New Propaganda | NP | General | 2020 review Tracker Name New Propanganda Tracker URL https://irrenhaus.dyndns.dk Tracker Genre General Tracker SignUp Invite & open signup Maintain Ratio Easy Bonus System Yes Banned Countries None New propaganda is a small german tracker for General content. It has categories like Series, movies, Games, documentries, audio, ebooks. There are 14.5k members and 13k number of torrents at this moment. The content quality is quite good. You can find most of the torrents here are of dual audio (German dubbe and English). Almost all the torrents have seeders. It had good collection of popular movies and series in high quality. There is bonus store there where you can buy upload credit in exchange of the seed bonus. There is a games section where you can play Casino or Blackjack. The forum is not so active. You have to always keep it above 0.7, but preferably above 1.1. Accounts with a download of more than 5 GB within 3 days and a ratio below 0.5 will be deleted immediately and without notice! Webseeder must register with the team, specifying the IP address. Be aware that every GB uploaded too much is at the expense of the ratio of a user who does not have such a fast upload. It is often enough if you seed around 400% of the torrent data volume to achieve a basic distribution. If, after the 400%, not enough users have finished their download, or if the torrent is in very high demand, you can continue to sea a little until enough seeders are available. The login system consists of username, password and a secure pin which you have to set up after sign-up. The secure pin you have to enter manually every time you login. The site currently has been open for signup for long period of time but an user can also invite for which he/she can get 12gb of upload credit. Login Page Home Page Torrents Upload Stats Requests Rules FAQ https://i.imgur.com/pBABbb2.jpg Donate Rating Pre-times 7/10 Speed 8/10 Content 8/10 Community 6.5/10 Overall 7.5/10

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New research from the U.K.’s Industry Trust for IP Awareness has found that people who illegally download or stream TV, movie and sports content are at a higher risk than ever of suffering negative consequences, both personal and financial. The latest figures show that more than half of current copyright infringers have fallen victim to at least one adverse effect—from viruses and hacking to identity theft and fraud—a significant increase from 2019. Nearly one-third (29 percent) of those who are illegally accessing content online have been infected with a virus, malware or ransomware, an increase of 14 percent since December 2019. The number of people becoming a victim of fraud has doubled in the last eight months alone. The research from the Industry Trust finds that the situation is of even greater concern for those who make a payment to illicit streaming sites by entering credit card information. Around a third of current infringers opt to subscribe to illicit streaming sites—the incidence of fraud among this group of people is much higher, with around a quarter of them (26 percent) falling victim to often serious fraud, while 25 percent have also said they have been charged multiple times. Also, 31 percent of current infringers reported being exposed to inappropriate content as a result of their illegal activity, with offensive pop-ups or adverts and age-inappropriate content among the content individuals and families have experienced. The Industry Trust data reveals that consumers who currently access content through illegal means are actively concerned by these risks, with almost a third (28 percent) claiming to feel worried or guilty about the consequences. Liz Bales, chief executive at the Industry Trust, said: “We understand that many people opting to access content illegally are also often the same people who regularly enjoy legitimate ways of doing so, whether that means going to the cinema frequently, buying or renting content to watch at home or paying for TV packages to access premium sports content. It is important to be aware of the risks they are exposing themselves to when they seek out illicit content through apps and add-ons, fully loaded devices or through a host of other means. Illicit content is put in front of consumers by unscrupulous individuals and organizations, so it should come as no surprise that they would take the opportunity to empty someone’s bank account, disable their devices or steal valuable personal information. “We want audiences seeking out entertainment online to enjoy the safest, best quality experience they can. While the temptation to see something first or to do so without paying for it might be attractive, especially at a time when consumer confidence and the economic outlook are both compromised by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it really is worth asking the question as to whether acting on that urge is worth the risk, especially when the reality is you are more likely than ever before to end up paying for it with an attack on your privacy and online security.” The Industry Trust for IP Awareness is the U.K. film, TV and video industry’s consumer education body, promoting the value of copyright and creativity. It is a sister organization to BASE, the British Association for Screen Entertainment.

Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property (DIP), the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES) and the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) have unveiled a new website blocking provisions for piracy sites which violate section 20 (3) of the Computer Crimes Act (CCA). Under the new provisions, ISPs now have 15 days in which to comply with the court orders and blocked sites, which are either redirected or change domain name, can be blocked under the original court order. ISPs which fail to comply with the court order can now be fined under Section 27 of the Computer Crimes Act (CCA). Meanwhile, a new study of the online content viewing behaviour of Thai consumers revealed that more than half (53 per cent) of online consumers use piracy streaming websites or torrent sites to access premium content. The survey, commissioned by the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) and conducted by YouGov, also found that 43 per cent of consumers use an illicit streaming device (ISD) to stream pirated television and video content. These TV boxes allow users to access hundreds of pirated television channels and video-on-demand content, usually with a low annual subscription fee. Of the 53 per cent of consumers who admit to accessing streaming piracy websites or torrent sites, 66 per cent stated that they had cancelled all or some of their subscription to legal pay-TV services. “The damage to the Thai movie and TV industry caused by online piracy is without dispute,” asserted Piset Chiyasak, Vice President of the Intellectual Property Association of Thailand (IPAT). “However, the damage done to online consumers is only beginning to be understood. Piracy is a hotbed for malware and consumers face real risks of malicious malware infection such as spyware. Consumers who buy ISDs or access piracy streaming websites are also funding crime groups, and wasting their time and money when the channels and websites are blocked and stop working.” “We applaud the Department of Intellectual Property and Ministry of Digital Economy & Society for introducing the new site blocking provisions, which if applied in a time-effective manner, are an important step in migrating consumers back to reliable and safe legal services,” added Neil Gane, the General Manager of AVIA’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP). “Effective site blocking is a key tool in disrupting the availability of piracy websites and the illicit revenues that are generated by the crime groups who operate these sites. It is hoped that the impact of these new site blocking provisions in Thailand will be similar to what we have seen in Indonesia which witnessed a 68 per cent drop in traffic to piracy sites in less than 12 months.” As a result of enforcing an effective rolling site blocking system, Indonesia has become market leader in IP protection in South East Asia, boosting growth of legitimate services. Traffic to piracy sites dropped 68 per cent (August 2019 to June 2020) with traffic to legitimate video sites increasing by 18 per cent within the same period.

Akamai’s Ian Munford on his concerns about the rise of piracy and what can be done to defeat the pirates Akamai has identified a dramatic rise in illegal pirate services that offer access to TV and movies and a corresponding rise in viewers who watch their content. While piracy has been prevalent for many years, improvements in digital technology and the lack of adequate global rights protection, means piracy is now a scaled and often lucrative business. A report on the impact of digital piracy estimated that in 2019 between 230,000 and 560,000 jobs were lost in the United States alone as a direct result of pirating activity. Moreover, we are beginning to see signs that piracy is impacting licensing - the lifeblood of the creative industry and arguably a more damaging strategic issue. Put simply, why would potential distributors pay significant sums of money for rights when the same content is readily found for free through pirate sites? While real insight is understandably difficult to come by, we do know that there is a complex array of pirate groups and subgroups, each with their own drivers and levels of sophistication. As examples, the release groups see themselves as altruistic revolutionaries. They are technically competent and prize early release assets but are not necessarily motivated by financial gain. Site operators certainly make money out of the process and often run highly scaled, very sophisticated businesses. Some site operators have passed themselves off as entrepreneurial chancers, but many have links into organised crime. As a contrast, we also see amateur pirates who are ambivalent to the fact that piracy is illegal and simply stream a live sports match over social media platforms using their phone. As with most forms of cybercrime, if there is a weakness, the pirates will find and exploit it. With so many organisations and individuals involved in the production and delivery workflow, the structure of the industry itself presents a smorgasbord of opportunities for piracy to take place. Documented methods for video pirates include data-centre breaches resulting in the theft of video assets; employee ID theft, providing access to video content through various production and edit systems, ripping content from legitimate sources, e.g., iTunes and the tried and tested cinema filming systems. One of the fastest growing forms of piracy is the capture and redistribution of TV channels or live events. Popular methods include Intercepting decrypted video using HDCP strippers, using stolen legitimate viewer details or simply recording screens using a mobile device. With piracy so prevalent, the pertinent question is “can it be stopped?”. Unfortunately, the answer is “not entirely”. As long as great content is being created, there will always be pirates looking to exploit it. However, steps can be established to mitigate its prevalence and impact. Renewed emphasis by regulators and legislators around the world to prosecute pirate gangs; and companies across the value chain reviewing and mitigating any technical vulnerabilities. The era of allowing content to be unprotected is long gone. What that means in practice, however, is taking a strategic review of operations and identifying weak links in the technical value chain from production to distribution and applying appropriate measures. Video piracy is a complex, nuanced subject, and unless the industry comes together to tackle it head on, it has the potential to threaten its long-term viability. The good news is that the industry is starting to mobilise, and we are also seeing signs that rights owners are insisting on minimum standards of content protection across the technical workflow. source: broadcastnow.co.uk

Google Australia has agreed to banish hundreds more websites involved in the illegal downloading of movies and programs after pirates were able to bypass its initial attempts to remove them from search results. The tech giant agreed to voluntarily pull down websites engaging in piracy last year to help stop the spread of illegally downloaded material, a move which allowed copyright holders to avoid fighting the tech giant for an injunction in court. However, content pirates were able to reappear on Google by slightly tweaking the domain address and creating "proxy" or "mirror" sites - variations of the previously blocked addresses. Graham Burke, former chief executive of Village Roadshow.CREDIT:EDDIE JIM Village Roadshow non-executive director and Creative Content Australia chairman Graham Burke said that Google will now close that loophole by shutting down these mirror sites as soon as they pop up. "Site blocking was brought in by the government and was effective but there was massive leakage because while the government and site blocking shut the front door, the back door was still wide open and search engines were taking people to proxy and mirror sites," Mr Burke said. "The pirates are taking advantage of the lag time between their criminal mirror site going up by changing one letter and us taking three or four weeks to go back through the court system." to shortlist Mr Burke said last year that there had been 832 sites blocked by Google as part of the new collaborative approach, but he said hundreds more would now be "de-indexed" under the new arrangement. Once notified by the rights holder that a new domain is a new location for a domain - ie a mirror or redirect - that was previously subjected to a site-blocking order, Google will now immediately "de-index" it from the Australian country version without the need for a court injunction. "Piracy has been made one whole lot harder because of site blocking, but there’s a loophole which is the mirror or proxy sites that they have developed," he said. "This is shutting down that loophole and it’s massive.” Mr Burke has previously accused the US tech giant of "facilitating crime" by allowing the websites to be found in search and told Google to "sue" him over the comments. There have been laws in place since 2015 allowing copyright holders to obtain a court order to force internet provides to block pirate websites, but Mr Burke has separately been advocating for changes to the way the tech company handles illegally shared content since 2014. The measures were tightened up to restrict the bypassing of the blocks and to enable copyright holders to get an injunction against a search engine in 2018, before Google agreed to 'de-index' the sites altogether. "We’ve been working in collaboration with Creative Content Australia, the Australia New Zealand Screen Association, and the Federal Government to support more effective measures against pirate sites sharing Australian film content on the Web," Lucinda Longcroft, director of public policy at Google Australia said. "We are hopeful these measures will be a welcome step towards protecting copyright and will provide a faster solution for rightsholders." Village Roadshow, which Mr Burke led for more than 30 years until his retirement last year, lost millions of dollars due to piracy of hit films like Lion and Mad Max: Fury Road. source: Australian Breaking News Headlines & World News Online | SMH.com.au WWW.SMH.COM.AU Breaking news from Sydney, Australia and the world. Features the latest business, sport, entertainment, travel, lifestyle, and technology news.

The annual beche-de-mer season was ocially opened early this month, prompting coastal provinces and villages with appropriate licenses to head to sea to hunt for the prized sea slug, however, this has prompted Samarai-Murua MP Isi Henry Leonard to question Fisheries Minister Dr Lino Tom if there are plans in place tocombat piracy which usually accompanies the season. Mr Leonard wanted to know if the National Fisheries Authority has plans to protect the remote villagers frompiracy. “This is a issue that we are very well aware of,” Mr Leonard said. Dr Tom acknowledged that there is a lot of criminal activities including piracy, which is associated with thisseason. He said he understands that before the opening of the beche-de-mer season, NFA authorities had consultative meetings with the Milne Bay provincial government in regards to piracy. “I have also given the opportunity for the Milne Bay leaders to talk with the NFA authorities, so I’m pretty sure you have come up with some strategies to tackle this issue.” In terms of how NFA is providing support, the minister said NFA provides funding to police and army, to buy fuel to support operations. He said the engagement of water police and Defence Force soldiers is going to happen soon and the administration will put in some measures to help the security forces. source: Post Courier

In November 2017, when Tamil movie Ippadai Vellum, starring Udhayanidhi Stalin and Manjima Mohan hit the theatres, a team of eight techies working out of Anna Nagar in Chennai, got busy. Sharath Kumar, former Operations Head of Tamil Film Producers Anti-Piracy cell, recalls that a few hours before the release, they started scouring through social media, messaging platforms and scores of websites to see if the film had been leaked online. Within hours, as expected, TamilRockers — the most notorious movie piracy website — had uploaded a camera quality print of the film. Sharath and his team had their work cut out. They used takedown tools to block the prints, appealed to various domain registries to block as many sites, found the source of the leak and went to the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) Cell of the Tamil Nadu police which deals with intellectual property rights. Though the anti-piracy cell started operations in May 2017, the focus initially was on a wipeout campaign. More than 60,000 infringing links on Facebook, 18,000 videos on YouTube, and 24,000 movies on Dailymotion were removed amongst other things. It was only when Ippadai Vellum was leaked, that the team got an FIR filed against TamilRockers for the first time. In the next two years, the team filed 40 police complaints against many sites like TamilRockers, Tamil Gun and Tamil Storm. In the last three years, the Tamil film industry — and a few notable producers — have declared war on movie piracy. But like a multi-headed hydra, the problem keeps coming back, and in different forms. Today, it is not just theatrical releases that have to be protected, but even movies releasing exclusively on OTT (Over-the-Top) platforms are under the threat of piracy. Jyothika’s Ponmagal Vandhal was the first big Tamil film that released directly on an OTT platform in May this year. But within an hour of it premiering on Amazon Prime Video, the film was available for download on TamilRockers. This was also the case with Zee5 Original’s Lock Up that released on August 14. The time stamp on the TamilRockers website will show you that it was up at 11.15 pm on August 13. According to MUSO, a London-based data company that tracks global piracy, there has been a significant increase in film and television content piracy since the coronavirus lockdown was enforced. In India, film piracy rose by 63%, second only to Italy where it rose by 66%. What is the modus operandi of these piracy websites and what can be done to stop them? TNM spoke to people from the industry to understand the issue. Post-release piracy Most of the copies uploaded on piracy sites are camera quality prints. Meaning, they have been shot inside the movie theatre using a camera — phone or digital. Film producer SR Prabhu, who is also the Treasurer of the Producers’ Council, says, “There are a lot of people who do this as a part-time job. They just have to upload the film they’ve captured on the link given to them by the piracy site. For this, they get Rs 10,000 to 20,000 or even an iPhone. There are thousands of members on the Telegram app who subscribe to such piracy groups, and within a matter of seconds, the film reaches them.” A cursory glance at Telegram shows that multiple groups run by TamilRockers have lakhs of subscribers. But this is their forum which can be accessed by the public. These piracy websites also have closed networks where their agents, spread across states, coordinate on the theatres in which a movie will release and then decide from which theatre the movie can be recorded. TamilRockers now has many groups for Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi movies too. According to Sharath, illegal recording in theatres is how most movies are pirated, even though piracy websites advertise that they have ‘HD quality’ print. Senthil Kumar, Co-founder of Qube Cinema Technologies, a pioneering digital service provider company, says that protocols have been put in place to track prints that are coming from a cinema hall. "It's called forensic watermarking. It's an invisible mark that's embedded into the picture which the camera cannot see and neither can the audience. But when we run it through software, it will tell us the exact serial number of the theatre with the date and time,” Senthil says. Sharath says the anti-piracy cell would first download a leaked movie and rush the CD to Qube’s office. “We then wait for the forensics to tell us from which theatre the movie was recorded from. Almost every time, the recording would have been done from a theatre in the suburbs, or in theatres from other states.” Senthil adds that through forensic investigation, they have found the exact source of the leak in many cases. "We have found out such details for hundreds of films. Every week, we have a few production houses asking us to detect where the film came from and invariably we're able to tell them which theatre it was. As long as it's from a DCI compliant (Digital Cinema Initiative) or Qube system. There are many competitors of ours, smaller companies, which don't have such capabilities. But all the rest, we can identify it very accurately. Courts, especially in Kerala, have used this as evidence.” Senthil says that earlier, they would inform producers about which theatre, date, and show the leak happened, but now they give more details. “We try to understand whether it's happening from inside the auditorium or whether it's happening from inside the projection booth...which means the projectionist or somebody else from the theatre is in collusion. From the angle and the quality, whether they have used a tripod, from the sound and so on,” Senthil adds. Sharath says that in one instance, they found that the movie was leaked from a multiplex in Chennai’s suburbs as the piracy website accidentally uploaded a fraction of the popcorn ad. Theatres need to cooperate Qube found that many Malayalam movies were being leaked from a single screen theatre in Bengaluru, while Telugu movies were being recorded from multiplexes in Delhi. “Tamil movies, we found, were coming from multiplexes in Bengaluru. Some of the producers took action and said they'd stop releases in that multiplex, and then the theatre stepped up and stopped the piracy. In all these cases, it was someone from the audience who was doing it,” Senthil says. However, convincing all theatres to join the anti-piracy movement has not been successful, admits SR Prabhu. While some don’t want to take responsibility, others simply don't have the revenue to install CCTV cameras. “Many employees get low salaries and these piracy websites offer them money, the theatres just don’t do enough to ensure that their employees don’t leak directly or abet this,” he points out. Camera prints leaking from theatres, however, is only a part of the problem. Overseas buyers and other leaks Many in the industry agree that the leaks also happen through overseas buyers, and these doubts have been strengthened due to a few HD leaks. Typically, an overseas buyer gets a print a few days before the release. “I am very sure that these piracy websites that act as if they are doing some service are paying money for the print. In my knowledge, one overseas buyer was paid quite a lot for leaking a movie,” claims a producer who did not want to be named. SR Prabhu says that he is not aware of financial transactions, but that the leak from foreign locations has been discussed many times in their forums. The Malayalam film industry, which is also battling piracy, has started postponing releases in outside Kerala centres by a few weeks. They believe that if the movies release only in Kerala first, they have more control and can ensure that leaks don't happen. “It is difficult for Tamil producers to delay overseas releases as the money involved is much higher. Overseas buyers will not agree to buy with the same rates. Moreover, if the reviews label a movie bad or average, it's a huge risk for the producer,” he points out. “I am sure these piracy websites have huge networks and support systems in Tamil Nadu. How do they otherwise know who the foreign buyer is and negotiate terms with them? At least one buyer has to be blacklisted and only then can we send out a strong message, but we never will,” says another producer. This producer added that in the case of a particular film starring a popular actor, the movie’s producer paid money to a piracy website which claimed that they had the movie’s print, in order to stall the leak. This allegation, however, was not confirmed by any of the others TNM spoke to. Though not often and much lesser in the last few years, there have been some instances of a movie being leaked from any of the facilities where it goes for post-production. Piracy has become so ingrained that CS Amudhan’s Tamizh Padam 2.0 poster mockingly declared that TamilRockers was the film’s ‘official piracy partner’ and that the film would release on the piracy site, the day after its theatrical release. CS Amudhan says that there are various theories on how piracy thrives, but no real breakthrough has happened. “There are a lot of conspiracy theories. That the leak was happening during the post-production stages — dubbing, editing, DI grading, VFX — or it could be getting leaked when it is sent to overseas markets for release there. The popular theory is that when the film is sent to Malaysia and Singapore a few days before its theatrical release, it could be the stage when it's stolen by piracy sites. These are the popular theories but we haven’t pinned it down to anything. The truth is that no one knows for sure how it's done,” he says. Who are the TamilRockers? In April 2017, when actor and producer Vishal, Kathiresan, SS Durai Raj and SR Prabhu were elected to the Tamil Nadu Film Producers’ Council, the war against piracy sites was declared with much fanfare. Other than setting up the anti-piracy cell, the Council also worked with the police to pin down those behind these operations. A few people who were supplying the leaked movies were arrested from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, but these investigations made no headway. Most sources say that TamilRockers was started by a small group of friends in 2011 and grew exponentially over the years. Most believe that they are based out of France while their sites are hosted in Russia, while some say it is hosted in Romania. Their DNS and other information are strictly protected and secured.Tamil Gun administrators are London-based, believe many members of the Tamil film industry. “They are all connected in some way, that we are sure, TamilRockers and Tamil Gun. They have a huge network in Tamil Nadu and once they put a link out, they have members here who spread it like wildfire,” says Sharath. The members of the anti-piracy cell have now formed a company called Massbunk Antipiracy and claim that they are close to revealing who their nemeses are in the upcoming months. However, with Ponmagal Vandhal’s leak, many in the industry feel defeated, and are convinced that this is a problem that they cannot tackle alone. “Earlier, we said that the overseas market was the cause and many stopped sending their films overseas before the official release. Then we found that the sites were picking it up from theatres in Bengaluru. Today a film comes on Amazon Prime Video, and within a few minutes it is up on a torrent site. Technology is so advanced, how and what all to stop? We have tried it all and have lost hope,” producer Dhananjayan says, sounding exasperated. There is a big debate ongoing in the industry over how Ponmagal Vandhal was leaked. Someone who worked closely with the movie says that it was leaked only after the movie came out on the OTT platform. He refutes a few others who believe that the piracy website got hold of the movie from a selected preview which the platform hosted. “The preview was for a select few, but everyone had a special key. And when I watched the preview, my id showed on top. There is no way the piracy site could have wiped the id in every frame,” the insider says. In whichever way the movie was leaked, this is a new concern, a new challenge. “The Government of India banned all pornographic websites. Most recently, they stopped all Chinese apps. Why can't they act against piracy websites?” Dhananjayan asks. A producer who has collaborated on movies like Irudhi Suttru and Kaatrin Mozhi, Dhananjayan adds that over the years, he has employed the services of anti-piracy agencies but calls it a “reactive” process. “It is also very time-consuming. They function by identifying and sending notices to servers that host the link. By the time they get back and act upon it, since the servers are in different countries, hundreds of viewers would have downloaded it,” he points out. Though most of the piracy websites behave as if they are doing a public service, the reality is that there is major revenue in the game. “We have been running campaigns and telling advertisers to not put ads on their sites,” says Sharath. But running behind advertisers is an exhausting process and one that can have only limited success. “It is a long legal battle. We need a tougher legal system and legal counsel to fight this,” says SR Prabhu. CV Kumar, a producer who has made movies like Pizza and Soodhu Kavvum, says a crackdown is the only way ahead. “The main guys sit abroad, and we may never be able to touch them. But we need to find their networks here and file cases against them. But more than anything else, people in Tamil Nadu need to ask themselves why the Tamil industry suffers more than others. That’s because many people here don’t have any respect for cinema as art or have any regard for people behind movies. So they think it’s okay to enable this mafia,” he says. (With inputs from Dhanya Rajendran) Source: thenewsminute

A few years back, the European Commission kicked off a campaign against ads on pirate sites in an effort to cut into their revenue streams — and it seems the strategy is working, according to newly surfaced data. The European Union’s executive arm has noticed a 12% drop in ads served per visit on sites known to infringe on intellectual property rights across Europe, TorrentFreak reports. The Commission revealed the findings in a new report documenting the progress of the campaign. Despite the decline in overall ads, though, data shows the number of branded advertising campaigns — ads attributed directly to specific brands — has grown. “Although fewer ads were found per visit, the percentage of branded advertising post-MoU has increased from 38% to 52%,” the report notes. “The largest increases came from the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy.” The anti-piracy campaign first launched in 2016, eventually getting a series of tech companies — including Google — to co-sign it. “This initiative will help deprive these websites and mobile applications of the revenue flows that make their activities profitable,” said the European Commission at the time. That said, the study doesn’t quite touch on precisely how much of a dent the campaign put in pirate sites’ revenue. The Commission is planning to shed more light on this in a future report, though. Factoring in piracy sites have continued to explore alternative monetization strategies like cryptocurrency mining and donations, it’ll be interesting to see if the campaign bred any results further than decreasing the amount of ads served on such sites.

Three Charged With Leaking Movies as Part of Global Piracy Ring Three men are facing federal charges of participating in an international piracy ring that distributed popular movies and television shows online before their release dates, prosecutors announced Wednesday. The men, who have been charged with copyright infringement conspiracy, were accused of being members of the Sparks Group, a sophisticated piracy outfit spanning several continents. One of the men, George Bridi, 50, of the United Kingdom, was arrested in Cyprus on Sunday. An American, Jonatan Correa, 36, was arrested in Olathe, Kan., on Tuesday. The authorities were still searching for the third man, Umar Ahmad, 39, of Norway. “The group allegedly circumvented copyright protections on nearly every movie released by major production studios, as well as television shows, and distributed them by way of a worldwide network of servers,” Audrey Strauss, the acting United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. These charges are significant, said Ernesto van der Sar, the founder of TorrentFreak, an outlet that has covered the piracy scene for years. “This is pretty high up,” he said. “I think it’s spooked a lot of people, because generally speaking, these people are very private and well versed in hiding their identities.” TorrentFreak reported that shortly before the indictments were unsealed, news of the arrests had seemed to be spreading among elite members of the international piracy scene, and some of their servers — even those not directly affiliated with the Sparks Group — appeared to have been shut down out of caution. According to the statement from the authorities, members of the Sparks Group fraudulently obtained DVDs and Blu-ray discs from wholesale distributors in New York and New Jersey, at times misrepresenting why they were obtaining the discs before the retail release date. From 2011 to 2020, Mr. Ahmad and Mr. Bridi arranged for discs to be mailed or delivered to other members of the group, including Mr. Correa, prosecutors said. The men were also accused of using software to circumvent copyright protections in order to distribute movies or television shows online. “The movies and TV shows allegedly stolen by these defendants not only represent a body of work ripped off from those who spent years developing their craft and working their way to stardom, but deprives the studios and actors of the fruits of their labor,” Philip R. Bartlett, the inspector-in-charge of the New York office of the United States Postal Inspection Service, said in the statement. It was not immediately clear whether the two men arrested had lawyers. Evan Greer, a deputy director with Fight for the Future, a nonprofit digital rights organization, said she understood the importance of copyright laws but questioned this type of enforcement. “What it does is protect the profits of a small handful of large Hollywood institutions, and strengthen the monopoly power of companies like Apple, Netflix, Amazon and Google,” she said. “In public libraries we can share books, movies and music freely and without restriction,” she added. “The only reason that’s not true on the internet is because Hollywood and big record labels have lobbied fiercely to make it illegal, instead of adapting their business models to the reality that the internet is here to stay.” In the statement on Wednesday, U.S. officials said they had worked with Europol and law agencies in 18 other countries to shut down servers that the piracy groups had used to share content. It added that the Sparks Group had cost film production studios tens of millions of dollars. The copyright infringement charges, which carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison, were filed in January and unsealed in New York on Tuesday. Mr. Bridi was also charged with wire fraud, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, and conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate, which carries a maximum sentence of five years.

Officials from the US Department of Justice have unsealed today charges against three men involved in a movie piracy group known as Sparks. According to court documents, the group's members operated by "fraudulently" obtaining DVDs and Blu-Ray discs storing unreleased movie and television shows, breaking copyright protections through a process called "ripping," and releasing the shows online, where they were taken and disseminated via illegal video streaming portals or torrent sites. To obtain unreleased movies and TV shows, authorities said the group would often pose as real-world DVD and Blu-ray discs retailers. The group rose to infamy on the underground movie piracy scene for often leaking movies and television shows even before their official release. As part of the crackdown against this group, three men were charged today, with indictments naming Umar Ahmad (39, aka Artist), George Bridi (50), and Jonatan Correa (36, aka Raid) as taking part in the group's operations. Two arrests were made, with authorities arresting Bridi, a UK national, in Cyprus, and Correa in Kansas, US. The last member, Ahmad, a Norweigian citizen, is still at large, the DOJ said today. The two arrests were part of a coordinated operation that involved law enforcement agencies from 18 countries, including the DOJ and Europol, which resulted in authorities seizing dozens of servers through which the group had distributed its pirated content in the past. News of the arrests and subsequent raids on Spark servers were first reported yesterday by TorrentFreak, a website dedicated to copyright and piracy-related topics. The site reported a general panic in the underground "ripping" community, where Sparks has been a reliable content distributor since 2011. The Sparks group was one of the many members of a movie ripping community known as The Scene, and much of the pirated content created by the group would often bear the community's name.

On 25 August, an alleged criminal network of copyright infringing hackers, mainly responsible for pirating movies and hosting illegal digital content worldwide was dismantled in a coordinated action between US authorities and their counterparts in 18 countries around the world, with Europol and Eurojust support. Sixty servers were taken down in North America, Europe and Asia and several of the main suspects were arrested. Streamed prior to release The Sparks Group obtained DVDs and Blu-ray discs of unreleased content and compromised the copyright protections on the discs to reproduce and upload the content publically to online servers. It is believed that the piracy group, under investigation since September 2016, had successfully reproduced and disseminated hundreds of movies and TV programmes prior to their retail release date, including nearly every movie released by major production studios in the US. The Sparks Group has caused tens of millions of US dollars in losses to film production studios, mainly to the US movie, television, and supporting industries, from the copyright infringement. False claims for free films To get ahead, members of the Sparks Group made several material misrepresentations and omissions to wholesale distributors. On many occasions, they claimed to be DVD and Blu-ray discs retailers and promised not to sell the content prior to the retail release date. Once they received the products, the members of the group used special software to crack the copyright protections to then reproduce and encode the content in high-definition. The content was then disseminated and reproduced on streaming platforms, peer-to-peer and torrent networks from their platforms. The servers were located around the world in Canada, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. These were taken down in yesterday’s action and in the days preceding it, with the help of national authorities from these countries. Other measures were also taken in Italy, Romania and Canada. One of the members of the alleged criminal network was arrested over the weekend in Cyprus and another suspect was arrested yesterday in the US. International cooperation This successful operation was possible thanks to the extensive international cooperation facilitated by Europol and Eurojust between law enforcement and judicial authorities from the countries involved. Europol enhanced the exchange of information through the participating countries and coordinated the action day with Eurojust which hosted yesterday’s a coordination centre, ensuring real-time coordination in the joint action of the national authorities in all the countries. An operational meeting at Europol and a coordination meeting at Eurojust were organised prior to the joint action day, facilitating the exchange of information between law enforcement and judicial authorities and setting a joint strategy between all the parties involved. Europol provided analytical support during the investigation and supported the information exchange between the involved police authorities via the SIENA secure communication system. Source : europol.europa.eu

How to Unblock The Pirate Bay and Torrent Anonymously – 2020 In their continuous battle against copyright holders, The Pirate Bay has become difficult to reach for some and impossible for other. Their domain has been blocked entirely by ISPs in certain countries such as Greece, giving the impression that their pirate ship has sunk. Thankfully, there are still ways to unblock The Pirate Bay for torrent downloads. In truth, all you need a VPN and to know what mirror sites are working and you’ll be able to anonymously and safely download all the torrents you want. The Pirate Bay torrent What’s Going on with Pirate Bay? The Pirate Bay is well known for its downtime, so it’s natural to assume that the site is inactive when you can’t access it. However, many people who find the site offline have then gone on to access it via proxies, VPN servers, and the Tor domain. This indicates that the site is running, and most likely blocked by ISPs. Setting Up a VPN Here are the steps to follow if you want to unblock The Pirate Bay. Select a VPN – we recommend ExpressVPN because of their unlimited speeds and allowing for torrenting and P2P on their servers. Download and install the app on your device. Launch your client application and log in. Connect to a server in a torrent-friendly location to gain access to the site. Access The Pirate Bay and start downloading torrents. Top 3 VPNs to Safely Download Torrents Rank Provider name Our score Price TOP CHOICE1. ExpressVPN 9.8 read reviews $6.67 / month save 48% Find Out More Get Started >> 2. NordVPN 9.9 read reviews $3.71 / month save 69% Find Out More Get Started >> 3. CyberGhost VPN 9.5 read reviews $2.75 / month save 79% Find Out More Get Started >> Pirate Bay Gets Blocked Most recently, the Greek government ordered ISPs to restrict access to another 38 domains, The Pirate Bay included, without a lot of warning. Greek ISPs were given 48 hours to comply, or they faced a fine of €850 per day. Romanian ISPs have recently received the same order, with The Pirate Bay making the list. Many of these court orders come from Hollywood Studios Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Sony, Universal, Columbia, and Paramount. They would love the opportunity to do the same in the United States, but it hasn’t happened yet. As restrictions become more common, it’s important to consider net neutrality. We believe there should be unrestricted access online, and groups, like Hollywood studios, continue to contradict the core purpose of why the Internet was created. Finding the Best VPN for Pirate Bay Not only will a VPN get you access to The Pirate Bay, but it also provides benefits to your security. Look for a service that offers: Wide selection of server locations Fast speeds Unlimited bandwidth Military-grade encryption Free trial or money-back guarantee Easy-to-use apps Superior customer service Advanced features for customization While many VPN providers offer these features, we highly recommend ExpressVPN, as they have an extensive server list, fast connection speeds, and excellent customer service. We must advise you to avoid using a free VPN provider. Not only do most of them not have access to unblock Pirate Bay, but there are several other downsides. Anonymity isn’t guaranteed Lack of unlimited bandwidth or connection speeds Sell your information to third-party providers Employ user machines for bot attacks Customer privacy isn’t valued Ads are integrated into the software Don’t Ever Access The Pirate Bay Without a VPN The Pirate Bay gets a lot of attention, but it’s rarely good news. Amidst continual legal battles concerning the site, it would be naive to use it without a VPN. The fate of The Pirate Bay remains uncertain due to its content, and its essential to protect your privacy and anonymity. Is Torrenting Illegal? Torrenting is not illegal – it is just a method of file sharing. Of course, it can be used for illegal purposes. The prime example is downloading torrents that contain copyrighted materials, such as music, movies, and TV shows is illegal in most of the world, and if the government tracks the downloads back to your IP address you can be fined. Torrent files transfer on p2p networks, so you download packets of data from multiple sources, and upload completed files as you go, meaning you’re hosting illegal content. Regulatory authorities and copyright enforcers target anyone hosting copyrighted files, and you are at a higher risk of being identified if you don’t take precautionary measures. Using The Pirate Bay or other torrent sites makes you a target for law enforcement as well as malicious content. That’s why it’s essential you use a VPN and anonymize your online activities before visiting the Pirate Bay. Encrypt all your data going in and out through a VPN, and your ISP can’t see what you’re doing. With the right VPN provider, no one will ever know that the activity occurring on the torrenting site is yours. Alternative Torrent Sites if you can’t get on The Pirate Bay There are other torrent sites worth checking out. 1337x.to 1337x_to One of the best selections of gaming torrents, also hosts TV shows, music, movies, and apps. Kickass Torrents Kickass Torrents One of the most popular sites available. RARBG RARBG torrent A BitTorrent tracker back in 2008 and ideal for beginners. Provides access to music and movies. YTS.ag YIFY torrent movies Focuses on movies and offers an extensive list of HD content in 3D, 1080p, and 720p. Zooqle Zoogle Specializes in TV shows and currently offer more than 1,300 of them. Also, you’ll find more than 30,000 movies

Tracker's Name: HDAtmos Genre: HD Sign-up Link: https://hdatmos.club/signup.php Closing date: Soon! Additional information: HDATMOS is a new Chinese Private Torrent Tracker for HD Movies / TV / General Releases. Note: New accounts include a newbie task.

Aither.cc | Movies | 2020 Review Tracker Name Aither Tracker URL https://aither.cc/ Tracker Genre General Tracker SignUp Invite Only & application form based Maintain Ratio Easy Bonus System Yes Banned Countries None Aither is a HD based tracker , focusing On movies , TV shows and Many other things . They have a friendly staff members and fairly Good amount of HD contents on their site . Aither internal encoders like FooKaS,Sandra . This tracker have donation system with this any one can be vip user and this tracker based of UNIT3D theme . They have a bonus system implanet so ratio build up not a issue at all also with bps we can purchase invites which are also not costly at all . Currently this tracker is Invite only as registration is closed but other's invitation and invite application form is still available to register. This tracker based of NF releases, SD contents, d3g releases ,tutorials , software ,Games and many other things . Aither have H&R Rule added Members need to seed atleast 3 days (72hrs ), although files are well seeded so ratio build up with seedbox is very easy on this site . Aither Have a active chatbox with newly uploaded all files names are frequently added there . Featured Torrents , Top Torrents & Top uploaders count lists are also there in home page section . They have some free leech files option for larger files so low ratio guyz can fix there ratio easily. Hope you like my review , I will take some screenshots now . __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ||Home Page|| ||Forum|| ||Graveyard|| ||Subtitles|| ||Playlist|| ||Upload|| ||Stats|| ||Bonus Store|| ||Browse|| ||Rules|| ||Rating|| Pre-times 6/10 Speed 8/10 Content 6.5/10 Community 7/10 Overall 6.5/10

The raids and arrests this week targeting piracy release group SPARKS have caused chaos in The Scene, with members and groups going into hiding and new releases dropping like a stone. The targeting of just one group shouldn't have such a massive effect but it seems probable that in the weeks and months to come, we'll learn that one weak spot can be exploited to undermine a much larger infrastructure. This Tuesday, TorrentFreak received more rapid-fire anonymous tips than we have done in recent memory. Demanding confidentiality is nothing new but tipsters and sources using anonymous mailers, obscured IP addresses, alongside repeat requests that identities aren’t revealed, usually point to something particularly unusual. And indeed, something unusual was definitely underway. Late Tuesday, documents filed under seal in the United States as early as January 2020 were suddenly unsealed, revealing one of the most important piracy-related cases of the past decade. As detailed in our report yesterday, a case brought by the US Government resulted in a Grand Jury charging at least three members of several and related top-tier ‘Scene’ release groups – SPARKS, GECKOS, DRONES, ROVERS and SPLiNTERS – with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and other crimes. The US case has been ongoing for many months and the investigation certainly longer. Exactly how long was unknown until yesterday when a Swedish prosecutor revealed that it had been underway “for years”. However, What took us by surprise was the volume of reports on Tuesday, the claims of panic and fear in ‘The Scene’ globally, and what now appears to be a significant reduction of releases of all kinds from what is usually a prolific and cascading ‘Piracy Pyramid’ system. Initial Information Proved Correct People closely involved in The Scene are naturally secretive, or at least that’s the mandate. The truth is that some are prepared to talk but everyone is so scared of being caught by the authorities or labeled by fellow members as insecure, that truly verifiable sources are extremely hard to come by. As a result, reporting the finer details becomes a product of overlapping independent sources, none of whom want to be identified, which isn’t ideal. Nevertheless, during Tuesday we were told by multiple sources that topsites and warez-affiliated members and resources were being targeted by law enforcement, anti-piracy groups, or a combination of both in many regions. What they all had in common was that the entities were affiliated with SPARKS and various topsites. Another recurring theme was the focus on Nordic countries as being at the heart of action. Many countries were mentioned, including the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Poland but, again and again, the reports cited both Norway and Sweden as potentially the main ‘problem’ areas. US Department of Justice Began Talking Yesterday In an official announcement Wednesday, following the initial yet unofficial reports of raids 24 hours earlier and after the unsealing of the indictments, the USDOJ revealed the global scale of the operation against SPARKS and its affiliates. “Thanks to the efforts of HSI, the Postal Inspection Service, Eurojust, Europol, and our law enforcement partners in 18 countries on three continents, key members of this group are in custody, and the servers that were the pipeline for wholesale theft of intellectual property are now out of service,” the announcement read. The US revealed that law enforcement authorities in many countries assisted in the investigation against SPARKS including those in Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Republic of Korea, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Eurojust SPARKS SPARKS member George Bridi, 50, was reportedly arrested on Sunday in Cyprus on an INTERPOL Red Notice. Correa (aka ‘Raid’), 36, was arrested Tuesday in Olathe, Kansas, where he will appear in federal court. Umar Ahmad (aka ‘Artist’), 39, was not arrested and as of Wednesday was reportedly still at large, according to the US Government. The Nordic Connection Several pieces of information received by TF during Tuesday indeed placed someone known as ‘Artist’ as a central and important figure in the action taking place. Umar Ahmad is now officially named as that key person but according to his indictment, the US Government is not seeking to prosecute him for SPARKS-related offenses beyond January 2020. That’s also the case for George Bridi, an indicted co-defendant whose alias is currently unknown. The only SPARKS defendant charged with offenses up to August 2020 is Jonatan Correa, aka ‘Raid’. While there is room for speculation as to what may have happened here, it seems somewhat reasonable to conclude (at least given the charges) that Ahmad and Bridi stopped their alleged offending months ago. However, according to records kept by Scene-watching sites (known as pre-databases), SPARKS-related groups continued releasing content online until fairly recently. That aside, what we can confirm today is that Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service, commonly known as Kripos, carried out raids at several premises this week and seized computer equipment on what is being described as a “large scale”. In addition, three men – who are yet to be named but are in their 30s and 40s – were arrested and charged for breaches of Norway’s Copyright Act. It is not currently known whether 39-year-old Oslo-resident Umar Ahmad is among them. Danish authorities have also confirmed that four men, aged between 35 and 48, had their homes searched and were subsequently charged with copyright infringement offenses. Servers and other pieces of IT equipment were seized. Source: Some Warning Signs Were Spotted a While Ago It’s certainly possible that SPARKS members were absolutely oblivious to the US Government’s investigation but according to one difficult-to-verify source, who insisted on anonymity but spoke with us at length and in considerable detail, this year and “before COVID”, some Scene members were questioning why a particular SPARKS member had suddenly “retired”. We are not publishing that member’s name here (which we believe was provided to us in advance of the unsealing of the US indictment) but according to the same source, another possibly-connected mystery was still lingering. The source alleges that some months earlier an individual connected to a separate yet prominent release group also “went afk” and suddenly stopped providing content. Again, we aren’t publishing the name of that group or the nickname of the person involved but we can confirm that the alleged group stopped releasing several months before the end of 2019. This led to rumors that one or both may have been compromised and hadn’t just taken a break. The relevance is that, according to the same insider, the pair (coincidentally or not) are believed to have shared the same content sources. Again, this is unconfirmed information but the first group has never returned to action and the second has the US Government on the attack after uncovering where it was obtaining its DVD and Blu-Ray discs from. Significant Legal Action in Sweden After receiving initial information, which was later confirmed by the USDOJ, that significant action had taken place in Sweden. On Tuesday, we spoke with Jon Karlung, the owner of ISP Bahnhof, which we were informed may have been visited by the authorities investigating SPARKS. That turned out not to be the case. Karlung told us that nobody had visited the company nor requested information. However, he said that with 400,000 households and 10,000 companies as clients, plus the company’s sale of bandwidth capacity to other ISPs, he couldn’t rule out that someone way down the chain, even a client of someone else, may have been visited. Whether connected to this specific ISP or not, multiple sources informed us that at least one topsite affiliated with multiple groups utilized a high-bandwidth home link in Sweden, with another topsite connected to multiple groups also seized in the country. What we know from official sources is that there were 14 house searches carried out in Sweden on Tuesday, including in Umeå, Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm. No one was arrested during the raids but according to prosecutor Johanna Kolga, more servers were seized in Sweden than anywhere else. Netherlands Action and the Existence of MLATs Finding information about what happened in the Netherlands led us to Tim Kuik of anti-piracy group BREIN. We put it to him that if anyone in the country knows anything about the case, it must be him. Like most other people, Kuik wasn’t budging on detail. But he did offer a plausible explanation for the silence. “It is an interesting case indeed. It is entirely possible for so-called MLATs to be carried out on the request of say US law enforcement and the Dutch authorities carrying it out without informing any private stakeholders,” Kuik told us. “In such cases it may be so that stakeholders abroad, who may have filed a criminal complaint for example, have been made aware and would not be at liberty to say anything about it. So nobody is likely to comment I think. But you can always try. I have no comment.” Later, however, Eurojust – the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation – confirmed that it “helped transmit and facilitate the execution of over 30 Mutual Legal Assistance requests and Letters of Request necessary for taking down the servers and executing searches..” In all, over 60 servers were taken down in North America, Europe and Asia and “several main suspects” were arrested, the agency added. Interesting Allegations, Few New Releases, and Kevin Bacon Over the past 48+ hours, TF has been provided with a list of topsites and related infrastructure that has either been raided or taken down as a precautionary measure. The dozen-plus platforms will therefore remain unnamed, as we simply cannot determine which of the platforms are offline voluntarily, or down because they have been seized. This leads us to why so many sites and other key pieces of infrastructure have disappeared, apparently just because one group was targeted. The reasons, we are told, are complex but can be boiled down to the number of connections SPARKS had in The Scene. One recurring theme is that one of SPARKS’ members is claimed to have become quite influential and as a result may have “extended his tentacles too far”, as one source framed it. These connections, with many other groups and activities, may go some way to explaining why The Scene all but shut down Tuesday. If we take Bacon’s Law and apply it here, the response makes complete sense. Nevertheless, the scale of the shutdown is unusual, to say the least, and only time will tell if The Scene will fully recover. For the average torrent or streaming site user, a period of reduced new content availability might be on the horizon but history shows us that rarely lasts for long and that the cycle will probably begin again, once people have figured out who they can trust.

From a site admin, regarding the limited new uploads in the last couple days: "Problem is not with layla, or feed, the people who normally release the stuff seem to be not releasing just now"

AoTM August Voting (Round 1) AoTM August Voting (Round 1) is open. Voting is open for one week and all nominations are Neutral Leech. Due to the high number of submissions for August, we are going to split the nominations into 4 weekly votes (with 3-4 albums each). August submissions will stay open until the end of the month (instead of closing on the 25th). If the nominations and votes keep up, we could see this Monthly game go Weekly. Thank you all for your votes and participation! Special thanks to w**** for their ongoing technical expertise, guidance and enthusiasm. [Discuss]

NordicBits | NBorg | General | 2020 Review Name: NordicBits URL: https://nordicb.org/ Genre: General Ratio Requirements: Ratio Based Signup: Invite Only Maintaining Ratio: Easy Bonus System: Available Banned Countries: NA IRC: irc.nordicb.org:6667 #Nordicbits-Main |--- DESCRIPTION ---| NordicBits is a General Nordic Tracker, general tracker with a huge variety of content. Here you can find contents with English audio and various nordic and English subtitles. They have a good variety with The site has over 24K torrents and the website has an English interface. It has a good variety of movies and TV shows. You can find many nordic releases like NBRETAiL, PANDEMONiUM, NORDICSUBS, DBRETAiL, UNITY, SERiETiD, GRUMPY, FiLMTiD etc over here. Contents from NBRETAIL contain subtitles which are available in Danish, NOR, SWE and FINN. It includes contents of Movies,TV shows,Games, Books and APPs. It has a bonus system where you can buy bonuses. It has a seeding requirement of 72 hours or 1:1 . The ratio is easy to maintain. |--- LOGIN ---| |--- HOME ---| |--- BROWSE ---| |--- GRAVEYARD ---| |--- REQUESTS ---| |--- FORUM ---| |--- DONATE ---| |--- TOP 10 ---| |--- RULES ---| |--- FAQ ---| |--- RATINGS ---| Speed: 8.5/10 Pretimes: 6/10 Content: 7.5/10 Community: 7/10 Overall: 7.5/10

Streaming service USTVNow has caused confusion among some users by recommending the use of a third-party Kodi add-on for years and then suddenly changing direction. In fact, the TVAddons repo recently received an aggressive cease-and-desist notice from USTVNow, alleging trademark infringement and piracy, simply for promoting an add-on that's still available on the official Kodi repo. USTVNow brands itself as a legal video streaming service providing TV for “US Military and US citizens abroad.” The platform is also popular with viewers outside these groups, many of whom access the service using the convenience of third-party Kodi add-ons designed for the task. However, in recent weeks there has been a considerable amount of confusion over the use of Kodi add-ons with the USTVNow service. A dedicated USTVNow add-on has been promoted by or made available from at least two official/semi-official locations – the actual Kodi team repository (where it remains today) and a page on unofficial Kodi add-on resource TVAddons. That has now been removed for reasons we’ll explain shortly but first some background. USTVNow Kodi Add-ons Have Been Flaky For a While For many months, users of USTVNow who use a Kodi add-on to access the service have been complaining loudly via Twitter that compatibility is poor and errors are widespread. Back in February, for example, a user based at an electronics store (Hydra Electronics) complained that after filing a complaint with USTVNow, the streaming service sent him back to the Kodi team to fix the problem, since they’re supplying the add-on. Since then there have been many other complaints but on July 30, USTVNow responded, clearly recommending the add-on located at Kodi.tv but noting that it doesn’t provide any support for it, which is fair enough. On August 4, however, everything changed, with USTVNow changing its position on Kodi altogether by not recommending the use of it at all. Our apologies for the confusion. Kodi is no longer recommended or supported by ustvnow. Kindly check this link for compatible devices: https://t.co/sJWyBjDCIp — USTVNow (@ustvnow) August 2, 2020 What prompted this sudden turnaround isn’t clear but one obvious explanation could be that having Kodi add-ons maintained by a third-party is just too much trouble. However, activity behind the scenes also indicated that when third-party groups offer and promote Kodi add-ons for USTVNow, that might also present legal problems – at least for them. For many years, third-party Kodi add-on site TVAddons not only offered or linked to a free add-on for the USTVNow service (which required an official USTVNow account) but has continually encouraged users to become customers of USTVNow. On August 12, however, USTVNow operator Dutch Phone Holdings Inc. sent TVAddons an aggressive email titled “USTVNOW Enforcement”. USTVNow Accuses TVAddons of Trademark Infringement and Piracy “It has come to our attention that you are promoting your services through your website using our trademark USTVNOW and our official logo,” the email begins. “USTVnow doesn’t have or support any app. Our customer [sic] can watch live TV streams directly from our website. This fake app is misguiding our 1.6 million customers. You are also pirating our content from our website, ustvnow.com, and directing consumers to apps that appear to be DutchPhone’s USTVNOW apps.” According to the email, TVAddons ‘use’ of USTVNow’s “trademark and content” is grounds for numerous legal claims including (but not limited to), trademark infringement, copyright infringement, unfair competition, and violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. “DutchPhone takes this matter seriously and will take all measures necessary to enforce its intellectual property rights. We demand that you take down your page mentioned above and all other pages on your website talking about USTVnow within seven (7) days of this letter. Otherwise, DutchPhone will have no choice but to take further action,” the communications concludes. A response to USTVNow, shared by TVAddons with TF, shows the Kodi add-on repository immediately complying with the request, within hours. Nevertheless, the site also had its say, including by pointing out that for “several years”, USTVNow’s official documentation actually linked to TVAddons and promoted the add-on for its customers to use. “We also sent you thousands of paying subscribers, for which we never asked for nor received a dollar,” the response reads. “That being said, we will stop promoting you immediately, and instead send our users to your competitors. You could have asked us nicely, instead of sending us a threatening legal letter.” Only making matters worse, instead of contacting TVAddons directly, USTVNow sent its legal threats to Cloudflare, which also forwarded the complaint to TVAddons’ hosting provider. That doesn’t appear to have had an immediate negative effect on its relationships with those companies but certainly won’t have helped TVAddons remain visibly squeaky clean in light of its historical legal problems with rightsholders. Same USTVNow Add-On Still Available on the Official Kodi Site In the early days, TVAddons promoted a USTVNow Kodi add-on created by a developer known as Mhancor7 but according to the third-party platform, that was discontinued long ago and hasn’t been distributed for years. Instead, the site has been promoting the same add-on as recommended via the official Kodi team at Kodi.tv. Curiously, that add-on can still be found here. Whether the developers of Kodi will also stand accused of trademark infringement and piracy in due course remains to be seen but it’s clear that without a semi-official option to watch USTVNow via Kodi, that platform’s users will be left worse off for choice, or may even choose to migrate elsewhere, perhaps even to illegal options. Source: Torrentfreak.com

Site is down. The server is not responding.

@nomercymina applying

Dear Retailers, Tomorrow some work will take place in the datacenter, we could be affected by this. Leave everything on so that it continues as normal should the site be unavailable. Have a nice day,