‘Secret’ MPAA Lawsuit Targeted Domains of Pubfilm’s “Piracy Ring”

The MPAA is responsible for taking down several domain names of the popular streaming site Pubfilm, unsealed court records reveal. The anti-piracy group sued operators of the “piracy ring” in a New York federal court and obtained an injunction ordering GoDaddy, VeriSign, and Enom to disable six Pubfilm associated domains.

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

A week ago we reported about the mysterious domain name issues pirate streaming site Pubfilm was facing.

The popular site lost control over several of its domains, including pubfilm.com, pubfilm.net, pubfilmhd.com, top100film.com, pidtv.com and pubfilm.cc.

Similar to other sites in this position, Pubfilm swiftly moved its operation to a new home; pubfilm.ac. Hoping to keep their visitors on board, the operators also took the unusual step of advertising this change through Google Adsense.

Now that a week has passed, more info has become available on Pubfilm’s domain troubles. As it turns out, the site is subject to a lawsuit filed by the MPAA, on behalf of several major Hollywood studios including Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, and Disney.

The lawsuit was filed in a New York federal court early last month and accuses Pubfilm and several associated sites of operating a large-scale piracy operation causing significant harm to the movie industry.

The sites allegedly have eight million monthly visitors, of which roughly 40 percent are linked to US IP-addresses, THR reports. The operators are believed to be from Vietnam, and one of the defendants is named as Phat Bui.

“Defendants’ entire business amounts to nothing more than a blatant, large-scale copyright infringement operation, undertaken to maximize ill-gotten profits while evading the enforcement efforts of copyright owners,” the complaint reads.

“Plaintiffs bring this action to put an end to Defendants’ ongoing, massive violation of Plaintiffs’ rights and to recover damages therefrom.” the movie studios add.

The lawsuit was initially kept out of public view. However, after our report last week, the MPAA agreed that it could be unsealed. The court signed the unseal order last Friday, but at the time of writing the original complaint is still unavailable in the court docket.

MPAA agrees to unseal

What’s most significant about the lawsuit, aside from the initial secrecy, is the fact that the court swiftly granted a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against several domain registrars and registries.

The restraining order from early February required GoDaddy, VeriSign, and Enom to make six domain names unavailable without warning or informing their customers in advance.

While this is an isolated case for now, the MPAA could use this tactic to target other alleged pirate sites in future.

It is no secret that domain names are prime target for the Hollywood studios. Last month they targeted several domains in Europe through the domain name registrar EuroDNS, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if similar actions follow in the near future.

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

Deals of the Day (3-13-2017)

Deals of the Day (3-13-2017)

Still using the webcam built into your laptop to make video calls or snap selfies? You can do better… and you don’t have to spend that much money to do it. Best Buy is running a sale on Logitech webcams this week, with select models selling for $10 off the list price. That means you […]

Deals of the Day (3-13-2017) is a post from: Liliputing

Deals of the Day (3-13-2017)

Still using the webcam built into your laptop to make video calls or snap selfies? You can do better… and you don’t have to spend that much money to do it. Best Buy is running a sale on Logitech webcams this week, with select models selling for $10 off the list price. That means you […]

Deals of the Day (3-13-2017) is a post from: Liliputing

Why do some multi-platform games cost more on Nintendo Switch?

Cartridge production costs could be to blame for price discrepancies.

Enlarge / That Switch cartridge might be smaller, but it seems that it's still more expensive to produce than a similar optical disc.

When we first heard rumors that Nintendo would be using teeny tiny cartridges for retail Switch games, rather than optical discs, our own Sam Machkovech boldly predicted that "while ROM production would probably cost more than optical discs, the assumption is that the wholesale cost wouldn't be that much more per unit—and certainly not as much as N64 cartridges cost compared to CD-ROMs in the late '90s."

Now that the Switch is on the market, though, that prediction seems not to be bearing itself out. A few upcoming multi-platform games are set to cost more on Switch than on competing consoles, and Nintendo's decision to go with the cartridge format seems to be the culprit.

The first sign of the trend came last week, when Rime publisher Tequila Works announced that the Switch version of the exploration/puzzle game would cost $40, compared to $30 for the PS4 and Xbox One versions. The upcoming North American release of Puyo Puyo Tetris is similarly listed at $40 for the Switch, but only $30 on the PS4 (where it will only be available as a physical release). Binding of Isaac Afterbirth+ costs $40 to preorder on the Switch, but only $35.97 when purchased as a Steam bundle (the components of that bundle cost $40 when purchased separately, though).

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Magnetic storage reaches the atomic level

The magnetic field of a single atom is read and written, but it’s not very stable.

Enlarge / It's quite a bit smaller than these relics. (credit: Washington Secretary of State)

Data storage needs to keep up with our desire to snap pictures, download clips from the Internet, and create new digital documents. Since the early stages of computer technology, magnetic storage has been the method of choice to handle digital data. It has stayed that way because of our ability to continually shrink the area used to hold a single magnetic bit.

But we're closing in on the limits of this approach, as clusters of three to 12 atoms have been used as a functional system. Last week, however, scientists demonstrated the ability to magnetically store data in a single atom.

The basics of magnetic storage

Magnetic storage requires the magnetization of a ferromagnetic material to record data. These materials rely on the atom’s electrons, which themselves behave like tiny magnets. The electrons carry a magnetic dipole moment that is determined by the direction the electron spins and the shape of the path the electron travels (quantum mechanical spin and orbital angular momentum, to be technical). There are only two directions the electron can spin, either “up” or “down.”

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Google experiments with communal YouTube-watching with new app Uptime

A flashy, neon-colored marriage of Facebook Live, Periscope, and YouTube.

Enlarge (credit: Uptime)

Google's internal incubator, Area 120, launched a new app today. Dubbed Uptime, it makes YouTube videos more social by letting viewers react to and comment on videos and share them with friends to watch together in real time. Currently the app is only available for iOS users, and there's no word if Android users will ever get the app. Google opened Area 120 to encourage its employees to use 20 percent of their time to work on side projects and start their own companies, so there's no telling how much support Uptime will receive over time.

Uptime seems to marry reactive features of Facebook Live videos with social video watching and sharing. After logging in with your Google account, you can follow friends and see what videos they're watching in real time. You can watch the same video and then see where they are in the video by finding their profile photo, which follows a rounded square bordering the video window. You can comment on videos while you're watching them, posting messages, emojis, reaction faces, and more. Those interactions are saved so other viewers can see them when they watch the same video, even at a later time. Tapping on the video itself while you watch it also shoots stars into the frame, but only those watching the video at the same time will see those embellishments.

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Yahoo to give Marissa Mayer $23 million parting gift after sale to Verizon

Mayer will leave as what remains of Yahoo becomes Altaba holding company.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer seen at the Fortune Global Forum on November 3, 2015 in San Francisco. (credit: Getty Images | Justin Sullivan)

In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission today, Yahoo laid out the severance packages for executives that will be leaving the company as it sheds its Internet business chrysalis and emerges as an Alibaba stock-holding company moth called Altaba. Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's chief executive officer, will receive a package of cash, stock, and benefits valued at a total of $23,011,325 at the completion of the deal, according to Yahoo's proxy statement. Of that, $3 million will be in cash.

Lisa Utzschneider, Yahoo's chief revenue officer, will receive a $16,536,363 severance package. Ken Goldman, Yahoo's chief financial officer, will get a $9,478,568 farewell. Yahoo cofounder David Filo will get $15,000 in cash and two years' worth of continued health insurance. Ronald Bell, Yahoo's general counsel, resigned on March 1; he gets no golden parachute.

The proxy statement filing is a preliminary copy of what will be sent to Yahoo shareholders in advance of the as-of-yet-unannounced special meeting to approve the Verizon acquisition of Yahoo's Internet business—a deal that lost $350 million of its value as the result of a string of data breaches uncovered during audits of Yahoo's systems. Mayer and other Yahoo executives reportedly knew of some of the breaches, which were blamed on a "state actor," well before the acquisition began. But users were still being informed of potential exposure of personal data because of an attacker using cookies forged to bypass user authentication as of February 17.

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Pandora Premium goes live: on-demand music streaming for $10 per month

Pandora Premium goes live: on-demand music streaming for $10 per month

Pandora was one of the first companies to really launch a successful streaming music business. For more than a decade the company has allowed you to listen to custom internet radio stations tailored to your preferences. Pay nothing and you get ad-supported streams. Pay a little and you can go ad-free. But the music streaming landscape […]

Pandora Premium goes live: on-demand music streaming for $10 per month is a post from: Liliputing

Pandora Premium goes live: on-demand music streaming for $10 per month

Pandora was one of the first companies to really launch a successful streaming music business. For more than a decade the company has allowed you to listen to custom internet radio stations tailored to your preferences. Pay nothing and you get ad-supported streams. Pay a little and you can go ad-free. But the music streaming landscape […]

Pandora Premium goes live: on-demand music streaming for $10 per month is a post from: Liliputing

AT&T’s “truly unlimited” prepaid plan has no hotspot, max speed of 3Mbps

You need AT&T postpaid to get “unlimited” data without speed limits.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Linda Jo Heilman)

AT&T on Friday promised a "truly unlimited plan" for its prepaid phone customers, but the new offering limits video quality to standard definition, caps overall speeds at 3Mbps, and prohibits mobile hotspot use.

For $60 a month, GoPhone (AT&T's prepaid brand) now offers a plan without traditional data caps and overage charges. “We’re excited to offer a truly unlimited plan for our AT&T GoPhone customers,” AT&T VP Bob Bickerstaff said in the announcement. But the plan is always limited to an overall speed of 3Mbps, and video is limited to 1.5Mbps (about 480p), AT&T said. The cost is $65 a month for customers who don't sign up for automatic payments.

The plan is basically identical to one AT&T recently introduced for postpaid customers. But while this is the only unlimited option for AT&T prepaid customers, AT&T's postpaid customers have the option of paying $90 a month for an unlimited plan without the 3Mbps speed limit. The $90 postpaid plan also includes 10GB of high-speed tethering data a month and lets customers enable HD video.

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Nominierungen: Mut zur Nische beim Deutschen Computerspielpreis

Schon mal von On Rusty Trails gehört? Noch weniger als in den Vorjahren setzt der Deutsche Computerspielpreis auf kommerzielle Erfolge, wie die nun veröffentlichte Liste der nominierten Games zeigt. (Deutscher Computerspielpreis, Steam)

Schon mal von On Rusty Trails gehört? Noch weniger als in den Vorjahren setzt der Deutsche Computerspielpreis auf kommerzielle Erfolge, wie die nun veröffentlichte Liste der nominierten Games zeigt. (Deutscher Computerspielpreis, Steam)