Author: Andy

This week is an extremely important one for Kim Dotcom and former Megaupload colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk.

They’re attending a crucial extradition hearing in the Auckland District Court that could determine whether the four are sent to the United States to face charges including conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to commit racketeering.

Much of the developments this week have centered on argument from Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield that the alleged offenses don’t meet the criteria for the men to be sent to the United States. While fraud is an extraditable offense, copyright infringement is not, and U.S. case law backs that up, he argued.

But while Mansfield argues the technicalities, including whether the defendants should have protection from liability due to their former position operating as service providers, the United States has other ideas about whether Dotcom should have his say.

Earlier today the U.S. government asked Judge Nevin Dawson to rule that the evidence of the defense is inadmissible, meaning that Dotcom would be left without a defense at all.

TorrentFreak approached Dotcom for comment on this bold move. Fortunately for him the Judge quickly dismissed the U.S. attempt at having a one-sided battle.

“The Judge just ruled that our evidence is admissible,” Dotcom told TF.

“The US Govt seriously asked the Judge to rule that all of our evidence is inadmissible because in their submission it was not relevant. The Judge has said that he wants a fair extradition hearing and has therefore rejected the US Govt position.”

The decision will come as a relief to Dotcom whose defense is set to wind up this week. While a final decision is not expected for some time, it’s unlikely that having come this far either side will accept a defeat. Both are expected to take their case to appeal in the event of a negative ruling.

In the meantime, Dotcom remains upbeat. After the entire court was cleared today after a false alarm, the Megaupload founder took the time to pose for photographs with fans – and take another shot at the U.S.

Fire Alarm at the Court House. Entire building evacuated. I guess the US case is blowing too much smoke ;-) pic.twitter.com/ZgyjSp6Med

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) November 4, 2015

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

After weeks of rumor and sealed lips, last evening it was made official. Movie torrent site YTS is dead, release group YIFY is no more, and the main Popcorn Time fork, PopcornTime.io, have all been shut down by the MPAA.

The operation involved legal action in two territories. In New Zealand the operator of YTS and related release group YIFY was hit by a multi-million dolalr lawsuit lodged at the High Court on October 12. Confidentiality agreements are in place so public details are scarce, but its believed that YTS has already settled with the MPAA.

In Canada, however, information is more readily available. On October 9, 2015, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios, Universal Network Television, Warner Bros. and Disney, filed a statement of claim in the Federal Court.

Their targets were people and companies associated with PopcornTime.io, including key developer David Lemarier and his company Wasabi Technologie plus VPN.ht Limited, the outfit behind Popcorn Time’s VPN.

The demands of the studios were broad but clear – stop infringing their rights, stop developing Popcorn Time, shut down its websites and shut down VPN.ht.

“Since April 2014, the individual Defendants David Lemarier, Robert English and Louie
Poole have been developing, operating, distributing and promoting the computer
application ‘Popcorn Time’,” the studios wrote.

“In December, 2014, a paid VPN service provided by the Defendant VPN.ht Limited was integrated in Popcorn Time (PT Add-On). The integration of the PT Add-On acts as an important enticement for users of Popcorn Time to engage in acts of copyright infringement, and is explicitly marketed as such on its website.”

The studios claim that Lemarier is the CEO of VPN.ht and Louie Poole has worked there as a software engineer “at least as early as September, 2015.” Owned by Lemarier, Wasabi Technologie is the company operating VPN.ht’s PayPal account.

“The sale of the PT Add-On service generates important monthly revenues which directly profit the Defendants David Lemarier and VPN.ht Limited, and the Defendant Louie Poole as an employee of VPN.ht Limited. All the individual Defendants as well as VPN.ht Limited derive financial benefits from their participation in Popcorn Time,” the studios add.

Just seven days later on October 16, 2015, Mr Justice Martineau in the Federal Court responded to the studios’ demands by handing down an interim injunction (pdf) against the defendants listed above.

In broad terms it restrains them from infringing the studios’ copyrights, including by continuing to develop, operate, distribute or promote Popcorn Time or “any similar software application” or website. However, it goes further – much, much further.

The injunction includes a huge list of domains and sub-domains which the studios say must be dealt with in order to “fully deactivate” Popcorn Time. PopcornTime.io. and a further 17 are said to relate to the service’s API while 39 relate to the website and four the blog. Dozens of others make up discussion forums, development platforms, mail servers, nameservers, content delivery and sundry others.

The injunction orders the defendants to hand over the login credentials “for the hosting providers and/or registrars accounts” for all of them. They are also required to do the same for the official Popcorn Time Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts. This is so that computer forensics experts “acting under the supervision” of the studios can gain access to them.

Also under the microscope is VPN.ht. The injunction orders the defendants, including VPN.ht’s operators, to hand over the login credentials for “hosting providers and/or registrars” hosting the VPN.ht domains and sub-domains. They are also required to authorize computer forensics experts under the eye of the MPAA to log into VPN.ht’s infrastructure and deactivate the service.

While this development will be of concern to VPN.ht’s customers, the service itself says that there is currently nothing to worry about.

“VPN.ht is not a Canadian company, nor has any of its operations located in Canada, this means Canadian laws are not relevant in out case what so ever,” VPN.ht said in a statement.

“We understand that some of you might be worried or intimidated by the idea of the film studios, but we want to remind you that VPN.ht never logs, never shares any information with anyone else and mostly, cares about our clients and their safety. After all this is why we started VPN.ht, to protect the vulnerable.”

The company says it operates a warrant canary to notify users in the event it has been compromised. Currently that alone raises no alarms but it’s highly likely that user confidence will be undermined by the forceful nature of the injunction and the international reach of the MPAA.

To be continued…

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

Despite concerns from BitTorrent elitists that the site was a cesspit of poor quality rips, YTS was one of the world’s most popular torrent indexes for a reason.

Simple to find, publicly accessible, nice to look at and bulging with movies, YTS carried thousands of the world’s most popular titles in an easily digestible, convenient format.

Previously the home of YIFY rips, YTS is no more. The site was shuttered by a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed in a New Zealand court by the MPAA and it won’t ever be coming back.

However, considering the number of tips received at TF this morning you’d think nothing was wrong. Email after email has declared that “YTS is back!!” and in fighting form too.

As can be seen from the screenshot below, it certainly looks like it.

But to the disappointment of all YTS and YIFY fans, the above site is a fake. It’s located at yts.ag and it’s being promoted by the same people who carried out a hostile takeover of EZTV earlier this year.

However, as pointed out by a TF reader, the site does indeed index some old YIFY rips. That may be, but in the same way that EZTV no longer carries genuine EZTV releases, YTS.ag won’t have new ‘genuine’ YIFY rips either, since YIFY is no longer in business.

It’s a blatant attempt to cash in on the void left by the demise of YTS and rest assured it won’t be the last. If they aren’t already appearing, torrent sites will soon be flooded with fake torrents claiming to be from YIFY. They won’t be, guaranteed.

Of course, there’s a certain irony in declaring a clone site as a bad player on the basis that it’s pirating another pirate site’s image. But, nevertheless, if a site can’t make it on its own merits and is prepared to mislead now, who’s to say what other tactics it will employ when it has a nice unsuspecting userbase on board.

Copying is the name of the game, no doubt, but being upfront about it is probably a better long-term strategy.

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

Following an investigation carried out by the BPI and IFPI, with assistance from the US Department of Homeland Security, in 2011 file-sharing links forum Dancing Jesus was taken offline.

Two men, one the owner of the site and the other one of the forum’s top uploaders, were arrested by City of London Police. Homeland Security seized a Dancing Jesus server hosted in the United States.

After years of quiet, last October it became evident that the BPI was pursuing a private prosecution against the pair. In January 2014, site owner Kane Robinson of South Shields pleaded guilty to illegally distributing music. Key uploader Richard Graham of Leicestershire entered a guilty plea at a later date.

On November 10, 2014, Robinson and Graham were sentenced and received the harshest punishments ever handed down to UK-based file-sharers. For his part in offering a reported 22,500 links to 250,000 titles, Robinson was sentenced to 32 months. Graham received 21 months.

At the time the sentences were criticized as being both harsh and disproportionate but within months positive signs began to emerge.

In August a posting to a Facebook campaign page titled ‘Justice for Kane Robinson’ carried an optimistic message.

“We saw Kane at the weekend he is doing well and it is hopeful he could be out soon..thanks for all your continued support guys!” it read.

Then last Thursday, after receiving the toughest sentence of its kind and serving time in three separate prisons, Robinson was freed ‘just’ 11 months into his sentence.

His Facebook campaign carried two simple hashtags: #‎Justice4Kane‬ ‪and #‎Missioncomplete‬

It’s unclear why Robinson has been released so early. Chronicle Live said it had approached the Ministry of Justice but the office declined to comment on individual cases. Robinson himself has also remained silent.

TorrentFreak caught up with David Cook, a specialist cyber crime solicitor who was previously instructed to provide expert opinion to the defense in the case. He told TF that he no longer represents Robinson or Graham but confirmed both had previously filed appeals.

“However, this probably has a more simple explanation,” Cook explained.

“A 34 month sentence would equate to 17 months in custody and 17 months ‘on license’ in the community. If a person behaves and is deemed suitable then they may be released earlier.”

Both men will now be looking to rebuild their lives, probably far away from the file-sharing arena.

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

The extradition hearing of Kim Dotcom and former colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk, continued in the Auckland District Court today.

The quartet is fighting deportation to the United States on serious charges including conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering, and engaging in a racketeering conspiracy.

However, the court heard from the defense that the offenses don’t meet the criteria for the men to be sent to the United States.

Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield said the Crown, arguing on behalf of the United States, has been attempting to characterize the charges against the men as fraud, an extraditable offense.

However, he pointed out that the US Supreme Court previously ruled that copyright infringement can not be considered fraud. A key case, Dowling v. United States, is referenced in a white paper published by Kim Dotcom (pdf).

It’s important for Dotcom to make a clear distinction between copyright infringement and fraud. Mansfield says that all of the 13 charges against the Megaupload founder are underpinned by copyright infringement allegations.

Also muddying the waters is the fact under United States law one of the criminal copyright infringement charges brought against Dotcom has already exceeded its time limitations. The others, Mansfield said, are not aimed at his client and are dependent on other charges being proven.

“Categorically there is no case to answer under US law,” he said.

“Unless the United States can show an offense of criminal secondary copyright infringement in the United States as a matter of law, this court must reject this application for surrender.”

But locally there are issues too. Mansfield told the court that New Zealand legislation does not recognize copyright infringement as fraud either and the extradition treaty between the two countries does not hold copyright infringement as being an extraditable offense.

“That’s the end of the story, really,” he told Judge Nevin Dawson.

Further boosting Dotcom’s position, Mansfield argued yesterday that even charges of (non-extraditable) copyright infringement are excessive.

As the operator of a service provider company, Dotcom and his colleagues should’ve enjoyed ‘safe harbor’ and not been held liable for the infringing acts of their users.

Dotcom’s defense is expected to conclude this week but no matter what the outcome, it’s unlikely to be the end of the extradition legal process. Whichever side loses, both are expected to take their case to appeal.

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