After 20 months of downtime the infamous Demonoid BitTorrent tracker came back online earlier this year.

The site slowly started to rebuild its community and is now getting millions of visitors per month again. At the same time, however, the torrent site is also drawing attention from various copyright holders.

On behalf of Sony, Warner and Universal, Italian anti-piracy group FIMI submitted a complaint against Demonoid to the Communications Regulatory Authority (AGCOM) last month. AGCOM is a regulatory body that has the power to order website blockades without court interference, if sites are deemed to be infringing.

The labels’ complaint listed several tracks by Italian artists including Laura Pausini, Max Pezzali and Vasco Rossi, which were made available on Demonoid. However, instead of ordering blockades for these infringing works, AGCOM has now instructed ISPs to block the entire website.

As a result, Italian Internet subscribers can no longer access Demonoid.

TorrentFreak contacted Fulvio Sarzana, a lawyer specialized in Internet and copyright disputes, who told us that the scope of the preliminary injunction is too broad and disproportional.

“The order, in my opinion, is not proportional. The Court of Rome repeatedly ruled that blocking orders must be directed only at illegal content, and not the whole site,” Sarzana says.

The lawyer refers to a ruling earlier this year, where the Court of Rome recalled a blocking order against the video streaming site Filmakerz.org. The Court argued that partial blocking of a specific URL is preferred over site-wide bans, something that clearly didn’t happen with Demonoid.

“Demonoid would do well to contest the measure which appears to be illegitimate,” Sarzana notes, adding that the AGCOM procedures may be unconstitutional.

This issue has also been raised by several consumer groups who asked the court to review AGCOM’s legitimacy. Earlier this week the Court of Rome referred these complaints to the Constitutional Court. Here it will be examined whether the current procedure violates right to freedom of expression and free speech, among other things.

If AGCOM is indeed deemed to be unconstitutional there’s a good chance that all existing blockades will be lifted. In addition, Sarzana believes that the wrongfully blocked websites may then be entitled to receive compensation for the damages they suffered.

However, until a decision from the Constitutional Court arrives AGCOM will continue to operate normally. FIMI is happy with this decision as well as the new blockades against Demonoid.

“We are extremely satisfied with this new blocking order and also about the outcome of the decision from the administrative Court of Rome on the regulation,” FIMI’s Enzo Mazza tells TorrentFreak.

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

Kino.to, at the time one of the world’s largest illegal streaming portals, was shut down in 2011 as part of Europe’s largest ever action against piracy sites.

However, just a month before Kino.to was dismantled, Austrian ISP ‘UPC’ was served with a preliminary injunction ordering it to block subscriber access to the site. The order had been obtained by the Hollywood-affiliated anti-piracy group VAP but it was called into doubt by the ISP. This led to the Austrian Supreme Court referring the matter to the European Court of Justice.

Earlier this year the ECJ handed down its widely publicized decision which stated that yes, in reasonable circumstances, pirate sites can indeed be blocked by European ISPs.

On the back of this ruling, VAP subsequently wrote to several local ISPs (UPC, 3, Tele2 and A1) demanding blockades of Movie4K.to and Kinox.to, a site that took over from Kino.to. This would become the test case on which all future blockades would be built.

When this formal request for the ISPs to block the sites was rejected, in August VAP sued the providers. And now, after more than three years of wrangling, VAP have finally got their way.

In a ruling handed down yesterday by the Commercial Court of Vienna, UPC, 3, Tele2 and A1 were ordered to block Movie4K and Kinox with immediate effect. According to Der Standard, UPC and A1 placed blocks on the sites within hours, with 3 and Tele2 expected to comply with the injunction today.

But while another important hurdle has now been overcome, there is some way to go before VAP will have achieved everything they initially set out to do. At issue now is how far the ISPs will have to go in order to comply with the court order. It’s understood that VAP requires DNS and IP address blocking at a minimum, but whether the ISPs intend to comply with that standard remains to be seen.

It’s important for VAP, and other anti-piracy groups waiting in the wings, that these technical steps are workable going forward. Both VAP and the IFPI have lists of sites they would like blocked in the same way as Movie4K and Kinox have been, so it’s crucial to them that blockades aren’t easily circumvented.

Once this issue has been dealt with, in the next few months it’s likely that attention will turn to legal action being planned by the IFPI. The recording group has taken on the task of having torrent sites blocked in Austria, starting off with The Pirate Bay, isoHunt.to, 1337x.to and H33t.to.

IFPI is expected to sue several ISPs in the hope that local courts will treat torrent sites in the same way as they have streaming services. Once that’s been achieved – and at this stage it seems likely – expect long lists of additional domains to be submitted to the courts.

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

In the hope of steering prospective customers away from pirate sites, copyright holders are overloading Google with DMCA takedown notices.

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 a million per day on average.

Adding up the numbers reported in Google’s Transparency Report, we found that since the release of the report three years ago Google has been asked to remove over 500 million links to allegedly infringing webpages.

The number of notices continues to increase at a rapid pace as nearly half of the requests, 240 million, were submitted during the first months of 2014. The graph below illustrates this sharp rise in takedown notices.

Most of the reported webpages have indeed been removed and no longer appear in Google’s search results. As an example, more than two million Pirate Bay pages have quietly been wiped from Google.

TorrentFreak asked Google for a comment on the most recent milestone but the company has chosen not to respond on the record.

Despite the frequent use of the takedown process many copyright holders aren’t happy with the way things are going. While Google does its best to comply with its obligations under current law, some industry insiders claim that the search giant can and should do more to tackle the piracy problem.

The UK music industry group BPI, which is responsible for roughly 20% of all submitted URLs, points out that Google should do more to lower the visibility of unauthorized content in its search results. Despite promises to do so, the music group still sees very little improvement on this front

“Despite its clear knowledge as to which sites are engines of piracy, Google continues to help build their illegal businesses, by giving them a prominent ranking in search results,” BPI told us last week.

“Google can simply fix this problem by amending its algorithm. We hope they will respond positively to the invitation from Government to negotiate voluntary measures to do so.”

The BPI and other copyright holders are pushing for some sort of agreement to implement more far-reaching anti-piracy measures. However, thus far Google maintains that it’s already doing its best to address the concerns of copyright holders.

Last year the company released a report detailing the various anti-piracy measures it uses. However, the company also stressed that copyright holders can do more to prevent piracy themselves.

Without legal options it’s hard to beat unauthorized copying, is the argument Google often repeats.

“Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply. As services ranging from Netflix to Spotify to iTunes have demonstrated, the best way to combat piracy is with better and more convenient legitimate services,” the company previously explained.

“The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.”

While this standoff continues, copyright holders are expected to increase the volume of requests. At the current pace Google may have processed a billion URLs by the end of next year.

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

On January 20, 2014, Kim Dotcom celebrated the two-year anniversary of the raid on his New Zealand mansion by releasing his brand new album ‘Good Times’.

In addition to being the first Dotcom collection distributed commercially, the album was also notable for soft-launching Baboom. The fledging music service was to provide the platform for the entrepreneur’s assault on the major label-controlled recording business.

From the beginning Baboom’s stated aim was to disrupt the music industry by closing the gap between artists and fans, rewarding the former with most of the profits. The latter would be put in a win-win situation via free ad-supported music streaming.

The one constant that remained throughout was Kim Dotcom himself, a person with whom the service was inextricably linked, both financially and from branding and marketing perspectives. Today, however, that has all come to an end.

According to a new Particulars of Shareholding document filed this morning, Coatesville Trustee Services Limited – Dotcom’s family trust – has sold all of its shares in Baboom.

Before the sale Michael Sorensen’s Vig Limited, which also holds 13044 shares (9.97%) in Mega.co.nz, held 45% of Baboom’s shares. Company documents reveal that Vig now owns 90% after Dotcom’s family trust shares were transferred to the company.

The new Baboom shareholding

As can be seen above, the remaining 10% is held by Xavier Buck of Dicé Invest. In November 2013, Buck, who is also a director at Domaintools, said he would be heading up MEGA Europe.

Perhaps the most curious element of Dotcom’s exit from the business is the language being used by Baboom chief executive Grant Edmundson. While he wishes the Baboom founder well, a single sentence distances Dotcom from the company in every possible way.

“The transaction means Dotcom no longer has any equity or role in Baboom, nor any relationship with the company,” Edmundson said.

“Kim is moving on to focus on other projects and both camps wish each other well with future plans.”

TorrentFreak spoke with Edmundson and asked if Dotcom’s exit from the company had been his choice alone, Baboom’s, or by mutual agreement. He told us that he would not comment on matters between shareholders. However, when questioned on whether Baboom’s brand would be affected by the departure of its founder, Edmundson was more forthcoming.

“In terms of the impact on Baboom, my view is that the Baboom service will now be able to be judged on its own merits rather than being assessed on the brand equity (or otherwise) of its shareholder base,” the Baboom CEO said.

Kim Dotcom did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Baboom is currently trying to raise US$3.98m (NZ$5.05m) and a listing on the Australian Securities Exchange. The company sought to raise the funds from investors in return for 11.5% of its shares with the offer closing in July, but that deadline was amended to make it open-ended.

Baboom is scheduled to debut in the fourth quarter of 2014, although no firm launch date has been provided by the company.

Update: Kim Dotcom has taken to Twitter:

Good bye @Baboom. I was holding u back. The music industry hates me. You'll do better without me. Good luck my love. http://t.co/eByCsUizmR

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) October 2, 2014

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">

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

Since 2012, The Pirate Bay has been periodically donating its front page to artists looking to increase their profile and reach out to new fans.

The initiative, known as The Promo Bay, attracted 10,000 applications in a matter of months, and has exposed dozens of artists to hundreds of millions of views, at zero cost to them.

Many bands have been featured to date, but the group currently featured on the front page could be one of the best ‘fits’ to date.

Dubioza Kolektiv are an already successful band that have been selling records and playing festivals all around Europe for the past 11 years. Their views on the music industry are a great match for The Pirate Bay.

“We live in a fast changing world and the music industry is really struggling to maintain the monopolistic role they’ve enjoyed for decades,” Dubioza bass player Vedran Mujagić told TorrentFreak.

“They perceive this freedom of expression and ability to share culture and knowledge in the digital age as a major threat to their profits and they employ really ugly methods in trying to suppress these practices.”

The seven piece group, who hail from Bosnia and Herzegovina and promote their style as a fusion of hip-hop, reggae, dub and rock, are currently front and center on The Promo Bay with a track from their new EP, and things are working out perfectly.

“We sent the video of our song ‘No Escape (from Balkans)’ and our new EP ‘Happy Machine’ to Pirate Bay and now the video has been on the TPB homepage for a little more than 48 hours. It resulted in big traffic and more than 200,000 views of our video on YouTube – and it keeps growing,” Vedran reveals.

“This was really great because the song and Dubioza Kolektiv got exposed to people who would otherwise might never have heard of the band – from Siberia to South Africa. Reactions and comments have been really positive so far.”

But while ‘No Escape‘ has captured the big views so far, the second track from the EP has been flying under the radar. It’s an infectious ska-influenced romp that was written with the jailed founders of The Pirate Bay in mind.

“Free.mp3 (The Pirate Bay Song) is dedicated to founders of thepiratebay.org website,” the band reveals. “Gottfrid Svartholm Warg a.k.a. Anakata and who is currently being held in solitary confinement and is facing six-year prison sentence in Denmark and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi a.k.a. brokep who is incarcerated in Sweden.”

The track, which is upbeat, cheerful and extremely catchy, begins with a couple of BitTorrent terms and recounts how file-sharing scares the music industry.

Lines including ‘We don’t give a shit about a copyright law we take it from the rich and give it to the poor’ give way to Games of Thrones downloads and name checks for Kim Dotcom, Barack Obama and Wikileaks.

“We admire enthusiasts like people from The Pirate Bay, people like Edward Snowden, people from Wikileaks – who are fighting big corporations and governments – not for profit but because they believe in these ideals, even at the price of their own personal freedoms. It is always inspiring to see people who are finding the way to outsmart the system,” Vedran says.

Dubioza say they aim to deliver positivity “that hits you like a blast of fresh air” and they’ve certainly hit the mark with their attitudes towards file-sharing. Both the new EP and their entire discography have been uploaded in their name on the The Pirate Bay in the past few days and are mirrored on sites including KickassTorrents.

Those enjoying the style and the band’s ethos can join them on tour for the rest of the month.

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