A group of movie companies is demanding nearly $100,000 in statutory piracy damages from US army veteran Mical Mesot. While the evidence is often flimsy in piracy cases, the rightsholders managed to get logs from the popular pirate site YTS to back up their claim. That evidence is corroborated by the operator of YTS, under penalty of perjury. Lawsuits against pirating Internet subscribers are far from new. In the US, they first appeared more than a decade ago. Over the years, the evidence in these lawsuits was regularly contested. In some cases this led to success, with courts concluding that an IP-address alone is not enough. After all, an IP-address doesn’t identify a person. Most prominent was a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the Cobbler Nevada v. Gonzales case, where the court ruled the copyright holders needed “something more” than just an IP-address. This ruling has been cited in dozens of cases since. In response, some rightsholders have become more creative, fishing for piracy clues on social media accounts of alleged pirates. That already goes quite far. However, in a recent case in Hawaii, a group of movie companies took things up a notch after obtaining evidence directly from YTS, the most-visited torrent site. Lawsuit Against YTS User and Army Veteran The movie companies, including the makers of films such as “Hellboy” and “Rambo: Last Blood,” filed a lawsuit against US Army veteran Mical Mesot. As we revealed earlier, their claim was backed up with evidence that appeared to come directly from the database of YTS.mx. We have spotted similar lawsuits in the past and speculated that YTS could have handed over this information. YTS’s operator previously signed several settlement agreements with the same movie companies, so both parties were in contact. At the same time, it would be unprecedented for an operational torrent site to share user information with copyright holders. Our initial suspicions couldn’t be backed up and neither YTS nor the movie companies’ lawyer was willing to share further details. However, a recent court filing confirms what happened. A few days ago, the movie companies submitted a motion for a default judgment against the army veteran, who failed to respond in court. This motion again mentions the evidence from YTS’s database. “Defendant registered for an account with the YTS website using a specific email address ‘[email protected]’ and logged into the YTS website using this email address from IP address 72.130.106.50 to download torrent files of Plaintiffs’ Works,” the motion reads. Data Verified by YTS Operator In addition, the rightsholders’ lawyer adds that this data was ‘verified’ by the same YTS operator who previously settled copyright infringement lawsuits with movie companies. “The data showing this activity was verified by Senthil Segaran – the operator of the YTS website,” he writes. The lawyer references an exhibit where the YTS operator, who’s also the director of the UK company Techmodo Limited, declares under penalty of perjury that the database evidence is “the original or a duplicate of an original record.” https://torrentfreak.com/images/segarancert.jpg The database information on its own doesn’t prove much. However, tied with other information, such as the IP-address that was tracked in the BitTorrent swarm and data gathered from Facebook, a pattern emerges. In any case, it’s certainly “something more.” Movie Companies Demand $97,704.79 The movie companies inform the court that it is highly unlikely that a third party is responsible for the alleged copyright infringements. As such, they hold the army veteran liable and demand $97,704.79 in statutory damages. This is a substantial amount, but according to the movie companies’ lawyer, it’s only a fraction of the number of downloads in the torrent swarm multiplied by the retail price of the films. That would be nearly $3 million. “Thus, despite Defendant being liable for $2,995,916.28 for the infringements in the World and his, profits, Plaintiff Fallen is only requesting damages of $97,704.79, which is merely 15 percent of the actual damages ($651,365.26) caused by his infringements in the United States and less than 3.3 percent of the actual damages Worldwide,” the motion reads. Privacy Concerns What stands out most, in this case, is the involvement of YTS’ operator in a lawsuit against a user of the site. We don’t know how much data YTS has shared but it’s something users of the site must now keep in mind. YTS previously informed us that users have the option to use fake email addresses and can also prevent their download histories from being tracked in the future by changing a setting. However, for army veteran Mical Mesot, that advice comes too late. The odds appear to be stacked against the defendant in this case but it’s still up to the court to decide if statutory damages are justified, and if so, the suggested amount is appropriate. — A copy of the movie companies’ motion for a default judgment against Mical Mesot is available here (pdf) Source: Torrentfreak.com

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Invitation system Hello, There is currently a problem with the mail server allowing you to send an invitation or make a request to recover your account For uploader class and higher classes who would like to invite, you can make a staff pm with desired nickname and email for the new user. Elite class doesn't have the rights to invitations at this time. Regards

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Project PowerThe Tax Collector' tops the chart, followed by ‘The Secret Garden'. 'Greyhound' completes the top three. The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. These torrent download statistics are meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources. This week we have five new entries in the list. The sci-fi action movie “Project Power” is the most downloaded title this week. The Netflix film, starring Jamie Foxx, was officially released on August 14th. The most torrented movies for the week ending on August 17 are: Movie RankRank last weekMovie nameIMDb Rating / Trailer Most downloaded movies via torrent sites 1 (…)Project Power6.1 / trailer 2 (1)Tax Collector4.7 / trailer 3 (…)Tesla5.2 / trailer 4 (…)Magic Camp6.2 / trailer 5 (2)The Secret Garden5.4 / trailer 6 (3)Greyhound7.1 / trailer 7 (…)Sputnik6.2 / trailer 8 (4)An American Pickle5.8 / trailer 9 (7)Deep Blue Sea 34.6 / trailer 10 (…)Fearless4.7 / trailer

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Tracker's Name:DigitalCore (DC) Genre:General Sign-up Link:https://digitalcore.club/signup/ Closing date:Soon! Additional information:DigitalCore (DC) is a Private Torrent Tracker for 0Day / General Releases. On signup 25gb upload credit and 7 days free leech! 24h free leech for all torrents Site wide free leech when seeding > 1tb Irssi Autodl RSS Feeds Friendly staff Bonuspoints for Idling in IRC Bonuspoints for seeding (just seeding, upload is not counted) Bonuspoints for seeding (uploading data) Leech Bonus Nice UI Instant Search Jackett Support

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KissAnime.ru and KissManga.com, two of the largest pirate streaming sites, have gone offline. The operators report that all files were taken down by copyright owners and the sites don't intend to make a comeback. Kissanime is arguably the most visited pirate site in the world and its demise affects millions of users. Anime and manga are extremely popular. Early on this was mostly limited to Japan but nowadays it’s a global phenomenon. In part, this worldwide success was facilitated by piracy. Some of the oldest torrent sites featured ‘anime’ categories and today this niche has many dedicated piracy portals. KissAnime.ru and KissManga.com are two of the largest sites in these respective niches. Both have an audience of millions of people. According to piracy tracking company Muso.com, KissAnime is the most visited pirate site in the world, beating even the mighty Pirate Bay. That reign appears to have come to an end today. A few hours ago both sites started to show alarming signs. KissManga returned a ‘maintenance’ message and on KissAnime an even more worrying notice appeared. “Our beta servers have been taken down by copyright holders, this could lead to the close of the website. We will make more announcement after we have the decision,” the message read. KissAnime started trending on Twitter this afternoon where many fans feared the worst. And indeed, a few hours later, both sites reported that they are permanently closing their doors, adding that all files have been removed. “All files are taken down by copyright owners. The site will be closed forever. Thank you for your supports,” the updated message reads. https://torrentfreak.com/images/kissdown.jpg The sites don’t elaborate on the reason for the shutdown but the messages imply that there was pressure from copyright holders. This isn’t new, both sites have been targeted before. Three years ago, for example, anime distributor FUNimation obtained a subpoena from a US Court, hoping to identify KissAmine’s operators. There is a more recent development that may have played a role as well. The shutdowns come shortly after Japan passed amendments to its copyright law to criminalize manga piracy as well as indexing or linking sites, which don’t host content. Whether this had an immediate impact on today’s actions is unknown. https://torrentfreak.com/images/kissaminefull.jpg What we do know is that millions of pirates will have to find a new favorite site to stream anime or view manga. The sites may be gone but the demand is still there. This will likely lead to new copycats popping up and surging traffic at some alternative sites. This shift is already noticeable. The manga scanlation site MangaDex reports that its servers can hardly keep up with all the new registrations. “We’re getting unprecedented surge in user sign ups, if you are one of these people and haven’t received your confirmation code via email, please give it a little time so the code system can catch up,” the site reports. For KissAnime.ru and KissManga.com, however, this is the end of the road… — This is a breaking story. If any additional information appears about these shutdowns we will update this article or report it in a future piece. Source: Torrentfreak.com

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Free Leech to Sunday 16th August 2020 at 4:00 am

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From admin: 100 Registrations open for today. Users who download on FreeLeech and stop seeding within the first 24 hours, their account will be banned without notice, thank you. Remember the rule is 2 weeks seeding snatch torrents, to avoid warning for hit & run (for new users there is no warning they are banned)