Kendrick Lamar to contribute to the track ‘Heaven Help Dem’. Lamar agreed and provided a verse in 2012. “We sent [Lamar] an email outlining what we wanted to do and they got us on the phone and said they were feeling it and that they would go ahead and do the song,” Emile told Billboard. “We paid Kendrick Lamar for a feature, and once we paid them, they basically stopped communicating with us altogether. It was understood that we’d take care of the paperwork with the lawyers, so we paid them and they basically disappeared… we couldn’t get in contact, so I just continued producing my album and with the verbal agreement we had, and we put out the song in 2015.” Heaven Help Dem was supposed to be the lead track on Emile’s debut album, but instead it was quickly pulled from YouTube, iTunes, Soundcloud and other sites following bogus copyright claims from Lamar’s label Top Dawg Entertainment Inc., Interscope Records and Universal Music Group. Emile says that after going back and forth with the labels, they realized that they had no right to take the track down. By then, however, the damage had been done and all momentum to promote the song had been lost. Also faced with the prospect of fans believing that he had stolen the verse from Lamar, Emile decided to take the labels to court in Canada. In a case before the small claims division of the Court of Quebec, Emile asked for a token amount in damages – just CAD$15,000 – after the labels removed his work from the Internet for two months after bogus copyright claims. None appeared in court to defend themselves and Emile won by default. “It’s only after the intervention of this lawyer that the song was reinstated on the social media,” the Court’s judgment reads. “While the song was down, and even after it was reinstated, it is clear from the evidence provided that the incomes of the Plaintiff and his reputation was negatively affected from the false report of the Defendants.” In most cases there would be earlier rulings to look back on, but the Montreal Court said that it was unable to find anything similar on file. Instead, it used Copyright Act to determine an appropriate damages award. “In these circumstances, and after reviewing sections 28.1, 28.2, 34of the Copyright Act, sections 6 and 49 of the Charter of human rights and freedoms and the Cinar judgment [1] from the Supreme Court, the Court will allow the discretionary amount of $5,000 as moral and material damages to be solidarily paid by the Defendants and an additional amount of $1,000 per Defendant as punitive damages,” the Court ruled. Speaking with Legal Feeds, IP expert Noel Courage said he’d never seen a case where someone had been sued over a takedown notice. “The Court seemed to say that the takedown affected the moral rights of the musician’s work or performance,” he said. “Moral rights are the musician’s rights to the integrity of a work. These rights can be infringed if the work is modified without consent, and prejudices the musician’s reputation or honour. This is the first I have heard of the use of moral rights in response to a web music takedown.” While the Court’s decision will be welcomed by those who believe the DMCA is too often used as a weapon, Courage said that the case doesn’t set a strong precedent due to it being heard before a low-level court. However, “it may give companies pause before giving takedown notices.” https://torrentfreak.com/court-awards-damages-following-bogus-dmca-takedowns-161130/

A long-running dispute between Antigua and Barbuda and the United States over gambling services has reached a critical point. In a letter to the WTO, the Caribbean nation warns that unless the US either stops blocking or compensates its gambling services, it will lift protection of US intellectual property rights in 2017. For years, the small Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda had a flourishing gambling industry, with an estimated 5% of all countrymen working in gambling-related companies. However, measures taken by central, regional and local authorities in the US seriously affected the cross-border supply of gambling services, with Antigua’s High Commissioner to London stating that they had subsequently shrunk “to virtually nothing.” In desperation, Antigua filed a dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which it won. A 2005 ruling by the WTO found that denying Antiguan gambling companies access to the US market violated free-trade. In 2007 the WTO ramped up the pressure, granting Antigua the right to suspend U.S. IP rights up to $21 million annually. With little progress made in the dispute, in 2013 Antigua threatened to launch its own ‘pirate’ site, which prompted a sharp response from the US. “If Antigua actually proceeds with a plan for its government to authorize the theft of intellectual property, it would only serve to hurt Antigua’s own interests,” the U.S warned. After three years without such a site appearing, a release from the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Board (DSB) indicates that Antigua and Barbuda has finally run out of patience and is ready to suspend protection of US intellectual property rights. A letter from a government representative to the WTO explains the situation. “It has been 12 long years since an Arbitration panel, established under the rules and procedures of this body, issued a decision that found the United States of America in violation of international obligations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services. “Over that entire 12-year period, my small country with a Gross Domestic Product of just $1 billion has been deprived of trade revenues which now exceed $250 million. For my country’s tiny economy, $250 million is a meaningful sum of money,” the statement reads. Pointing out that $250m represents only 0.0003% of just one year of GDP for the US, the letter adds that over the past 12 years, the US has enjoyed a trade surplus with Antigua and Barbuda of more than $1 billion. “Over all this time my government has patiently engaged in good faith consultations with the Government of the United States in the genuine hope that the harm done to our economy by US action would be repaired through a settlement that recognizes justice and fairness. “Alas, the US has not been able to propose terms for a settlement that would even remotely compensate for the harm that has been done to our economy and continues to impact it negatively.” The statement from Antigua and Barbuda adds that while the US continues to defy WTO rulings, it remains the most active user of the institution’s Dispute Settlement System, something which threatens to undermine the integrity of the WTO. “[T]he protracted failure by the US to settle this matter, despite the fact that it is not compliant with WTO rules, has the potential to collapse confidence in the efficacy and credibility of the rules-based trading system. “Antigua and Barbuda, one of the smallest economies in the world is yet to reap any benefit from having prevailed against the United States through the rulings and recommendations of the DSB,” it adds. In a final warning that the gloves are about to come off, the statement concludes that time is running out and in a matter of weeks, unless something is done, United States intellectual property will receive no protection “My government has almost exhausted its patient efforts to reach a settlement with the US. This is regrettable since, on our side, we have always conducted our relations with the US at a high level of regard and cooperation. “We advise this body that we are now engaged in a final effort with representatives of the US Trade Representative’s Office to reach an agreed settlement. We hope that a sense of right will prevail. But, we cannot go beyond the end of this year. “In light of the above, Antigua and Barbuda now informs the DSB that, if an appropriate and beneficial settlement is not reached with the US by year-end, the government will be compelled to take action to enforce the suspension of copyright on the sale of US intellectual property, consistent with the award of the DSB.” The United States says it remains committed to resolving the matter but is “disappointed that Antigua and Barbuda had characterized the US as having acted in bad faith when the US had taken a constructive approach to resolving the matter.” The US said it had put forward a package of concessions but Antigua and Barbuda are the only WTO member blocking the proposals. Attorney Mark Mendel, a lawyer in Ireland who previously led the fight for Antigua at the WTO, informs TorrentFreak that a number of options remain open for the Carribean country. “A couple of years back, when Antigua last came very close to implementing the remedies given them by the WTO, we had identified a significant number of areas where the suspension of United States intellectual property rights would, we had assessed, have had the desired effect,” Mendel explains. “By ‘desired effect’, I mean the purpose of the remedies as given in the WTO rules – to put substantial domestic pressure on a recalcitrant government from a completely ‘innocent’ sector of the economy so as to encourage the government to comply with WTO rulings or at least agree a reasonable settlement. Since that time, all of those very well considered options exist, as do a few more that might even be more promising.” Mendel says that since the remedies have been approved by the WTO, technically there will be no ‘pirating’, and whatever the Antigua and Barbuda government decides to do will be in compliance with the law. “The only party in violation of International obligations in this dispute is the United States and I have all confidence that Antigua will continue to conduct itself in accordance with the agreed rule of law,” Mendel concludes. The next meeting of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Board is scheduled for mid-December. Whether any progress will be made to end the 12-year dispute remains to be seen but if not, 2017 could be an eventful one for pirates of the Carribean. — The full letter Antigua & Barbuda sent to the WTO is available here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/antigua-barbuda-threatens-us-with-piracy-161129/

The cybercrime unit of the French military police has shut down the country's largest pirate site, Zone-Telechargement. In addition, the popular download site DL-Protect has also gone offline. With millions of regular visitors, both download portals have been a prime target of local copyright holders for years. After seizing several servers of the popular private music tracker What.cd two weeks ago, the French military police have now caught an even bigger fish, Zone-Telechargement.com. With millions of regular visitors, Zone-Telechargement was ranked the 11th most-visited website in the entirety of France. Telechargement is French for “download,” and the site offered direct downloads of a wide variety of pirated content, including films, series, games, and music. However, yesterday afternoon the site suddenly became inaccessible. After some confusion, the French Gendarmerie took credit on Twitter, stating that an investigation had concluded that the download portal caused rightsholders 75 million euros in losses. Gendarmerie Nationale Tweet Founded in 2011, Zone-Telechargement’s popularity soared after the shutdown of Megaupload, which was also hugely popular in France until its shutdown early 2012. Interestingly, it appears that the site wasn’t the only target yesterday. DL-Protect, another large direct-download site and the 19th most popular website in France according to Alexa, also went down. While the police only mentioned one site, Zataz reports that this direct download site was targeted by the police as well. In common with the action against What.cd, French music industry group SACEM and the movie group ALPA also played a role in yesterday’s actions. SACEM informs TorrentFreak that they will issue a comment later today. With two prominent shutdowns in one month, it’s quite clear that the Gendarmerie’s cybercrime division and SACEM have online piracy high on their agenda. Update: New information just released revealed that the two direct download sites were allegedly operated by the same people. The enforcement action is a collaboration between the French Gendarmerie and the Andorran police. Seven people were apprehended, and two still remain in custody, one in Andorra and one in France. More arrests may follow. Zataz reports that in recent years the sites generated 10 million euros in revenue. As part of the enforcement actions in France and Andorra, real estate, bank accounts and several cars were seized The authorities also discovered various bitcoin wallets, which they hope to get their hands on. Update 2: The site came back this afternoon, for some, although download links don’t appear to work. There might be an attempt to make a comeback. https://torrentfreak.com/police-shut-down-frances-largest-pirate-site161129/

Copyright holders asked Google to remove more than 1,000,000,000 allegedly infringing links from its search engine over the past twelve months. A new record, in line with the continued rise of takedown requests and the increase in pressure on Google to do more to tackle piracy. Copyright holders continue to flood Google with DMCA takedown requests, targeting “pirate links” in the company’s search results. In recent years the number of notices has exploded, breaking record after record. This week TorrentFreak crunched the numbers in Google’s Transparency Report and found that over the past 12 months Google has been asked to remove over a billion links to allegedly infringing pages, 1,007,741,143 to be precise. More than 90 percent of the links, 908,237,861 were in fact removed. The rest of the reported links were rejected because they were invalid, not infringing, or duplicates of earlier requests. In total, Google has now processed just over two billion allegedly infringing URLs from 945,000 different domains. That the second billion took only a year, compared to several years for the first, shows how rapidly the volume of takedown requests is expanding. At the current rate, another billion will be added by the end of next summer. Most requests, over 50 million, were sent in for the website 4shared.com. However, according to the site’s operators many of the reported URLs point to the same files, inflating the actual volume of infringing content. Google takerdown requests over time The surge in takedown notices was also placed on the political agenda. In the UK, for example, proposed amendments to the UK’s Digital Economy Bill propose fines for search engines that fail to properly target piracy. At the same time, the U.S. Government is considering changing the current takedown requirements. The Copyright Office launched a public consultation in order to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the current DMCA provisions. This review is still ongoing and was extended earlier this month. Thus far the consultation already triggered heavy criticism of the DMCA process from various copyright groups. However, according to Google itself, the current system is working just fine. “The notice-and-takedown process has been an effective and efficient way to address online infringement,” the company informed the Copyright Office earlier this year. “The increasing volume of URLs removed from Search each year demonstrates that rightsholders are finding the notice-and-takedown process worthwhile, efficient, and scalable to their needs.” While Google believes that the millions of reported URLs per day are a sign that the DMCA takedown process is working correctly, rightsholders see it as a signal of an unbeatable game of whack-a-mole. Various copyright holders and industry groups have asked the Government for broad revisions. Among other things they want advanced technologies and processes to ensure that infringing content doesn’t reappear elsewhere once it’s removed, a so-called “notice and stay down” approach. For now, however, nothing has changed, so it is expected that the number of reported pirate links will continue to increase. https://torrentfreak.com/google-asked-to-remove-a-billion-pirate-search-results-in-a-year-161128/

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Tracker's Name : MMA-Torrents Genre : MMA Sign-up Link : http://mma-torrents.com/account-signup.php Additional information : MMA-Torrents is a Private Torrent Tracker for MMA

Tracker's Name : GiroTorrent Genre : MOVIES / TV / GENERAL Sign-up Link : http://girotorrent.org/index.php?page=account Additional information : GiroTorrent is an ITALIAN Private Torrent Tracker for MOVIES / TV / GENERAL

Last week following his release from prison, UK-based copyright troll partner Robert Croucher said that he'd become involved in a private funding initiative for the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Speaking with TorrentFreak, PIPCU have confirmed that while they have met with Croucher, they don't anticipate doing business with him. People familiar with file-sharing settlement schemes in the UK are likely to have heard of Robert Croucher. This businessman is a partner of German-based monitoring company Maverick Eye, who in turn are deeply involved with notorious copyright trolling organization Guardaley. Together, these companies have sent countless thousands of so-called ‘pay-up-or-else’ letters to alleged file-sharers all around the globe. The stated aim is the protection of copyright but the end result is a profitable business. Earlier this year, Robert Croucher was involved in an unfortunate incident outside Raffles, an exclusive London club. He ended up pleading guilty to assaulting an Uber driver and was sentenced to five months in prison. Last week, however, Croucher sent out a press release in which he explained that he himself had been the victim, and after an appeal had been released 16 days into his sentence. Of greater interest to observers were new claims made by Croucher in respect of his anti-piracy work. His suggestion was that he’d now become involved in doing some work to raise funding for PIPCU, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. For clarity, here’s the relevant section of the release, verbatim. “These revelations are made public this week as Mr. Croucher reveals his work on a private funding initiative for the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit and other law enforcement agencies worldwide to combat digital piracy,” the release read. Intrigued, we contact Croucher’s company Hatton & Berkeley for clarification. “Press will receive further information this week regarding private funding of law enforcement agencies,” the company said. After publishing our piece, Croucher himself got in touch. “For avoidance of doubt, ‘I do not fund’ or have ever stated that ‘I am to fund PIPCU’,” he wrote, questioning our interpretation of his statement. So again, we tried to find out what else “[working] on a private funding initiative for the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit” might mean. With no response, I suggested to Mr Croucher that if he’s indeed working on a private funding initiative, then it might be fair to say that he’s somehow facilitating or enabling the raising of funds – or at least that’s the impression he’d been trying to give. Another statement from his company noted that “years of [Croucher’s] work on copyright protection and law enforcement financing was significantly undermined” while he was in prison. If we received information on what this meant, we were happy to update the article, we told him. No response was received. Another avenue, however, proved a little more fruitful. Last week we also sought comment from PIPCU on their relationship with Mr Croucher and this morning they were kind enough to send a response. It doesn’t shine much light on what ‘private funding initiative’ Croucher is talking about, but it certainly clarifies the position of the police. “The City of London Police’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit works in partnership with the creative industries as part of our work to fight intellectual property crime. As part of this work we engage with many organizations whose interests mesh with our own,” PIPCU’s Eddie Townsend told TF. “Hatton & Berkley is a firm we have met with but we do not have any current arrangements in place to work with them nor do we anticipate working with them in the future. We do not receive any funding from Hatton & Berkley.” Clearly, the impression of some type of working relationship with PIPCU would add credibility to the anti-piracy work being undertaken by Mr Croucher. However, that can currently only be interpreted through the vagaries of carefully worded press releases that promote discussion but reveal very little meat on the bone. https://torrentfreak.com/city-of-london-police-dont-anticipate-working-with-copyright-troll-partner-161128/

Million of people use Kodi as their main source of entertainment, often with help from add-ons that allow them to access pirated movies and TV-shows. While these tools are a blessing for many, the streaming cyberlockers that provide the videos see the add-ons as a major threat to their business. Streaming piracy is on the rise with popular media player Kodi at the center of attention. While Kodi itself is a neutral platform, millions of people use third-party add- ons to turn it into the ultimate pirate machine. TVAddons is a leading player in this field. Over the past year alone, the add-on repository has seen the number of unique users double. However, not everyone is happy with the service. In a recent interview with TorrentFreak’s Steal This Show, Eleazar, one of the people behind TVAddons, explained that several cyberlockers would rather see them go. While there are a wide variety of add-ons, quite a few allow users to stream pirated movies and TV-shows, which are hosted by streaming cyberlockers. These cyberlockers generate revenue through advertising. However, many Kodi add-ons strip these ads, which means that they only cost these sites valuable resources. In response, several cyberlockers are now trying to ban these add-ons from ‘stealing’ their content. “They change the coding to break the Kodi Add-on, and that’s specifically being done because Kodi add-ons are causing a spike in server load and that costs them money and bandwidth,” Eleazar explained. This week TorrentFreak spoke to an operator of one of the largest streaming cyberlockers, who preferred not have his site named. He confirmed that Kodi add-ons are indeed a thorn in their side. “Kodi plugins are harming cyberlockers due to their massive bandwidth usage, which is not compensated in any way,” he said. According to the cyberlocker operator, several of his competitors have already shut down due to this problem. With so many people leeching bandwidth, the sites are no longer as profitable as they were. “I would also say that some hosts, which are already gone, were heavily affected from draining bandwidth from third party applications.” Other sites, including the one we’ve spoken to, are trying very hard to block Kodi add-ons from their service. This is somewhat successful, but often the add-on developers find their way around it. “To fight this, we keep our streaming links obfuscated, changing them multiple times a week,” the cyberlocker operator says. Ironically, the above means that the Kodi add-ons might be destroying their own sources, making it harder to find pirated content in the long run. There is a way out though, according to the operator. With one add-on developer they have struck an agreement to use their service with permission. However, this is relatively rare. “Unfortunately most of the Kodi plugin developers seems not to be interested in finding a solution like this, so it’s a continued cat and mouse game like we also have with adblockers,” the operator notes. And so the blocking wars continue, on several fronts. https://torrentfreak.com/streaming-cyberlockers-hate-pirate-kodi-add-ons-161126/

Tracker's Name : HD4Free (HD4F) Genre : HD MOVIES / TV / GENERAL Sign-up Link : https://hd4free.xyz/signup.php Additional information : HD4Free (HD4F) is a Private Torrent Tracker for HD MOVIES / TV / GENERAL

A federal court in Virginia has granted Megaupload's request to place the cases filed by the music and movie companies on hold until April next year, while the criminal case remains pending. Meanwhile, Megaupload is working hard to ensure that critical evidence on decaying hard drives is preserved. Megaupload was shutdown nearly half a decade ago, but all this time there has been little progress on the legal front. Last December a New Zealand District Court judge ruled that Kim Dotcom and his colleagues can be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges, a decision that was appealed earlier this year. While all parties await the outcome of this appeal, the criminal case in the United States remains pending. The same goes for the civil cases launched by the MPAA and RIAA in 2014. Fearing that these might influence the criminal proceedings, Megaupload’s legal team previously managed to put these civil actions on hold, and this week another extension was granted. U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady granted Megaupload’s request to stay both lawsuits until April next year. The music and movie companies didn’t oppose the motion. The downside of yet another delay is that the evidence remains at risk of being destroyed. Much of the Megaupload data is stored on hard drives, which according to hosting provider Cogent, are not in the best shape. A few months ago Cogent warned that sixteen of them have actually become unreadable, which is a grave concern since they contain crucial information. Thus far this situation hasn’t been addressed, but some progress has been made. “Counsel have met and conferred and are negotiating a preservation order regarding the Cogent Data, and they anticipate reaching an agreement and presenting a consent motion and stipulated preservation order to the Court for entry,” Megaupload informed the court. “However, until such a preservation order is entered, the parties each reserve their rights to file motions seeking preservation of the Cogent Data on appropriate terms and conditions.” Judge Liam O’Grady agreed with this request. In his order this week he notes that if the negotiations fail, any party may seek relief to ensure that the evidence remains intact. For now, however, the waiting continues. — The order of U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady is available here (pdf). A copy of Megaupload’s request can be found here (pdf). https://torrentfreak.com/court-freezes-megauploads-mpaa-and-riaa-lawsuits-161125/

Tracker's Name : FinElite (FE) Genre : MOVIES / TV / GENERAL Sign-up Link : http://finelite.org/login.php#register Additional information : FinElite (FE) is a FINNISH Private Torrent Tracker for MOVIES / TV / GENERAL

Tracker's Name :Huntorrent Genre : MOVIES / GENERAL Sign-up Link : http://huntorrent.eu/signup.php Additional information : Huntorrent is a HUNGARIAN Private Torrent Tracker for MOVIES / GENERAL

Tracker's Name : Hardbay Genre : HARDSTYLE / HARDCORE ELECTRONIC MUSIC Sign-up Link : https://hardbay.club/signup/open/ Additional information : Hardbay is a Private Torrent Tracker for HARDSTYLE / HARDCORE ELECTRONIC MUSIC

Earlier this year, photographer Carol Highsmith received a $120 settlement demand from Getty Images after she used one of her own public domain images on her website. Highsmith responded with a $1bn lawsuit but after a few short months the case is all over, with neither side a clear winner. Seattle-based Getty Images is an agency with control over an archive of millions of stock images. It also has a reputation for strongly protecting its copyrights and chasing down companies and individuals who use Getty images without paying an appropriate fee. Late December 2015, established US-based photographer Carol Highsmith was a recipient of a Getty threat via License Compliance Services (LCS) on behalf of Alamy, another Getty-affiliated company. “We have seen that an image or image(s) represented by Alamy has been used for online use by your company. According to Alamy’s records your company doesn’t have a valid license for use of the image(s),” the letter began. “Although this infringement might have been unintentional, use of an image without a valid license is considered copyright infringement in violation of the Copyright Act, Title 17, United States Code. This copyright law entitles Alamy to seek compensation for any license infringement.” Targeting Highsmith with this particular threat was problematic. The image in question was one of her own. It was among thousands of other images she previously donated to the Library of Congress and made available to the public to reproduce and display for free. Highsmith subsequently discovered that Getty and its affiliates were making available more than 18,000 of her other photographs too. The photographer responded with a $1bn lawsuit but the stock image company didn’t back down. Fighting back, Getty said it would vigorously defend its position based on the fact that Highsmith had placed her work in the public domain. Considering the David and Goliath nature of the case (not to mention Getty’s reputation for picking on the little guy), observers hoped that during the lawsuit Getty would at least get a bloody nose. That has not come to pass. To begin, on October 28, US District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff dismissed each of Carol Highsmith’s federal copyright claims. “Defendants Getty Images (US), Inc., License Compliance Services, Inc., Alamy, including thatInc., and Alamy Ltd. collectively moved to dismiss all claims of plaintiffs Carol Highsmith and This is America!, Inc. under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act,…the Lanham Act,… New York General Business Law,… and New York common law of unfair competition,” the Judge wrote. “Upon consideration, the Court grants defendants’ motions,” he added. With the federal claims gone, three state law claims werincluding that Getty charged licensing fees for images when it shouldn’t have and collected settlements from alleged infringers when it had no right. However, these claims have now also been dismissed, along with the rest of the case. “It is hereby stipulated and agreed, by and among the parties, that this action shall be dismissed with prejudice pursuant to Rule 41(a)(l)(A)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, each party to bear its own costs and fees,” the Judge wrote in his dismissal. Since the case was dismissed with prejudice, it is done and cannot be brought back to court. The Judge added that a memorandum explaining the reasoning behind the rulings will be issued in due course, but it seems fairly clear that since Highsmith had passed her images into the public domain in 1988, that seriously undermined her case. The terms of the settlement have not been released, and a lengthy protective order issued early November forbids all parties from discussing any information obtained during the pre-trial discovery phase. https://torrentfreak.com/1bn-getty-images-public-domain-photograph-dispute-is-over-161125/

For years popular sports streaming site Rojadirecta has been operating from Spain without trouble, but last year the tide started to change. This week the site faced a new setback when a Spanish court ordered the streaming site to stop offering links to football matches. In addition, Rojadirecta is the subject of a criminal investigation. As one of oldest and most prominent live streaming sites, Rojadirecta is a thorn in the side of many international sports organizations. The website is operated by the Spanish company Puerto 80, which previously won two lawsuits in Spain, declaring the site as operating legally under local law. Even the U.S. Government couldn’t bring the site down. In 2011 the Department of Homeland Security seized the site’s domain name, but facing a legal battle the authorities chose to hand it back to the rightful owners. Now, several years later, the tide has turned. Last year, the site received its first setback in court when it was ordered to stop linking to certain football streams in Spain. This week the site faced another major setback. Following a complaint from Mediapro and GolT, the Commercial Court of A Coruña ruled that Rojadirecta must cease linking to unauthorized streams of football events to which these two companies hold the rights. “I declare that the defendants have violated related intellectual property rights belonging to the plaintiff,” the court declared. The decision applies to both live and delayed streams of football matches and the current Rojadirecta.me domain name as well as any other websites it is, or will become, involved in. “I order the defendants to cease immediately in the provision of links or Internet links, of any kind, giving access to live or slightly deferred viewing of football matches produced or issued by any of the applicants, whether in the current season or in future seasons,” the court ruled. The court also concluded that the streaming site financially hurts the football broadcasters. The rightsholders claim hundreds of million in losses, but the exact damages amount will be decided in a future proceeding. Rojadirecta still has the option to appeal the verdict, and at the time of writing, there are still plenty of football matches listed on the site. The site’s owner and operator was identified by local press as Igor Seoane. He appeared in court hiding behind a wig and fake beard. TorrentFreak reached out to the operator for a comment on his future plans, but we have yet to receive a response. After last year’s disappointing verdict he was still confident of a positive outcome in the long run. “Rojadirecta is advised in Europe by a number of legal teams with the best experience regarding Internet operators liabilities. We are very aware of the legality of Rojadirecta; our operations now and in the future are not reckless,” he said at the time. “At the end, we will win, but we will have to fight quite a bit. This new challenge will end up putting us in a better position,” the operator added. A year later, however, the problems keep stacking up. In addition to the civil case, Rojadirecta’s owner was also arrested in a separate criminal investigation last month. According to the authorities, his bank accounts totaled over 11 million euros. This case is still ongoing. https://torrentfreak.com/court-orders-rojadirecta-to-stop-offering-pirated-football-streams-161124/