Author: Ernesto

Consumers who want to watch movies or TV-shows online are limited to the content that they are permitted to see in their home country.

This means that the Netflix library in one country can be entirely different from that of a neighboring nation.

This is a direct result of the territorial licensing deals the movie industry is built on. However, now that people are more connected online these restrictions are also an increasing source of frustration.

To counter these consumer-unfriendly limitations, the European Commission has suggested a ban on certain types of geo-blocking as part of the Digital Single Market reforms.

Some of these changes for other industries were detailed earlier this year, but the exact plans for the audio-visual sector will have to wait until this fall. This will give various movie industry insiders time to change the commission’s course.

In a keynote address at the CineEurope convention this week, MPAA Chairman and CEO Chris Dodd described the unblocking goals as a threat to the movie industry. Encouraging participants to reach out to their representatives, Dodd described the concerns as “real, very real.”

“While the stated goals of these proposals are laudable – offering greater choice to European consumers and strengthening cultural diversity – in reality, these ideas could actually cause great harm to Europe’s film industries and its consumers,” Dodd said.

“What particularly concern me are proposals that would threaten the practices of territorial licensing and contractual freedom. These practices have long served as the financial bedrock of Europe’s film industries,” he added.

Dodds fears that without territorial licensing and other exclusivity agreements, investors will pull out. This could then lead to lower budgets and fewer films.

In addition, it would take away the freedom of filmmakers to launch their products where and when they want, which is often done to maximize their chance of success in a specific region.

“The European Union is made up of 28 different nations with different cultures, different languages, and different tastes. Forcing every film to be marketed and released the same way everywhere, at the same time, is a recipe for failure,” Dodd said.

“The ability of filmmakers and distributors to market and release their films where, how, and when they think best gives them the greatest chance to succeed,” he added.

According to Dodd, geo-blocking is ultimately in the best interests of consumers as well. Citing a recent study released by Oxera, geo-unblocking would bring less diversity, less content and higher prices for consumers, he argued.

With this message, the MPAA’s boss encourages film industry insiders to reach out to their elected representatives, to make sure their position is heard.

“With summer upon us, we are reaching a critical period, and we need to keep the pressure on,” Dodd adds. “Your representatives need to hear from you.”

In a few months time, we will know whether the movie industry pressure will be able to keep the status quo intact, or if the geo-blocking notifications will become less prevalent in the future.

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

The makers of Dallas Buyers Club have sued thousands of BitTorrent users over the past few 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 is also true for the case Dallas Buyers Club (DBC) filed against California resident Michael Amhari.

Earlier this year the filmmakers claimed that Amhari downloaded a pirated copy of the movie after he was linked to a “pirating” IP-address. Dallas Buyers Club’s attorney demanded a settlement of $10,000 and warned that “the price would go up” if he didn’t pay up soon enough.

Amhari, however, denied the allegations and explained that he lived in an apartment residence at San Diego State University with an open Wi-Fi connection. Nevertheless, the movie studio pursued its claim and increased the settlement demand to $14,000.

He continued to deny any involvement and even agreed to take a polygraph test to prove it, as DBC suggested. However, the filmmakers later retracted this offer and moved for a default judgment instead.

This judgment was set aside earlier this month and now the alleged “pirate” is pushing back in court.

Through his lawyer, Amhari is now asking for the case to be dismissed due to lack of evidence, as well as an award of attorney fees and monetary sanctions for DBC’s abuse tactics in these and other cases.

“Plaintiff has utilized extortion tactics by progressively demanding more money from defendant on each successive conversation with defense counsel and through emails, based on plaintiff’s costs and attorney fees,” attorney Clay Renick writes.

In his argument (pdf), Renick cites DBC’s own words, as they previously admitted that “Ahmari may not be the actual infringer as he shared a student apartment with other individuals.”

Despite this knowledge, they continued their case against Amhari.

“Despite the warning from the Court, Plaintiff moved forward to aggressively and maliciously name defendant in a manner that constitutes libel against defendant,” Amhari’s attorney writes.

As a result of the allegations, the accused pirate had to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees. According to the defense lawyer, however, it is clear that DBC doesn’t have any evidence linking his client to the actual download.

“It is uncontroverted that the sole basis of plaintiff’s lawsuit was that defendant was a subscriber to the IP address of which a movie was supposedly downloaded,” Renick writes.

“Plaintiff seems to believe that conflating a subscriber’s IP address to being the actual infringer should shield him from liability for those libelous statements and unethical actions to extort money from defendant,” the attorney adds.

Based on the lack of evidence, Amhari is asking the court to dismiss the case. In addition, he is requesting $12,000 in attorney fees and a monetary penalty of $36,000 for the coercive tactics used in this and other cases.

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

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has won its court case against Usenet providers Eweka and Usenetter.

On behalf of several large book publishers, the group had requested the personal details of two anonymous users who allegedly uploaded more than 2,000 books to newsgroups.

The Usenet providers terminated the accounts but refused to hand over any personal details. Instead, they claimed that they are not allowed to share personal data under e-Privacy regulations if an account is no longer active.

BREIN disagreed and took the matter to court. They argued that the book publishers’ right to protect their content trumps the privacy concerns of the Usenet uploaders in this case.

In an order issued today (pdf) the Court of Haarlem agrees with this assessment. As a result, the two providers are required to hand over the IP-addresses, payment info, and any other personal information they have on file.

If the providers fail to comply within five days they face a penalty of 1,000 euros ($1,130) per day, to a maximum of 100,000 euros, Nu.nl reports.

BREIN director Tim Kuik previously informed TorrentFreak that they are hoping to recover damages from the uploaders, as well as information on other large scale infringers.

“Our primary interest is to stop the infringements, furthermore to settle costs and damages or to sue on behalf of the injured right holders. Possibly the infringers may have information on other persons involved,” Kuik says.

Under Dutch jurisprudence, ISPs can be obliged to hand over personal information of customers if the infringing activity is plausible and the aggrieved party has a legitimate interest.

This could also spell trouble for BitTorrent uploaders, as BREIN could try to request personal information from their ISPs.

This isn’t the first time that BREIN has gone after serial e-book infringers. Last year, a Dutch court ordered Google to hand over the personal details of a user that sold pirated books in the Play Store. In that case the court also concluded that the rights of copyright holders outweigh the user’s rights.

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

Last week the local branches of Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI won a default judgment against Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

The Helsinki District Court ordered Sunde to pay $395,000 (350,000 euros) for music shared illegally through the site by its users.

In addition, he faces an additional one million euro fine if the infringements continue in the future, even though he has no control over the site.

The ruling came as a shock to the former Pirate Bay spokesman. Not just because he didn’t share anything himself, but also because he hasn’t been involved with the torrent site for a decade.

Sunde informs TorrentFreak that he wasn’t aware of the Finnish case until after the verdict was handed down, which suggests that he wasn’t served properly. However, he certainly doesn’t plan to let things go. On the contrary, he’s hitting back with a lawsuit of his own, accusing the record labels of defamation

“I’ve decided I’m going to sue them for damage against my good name and stealing a lot of time from me,” Sunde tells TorrentFreak.

“I’m a public person in Finland and they’re calling me a criminal when they KNOW I’m not involved in what they’re suing me for. It’s defamation.”

Turning the tables, Pirate Bay’s co-founder is demanding compensation from the labels instead. Standing idly by is no longer an option and Sunde believes that he has a strong case which will hold up in court.

“It’s getting very obvious the case will be won by me and it’s time to hit them back. Attacking has always been my best defense and I’m going to demand what I’m owed finally.”

With the lawsuit Sunde hopes to put an end to the continued allegations against his person by various entertainment industry outlets. The Finnish case is the first but it’s possible that more defamation suits will follow elsewhere.

Sunde’s lawyer Peter Herkko Hietanen informs TorrentFreak that the default judgment of last week can also be appealed within 30 days, after which a retrial may follow.

After serving a prison sentence for the copyright infringements of others, Sunde has regained his focus with various other projects over the past year.

In addition to several art projects he continues his work for Flattr, as well as various speaking gigs and media projects.

With regard to The Pirate Bay’s current operation the site’s co-founder has been very clear in recent years. Like several others who were involved during the early days, he believes that the site has served its purpose and should have been shut down a long time ago.

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

With a daily audience of tens of millions of people, the 2016 UEFA Euro Cup in France is one of the largest sporting events of the year.

While football is considered to be a game of the people, UEFA is carefully controlling who can watch what, when and where.

One of the thorns in the side of the football organization and its rightsholders are unauthorized live streams. These streams have become quite common, and offer people a chance to follow the various matches without having to pay for a subscription.

Over the past week UEFA and its partners have targeted several sites offering such streams. They includes several Google Blogspot blogs that are specifically setup to stream sports events.

TorrentFreak has checked several UEFA notices that were addressed to Blogspot and found that none of the pages were taken down. However, the live feeds on these sites are no longer available, which means that there is no infringing activity either.

This also signals one of the problems sports broadcasters often have to deal with. Due to the live nature of their “works” the actual takedowns have to be pretty much instant. After all, when a match has ended it’s already too late.

Some UEFA Euro Cup rightsholders have tried to address this by sending advance notices to various sites. However, for site owners it is hard to take something down that doesn’t yet exists.

Various torrent sites therefore refused to take pre-preemptive action, and Google hasn’t responded yet to a similar pre-piracy request.

In addition to various specialized live streaming portals, the UEFA Euro Cup and other events are also more frequently shared on social media. Apps such as Periscope make is very easy for people to stream and watch these events and despite the horrible quality, some get hundreds or thousands of views.

UEFA has previously gone after Periscope streams of other events and some recent Euro Cup streams have disappeared as well, suggesting that the football organization is keeping a close eye on these social streams too.

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

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Warcraft is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(2)	Warcraft	7.7 / trailer
2	(…)	The Huntsman: Winter’s War	6.2 / trailer
3	(1)	X-Men: Apocalypse (HDCam/TC)	7.7 / trailer
4	(…)	Whiskey Tango Foxtrot	6.8 / trailer
5	(3)	Eye In The Sky	7.6 / trailer
6	(4)	Zootopia	8.3 / trailer
7	(7)	London Has Fallen	5.9 / trailer
8	(6)	13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi	7.4 / trailer
9	(…)	The Last Heist	3.7 / trailer
10	(5)	Midnight Special	6.9 / trailer

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

There are hundreds of reasons why people may turn to piracy. A financial motive is often mentioned, as well as lacking legal alternatives.

A new study from a group of researchers now suggests that national intelligence can also be added to the list.

The researchers report their findings in a paper titled “Intelligence and Crime: A novel evidence for software piracy,” which offers some intriguing insights.

In a rather straightforward analysis, the research examines the link between national IQ scores and local software piracy rates, which are reported by the Business Software Alliance. As can be seen below, there’s a trend indicating that countries with a higher IQ have lower software rates.

“We find that intelligence has statistically significant negative impact on piracy rates,” the researchers confirm in their paper, drawing a causal conclusion.

National IQ and Piracy rates

There are some notable outliers, such as China, where piracy rates and IQ are both relatively high. On the other end of the spectrum we find South Africa, with a low national IQ as well as low piracy rates.

The general trend, however, shows a direct relation between a country’s average IQ and the local software piracy rates.

“After controlling for the potential effect of outlier nations in the sample, software piracy rate declines by about 5.3 percentage points if national IQ increases by 10 points,” the researchers note.

To rule out the possibility that the link is caused by external factors, the researchers carried out robustness tests with various variables including the strength of IP enforcement, political factors, and economic development. However, even after these controls the link remained intact.

Luckily for copyright holders, ‘dumb’ countries are not ‘doomed’ by definition. If the ruling elite is smart enough, they can still lower piracy rates.

“[The results] should not be taken as universal evidence that society with higher intelligent quotient is a requirement to alleviate software piracy,” the researchers write.

“Our findings indicate that if ruling elite enforces policies to decrease software piracy, intelligence provides a credible proxy of the degree of consent of such policies.”

Interestingly, if these results hold up, with a bit of luck software piracy may solve itself in the long run.

Previous research found that software piracy increases literacy in African countries, which may in turn raise the national IQ, which will then lower piracy rates. Or… will that lower literacy again?

The full paper is available here (pdf).

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

In an effort to keep people away from pirate sites, copyright holders are overloading Google with DMCA takedown notices.

Since 2011 Google has removed more than a billion “pirate” links from its search results, and the two billion mark is only a few months away.

The number of requests from rightsholders has increased dramatically, up to the point where Google now handles around three million “pirate” links every day.

To illustrate this growth, we processed all the weekly takedown requests as reported in the search engine’s Transparency Report. This shows that 5.1 million pirate URLs were reported to Google in first week of June, 2014, a figure that increased to over 22 million two years later.

The weekly numbers fluctuate but the graph below illustrates the upward trend. If the current pattern continues then Google is expected to process over a billion reported links this year alone.

Google search DMCA notices, per week

The surge in takedown notices has also gained the attention of the U.S. Government. A few months ago the Copyright Office launched a public consultation in order to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the current DMCA provisions.

This prompted heavy criticism from copyright groups, but Google itself maintains that the current system is working fine.

“The notice-and-takedown process has been an effective and efficient way to address online infringement,” the company informed the Copyright Office in April.

“The increasing volume of URLs removed from Search each year demonstrates that rightsholders are finding the notice-and-takedown process worthwhile, efficient, and scalable to their needs.”

While Google believes that the millions of reported URLs per day are a sign that the DMCA takedown process is working properly, rightsholders see it as a signal of an unbeatable game of whack-a-mole.

A coalition of hundreds of artists and music group has characterized the DMCA law as obsolete, dysfunctional and harmful.

“The notice-and-takedown system has proved an ineffective tool for the volume of unauthorized digital music available, something akin to bailing out an ocean with a teaspoon,” they wrote.

Together with many other rightsholders they are opting for broad revisions. Among other things they want advanced technologies and processes to ensure that infringing content doesn’t reappear elsewhere once it’s removed, a so-called “notice and stay down” approach.

Until that’s the case, they will probably keep the flood gates wide open.

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

As one of the leading blog platforms, WordPress.com receives thousands of DMCA takedown requests every year.

The company is known to carefully inspect all notices and has a track record of defending its users against DMCA abuse. In addition, it regularly highlights the worst offenders in its own “Hall of Shame.”

This week WordPress.com is facing a challenge of a different kind, as a court-ordered DMCA subpoena requires them to expose the identity of a user following allegations of copyright infringement.

The user in question runs the weblog “The Devil Corp,” which is extremely critical of the marketing and sales company Smart Circle, as well as several related entities.

“This consortium profits by exploiting its employees and they’ll work you like a farm animal and give you nothing for your time,” the blog reads.

“They offer slave hours for slave wages disguised as an opportunity for financial freedom and their ‘owners’ are nothing more than professional dream sellers who’ll do anything to keep you around as long as possible. Drug dealers deserve more respect.”

These are harsh words, no doubt, but freedom of speech goes a long way in the United States. That said, it hasn’t prevented Smart Circle from targeting the blog via another route.

Late December, Smart Circle asked WordPress.com to remove various infringing images, which were copied from the company’s own website. The images in question were photos of some of Smart Circle’s key employees.

The photos were swiftly removed by WordPress, a decision the blog owner didn’t protest. Instead, he uploaded modified versions of the original, portraying the employees in a devilish manner.

“Although the inclusion of those pictures was clearly fair use, I thought it best not to trouble the justice system and instead altered them in a satirical manner,” the blogger notes.

Smart Circle parody/critique

After a few months passed, Smart Circle sent WordPress.com another DMCA takedown request, targeting the modified images. This time, however, WordPress.com left them online.

Not pleased with this decision, Smart Circle asked the court for a DMCA subpoena against the blog owner, which a clerk has now signed off on. This means that the company can compel WordPress.com to hand over the personal details of the blog owner.

TorrentFreak contacted WordPress.com’s parent company Automattic, who inform us that they have yet to be served.

“At the time of writing we have not been served with this subpoena. If and when we are, we’ll assess the available options at that point,” the company says.

Given the fact that WordPress.com didn’t comply with the DMCA request, it’s likely that the company will protest the subpoena.

The present case is relevant considering the recent discussions about DMCA abuse. Many independent content creators and digital rights activists have complained about various forms of abuse and threats in recent weeks.

While Smart Circle hasn’t crossed the line here (from a legal perspective at least), one can doubt whether DMCA subpoenas are meant to expose critics in cases like these, where fair use appears to be a reasonable defense.

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

In recent years various copyright holder groups have adopted a “follow-the-money” approach in the hope of cutting off funding to so-called pirate sites.

Part of this strategy are voluntary agreements between rightsholders, advertisers, and advertising agencies, with the goal of preventing ads from showing up on torrent sites and other pirate portals.

The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) is a relatively new player which helps to facilitate these efforts. TAG coordinates an advertising-oriented Anti-Piracy Program and has already signed up several large companies across various industries.

A few days ago two large tech companies, Google and GoDaddy, joined up to TAG, with both taking the “Anti-Piracy Pledge.”

Speaking with TorrentFreak, TAG explained that Google has taken the pledge as an advertiser. This means that their own advertising services are not “validated” and approved just yet. However, this is something they are working on.

“Google has signed on as an advertiser by taking the Pledge. They are also actively working to become a self-attested DAAP for their ad delivery services,” TAG informs us.

By signing the pledge both companies agree to “take commercially reasonable steps to minimize the inadvertent placement of digital advertising on websites or other media properties that have an undesired risk of being associated with the unauthorized dissemination of materials protected by the copyright laws…”

TAG Pledge

The above means that future Google and GoDaddy advertisements may work more closely with TAG certified partners, which carry the “Certified Against Piracy” seal featured at the top of this article.

Once Google is approved as a self-attested Digital Advertising Assurance Provider, it can carry the same seal for its own services.

Becoming certified is not cheap. There is a registration fee of $10,000 and another $10,000 is required to carry the seal. However, TAG informs us that these costs can be waived for smaller businesses.

The MPAA applauds the steps taken by Google and GoDaddy and the Hollywood group hopes that more companies will follow in their footsteps.

“We also hope that more ad networks and intermediaries involved in the ad chain, like those run by Google, will come to the same conclusion – associating good brands with bad sites is bad business and harmful to creators and consumers,” MPAA’s Farnaz Alemi said.

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