Month: June 2016

In an effort to combat piracy, copyright holders report millions of infringing links to Google on a daily basis.

Due to the high number of often automated notices and the fact that copyright holders don’t always check the validity of all requests, mistakes are a common occurrence.

An occasional mishap is understandable, of course, but this week we stumbled upon one of the worst series of takedown notices we have ever seen.

Over the course of a few days reporting organization Copyright UNIVERSAL asked Google to remove thousands of links from its search engine. In their listing we do indeed see some infringing URLs, but it’s the legal content that really stands out.

In fact, it is safe to say that no website is safe for the overzealous anti-piracy group.

Over the past week Copyright UNIVERSAL has asked Google to remove 4,224 URLs including various high profile sites. While we don’t have room to highlight all ‘mistakes,’ we’ve made a selection of some of the most outrageous errors.

Let’s start off with the MPAA, a fellow anti-piracy group which has called on Google to make sure that reported URLs remain offline. According to a recent notice from Copyright UNIVERSAL, their ratings page is clearly infringing.

The same is true for legal offerings from movie stores and streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon and Apple’s iTunes.

According to the notices, Google’s very own Play store is also copyright infringing.

In fact, even Hulu’s original series are not safe from the overactive anti-piracy group’s recent takedown spree.

But that’s just the beginning. Various Internet providers including Comcast, Verizon and Cox also offer entertainment online. This is not permitted according to Copyright UNIVERSAL which is targeting the respective sites in various takedown notices.

Then there are offline film broadcasting outlets, commonly known as movie theaters. These generally have a good relationship with copyright holders, but that doesn’t mean they can stay online.

The Copyright UNIVERSAL notices target several cinemas including the homepages of AMC Theaters and Vox Cinemas, as shown below.

The same is true for film rating sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, which are both targeted in several requests.

Turning it up a notch, the anti-piracy group is also cracking down on sports leagues, as both the NBA and NFL sites are targeted.

And what about the official movie homepage for The Huntsman: Winter’s War, tucked in between several news articles and other legitimate sites such as the Verge, The Age, The Australian and The Sun.

The list goes on and on and on….

After keeping a close eye on DMCA takedown mistakes over the past several years, these are by far the worst. Keep in mind that the above is just a small selection of all the inaccuracies, which can be found in full here.

Unfortunately it is not clear on whose authority Universal COPYRIGHT is acting. The sloppy anti-piracy outfit reportedly operates from India but that’s pretty much all we know at this point.

TorrentFreak reached out to Google, who said they would look into the matter, but we haven’t heard back since.

The good news is that thanks to Google’s sharp eye none of the inaccurately reported links have been removed. So even if Copyright UNIVERSAL continues its crusade against pretty much the entire Internet, it’s unlikely that it will succeed.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Intel’s Apollo Lake processors are set to hit the streets in the second half of 2016. They’re low-power, low-cost chips aimed at laptops, 2-in-1 tablets, and some desktop computers, and they’re the follow-up to the Intel “Braswell” processors we’ve been seeing over the past year in devices like Chromebooks, cheap Windows laptops, and mini-desktops.

So what’s the difference between Apollo Lake on Braswell? A few months ago Intel told us the new chips would offer better performance and efficiency.

Continue reading Intel Apollo Lake chips to offer 30 percent performance boost over Braswell at Liliputing.

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Microsoft unterstützt mit Outlook Android Wear. Das E-Mail-Programm kann dann auch auf Smartwatches mit Android funktionieren. (Android Wear, Groupware)

Einigen Berichten zufolge bemüht sich Facebook darum den Zugriff auf Nachrichten noch weiter einzuschränken. Auch die mobile Webseite soll nun gesperrt werden, wenn es um den Zugriff auf persönliche Nachrichten geht. Eine öffentliche Ankündigung gibt es jedoch nicht. (Facebook, Soziales Netz)

Wherever there’s a controversy over unauthorized file-sharing it’s almost guaranteed that the copyright trolls at Guardaley won’t be far behind. For many years the company has been central to cases against alleged file-sharers around the world, from the United States through to the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Guardaley is at the heart of what many describe as a “settlement factory”, an industrialized system to track infringements on file-sharing networks, identify Internet subscribers, and leverage cash payments from them, whether they’re guilty or not.

The list of films ‘protected’ by Guardaley is extensive but includes well-known troll fodder such as The Hurt Locker, The Expendables and The Company You Keep.

Chief Operating Officer Patrick Achache largely operates in the background but in recent times has been nurturing his public image. From public declarations of his charitable work to parading in the UK to warn of impending file-sharing doom, Achache paints himself as man on a mission of goodness. His targets, however, feel little but misery.

In a new interview conducted at the Cannes Film Festival and published on FilmFestivals.com (article since disappeared), Achache describes his life and frustrations as one of the world’s most visible copyright trolls.

“The technology to identify IP addresses is very easy – it’s participating in file-sharing networks, the difficult part is the data management and analysis, as well as the traffic. We record 200 million IP addresses per day and that is a lot to process, analyze and store,” he explains.

But while tracking might be the easy part, Achache sees pushing the boundaries of the legal system as a valuable tool to elicit payments from alleged infringers.

“Our lawyers are constantly looking into setting up new precedence cases (e.g. third party liability). In the US we have always worked with the statutory damages, which can be up to $150,000 USD for willful copyright infringement. Let us be serious – there is nothing like clicking on the wrong link and [getting] caught up in our software,” Achache says.

While it’s not difficult to take much of what Achache says with a healthy side portion of salt, he’s certainly not wrong there. Over the years tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of alleged file-sharers have fallen into Guardaley’s global clutches and most regret having done so.

“Our clients have sued infringers in Singapore. There are criminal proceedings in Poland, where people get arrested and their computers get taken away. We have provided data for at least 1,000 lawsuits in Germany. In the US our clients are thriving to take someone to court,” he reveals.

But while Achache and his clients regularly speak of their desire to go to court, their real aim is cash settlements. Achache won’t give the details but he says his lawyers have reached financial agreements with some amazing people – the German equivalent of the FBI, for example.

“We caught their IP address several times. They admitted, but I can’t provide further details as per confidentiality of the settlement. Our lawyers have all type of businesses – gas stations, embassies, army bases, banks, law firms – the list is really long. Some have thousands of illegal files on their hard drives.”

It can’t be denied that plenty fall into the Guardaley trap but it isn’t always plain sailing. According to Achache, ISPs opposing efforts to unmask file-sharers can be quite a challenge.

“In various jurisdictions they fight back hard, as they earn money from the pirating consumers which are signing on high volume bandwidth contracts,” he says.

But there are bigger challenges, ones that involve convincing industry groups and the authorities that the best way to deal with file-sharers is to threaten them with court action until they cough up hard cash.

“What is [an even bigger challenge] is to convince industry bodies and local government that the way we police piracy is the only effective way,” Achache says.

“Let us take the UK as an example: We have sent letters to all the industry bodies, tried to work with the House of Lords, sent a letter to David Cameron. No one ever responded. That’s why we call out the UK government as cowards like Avi Lerner did.”

For those familiar with the work of copyright trolls, the idea that Achache is surprised that no one responded to his overtures is somewhat surprising in itself, not to mention amusing.

While most industry bodies have a huge interest in protecting their copyrights, there is absolutely zero chance that a group like the BPI, for example, would team up with Guardaley to demand money from grandmothers, as the company recently did in the UK.

Furthermore, expecting a response from the Prime Minister is so optimistic as to be laughable and wanting to work with the House of Lords shows a disregard for history.

In 2010 the UK’s Lord Lucas described copyright trolling as “a scam” and “legal blackmail“, Lord Young likened trolls to “rogue wheel-clampers”, and several other members of the House joined them in criticism. This is not a business that lawmakers want to get involved in.

But for Achache and his numerous rightsholder partners, such setbacks are just another day at the office. Guardaley are planning on expansion, including a new case in Australia where the Dallas Buyers Club case just crashed and burned, plus other English speaking territories.

In the meantime, downloaders of the movies ‘London Has Fallen’ and ‘Criminal’ need to take care since Achache has revealed that those titles are being monitored by his company. Expect the threats and cash demands to follow in the not too distant future.

Essential further reading on Guardaley here for those hungry for the details.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.