Month: September 2018

At the turn of the century, downloading movies and TV shows from the Internet wasn’t a particularly attractive proposition. The process was cumbersome and content availability was poor.

Early peer-to-peer file-sharing applications gave the activity increased exposure, with multi-source downloading improving speeds for a growing audience. However, when BitTorrent came along and gained traction around 2003, the phenomenon exploded.

While tens of millions of torrent users are still active on a daily basis today, another type of unauthorized content delivery is grabbing most of the headlines. Video streaming, which has been going from strength to strength over the past eight years and more, is now perceived as the greatest threat to Hollywood.

Torrents have a relatively steep learning curve but streaming does not. If a person can operate Netflix, he can also use a pirate streaming website. The process is made even more simple with the latest desktop and mobile applications, which are so intuitive a child can use them – and many do.

Lobbying registration documents recently filed with Congress indicate that the MPAA is taking the threat very seriously. First reported by O’Dwyer PR, they reveal that the Hollywood group has hired Fort Lauderdale-based law firm Becker & Poliakoff to take the battle against piracy to Capitol Hill.

Filed as required under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, the documents reveal a two-person team representing the MPAA’s interests.

They are Senior Corporate & Government Relations Director Bert Gómez, who opened TV broadcaster Univision’s Washington government relations office and has 25 years of lobbying under his belt. And Omar Franco, the Managing Director of Becker’s Washington, D.C. office, who previously acted as Chief of Staff for Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart.

The disclosure sums up the MPAA’s aims in a short paragraph. The lobbyists will tackle copyright policy on Capitol Hill, with an emphasis on “streaming piracy devices and applications” and the “economic impact of film industry production.”

Taking the piracy fight to Capitol Hill

Today’s buzzing ‘market’ for online streaming devices and applications will give Gómez and Franco plenty to discuss. In addition to the now ubiquitous Kodi and the swarm of third-party addons flooding its ecosystem, mainly Android-based applications are causing headaches for all of the studios.

Tools such as Terrarium TV and Showbox are becoming household names, with these and similar tools often pre-loaded onto set-top boxes to provide an accessible and entirely free Netflix-like experience to everyday consumers.

Unlike Netflix, however, these types of applications grant access to all content – no matter how new – meaning that first-run movies are regularly available during week one, something which famously causes a red mist to descend upon studios bosses everywhere.

As the leading force behind the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the MPAA has already shown it has illegal streaming firmly in its sights.

The thirty-company global coalition, which also features Amazon, Netflix, CBS, HBO, BBC, Sky, Bell Canada, CBS, Hulu, Lionsgate, Foxtel, and Village Roadshow, is currently engaged in legal action against various players in the illicit streaming sector.

Set-top box sellers such as SET TV and Tickbox have already found themselves in court, while various Kodi addon developers have quit following legal threats. However, this is just the tip of a massive iceberg that will take years to melt, even if the MPAA massively turns up the heat.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

Skyscraper, recently released as Webrip, is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(10)	Skyscraper	6.1 / trailer
2	(7)	Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom	6.5 / trailer
3	(1)	Ocean’s Eight	6.3 / trailer
4	(2)	Deadpool 2	8.0 / trailer
5	(5)	Reprisal	4.4 / trailer
6	(…)	Destination Wedding	6.3 / trailer
7	(4)	Avengers: Infinity War	8.7 / trailer
8	(3)	Hereditary	8.7 / trailer
9	(6)	Upgrade	7.7 / trailer
10	(…)	The Nun (HDCam)	6.0 / trailer

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Für bessere Luftqualität sollen mehr Containerschiffe im Hamburger Hafen Landstrom verwenden. Eine Idee: Flüssiggas und ein Stromgenerator, beides in Containern untergebracht, werden zur Stromproduktion an Bord der Schiffe gehoben. Ein Bericht von Dirk Kunde (Schiff, Technologie)

Für bessere Luftqualität sollen mehr Containerschiffe im Hamburger Hafen Landstrom verwenden. Eine Idee: Flüssiggas und ein Stromgenerator, beides in Containern untergebracht, werden zur Stromproduktion an Bord der Schiffe gehoben. Ein Bericht von Dirk Kunde (Schiff, Technologie)

Ford will seinen vollelektrischen Crossover-SUV mit dem Codenamen Mach 1 ähnlich gestalten wie den ikonischen Ford Mustang. Ein Sportwagen wird es dennoch nicht. (Ford, Technologie)

Ikea scheint sein Smart-Home-Angebot unter der Marke Tradfri auszuweiten und elektrische Innenjalousien mit Fernansteuerung auf den Markt zu bringen. Darauf deutet ein Zulassungsantrag hin. (Ikea, FCC)

Die Ansage "Hey BMW, mir ist kalt!" soll das Auto künftig dazu veranlassen, die Heizung anzudrehen. BMW will in seinen Fahrzeugen ab 2019 einen eigenen Sprachassistenten einbauen, mit dem Nutzer kommunizieren können. Die Anbindung an andere Sprachassistenten ist geplant. (BMW, Auto)

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Whether it’s net neutrality or the latest change in copyright laws, the public has proven to be a fierce defender of an Open Internet.

On social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, YouTube and Reddit, massive crowds are eager to protect their rights.

Internet protests are nothing new. For several years activists have fought to keep it free and open. Early pioneers, such as the late John Perry Barlow, did everything in their power to shield cyberspace from controlling governments and restrictive media companies.

The Internet is a tool for the people, by the people, something governments and corporations shouldn’t tamper with, it was commonly argued.

Although the Internet or more specifically, the web, is an entirely different animal today, large masses remain wary of outside control over their online movements. Most people agree that blatant criminal actions are not tolerated, but speech should be free and bits should flow openly.

At least, that’s the idea.

But while the masses were fighting evil governments and the greedy entertainment industries in recent years, they and many of their peers became trapped. The Internet is perhaps still as free as it once was, but the majority of its inhabitants are stuck in large Silicon Valley silos.

Today’s web is dominated by a dozen or so major platforms where people lead most of their Internet lives. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or Reddit, these platforms are not entirely open. They are controlled by corporations which are free to dictate their own rules.

And they do.

When people were climbing on the virtual barricades for Net Neutrality earlier this year, they did so on platforms that ban, censor and restrict all sorts of content. They were calling for “all bits to be equal” on services that censor nipples.

Similarly, as we highlighted earlier, the hundreds of thousands of people who protested the EU’s proposed “upload filter” plans, did so on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other services that already have automated piracy filters. Pretty sloppy filters, at times.

We’re living in a cyberspace where the major Internet platforms have immense power.

This was illustrated recently when Alex Jones’ Infowars was systematically purged from various Internet platforms, iTunes, Twitter and Facebook included. While many people categorize Infowars as hate speech, it is still speech which to my knowledge no court has deemed illegal.

Without any moral judgment on the content, it shows that today’s web, at least how it’s used, is far from open. Governments and the powerful copyright lobby are not to blame, though. The web is systematically controlled by the policies of a few Silicon Valley giants, who have their own rules.

These centralized social silos have, of course, all the right to ban anyone or anything for whatever reason they please. But, this presents an increasing threat. Not least because they can be regulated much more easily than was the case 20 years ago.

If you want to keep something away from the masses, there are only a few companies to legislate, litigate, or pressure.

It is, therefore, no surprise that the entertainment industries have launched a major push to get these Internet giants to tackle piracy, voluntarily or not. Achieving success there will have a major impact, and if Silicon Valley can take a stand against Infowars, they can do more.

While there’s a good argument for taking illegal content down, one has to wonder whether this highly centralized Internet, dominated and dictated by major tech companies, is something the early pioneers had envisioned.

Interestingly, copyright holders have repeatedly warned against this power. In their own interest, but it’s something to think about.

Of course, the Internet is much more than the Facebooks, Twitters, and Googles of this world. There are plenty open source and decentralized solutions available for all these platforms, and some already have a decent userbase.

The bottom line, however, is that the general sense of openness and neutrality of the web are not only defined by laws and court orders. What matters even more perhaps, is how people decide to use it.

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Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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