Author: Ernesto

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

While it’s still not clear how these videos were copied, a new lawsuit from Warner Bros. and Intel daughter company Digital Content Protection (DCP) suggests that HDFury devices may be involved.

In January the companies filed a lawsuit at a federal court in New York against the maker of the devices, technology company LegendSky, accusing it of violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions.

The HDFury devices in question allow users to strip the latest HDCP encryption. This hardware sits between an HDCP-compliant source and a secondary device, allowing it to pass on a “stripped” 4K signal.

This week the Chinese company responded to the allegations (pdf), asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit on the basis that DCP’s claims are ungrounded.

Among other things, the company argues that Warner Bros. and Intel will not be able to prove direct or contributory copyright infringement. Instead, they accuse DCP of copyright abuse to keep its monopoly intact.

“Plaintiffs’ claims are barred […] because of copyright abuse. Plaintiffs’ action against Defendant is an intentionally unlawful attempt to extend the scope of Plaintiffs’ copyright monopolies beyond their legal scope,” LegendSky writes.

The hardware manufacturer states that its products do not violate the DMCA. Instead, they point out that this type of circumvention is specifically permitted as a fair use exception, in order to connect two separate computer programs.

“Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the doctrine of fair use,” the rebuttal reads.

“In particular, to the extent that Defendants’ products circumvent within the meaning of the DMCA, such circumvention is lawful because it enables interoperability between independently created computer programs with other programs.”

LegendSky further argues that DCP doesn’t have jurisdiction over the Chinese company and in its reply requests that the New York District Court dismisses the complaint.

It’s expected that the content protection outfit will counter LegendSky’s arguments during the weeks to come, as it’s essential for Warner Bros. that 4K copy protection remains strong.

The movie studio previously announced that it will release several dozen 4K Blu-ray movies this year and would rather not see these end up on pirate sites in the best quality possible.

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

First launched more than two years ago, Popcorn Time remains the go to application for many people who want to pirate the latest Hollywood blockbusters and TV-shows.

In response, rightsholders are doing their best to put a halt to its popularity. Late last year the MPAA scored a major victory when it shut down one of the most used forks, but many alternatives remain online.

To counter this threat, Norwegian rightholders called in help from Norway’s police unit and prosecution authority for economic crimes (ØKOKRIM), who today announced that they had seized the Popcorn-Time.no domain name.

Unlike the name suggests, the site didn’t host the application itself but instead posted news articles, as well as links to sites that offered the application. Below is a screenshot of the site in action, which currently displays a notice from the police.

Popcorn-time.no when it was still active

In a public statement the Norwegian police and prosecution unit notes that the domain is believed to be complicit in criminal copyright infringement by linking to third party content.

“The Norwegian domain popcorn-time.no helps electronic publication by linking to other domains where the required software can be downloaded. In addition, the Norwegian popcorn-time.no domain posted information, user manuals and news updates,” the police states.

No one was arrested in association with the site, according to NRK.

The majority of the site’s users came from Norway but overall the site was relatively small. This is also confirmed by the site’s Facebook page, which only generated 102 likes since its launch.

Despite its modest size, police conclude that the domain name seizure is significant as the site contributed to a serious social piracy problem.

“Illegal file sharing of copyright-protected material on the Internet poses a serious social problem. The Norwegian domain popcorn-time.no constituted, in our view, part of a global problem in constant and rapid development.”

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

This episode we are joined by Mike Masnick – CEO & Editor of Techdirt, and Evan Engstrom, Executive Director of Engine.  

This episode we discuss the extraordinary growth of academic filesharing site SciHub, the new Zeronet distributed torrent application Play, and yet another comeback from Popcorn Time.

In addition, we talk about the plague of DMCA takedown notices afflicting YouTube creators and why the law might not survive the acceleration of the digital media landscape… in its present form.

—

Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing copyright and file-sharing news. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary and analysis.

The guests for our news discussions will vary and we’ll aim to introduce voices from different backgrounds and persuasions. In addition to news, STS will also produce features interviewing some of the great innovators and minds.

Host: Jamie King

Guess: Mike Masnick and Evan Engstrom.

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Eric Bouthiller
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Siraje Amarniss

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

Like many other countries around the world, downloading music and movies is hugely popular in the Netherlands.

In part, the popularity was facilitated by the fact that downloading pirated music has long been legal under local law.

This tolerant stance towards online piracy changed in 2014 when the European Court of Justice ruled it to be unlawful. As a result the Dutch Government quickly outlawed unauthorized downloading.

Breaking the habits of a large section of the population will take more than that though, as local piracy rates remain high, which is a thorn in the side of the movie industry.

Earlier this year the Association of Professional Film Entrepreneurs (VPSO) decided to take action. In a letter sent to Secretary of State for Justice they held the Government responsible for their piracy losses.

In addition to tougher anti-piracy measures, the film industry group also claimed 1.2 billion euros ($1.34 billion) as compensation for the piracy losses they claim to have suffered since 2004.

However, the Dutch Government has no intention of paying up. NU reports that the Attorney for the Dutch state sent a letter to VPSO denying responsibility for the cited losses.

According to Minister of Safety and Justice Ard van der Steur, who informed the Dutch House of Representatives about this issue late last week, the Government hasn’t done anything wrong.

“The State does not consider itself liable for the damage VPSO allegedly suffered by VPSO. Contrary to VPSO’s claims, the Copyright Directive wasn’t applied incorrectly, so there’s no question of illegality,” he writes.

In addition, there are doubts about the link between piracy and losses as well as the claimed height of the damages.

“In addition, there are other critical notes that can be placed alongside VPSO’s alleged claim, such as the statute of limitations, the absence of a causal relationship, as well as the height of the allegedly suffered damages,” Van der Steur adds.

Instead of holding the State responsible, the film companies were told that they have plenty of legal options to recoup their losses through civil procedures, a suggestion that they should go after downloaders instead.

While the Dutch Government denies responsibility, the Justice Minister says they are willing to discuss possible enforcement options with Internet providers and film representatives, to better deter piracy going forward.

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

This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

Kung Fu Panda 3 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)	Kung Fu Panda 3 (Webrip)	8.0 / trailer
2	(1)	Deadpool (HDTS)	8.6 / trailer
3	(…)	The Hateful Eight	8.0 / trailer
4	(4)	The Big Short	8.1 / trailer
5	(9)	The Revenant (DVDscr)	8.2 / trailer
6	(3)	Victor Frankenstein	6.1 / trailer
7	(…)	Gods of Egypt (HDTS)	5.7 / trailer
8	(6)	Spectre	7.9 / trailer
9	(5)	Creed	8.0 / trailer
10	(7)	Ride Along 2	5.8 / trailer

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

With millions of active users, Transmission is one of the most used BitTorrent clients around, particularly for Mac users.

The application has been around for more than a decade and has a great reputation. However, this weekend several users started to report malware problems in the Transmission forums.

The malware in question was identified as “OSX.KeRanger.A” and several users reported that it’s linked to Transmission 2.90.

Today, their suspicions were confirmed by researchers from Palo Alto Networks who published a warning and an overview of the technical details on their website.

“Attackers infected two installers of Transmission version 2.90 with KeRanger on the morning of March 4. When we identified the issue, the infected DMG files were still available for downloading from the Transmission site,” they write.

KeRanger is so-called ransomware which effectively encrypts the victim’s computer. The attackers then promise to decrypt it if a ransom is paid, amounting to one Bitcoin in this case.

Ransom request (image credit Palo Alto Networks)

“The malware then begins encrypting certain types of document and data files on the system. After completing the encryption process, KeRanger demands that victims pay one bitcoin (about $400) to a specific address to retrieve their files,” the researchers explain.

“Additionally, KeRanger appears to still be under active development and it seems the malware is also attempting to encrypt Time Machine backup files to prevent victims from recovering their back-up data.”

Apple was also informed about the issue and has since revoked the abused certificate and updated its XProtect antivirus signature.

As Ars Technica points out, the “KeRanger” ransomware is notable as it’s the first Mac-targeted ransomware that’s been reported in the wild.

The Transmission team, meanwhile, has added a warning message to their site, alerting users to upgrade their clients right away.

“Everyone running 2.90 on OS X should immediately upgrade to 2.92, as they may have downloaded a malware-infected file. This new version will make sure that the ‘OSX.KeRanger.A’ ransomware is correctly removed from you computer,” the warning reads.

Transmission warning

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

In recent years copyright holders have overloaded Google with DMCA takedown notices, targeting links to pirated content.

These requests have increased dramatically over the years. In 2008, the search engine received only a few dozen takedown notices during the entire year, but today it processes two million per day on average.

Data gathered by TorrentFreak from Google’s Transparency Report shows that the number of links reported in DMCA notices has more than doubled compared to last year, and quadrupled in comparison to the year before.

March 2014 Google was asked to remove roughly six million links per week, growing to eight million in 2015 and a whopping 19 million last week.

As an illustration of the sheer volume, this means that Google is now being asked to remove well over 100,000 links to alleged copyright infringing material every hour.

The number of notices continues to increase at a rapid pace and at the current rate the search engine will have to process a billion reported links this year alone. This same milestone previously took well over a decade to reach.

The graph below illustrates this sharp rise in takedown notices.

While not all takedown requests are accurate, the majority of the reported links are. As a result many popular pirate sites are now less visible in Google’s search results, since Google downranks sites for which it receives a high number of takedown requests.

In a submission to the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator a few months ago Google stated that the continued removal surge doesn’t influence its takedown speeds.

“We process more takedown notices, and faster, than any other search engine,” the search giant commented.

“We receive notices for a tiny fraction of everything we host and index, which nonetheless amounts to millions of copyright removal requests per week that are processed, on average, in under six hours.”

The company rejects broader actions, such as the removal of entire domain names, as this would prove counterproductive and lead to overbroad censorship.

Copyright holders, however, don’t share these concerns. Over the years groups such as the MPAA and RIAA have repeatedly argued that clearly infringing sites should be barred from Google’s index. In addition, they want Google to promote legal services.

While Google believes that the billion reported URLs 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.

As this stalemate continues, we can expect the number of reported pages to continue to rise in the future, adding millions of new URLs on a daily basis.

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

Last month Kanye West released his latest album The Life of Pablo exclusively on Tidal, triggering a piracy feast.

Millions of fans have grabbed a pirated copy from unauthorized sites and services, including The Pirate Bay. Angered by mass-piracy Kanye West considered taking legal action against the notorious torrent site, but thus far nothing has happened.

Instead, Kanye was caught browsing a Pirate Bay related website earlier this week and from the looks of it he was pirating a prominent piece of music software himself.

In a response, The Pirate Bay team offered their support, in case he ran into technical issues. In addition, they catered to his narcissistic tendencies by promoting the ego-boosting “Kanye Bay” proxy.

“Should Mr. West experience any issues accessing the official domains of the galaxy’s most resilient torrent site, I’d suggest he try this nifty little proxy,” TPB staffer Spud17 tells us.

Kanye Bay….

Aside from the aesthetic improvements, some words of wisdom and a direct link to pirated versions of Kanye’s music, the site acts as a regular Pirate Bay proxy.

TorrentFreak reached out to the operator of the unusual proxy who explained in detail how he came up with the idea.

“The other day, I came up with an equation that explains the way visionaries think as opposed to very calculated people,” Kanye Bay’s operator informs TF.

“If someone asked you, ‘What is 2 and 3?’ most people would say 5. If you put 2 and 3 in front of me, I’m gonna say, ‘Well, 2 plus 3 is 5. 2 times 3 is 6. 2 divided by 3 is this. 3 divided by 2 is that.’ And then come up with an average of all those things..,” he adds.

This visionary thinking eventually led to the creation of The Kanye Bay, which excels at serving torrents, compared to all other Pirate Bay proxies that ever existed.

“That is the thing people marvel at like, ‘That really was not what I was expecting’… Then I made KanyeBay.com and I was like, ‘Yeah. This sh*t is like 50 per cent more influential than any other proxy ever made’,” the operator says.

The Kanye Bay, like TPB, is all about sharing, not stealing. While Kanye West condemned The Pirate Bay earlier, he did not specifically object to people sharing his work.

This would also explain why Kanye West can threaten to sue The Pirate Bay while ‘using’ it at the same time. And rightly so, according to The Kanye Bay operator, who would rather not kill someone.

“I believe that being selfish is vulgar. It’s like cursing. I think the world can be saved through sharing, because what is the most selfish thing someone can do? Kill someone. So, piracy is like the opposite of that.”

“The Bible was copied like a million times and nobody ever got hurt.”

Amen. Even Yeezus would have to agree with that.

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

One of the upsides of drive-in cinemas is that people are free to chat inside their cars and enjoy a movie privately.

Pirates have a big plus as well, as drive-ins make it much easier to record high quality audio. For this reason, camcorded films are often a combination of indoor video and drive-in audio.

Generally speaking it is very hard to spot someone recording an audio stream in his or her car, but a drive-in near Pittsburgh managed to track one down with help from Hollywood.

The man, Brian Ridley, allegedly recorded audio of the movies “Sex Tape,” “Planes: Fire and Rescue,” and “The Purge” during the summer of 2014.

The 38-year-old man was caught after a tip from the MPAA who asked the theater owner to look out for his license plate, and call the local police if he did.

Following a careful investigation Ridley has recently been indicted (pdf), with the Government describing him as part of a larger conspiracy to release pirated movies on the Internet.

From the indictment

According to the indictment “the audio and video files would be sent over the Internet to a conspirator who would sync the audio and video files together,” after which, “the completed audio/video copies would be placed on the Internet for others to download.”

The other members of the conspiracy are not known, but it is likely that they are part of an established release group.

While Ridley supposedly recorded audio for multiple movies, he is only charged with unauthorized copying of the Cameron Diaz movie “Sex Tape.”

“Sex Tape” was not yet released at the time the audio was allegedly recorded. However, a pirated copy eventually appeared online at the end of July, after Ridley was caught.

During the arrest the authorities seized three SanDisk “Sansa” MP3 Recorders. These devices are typically connected to the drive-in’s audio feed, and presumably contained portions of the pirated audio.

According to court records Ridley has been released on bail and will be arraigned later this month. If found guilty, he faces a maximum prison sentence of three years for copyright infringement and five years for the conspiracy charge.

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

After a series of High Court orders obtained since 2012, six of the UK’s major ISPs are required to block access to dozens of the world’s most popular ‘pirate’ sites.

Over the past several years the number of blocked domains has expanded to well over 1,000, with popular torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents being the main targets.

The blocks are somewhat effective, at least in preventing subscribers from accessing the domains directly. However, there are plenty of alternative routes people can use instead, including many reverse proxies.

To remedy the situation the High Court permits copyright holders to expand the blocklists with new domains, provided that they are alternative ways to reach already blocked websites.

This week more than 80 pirate (sub)domains were added, including several proxies for popular torrent sites including The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents, ExtraTorrent and BitSnoop.

More than a dozen of these new additions are subdomains of the proxy portal unblocked.li, which allows UK visitors to bypass the blocking restrictions and visit their favorite pirate sites.

In recent months unblocked.li has gained a steady user-base and it is currently among the 150 most-visited domain names in the UK.

Unblocked.li

Considering the nature of the site, the proxy portal is not going to surrender easily. Indeed, TorrentFreak has learned that the new blockade is seen as only a minor and temporary inconvenience.

“We have several domains ready in case unblocked.li is blocked,” the operator of Unblocked.li says.

“We will launch a new domain once we receive enough complaints of the site not loading or showing blocked. It’s a pretty simple task now since we have automated the migration to new domains with scripts and APIs,” he adds.

At the time of writing the Unblocked site has already switched over to the new unblocked.red domain, and others will likely follow, repeating the same steps in a few months.

And so the whack-a-mole continues, with copyright holders adding new domains to the blocklists, and site owners hopping from domain to domain.

—-

Below is the full list of newly blocked (sub)domains as reported by one of ISPs.

http://1337x.unblocked.li
http://1337x.unblocked2.bz
http://1337x.unblockme.co
http://ahoy.re
http://beemp3.unblocked.li
http://bitsnoop.unblocked.li
http://bittorrent.so
http://emp3world.unblocked.li
http://extratorrent.date
http://extratorrent.unblocked.li
http://extratorrent.unblockme.co
http://fullsongs.science
http://kat.asia
http://kattorrents.co
http://kickass.ac
http://kickass.ag
http://kickass.lv
http://kickass.unblocked.li
http://kickasstorrent.proxy-index.com
http://kickasstorrentsso.com
http://limetorrents.space
http://limtorrents.com
http://mp3bear.tv
http://mp3boo.cc
http://mp3clan.be
http://mp3clan.in
http://mp3clan.media
http://mp3clan.rocks
http://mp3clan.ws
http://mp3skull.ren
http://mp3skull.unblocked.li
http://mp3skull.us
http://mp3skull.yoga
http://newalbumreleases.unblocked.li
http://piratebay.co.in
http://pirateproxy.pw
http://proxy-index.com
http://seedpeer.unblocked.li
http://stafaband.bid
http://stafaband.online
http://stafaband.uk
http://thepairatebay.link
http://thepiratebay.ae
http://thepiratebay.al
http://thepiratebay.bid
http://thepiratebay.rs
http://thepiratebay.tech
http://torlock.unblocked.li
http://torrentbit.unblocked.li
http://torrentdownloads.to
http://torrenthound.site
http://torrenthound.unblocked.li
http://torrentreactor.unblocked.li
http://tpb.immunicity.info
http://ukpirate.org
http://vitorrentz.tv
http://www.bittorrent.so
http://www.extratorrent.date
http://www.fullsongs.science
http://www.kat.asia
http://www.kickass.ac
http://www.kickass.ag
http://www.kickass.lv
http://www.limetorrents.space
http://www.mp3bear.tv
http://www.mp3boo.cc
http://www.mp3skull.ren
http://www.mp3skull.us
http://www.mp3skull.yoga
http://www.stafaband.bid
http://www.stafaband.online
http://www.stafaband.uk
http://www.thepiratebay.ae
http://www.thepiratebay.al
http://www.thepiratebay.bid
http://www.thepiratebay.rs
http://www.thepiratebay.tech
http://www.torrentdownloads.to
http://www.torrenthound.site
http://www.torrentz.futbol
http://www.vitorrentz.tv
http://yatorrents.com

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