Month: February 2020

Nach starker Kritik an den Plänen zur Passwortherausgabe hat die Bundesregierung ihren Gesetzesentwurf abgeschwächt. Die vorgesehene Meldepflicht für rechtswidrige Inhalte wird vom Kabinett jedoch unverändert gebilligt. (Passwort, Vorratsdatenspeicherung)

Und wieder eine Großübernahme in der Spielebranche: Die schwedische Embracer Group kauft das Entwicklerstudio Saber Interactive, das hinter World War Z steckt und zuletzt die Switch-Version von The Witcher 3 produziert hat. (THQ Nordic, Wirtschaft)

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Kompakter, effizienter, schneller: Das Snapdragon X60 ist das erste 5G-Smartphone-Modem mit 5-nm-Fertigung. Qualcomm aggregiert Sub-6-GHz- und mmWave-Kanäle, hinzu kommt Telefonieren über 5G. (Snapdragon, TSMC)

Die Digitalisierung von Prozessen scheitert selten an der Technik. Oft ist es Unwissenheit über wichtige Grundregeln, die Projekte nach hinten losgehen lässt - ein wichtiges Change-Modell hilft dagegen. Ein Erfahrungsbericht von Markus Kammermeier (Digitalisierung, Internet)

Earlier this week, Germany-focused music piracy site DDL-Music.to suddenly became inaccessible to the public. The site had been using the services of Cloudflare but an unusual error message suggested that the US-based company had stepped in disrupt the site’s activities.

‘Error HTTP 451’ is displayed by Cloudflare when a site is “Unavailable For Legal Reasons” and at least as far as pirate sites are concerned, its appearance is very rare indeed. Cloudflare’s documentation indicates that the message should be accompanied by a reason for the response, noting that it “should include an explanation in the response body with details of the legal demand.”

As the image above shows, no explanation was provided by Cloudflare but an investigation by Tarnkappe, details of which were shared with TorrentFreak, now reveals the unusual circumstances behind DDL-Music’s disconnection.

Early June 2019, Universal Music GmbH (Germany) reportedly sent a copyright infringement complaint to Cloudflare after finding links on DDL-Music to tracks from the album Herz Kraft Werke by German singer Sarah Connor. The tracks themselves were not hosted by DDL-Music but could be found on a third-party hosting site. Universal wanted the tracks to be rendered inaccessible within 24 hours but Cloudflare didn’t immediately comply.

Universal Music reportedly followed up with a warning to Cloudflare on June 19, 2019, demanding information about DDL-Music and its operators. A day later, the CDN company responded by declaring that it’s not responsible for its customers’ activities and Universal should deal with the website’s operator and/or webhost. However, Cloudflare did provide Universal with an email address along with details of DDL-Music’s hosting provider, supposedly in Pakistan.

With an obvious dispute underway, a hearing took place at the Cologne District Court (Landgericht Köln) on December 5, 2019. Lars Sobiraj of Tarnkappe, who obtained documentation relating to the hearing, informs TF that the Court ultimately determined that Cloudflare could be held liable for infringement of Universal Music’s copyrights by facilitating access to the tracks via DDL-Music, if it failed to take action.

This “liability as a disturber” (Störerhaftung) comes into play when a service (in this case, Cloudflare) contributes to a third-party’s infringement, without the element of intent. Under German law, however, the service can be held liable for infringement, if it fails to take reasonable action to prevent infringement in future.

On January 30, 2020, the Cologne District Court handed down a preliminary injunction against Cloudflare. This was received at the Hamburg offices of Cloudflare’s law firm TaylorWessig on February 4, 2020. It informed Cloudflare that should it continue to facilitate access to the Universal Music content detailed above, it could be ordered to pay a fine of up to 250,000 euros ($270,000) or, in the alternative, the managing director of Cloudflare could serve up to six months in prison.

In the event, however, Cloudflare appears to have taken the decision to jettison DDL-Music completely, as indicated by the Error 451 message that appeared a few days ago. The district court’s decision can be appealed but whether Cloudflare will take that route is currently unknown. Despite requests from TF for comment, the company has remained silent.

Meanwhile, DDL-Music appears to be migrating to DDoS-Guard, a CDN and DDoS mitigation platform that according to its website is registered in Scotland but is most probably based in Russia. Or the Netherlands, if its Twitter account is to be believed.

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

Das aktuelle Update KB4532693 verhält sich merkwürdig: Windows 10 startet in einigen Fällen nach dessen Installation mit einem temporären Profil, das Desktopsymbole und Favoriten zurücksetzt. Wenige Nutzer berichten auch von Datenverlust durch den Patch. (Windows 10, Microsoft)

Mit dem Nebulus will Emperion ein Smartphone auf den Markt bringen, das mit Windows 10 on Arm läuft und Android-Apps wiedergeben können soll. Einen Haken gibt es aber: Windows 10 on Arm unterstützt eigentlich keine Telefoniefunktion. (Windows 10 on ARM, Smartphone)

Der Kopfhörer- und Lautsprecher-Hersteller Marshall hat einen neuen ANC-Kopfhörer vorgestellt. Das Modell Monitor II ANC kann störende Außengeräusche unterdrücken, soll besonders gut klingen und bietet einen Direktzugriff für den Google Assistant. (ANC, Audio/Video)

Das Unternehmen Makani Power, das einen stromerzeugenden Flugdrachen entwickelt hat, gehört nicht mehr zu Alphabet. Grund sind mutmaßlich finanzielle Schwierigkeiten einiger Alphabet-Ausgründungen. Das muss aber nicht das Ende von Makani bedeuten. (Alphabet, Google)