Category: Uncategorised

When it comes to enforcement of intellectual property rights, Brazil isn’t exactly a world leader. The country has long been criticized for its lack of progress in this area and has regularly found itself targeted by complaining authorities in the United States.

In 2009, former President Lula was even photographed cozying up to none other than The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde. But six years later and it appears that the tides have changed.

Yesterday Federal Police in Brazil launched Operation Blackbeard, a coordinated action to take down MegaFilmesHD.net, Latin America’s most popular pirate site.

Launched in 2010 and mainly serving the Portuguese-speaking market, MegaFilmesHD has grown to become one of Brazil’s most popular sites, with a reported 60 million visits per month.

Following a two month investigation, police executed 14 search warrants targeted at the alleged operators of the popular streaming portal.

A man and a woman believed to be a couple were arrested at their home on suspicion of copyright offenses. Four cars, two of them reportedly luxury (local media showed a $US58,000 Porsche SUV), were seized along with around US$5,300 in cash.

Police also questioned five alleged admins of the site and blocked seven bank accounts believed to be used for money laundering. Along with the site’s owners the admins will be indicted for running a criminal operation. Police say they face between three and eight years in prison on that count plus two to four years for copyright infringement offenses, plus fines.

Like many similar operations of its type, Mega Filmes HD listed thousands of movies and linked to files hosted on third-party cyberlocker-style sites. According to police the site generated around US$18,500 per month from advertising. Tests carried out by TF last evening revealed aggressive techniques, with most clicks resulting in the appearance of some kind of ad.

While it’s clear that the owners of Mega Filmes HD are now in serious trouble, the lawyer for the couple says that their arrest came as a complete surprise. Apparently one of his clients originally ran the business from Asia and expected no problems in Brazil.

“My client came from Japan and there the practice is common. He never imagined he would be arrested,” the lawyer told Globo.

Interestingly (although perhaps not surprisingly) figures reported by Brazilian police concerning Mega Filmes HD largely tie up with ones cited in a report the MPAA filed last month with the United States Representative.

“Megafilmeshd.net is a popular streaming linking site that currently offers more than 150,000 links to more than 6,000 illegally reproduced national and international titles including films, television series, and concerts,” the MPAA reported.

Also of interest is the current status of the site. Although its operators were arrested yesterday morning, until just a few hours ago Megafilmeshd.net remained operational. Currently the site is offline but that appears to be due to a massive influx of traffic following news of the raid.

Possibly complicating a shutdown is that MegaFilmesHD was only partially operated from Brazil. According to the MPAA the site had connections in both Poland and Bulgaria. Nevertheless, if it stays down the impact will be felt most locally. Police says that 85% of the site’s visitors were from Brazil, with an impressive 4.5 million followers on social media.

But despite the existence of MegaFilmesHD and a reported 41% of citizens downloading illegally from the Internet, legal services are thriving in Brazil. The country is now the fourth-largest market for Netflix behind the US, Canada and the United Kingdom, with Netflix chief Reed Hastings describing the country as a “rocket ship” for his company.

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

Dichter Urwald und eine riesige Dino-Mama: Crytek hat seine VR-Demo Back to Dinosaur Island veröffentlicht, die für das Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 gedacht ist. Die Hardwareanforderungen sind allerdings hoch. (Crytek, Steam)

Zusehen, wie ein Planet entsteht: Astronomen haben erstmals das Wachstum eines entfernten Planeten beobachtet. Sie konnten sehen, wie er Material aus seiner Umgebung aufnimmt. (Exoplanet, Wissenschaft)

Die Entwickler des Messengers Telegram haben nach eigenen Angaben 78 Kommunikationskanäle der Terrorgruppe IS geblockt. Zuvor war das Unternehmen kritisiert worden. (Telegram, Internet)

Seit ein paar Tagen werden Bestellungen von Amazon auf Wunsch am gleichen Tag zugestellt, nun ziehen Media Markt und Saturn nach: Fast bundesweit sollen online bestellte Waren innerhalb von drei Stunden geliefert werden. (Media Markt, Onlineshop)

Endlich gibt es mit dem Steam Controller auch für Linux ein offiziell vom Hersteller unterstütztes Gamepad. Die aktuellen Möglichkeiten damit sind aber enttäuschend. Ein Blick auf die Linux-Technik des Gamepads liefert dafür schnell Erklärungen. Diese lassen aber auch hoffen für die Zukunft. (Steam Machine, Eingabegerät)

Viele Kickstarter-Projekte liefern später als geplant, aber Unterstützer der Drohne Zano haben jetzt das Nachsehen, obwohl sie dem Unternehmen Torquing Group insgesamt 3,3 Millionen Euro zur Verfügung gestellt haben. Das Geld ist weg. (Drohne, Technologie)

Die Roboterkatze von Hasbro ist für Senioren gedacht, die sich nicht um ein lebendes Haustier kümmern können oder wollen. Das Spielzeug bewegt sich, wacht auf und schläft ein, reagiert auf Kraulen und gibt Töne von sich. (Roboter, PC-Hardware)

Ein Roboterset mit einer wortwörtlich hölzernen IDE richtet sich an Kinder im Alter von 3 bis 7 Jahren. Weder ein Computer noch Lese- und Schreibkenntnisse sind zum Programmieren erforderlich. (Arduino, Roboter)

A new report (link) from The Internet Foundation In Sweden has found that pirates are more likely to pay for content than non-filesharers. The report also finds that legal streaming services are successfully converting pirates to paying customers.

The report, titled "Swedes and the Internet", found that only 18 percent of respondents now admit they engage in illegal file sharing, a figure that has been falling since 2011 and at its lowest in a decade.

That is not to say Swedes don't enjoy viewing content online. 70% of Internet users in the country say they watch video content online, up from 52% only a year ago. 40% of these same users also say they pay for content, incredibly up from only 14% only a year ago.

The dramatic increase can very likely be attributed to the increasing popularity of Netflix, which is now used by 28% of the Swedish population.

A similar trend can be observed in regards to music, with 77% using the Internet to enjoy music, and 54% of these users paying to do so. As a comparison, only 15% of Internet music listeners paid for music in 2011. And just like with online videos, one major player, in this case Spotify, was largely responsible for this shift in user behavior.

And most interestingly, the data from The Internet Foundation once again confirms that pirates are generally more active music/movie/TV fans, and therefore more likely to pay for content. 46% of video filesharers (58% for music) pay for content, compared to only 24% of non-filesharers (39% for music).