Author: Ernesto

Playing old console games through browser-based emulators and spin-offs is a niche pastime of many dedicated gamers.

However, keeping these fan-made games online is quite a challenge. This is what Josh Goldberg learned the hard way when his browser version of Nintendo’s 1985 Super Mario Bros was pulled offline in 2013.

The “Full Screen Mario” browser game was unique in several aspects. It not only allowed people to play the original 32 levels, but also included a random map generator and level editor, features Nintendo later released in its own “Mario Maker” game.

After welcoming 2.7 million unique visitors, Goldberg received a DMCA takedown notice from Nintendo which made him decide to pull the plug. However, the code remained widely available on Github and was actively developed in recent years.

This allowed people to play the game on their local machines, or host a copy on their own servers. But now, after more than two years, Nintendo has decided to pull the GitHub repository offline as well.

“Nintendo recently became aware that certain material posted on the web page located at [GitHub] infringes copyrights owned by Nintendo,” reads a DMCA notice that was sent to GitHub a few hours ago.

“Nintendo requests that GitHub disable public access to the web page […] which provides access to software files that make unauthorized use of Nintendo of America Inc.’s copyrighted material from its Super Mario Bros. videogame, in violation of Nintendo’s exclusive rights,” the notice adds.

As a result, GitHub has taken the entire repository down, replacing it with a message pointing to Nintendo’s DMCA takedown request.

Full Screen Mario

Interestingly the takedown comes a few hours after Goldberg, who now works as a Software Development Engineer at Microsoft, highlighted Full Screen Mario’s success in an interview with Microsoft + Open Source.

Interesting timing, just like the release of “Mario Maker” which came out a few months after “Full Screen Mario” was taken down. According to the developer, his game may in fact have inspired the Nintendo release.

“I think it’s too much of a coincidence that in the fall they take down a fan site that was too popular for them, then in the spring and summer they release a trailer for this product,” he previously told The Washington Post in an interview.

“It has the same user interface I had in development, just way better, and it’s something I wish I could have made,” he added, noting that Nintendo never contacted him personally.

Now, roughly three years after Full Screen Mario was born, the project appears to have come to an end. While there’s a possibility that the project may respawn elsewhere, as there are still some forks floating around, it’s game over for the official repository.

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

​Earlier this year Netflix announced that it would increase its efforts to block customers who circumvent geo-blockades.

As a result it has become harder to use VPN services and proxies to access Netflix content from other countries, something various movie studios have repeatedly called for.

With the application of commercial blacklist data, Netflix blocks IP-addresses that are linked to such services, something which also affects well-intentioned customers who merely use a VPN to protect their privacy.

This broad blocking policy has sparked wide protests and 44,446 Internet users have signed a petition launched by digital rights group OpenMedia, which asks Netflix to stop the VPN crackdown.

Today, OpenMedia sent a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, delivering this message. The letter starts off by saying that the petition signers all love Netflix, but that they don’t like how the company handles their privacy.

“Watching quality content, and knowing that creators are being compensated in the process is great. But we also love our privacy. And lately, as your subscribers, you just haven’t been treating us well,” the letter reads.

“[Blocking VPN connections] is a huge problem for our privacy ­conscious supporters, who use VPNs as an essential, user­ friendly tool to protect their privacy in a post ­Snowden world.”

The letter acknowledges that Netflix has to cooperate with rightsholders, but according to OpenMedia there are better ways to make sure that geographic restrictions are enforced.

“We are not unreasonable. We do understand that you have contractual obligations to the rights­holders whose content you distribute. But we believe that there are better ways for you to respect creators, and enforce your geographic restrictions and contractual obligations than by outright blocking your privacy conscious customers from using your service.”

The group invites Netflix’s CEO for a meeting to discuss these alternatives. Talking to TorrentFreak, OpenMedia spokesperson David Christopher previously said that Netflix could link content libraries to credit card addresses, for example.

“We hope that you will consider the needs and privacy of the millions of Internet users around the world who value your service, by demonstrating that you are open to new and innovative solutions – the very root of what Netflix was founded on,” the letter adds.

Thus far Netflix hasn’t shown any willingness to address the concerns. During an investor call last month Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that the recent crackdown on VPN users hasn’t hurt the company’s results, and that the complaints came from a “small but vocal minority.”

OpenMedia’s letter

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

Earlier this year Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios filed a lawsuit against the makers of a Star Trek inspired fan film, accusing them of copyright infringement.

The dispute centers around the well-received short film Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar and the planned follow-up feature film Axanar.

Among other things, the Star Trek rightsholders claim ownership over various Star Trek related settings, characters, species, clothing, colors, shapes, words, short phrases and even the Klingon language.

The makers of the fan-spinoff responded to several of the allegations last month. Among other things, they argued that the Klingon language is not copyrightable because it’s not more than an idea or a system. They therefore asked the court to dismiss or strike the copyright claims in question.

The court reviewed the matter and has now decided that the case should proceed. This means that the Axanar makers have to face the copyright claims Paramount and CBS lodged against them.

In his order, District Court Judge Gary Klausner doesn’t reject the notion that several individual elements such as the Klingon language may not be protected by copyright. However, the case deals with the entire “Star Trek world,” which is a combination of these.

“When viewed in a vacuum, each of these elements may not individually be protectable by copyright. Plaintiffs, however, do not seek to enforce their copyright in each of these elements individually. Rather, Plaintiffs’ copyright infringement claims are based on the Star Trek Copyrighted Works as a whole.”

“The Complaint clearly defines the works at issue, and includes the copyright registration numbers for the motion pictures and the first episode of each television series,” the order adds.

At this point there is no need to rule on the copyright status of various Star Trek features, as they were merely used as an illustration of the similarity between the official and the spin-off Star Trek works.

“The Court finds it unnecessary to analyze whether the allegedly non-protectable elements of the Star Trek Copyrighted Works are eligible for copyright protection because Plaintiff describes these elements in the Complaint solely in an effort to demonstrate how the Axanar Works are substantially similar to the Star Trek Copyrighted Works,” the Judge writes.

Several other arguments to dismiss the case were denied as well, which means that the case will proceed as planned.

Since the court will not decide over the copyrightability of the Klingon language, the amicus brief submitted by the Language Creation Society (LCS) is moot and denied as well.

Finally, while the crowdfunded Star Trek spin-off failed to get the case dismissed, Judge Gary Klausner made no judgment about the copyright claims themselves, which will have to be fought in court. However, as LCS notes, he did slip a Star Trek reference into his order.

“Although the Court declines to address whether Plaintiffs’ Claims will prosper at this time, the Court does find Plaintiffs’ claims will live long enough to survive Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss.”

To be continued.

Live long and prosper…

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

In 2014 decryption licensing outfit AACS LA initiated a renewed crackdown on DRM-circumvention software.

The company, founded by a group of movie studios and technology partners, sued the makers of popular DVD and Blu-Ray ripping software DVDFab in a New York federal court.

After a brief legal battle the court ruled in favor of AACS, issuing an injunction based on the argument that the “DVDFab Group” violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention clause, since their software can bypass DVD and Bluray encryption.

Among other things the injunction barred DVDFab from distributing its software in public and allowed AACS to seize a wide range of domain names and block the company’s social media accounts.

The crippling injunction seemed to work, but not for long. In a new court filing (pdf) AACS notes that the software vendor briefly blocked U.S. purchases but went back to business as usual soon after.

“Defendants are again offering DVDFab software that circumvents AACS Technology for purchase and download from the United States via their enjoined website at DVDFab.cn,” they write.

“Plaintiff has been able to purchase and download DVDFab Passkey for Bluray from the United States without issue, and without using a VPN or other means of masking a United States IP address,” AACS adds.

In addition, the software maker also launched an XBMC box called VidOn which also allows users to rip DVDs and Blurays.

According to AACS, the VidOn box uses the same DVDFab technology to rip Blu-Ray disks.

“Plaintiff has tested the products and found that the VidOn software works in conjunction with DVDFab Passkey to circumvent AACS access and copy control technology and then extract or ‘rip’ the audiovisual content of Blu-ray discs for playback using the VidOn hardware.”

VidOn importer

Similar to the DVDFab software, the VidOn box is widely available to the U.S. public and promoted there using various social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

According to AACS these clear violations of the permanent injunction should not go unpunished. The company therefore asks the court to award damages and to issue coercive contempt sanctions of $10,000 per day.

“Plaintiff requests the Court impose a coercive sanction of $10,000 per day on Defendants, continuing until Defendants come into compliance with the Amended PI Order,” AACS writes.

“This figure is reasonable and in line with amounts awarded in previous cases involving similar behavior, namely repeated, brazen violations of court orders and intellectual property protections,” they add.

In addition, the rightsholders want the permanent injunction to be updated so DVDFab is also barred from selling the new VidOn products and operating other related websites through which its ripping tools are offered.

It is not up to the court to decide whether sanctions and an amended injunction are appropriate. However, recent history has shown that it’s hard to permanently ban “ripping” software from the market.

In addition to DVDFab’s continued operation, AACS also failed to completely shut down its competitor AnyDVD. While the parent company SlySoft did shut down, the development was quickly taken over by RedFox, without any significant changes.

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

As one of its hottest properties, HBO has become very protective of Game of Thrones.

In recent weeks thousands of pirates have received warnings in their mailboxes, and the company is also fervently trying to take down links to pirated copies of the show, with some success.

Besides from actual copies of episodes, HBO also appears to have an eye on those who talk about what may happen during the rest of the season. The Internet is littered with spoilers which HBO doesn’t like, including those posted in Spanish by YouTube user Frikidoctor.

Unlike many others, Frikidoctor is remarkably accurate with his predictions, and claims to have a source close to the fire who feeds him information. HBO doesn’t like this and has pulled several of his videos, arguing that they are infringing their copyrights.

This also happened to the video featuring several episode three spoilers which was uploaded a few days ago.

“I uploaded the video and two hours later HBO decided to take it down on YouTube [claiming] copyright infringement,” Frikidoctor says, responding to the surprise takedown.

Removed, sorry about that

Frikidoctor admits that he used snippets of trailers and other promotional material in earlier videos that were removed, but says that the video with the episode three “predictions” didn’t include any HBO audio or video.

“In the last two videos they took down I had some frames from teasers and trailers they decided to share with everyone for promotional purposes. This time the video did not have a single frame or sound that belongs to HBO,” he says.

Instead, the video was just him dressed up in a Mexican wrestler costume, discussing what would happen in the upcoming episode.

“So, they think that me dressed as a Mexican wrestler talking about predictions for episode three of Game of Thrones is their property. That it’s copyrighted material that belongs to them,” Frikidoctor notes.

“Isn’t that misuse of the DMCA?” he adds.

Frikidoctor has appealed the takedown with YouTube and also contacted a lawyer to discuss what steps to take next. While he sees it as a violation of his right to free speech, he’s not sure whether he’s willing to take the issue to court just yet.

For now, however, he will refrain from posting any predictions, to keep the pressure off.

If Frikidoctor did indeed pursue a claim against HBO he would have a good chance of winning. Merely talking about newsworthy information obtained from a source is generally something that would fall under fair use.

It certainly isn’t something to be struck down easily with a copyright complaint.

‘Bogus’ YouTube takedown have become a hot topic in recent months. Earlier this year close to 100,000 people voiced their concerns about potential abuse of copyright takedowns.

The campaign, spearheaded by Fight for the Future and popular YouTube channel ChannelAwesome, stressed that copyright holders are too often censoring free speech with dubious or false takedown claims.

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

This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

How to Be Single is the most downloaded movie again.

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	(…)	How To Be Single (Web-DL)	6.2 / trailer
2	(…)	Zoolander 2 (Web-DL)	5.0 / trailer
3	(1)	Deadpool	8.6 / trailer
4	(2)	Zootopia (TS)	8.3 / trailer
5	(…)	10 Cloverfield Lane (Webrip)	7.6 / trailer
6	(6)	Triple 9 (Webrip)	6.5 / trailer
7	(3)	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (TS)	7.5 / trailer
8	(10)	Baaghi: A Rebel For Love (DVDscr)	6.1 / trailer
9	(…)	Kindergarten Cop 2	?.? / trailer
10	(4)	The Jungle Book (TS)	8.3 / trailer

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

At TorrentFreak we regularly receive concerned emails from Pirate Bay users who have spotted an influx of suspicious torrents on the popular torrent site.

These torrents usually carry the name of popular new TV-shows or movies, and appear to be shared by thousands of people.

However, those who download the torrents will soon notice that the video files won’t playing. Instead, they urge downloaders to install suspicious software, or worse.

This spam phenomenon is not new and neither is it limited to The Pirate Bay. However, it does appear to have gotten worse in recent years, something several of the site’s moderators confirm today.

Most regular users of the site are probably unaware of the efforts ‘invisible’ moderators have to put into the site to keep it clean day in and day out.

To lift a corner of the veil we reached out to a few crew members to ask about the influx of spam, torrent removals, and their motivations to contribute to the site for free.

First up: who are these moderators and why do they volunteer to keep the site clean?

“We’re all ordinary downloaders at heart who share a love for TPB with millions of others. We put in the hours because we love helping others and we love TPB,” Spud17 tells us.

“I believe in the ideals TPB represents, that sharing is a fundamental human right,” veteran crew member Xe adds.

The overarching theme is that the moderators identify with The Pirate Bay’s ideal to share everything freely, without restrictions. Ironically, however, a large part of their job involves removing torrents, mostly fakes and spam.

“The Crew remove hundreds of thousands of fakes and torrents infested with malware, spyware etcetera. Spam and child porn are also removed,” Spud17 says.

While spam has always been an issue, it’s sometimes hard to contain. At some hours of the day there are no mods available to deal with it, which may result in batches of suspicious content getting through.

“The Crew volunteer their time as and when they can, so it’s inevitable that there’ll be periods where the fakes have piled up for a few hours. Users are welcome to report bad torrents and uploaders on our forum, and on our IRC channel,” Spud17 says.

“I should also mention that sometimes we delete legitimate torrents by mistake. We’re human. We have a forum where people can appeal such calls,” Xe adds.

The Pirate Bay crew recommends downloaders to use common sense, and educate themselves on how fake files and spam can be detected. And in case of doubt, it’s best to avoid newly uploaded content, they say.

“The best defense for TPB users against the fakers is knowledge. Read the FAQ on our forum and pay particular attention to the section on finding torrents – if you read and understand that, you should be able to spot the fakes easily,” Spud17 says.

In any case, fake files and spam never stay on the site for long.

“The important thing for downloaders to know is that the vast majority of crap is dealt with by staff within a day, but often much quicker,” Xe adds.

All moderators we talked to embrace TPB’s decision not to comply with copyright holder’s takedown requests. However, they do respect sites that do. Running a torrent site can be quite tricky, and if they feel it’s safer to adhere to the DMCA then that’s their choice.

However, the removal policies at some other sites also means that The Pirate Bay remains relevant today, as the true haven for ‘uncensored’ sharing.

“It is the only site I’m aware of which doesn’t delete content following DMCA requests,” Xe says.

“It is THE place to upload to avoid the disappointment of having your torrents deleted and THE place to download from when what you want has been deleted from elsewhere. It is the standard by which all other sites are judged.”

As the media industry keeps throwing up artificial barriers to prevent people from enjoying their content, people will keep flocking to The Pirate Bay.

“The Pirate Bay will always be relevant as long as money and location are barriers to accessing culture and educational media,” Spud17 says.

All in all, The Pirate Bay Crew take a lot of pride in what they do. The moderation team is not involved in keeping the site up and running technically, but they are vital to its survival.

Like last year’s temporary rift has shown, without moderators to remove the thousands of fake files TPB would soon turn into a spammer heaven. So, in a way, removing torrents is central to the site’s survival. As long as the pirated stuff stays up…

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

Tomorrow night the third episode of the latest Game of Thrones season will appear online, both through official and unauthorized channels.

With millions of people all around the world eager to see how Jon Snow is doing, the interest on various pirate sites will be massive once again.

While HBO generally seems quite cavalier when the piracy topic comes up, the company is actively trying to contain the fallout behind the scenes.

Since the start of the new season the company’s anti-piracy partner IP Echelon has sent thousands of warnings to ISPs, urging them to take action against alleged pirates.

The warning mails in question include the IP-addresses of BitTorrent users who were caught sharing recent episodes of Game of Thrones, and the notifications HBO asks the ISPs to alert the associated subscribers to prevent further infringements.

“As the owner of the IP address, HBO requests that [ISP] immediately contact the subscriber who was assigned the IP address at the date and time below with the details of this notice, and take the proper steps to prevent further downloading or sharing of unauthorized content and additional infringement notices.”

HBO warning

While these notices are pretty common, HBO now also encourages ISPs to point subscribers toward legal options, something we haven’t seen in the past.

“We also encourage you to inform the subscriber that HBO programming can easily be watched and streamed on many devices legally by adding HBO to the subscriber’s television package,” the notification adds.

Legally, ISPs are not obligated to forward these emails, which are sent as a DMCA notification, but many do. In any case, HBO doesn’t know the identity of the alleged pirates, so there are no legal strings attached for the subscribers in question.

Aside from targeting alleged pirates, HBO has another strategy to deter people from pirating Game of Thrones.

Since the start of the sixth season the company has aggressively targeted torrent sites with takedown requests. While some sites simply ignore these, popular indexes and search engines such as KickassTorrents and Torrentz have removed links to hundreds of torrents.

Torrent removed

In some cases, the most popular torrents are removed a few minutes after they appear online. This is much quicker than average, suggesting that HBO’s anti-piracy partners are monitoring the situation in real time and on a broad scale.

A search on KickassTorrents shows that the most popular torrent releases for the first two episodes have been removed. Similarly, a search for Game of Thrones on Torrentz notes that links to the 100 torrents with the most peers are all gone.

It’s clear that HBO is doing all it can to limit the distribution of pirated Game of Thrones episodes. However, the question remains as to whether it will be enough to really deter a significant number of downloaders from finding copies on other sites, where they are still readily available.

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

There’s a slight panic breaking out among Pirate Bay users, who are having a hard time accessing the site.

Over the past few hours Chrome and Firefox and Safari have started to block access to Thepiratebay.se due to reported security issues.

Instead of a page displaying the iconic pirate ship, visitors are presented with an ominous red warning banner.

“Deceptive site ahead: Attackers on Thepiratebay.se may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information,” the Chrome warning reads.

Firefox users may encounter a similar banner, branding The Pirate Bay as a “web forgery” which may trick users into sharing personal information. This may lead to identity theft or other fraud.

“Web forgeries are designed to trick you into revealing personal or financial information by imitating sources you may trust. Entering any information on this web page may result in identity theft or other fraud,” the browser warns.

Google’s safebrowsing page for TPB currently lists the site as dangerous. It is likely that the current problems are related to issues caused by third-party advertisers. Just last week Malwarebytes reported that some ads were dropping ransomware through the site.

The issue appears to be limited to the desktop versions of most browsers, and not everyone is seeing the error pages yet.

This is not the first time browsers have flagged The Pirate Bay. The same issue has come up before supposedly due to malicious advertisers.

The Pirate Bay team is aware of the issues and will probably resolve it sooner than later. Impatient or adventurous users who want to bypass the warning can do so by disabling their browser’s security warnings altogether in the settings, at their own risk of course.

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

Late last year the first pirated copies of 4K videos leaked from both Netflix and Amazon. These leaks were unusual as online 4k streams were always well protected against pirates.

Initially it was unclear how the HDCP content protection had been circumvented, but several sources suggested that one of LegendSky’s latest HDFury devices may have been involved.

This suspicion was later corroborated by a well-known Scene group, which openly thanked HDFury in their release notes.

However, not everyone was pleased with the new “pirate tool.” In fact, Warner Bros. and Intel daughter company Digital Content Protection (DCP) sued the HDFury manufacturer over its ability to “strip” the latest HDCP encryption.

The Chinese hardware manufacturer fiercely rejected these piracy claims and countersued Warner and Intel subsidiary for defamation.

In its reply, LegendSky explained that their devices do not “strip” any HDCP copy protection. Instead, the contested HDFury device merely downgrades the higher HDCP protection to a lower version, which is permitted as an exception under the DMCA.

The company further added that several HDCP licensees including Netflix, Disney, NBC and CBS have bought their devices for legitimate purposes.

It’s possible that DCP also appreciated the strength of this argument as this week the company dropped its copyright infringement claims against LegendSky. This means that the 4K integral remains for sale, despite the earlier piracy claims.

Court documents reveal nothing other than a statement signed by both parties, stating that the claims and counterclaims have been dismissed. However, LegendSky did inform its customers a few days ago referring to a settlement being reached.

“We just have been informed by our legal counsel that we must pull all of the below products immediately due to a pending confidential settlement we are reaching,” the email in question reads.

LegendSky’s email

Interestingly, the products that were pulled have nothing to do with the 4K splitter that started the lawsuit. Instead, they are digital to analog converters.

In the U.S. these type of products have previously been classed as “infringing” and DCP informed the court about several of these so-called “analog hole” verdicts in an earlier filing. It therefore makes sense that puling these older products is part of the settlement.

This allows Warner Bros. and the Intel daughter company to save face, but it’s only a minor conciliation. With the 4K integral still up for sale, the Chinese hardware manufacturer has without doubt booked a moral victory in this lawsuit.

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