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The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 24th October 2015 are in. Another big week for Blu-ray (plenty of these coming up, right up to the end of the holiday period), as the release of Jurassic World helped Blu-ray revenue reach a 2015 high, and for weekly Blu-ray market share to reach an *all time* high (just shy of the magical 50% mark, which means Blu-ray will have outsold DVDs during the week).

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

The BitTorrent piracy ecosystem lost several key players in recent weeks.

The main Popcorn Time fork operating from the PopcornTime.io domain name closed its doors on October 23, citing internal issues.

Part of the trouble was started by rumors of legal pressure, which the MPAA confirmed today.

The major movie studios have sued three Popcorn Time developers in Canada, the group announced in an official statement. The MPAA obtained an injunction on October 16 ordering the shutdown of the Popcorntime.io site.

The complaint accuses the developers of various copyright infringing acts and also lists the VPN provider VPN.ht, which was operated by two of the Popcorn Time developers.

The legal action in Canada was not an isolated incident, however. Around the same time, movie industry representatives targeted the operator of YTS/YIFY who’s a New Zealand resident.

The movie industry representatives had a warrant and threatened a multi-million dollar lawsuit, urging the operator to cooperate.

YTS went dark two weeks ago as a result of the legal trouble and is not coming back.

The status of the lawsuits in Canada and New Zealand is currently unclear, but sources told us last week that several of the accused are working on an agreement to minimize their harm, possibly in exchange for information.

The MPAA, meanwhile, is ready to declare the outcome as a clear victory.

“This coordinated legal action is part of a larger comprehensive approach being taken by the MPAA and its international affiliates to combat content theft,” MPAA boss Chris Dodd says.

“Popcorn Time and YTS are illegal platforms that exist for one clear reason: to distribute stolen copies of the latest motion picture and television shows without compensating the people who worked so hard to make them,” he adds.

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Update: The article was updated to remove some unrelated info, and add other bits and pieces that came in.

Update: The Popcorn Time injunction and claim (via HWR).

Breaking story, more info may follow later.

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

About ten months ago a team led by the former CEO of Opera Software launched a technical preview of a new web browser called Vivaldi. It has some of the key features that helped make Opera stand out, including the Speed Dial shortcuts for favorite websites. But Vivaldi is aimed squarely at power users: it […]

Vivaldi web browser for power users goes beta is a post from: Liliputing

The makers of Dallas Buyers Club have sued thousands of BitTorrent users over the past two years.

Many of these cases end up being settled for an undisclosed amount. This usually happens after the filmmakers obtain the identity of the Internet account holder believed to have pirated the movie.

Not all alleged downloaders are eager to pay up though. In fact, many don’t respond to the settlement letters they receive or claim that someone else must have downloaded the film using their connection.

This presents a problem for the filmmakers, who need to gather additional evidence to prove guilt. In several recent cases they even went through social media profiles of defendants and Google map images of their neighborhoods, for example.

In addition to this info Dallas Buyers Club want to speak to the accused directly so have asked the court to grant dozens of depositions. This would help to determine who the true pirates are, they argue.

The request covers five active cases with 61 IP-addresses which have yet to respond or settle.

The court carefully reviewed the request and in an order late last week U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones denied the depositions.

In his order (pdf) the Judge writes that depositions are meant to “discover relevant information” but he doubts that Dallas Buyers Club intends to take any of these cases to trial.

When the filmmakers were allowed to depose people in a previous case it didn’t result in the naming of any defendants.

“All this implies that Plaintiff is not actually interested in bringing these cases to conclusion on their merits and is instead trying to use these proceedings to leverage settlements out of unidentified Doe defendants through the threat of Court order.”

Instead, the depositions may be used as a pressure tool, which would be a clear sign of abuse.

“Numerous other courts have considered the possibility of abusive litigation tactics in addressing similar motions. And this Court is increasingly tired of the slow progress of these cases and increasingly apprehensive of the possibility of abuse,” Judge Jones adds.

The Judge admits that depositions may often be helpful, but notes that Dallas Buyers Club wouldn’t be in any better position if the defendant denies being the primary infringer during the deposition.

The filmmakers already have the name and address of the account holders, and should make their case based on this information, the order concludes.

While there’s no direct accusation the mention of possible abuse and the growing impatience with the many Doe lawsuits is a clear blow for the movie studio.

For their part the accused pirates can chalk up a win as they have been saved from having to go through an ‘interrogation’, a potentially threatening and intimidating process.

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

Chinese tablet maker Teclast has a new tablet on the way, and it’s a doozy. The Teclast X16 Power has an 11.6 inch full HD display, an Intel Atom x7-Z8700 Cherry Trail processor, and 64GB of storage. It also has 8GB of RAM, making it one of the first Cherry Trail products I’ve seen to take […]

Teclast X16 dual OS tablet has 8GB RAM, Atom x7 CPU is a post from: Liliputing

Google may have launched two new Nexus smartphones this year, but the company’s most recent tablet is still the 2014 Nexus 9. It’s a pretty nice tablet with a high-resolution display and a pretty fast processor. It’s also a Nexus device, which means it’s one of the first tablets to receive an Android 6.0 update, […]

Deals of the Day (11-03-2015) is a post from: Liliputing

It’s been a year and a half since Rufus Labs launched a crowdfunding campaign for a wrist computer that puts a 3.2 inch touchscreen on your arm. Now the company says it’s getting ready to ship the Rufus Cuff in early 2016. This week USA Today went wrist-on with the largest smartwatch you’ve ever seen. […]

Rufus Cuff wrist computer is real, and it’s coming in 2016 is a post from: Liliputing