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At the end of the year, movie industry insiders traditionally receive their screener copies, which they use to vote on the Oscars and other awards.

As is tradition, quite a few of these advance screeners copies will leak onto various pirate sites.

In recent years release group Hive-CM8 has drawn quite a bit of attention, due to both the timing and volume of their releases.

Movie pirates were particularly well-served three years ago. On and before Christmas, high-quality copies of some of the hottest Hollywood productions appeared online, with some titles even beating their official theatrical release.

Following massive outrage from Hollywood, release group Hive-CM8 offered an apology, promising not to release any movies too early in the future. And indeed, in the two years that followed the bulk of the screener copies leaked after the new year.

This season, no screeners have been sighted at all. That’s not a record yet, which goes to 2016/2017 when it took until January 3rd, but it’s clear that pirates are growing impatient.

A quick scan through various pirate sites, and even on social media, shows that the hopes of some were dashed this Christmas. As always, the anticipation already started days before the festivities kicked off.

Apparently, some people associate Christmas with screener leaks, or the other way around.

Then there are those who push their luck even further by putting several titles of screener leaks on their wishlist for Santa. In this case, it includes The Favourite and Suspiria.

Some more words of encouragement followed on Christmas day, but it soon became clear that neither strategy paid off.

No word has come from Hive-CM8 or any other release group this year. The question that remains is whether they are holding back, or if there’s simply nothing to release, yet.

At TorrentFreak we have no further details on the matter. However, what we can say is that for well over a decade multiple screener copies have ended up online. So a season without screener leaks would be truly unprecedented.

The most likely scenario is that the groups aren’t ready yet, or they’re delaying releases intentionally, something Hive-CM8 hinted at in the past.

Whatever the reason is, after Christmas the disappointment slowly started to turn into more impatience and anger on social media.

Others are handing this round to Hollywood…

Who will be the ‘winner’ at the end of the screener season has yet to be determined though.

After the 2016/2017 season, this has been the longest screener draught in recent history. However, in that year well over a dozen screener copies eventually leaked online.

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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The post How to reset Windows on a One Mix Yoga (or One Mix 2S) appeared first on Liliputing.

(credit: Netflix)

Netflix's latest Black Mirror "event," a film titled Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, launched on the streaming service on Friday. The film has garnered attention for its interactive elements, thus capitalizing on a decision-based system announced in June 2017, and fans of the dark-technology series may very well be excited to tap away and decide the film's fate.

One thing fans may be more confused about, however, is the series' murky fate in the wake of the film's launch. As conflicting reports began to circulate, we reached out to Netflix to confirm some good news: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is not the only Black Mirror episode in the series' "fifth season" order.

A lengthy New York Times feature about Bandersnatch's creation and production concludes with a particularly vague response to questions about future episodes: "'We're doing more optimistic episodes and stories, rather than just dystopian and negative ones,' Brooker said. 'We want to keep the show interesting for us.' He and Jones were, however, extremely hazy on when the next episodes would arrive. Bandersnatch consumed all their attention for a year."

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Ultima Thule is starting to stand out above background stars as New Horizons gets closer. Full image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Brian May (credit: NASA)

If you want your New Year celebrations to be truly out of this world, then you might consider stopping by the New Horizons website. Following on from its phenomenally successful flyby of Pluto, the spacecraft will perform its closest flyby of a small Kuiper Belt object at just after midnight in the US Eastern time zone—the one where the operations center of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is located.

Indications that New Horizons survived the flyby—rather than running in to a small moon or ring—will have to wait for the roughly six hours it takes light to travel from the location of 2014 MU69, the target of its attentions. Nicknamed Ultima Thule, the object is a small ball of ice in the distant Kuiper Belt, which is a large collection of small bodies that froze out of a disk of gas and dust early in the Solar System's history.

The full extent of our knowledge of Ultima Thule's surface is that it's about 30 kilometers across and not perfectly spherical, based on its occultation of a background star. It only reflects about 10 percent of the sunlight that reaches it, but imparts a reddish tint to what little light escapes. Beyond that, everything New Horizons sees will be a completely new discovery. NASA was still scanning Ultima for moons and rings in mid-December before committing to a flyby that will take New Horizons three times closer than it came to Pluto.

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Amazon is offering deals on eBooks, comics, movies, apps, games, and software as part of its Digital Day sale. While some deals are decidedly better than others, it’s not a bad day to browse Amazon’s selection of digital content to see if something you’ve had your eye on is on sale. It’s also not a […]

The post Daily Deals (12-28-2018) appeared first on Liliputing.

Enlarge (credit: CCFoodTravel.com)

If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you follow them? For parents, it's meant to be a rhetorical question—a way of winning any argument that begins with "But all my friends are..." But behavioral science has been revealing that adults will do a long list of stupid things simply to maintain bonds within social groups they consider their peers.

In the latest sign of just how stupid we can get, researchers found that people are wiling to adopt an ethical standard after being told that people like them were assigned that position at random.

Normative

The new work was published by the University of Melbourne's Campbell Pryor, Amy Perfors, and Piers Howe. It's based on past research that looked at how social norms are established. This work has suggested two means that drive their adoption. One is simply practical: people will adopt social standards that are popular because it's likely those standard have some utility. An alternative explanation is only slightly less practical in that it posits adopting a social norm will ensure that you can avoid punishment by the rest of society for violating it.

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Enlarge (credit: CCFoodTravel.com)

If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you follow them? For parents, it's meant to be a rhetorical question—a way of winning any argument that begins with "But all my friends are..." But behavioral science has been revealing that adults will do a long list of stupid things simply to maintain bonds within social groups they consider their peers.

In the latest sign of just how stupid we can get, researchers found that people are wiling to adopt an ethical standard after being told that people like them were assigned that position at random.

Normative

The new work was published by the University of Melbourne's Campbell Pryor, Amy Perfors, and Piers Howe. It's based on past research that looked at how social norms are established. This work has suggested two means that drive their adoption. One is simply practical: people will adopt social standards that are popular because it's likely those standard have some utility. An alternative explanation is only slightly less practical in that it posits adopting a social norm will ensure that you can avoid punishment by the rest of society for violating it.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

When piracy hits the mainstream news, it’s often in relation to books, games, music, TV-shows and movies.

These industries grab headlines because of the major players that are involved, but they are not the only ones dealing with piracy.

In the age of social media, photographers are arguably the most pirated creators of all. Many people don’t even consider ‘copyright’ when sharing an image they find online.

That can be quite frustrating for people whose livelihoods depend on selling photos, especially when commercial outlets use their work for free. This issue was highlighted again this week by photographer J. Salmeron.

This summer he took a great shot of Alissa White-Gluz of the metal band Arch Enemy at the Fortarock festival. The photographer posted it on Instagram where it was well received. Even by the singer herself, who re-posted it on her account.

Technically, nobody is allowed to repost photos without permission but Salmeron generally doesn’t object to fans sharing his work. When it’s used for commercial purposes, however, it becomes a problem.

So, when the photographer, who also happens to be a lawyer, noticed that “Thunderball Clothing” used the photo to promote their goods – which the singer was wearing – he decided to take action.

In an email to the company, Salmeron pointed out that he would generally request a licensing fee of at least €500. However, in this case, he would be happy if the company donated €100 to the Dutch Cancer Foundation.

At this point, the issue could have been resolved without any fuss, but things quickly got out of hand. Thunderball Clothing wasn’t planning to pay and reached out to the band, accusing the photographer of making threats.

The band and the singer sided with the clothing company and sponsor, arguing that a payment is not required.

Apparently, the band’s management is under the impression that the band, fans, and sponsors can use the work of photographers free of charge. In return, they get exposure.

“I would like to ask why you are sending discontent emails to people sharing the photo of Alissa? Alissa’s sponsors and fan clubs are authorized to share photos of her. Thunderball Clothing is a sponsor of Alissa and Arch Enemy,” they replied.

“Generally speaking, photographers appreciate having their work shown as much as possible and we are thankful for the great photos concert photographers provide,” the band’s management added.

The account, which obviously only tells one side of the story, can be read in full at Metalblast and Petapixel.

After some messages back and forth, the photo was eventually removed, but the band also made it very clear that Salmeron is no longer welcome at any future gigs.

“By the way, we are sure you don’t mind that you are not welcome anymore to take pictures of Arch Enemy performances in the future, at festivals or solo performances,” the reply read.

“I have copied in the label reps and booking agent who will inform promoters – no band wants to have photographers on site who later send such threatening correspondence to monetize on their images.”

The irony of the situation is that the band itself is no stranger to copyright. It obviously doesn’t want people to grab their latest album illegally, even though that means more exposure.

The copyright clash itself also generated plenty of exposure for the band, but not the type they’re looking for. A tweet about the upcoming album triggered a wave of sarcastic responses.

While this example is rather extreme, photographers all around the world face similar issues. In this case, Salmeron attempted to resolve it directly, but many of his colleagues are going to court.

This year alone, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed by photographers over the unauthorized use of their work by various news outlets or other commercial outfits. The majority of these end in confidential settlements.

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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