Month: January 2019

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While it’s not one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the recent decades, Waterworld has reached cult status among a subgroup of film fans.

The post-apocalyptic film, featuring Kevin Costner in a lead role, first premiered in 1995. Since then, it’s been shown on TV repeatedly and released on various other media including VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray.

The latest Blu-ray version, created by Arrow Films, was actually sent out just this week. Despite Waterworld being more than two decades old, many fans were eager to get their hands on the copy.

The release includes three Waterworld cuts which were newly restored from the original material. That by itself would be enough to get proper fans excited, but it’s the inclusion of the infamous “Ulysses Cut” that was most anticipated.

Waterworld is known for its many different versions, but this one never officially aired anywhere. It was created by a fan who, together with others, set out to make the longest uncensored edit of Waterworld possible.

The origin of this fan-edit, well documented by the Unheard Nerd,  started in 2005.

At the time, a user of the Original Trilogy forum asked if anyone had access to the 40 minutes of Waterworld material that appeared in an ABC broadcast. This generated a long thread where users shared and compared different versions of the film.

In 2006, a user named “Mcfly89,” showed his interest in the project.

“This project sounds great! Is this from a VHS or better? Could anyone post some screenshots? I can’t wait to see this on myspleen or another torrent site,” he wrote.

Mcfly89 later took the lead and after crowdsourcing copies of different broadcasts, he set out to combine these into a long uncensored edit of Waterworld.

The project progressed slowly and by November 2007 the name “Ulysses was first mentioned.

“Ulysses”

This title refers to the unnamed mariner played by Kevin Costner. He’s given this name toward the end of the film in a scene that was taken out of the theatrical version.

With a name for the project, Mcfly89 continued his work. Helped by other members, who also assisted with an appropriate DVD-cover, the fan-made DVD was ready by the summer of 2008.

The Ulysses Cut cover

Despite a temporary outage on The Pirate Bay, Mcfly89 managed to upload a torrent for the “Ulysses” cut to the site on July 28th, exactly thirteen years after the original premiere.

Today, ten years on, it’s still available on TPB, albeit with no seeders on the official torrent. In the description, Mcfly89 explains the project while thanking the many others who contributed.

“Waterworld: The Ulysses Cut is a fan-made preservation of the extended cut of Waterworld which has been aired on television but never released on home video,” it reads.

“Waterworld is a film notoriously re-cut by the studio after locking the director out of the editing room, and this preservation is an attempt to show some 40 minutes worth of material that was exised.”

The Ulysses Cut on TPB

Many Waterworld fans welcomed the “Ulysses” release and it was even extended by ‘Zaaacharias’ a few years later. It’s not clear whether the original makers were happy with it. Film fans generally see fan-edits as important preservation projects, but copyright holders have gone after such releases as well.

Fast forward another decade and now the Ulysses cut has been released legitimately on a Blu-Ray disc put together by Arrow Films. The movie company used the name of the cut, but it was obviously reconstructed from original footage, not the broadcasts that were used in the fan-edit.

We reached out to Arrow Films to ask what its motivation was and whether it consulted Mcfly89, but the company didn’t respond. We had no luck tracking down Mcfly89 either, who is not mentioned in any of the official Blu-ray release details.

“High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the extended European Ulysses cut, which include previously censored shots and dialogue,” is how Arrow Films describes the version.

Waterworld fans surely haven’t forgotten about the cut’s origins. Mcfly89 is mentioned in several reviews, including this on Amazon, from “Lego Trooper” who’s eager to know more about how this official release came about.

“On this lovely 3 disc edition is finally the Ulysses cut which was fan made from a number of different recordings from different cuts of the film shown on TV. The fan in question ‘Mcfly89’ surely deserves a shout out for his efforts.

“It would probably be an interesting read or feature to know how between Universal, Arrow and Mcfly89 The Ulysses Cut has eventually arrived as a 1080p edition,” Lego Trooper adds.

The story is quite remarkable already but we believe that Arrow Films missed a major opportunity here. But perhaps the full story will come out one day, in another decade or so.

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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Vodafone sagt zu, in Deutschland sein LTE-Netz schneller auszubauen. Das ist laut einer Studie auch wirklich notwendig, nicht nur vonseiten Vodafones. (Mobilfunk, Telekom)

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Rund drei Milliarden Euro sind in IT-Projekte wie das Online-Bürgerportal oder die Modernisierung der Bundesnetze geflossen. "Das System ist pervertiert", sagte ein Experte. (Netzpolitik, Internet)

After more than ten years in the game, RARBG is one of the most popular and resilient torrent sites on the Internet today.

The site took fourth spot in our 2019 list of most popular torrent sites, a position that has been earned through regular high-quality releases of everything from movies and TV shows through to music, games and adult content.

During the past few days, however, the site took a somewhat unusual step that has had some users scratching their heads. A quick look inside some new video torrents released by the site reveals not only the content itself, but also an initially mysterious file called ‘ RARBG_DO_NOT_MIRROR.exe’.

As a general rule, when video torrents contain an .exe file there is a need for caution. These executables can contain anything and in some cases may be malicious, such as a virus or malware. As a result, experienced torrent users never click them but the same can’t be said about novices.

In this instance, however, there is nothing for regular users to be worried about. Renaming the file to give it a .txt extension reveals that this is just a text file that displays the following information:

“This is not an .exe file. This is just a placeholder to prevent mirroring over other public sites.”

So if it’s just a text file, why would RARBG include it in their torrents? The explanation, it turns out, is pretty straightforward and not directed at users at all.

While the site makes thousands of releases every week, these are easily mirrored on other platforms. Since .exe files are viewed with suspicion by tools used to automate the crawling of the site (most sites don’t allow .exe files to be uploaded in video categories), their inclusion means less diffusion of RARBG torrents to other platforms.

“[The .exe file] is included in torrent files to stop distribution to other public sites,” RARBG confirms in a new addition to its FAQ.

Interestingly, the “.exe” experiment is also having a positive effect on the health of torrents tracked by RARBG. According to the site’s operator, the inclusion of the .exe file in torrents “reduces the average hit&run [people who grab a torrent and then fail to seed] by 35% !”

As mentioned earlier, there is nothing malicious with the .exe file as far as users are concerned and, as the site points out, people can easily ‘untick’ the file in their torrent client and it won’t even be downloaded.

That being said, their presence won’t be welcomed by people looking to mirror RARBG torrents elsewhere. Since the traffic to such platforms could be negatively affected following the rejection of torrents containing an .exe, the job of their operators becomes much more difficult.

Finally, it’s worth reiterating that real .exe files in any torrent – or indeed anywhere on the Internet – should always be approached with caution.

Running these kinds of files without due diligence can be a risky proposition so the default actions should always be to run up-to-date anti-virus/anti-malware software and/or ignore and delete unexpected content, just to be on the safe side.

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

Die Beteiligten an der 5G-Frequenzauktion im März stehen fest. Die kurzwelligen Frequenzen sind laut Telekom nur für städtische Gebiete geeignet. (Telekom, Huawei)

Die Beteiligten an der 5G-Frequenzauktion im März stehen fest. Die kurzwelligen Frequenzen sind laut Telekom nur für städtische Gebiete geeignet. (Telekom, Huawei)