Former Pirate Bay spokesman and co-founder Peter Sunde was arrested today in a rural area near Malmö, Sweden.

Sunde was wanted by Interpol for more than two years, ever since the sentence for his role in the Pirate Bay website was made final.

He has been living in Berlin for quite some time, but still had family ties in Sweden, which he visited occasionally.

Earlier today, a special Swedish police unit tasked with tracking down criminal fugitives carried out a raid at a farm in Skåne. Local law enforcement reportedly worked in collaboration with the Polish police.

While details are scarce at the moment, the Swedish newspaper Expressen reports that the arrest has been confirmed by the Swedish authorities.

According to Peter Althin, Sunde’s lawyer, the news means that his client will most likely be sent to prison to serve his 8-month sentence.

Sunde’s prison sentence was made final in 2012 after Sweden’s Supreme Court announced its decision not to grant leave to appeal in the long-running criminal case against the founders of The Pirate Bay.

However, Sunde decided not to give up without a fight. First he submitted his case to the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR), and after that was rejected he tried again at the Swedish Supreme Court this year, which rejected the request earlier this month.

Thus far only Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström has completed their prison sentences. The fourth defendant, Fredrik Neij remains a fugitive and currently resides in Asia.

Interestingly, today’s arrest comes exactly eight years after The Pirate Bay servers were raided, which marked the start of the criminal prosecution of the four people connected to the site.

Despite his fugitive status Sunde has made several public appearances in recent years. He was also involved in various tech-startups, including the micro-donation service Flattr and the NSA-proof messenger app Heml.is, for which he raised more than $150,000 through a crowd-funding campaign.

Sunde also ran for European Parliament last weekend for the Finnish Pirate Party. While he received the most votes of all the Pirate candidates, it was not enough for a seat in Brussels.

More info on the arrest and Sunde’s future is likely to follow in the days to come.

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

Inspired by the local communications power of traditional pirate radio, in 2011 NYU art professor David Darts created the PirateBox. Part WiFi hotspot, part file server, PirateBox provides quick, easy and above all anonymous access to the files onboard.

In 2012 and following a breakthrough update, the cost of creating a PirateBox dropped from a very reasonable $100 to an extremely attractive $50. Anonymous offline file-sharing was now within everyone’s reach.

Since then PirateBox has gathered an extremely enthusiastic following, something which has spurred its developers on. Yesterday PirateBox delivered its v1.0 update and a brand new website so to celebrate the occasion TorrentFreak caught up with creator David Darts.

TF: PirateBox was warmly welcomed by the community in 2012. How has community feedback shaped the PirateBox project since?

DD: The community has had a big impact on the development of PirateBox. When I originally released the project, it was essentially just an offline browser-based file sharing system. My first prototype was basically a proof-of-concept – a light-weight python web server running on a hacked Seagate Dockstar network adapter connected to a pocket wireless router.

Almost immediately after publishing the project online, I started receiving feedback from developers and hackers around the world who were interested in using and contributing to the project. My inbox also started filling up with support requests, which is why I set up the PirateBox Discussion Forum.

While I believe in the Free Open Source ethos of providing tech support for my peers (I’ve been the beneficiary of this support many times), I simply couldn’t handle the volume of requests. Fortunately, the community stepped up and helped out with support (and testing, and development) through the discussion forum.

Many of the key features of the PirateBox, like the chat room and UI, have been co-developed by the community. Matthias Strubel, who is now the project’s lead developer, was one of the community members who reached out and joined the PirateBox team. He has really helped push the project forward.

TF: Has PirateBox been used in any unexpected or innovative ways?

DD: As designers know all too well, their creations are often used in ways they didn’t necessarily intend. The PirateBox is no exception.

It has been used by musicians and bands to distribute their music at festivals and gigs, by teachers to distribute and collect digital materials from students, and by emergency response workers and volunteers to distribute local first aid information and community updates. Conference organizers have used it to distribute conference materials and to provide local wireless commenting during presentations, and it’s been utilized by CryptoParty workshop volunteers to securely share cryptographic keys.

TF: How many users of PirateBox are there today?

DD: Well, we don’t track our users but the project has grown “rhizomatically” across several websites and languages so it’s a little tricky to estimate how many PirateBoxes are out in the wild today.

It is possible, and sometimes preferable, to distribute the PirateBox software locally (and anonymously) using a PirateBox and, because the boxes never go online, it’s impossible to really keep track of them. Generally speaking, this is a good thing.

TF: Technology is always on the move – which developments have most affected today’s PirateBox compared to the one that launched two years ago?

DD: Two big tech trends have helped push PirateBox 1.0 development forward: The proliferation of small screens, which is how we increasingly interact with the network and each other, and the increased availability of tiny, inexpensive computers (including wireless routers, single board systems like the Raspberry Pi and other embedded “Internet of things” devices) which are rapidly filling up our world.

Version 1.0 is thus designed with mobility and low cost hardware in mind. We’ve reworked the UI and based it on Twitter’s Bootstap so that the software plays nicely with small screens. And we’ve built PirateBox 1.0 to run natively on inexpensive hardware.

Another “technology” development that helped increase interest in the PirateBox project was the confirmation through the Snowden leaks last year that the US government was operating near universal mass-surveillance programs around the world, often in partnership or, at least, with the complicit support of several large technology and Internet companies. While this has obviously raised very serious questions and concerns around the world, these revelations have at least helped push important conversations about privacy, surveillance, censorship, freedom, etc. to the forefront. These are all issues that the PirateBox project engages with and thus it has helped inspire new users to join the project.

TF: What is so special about the release of PirateBox 1.0, why should existing users upgrade, and what do new users have to look forward to?

DD: Along with the increased stability of PirateBox 1.0, the key new feature is Matthias Strubel’s “box-installer” which radically simplifies the process of building or upgrading a PirateBox. It is now possible to build a new PirateBox in just a few easy steps.

One of my favorite new features of PirateBox 1.0 is the UPnP media server which starts streaming video and audio files over the network as soon as they’ve been uploaded to the box. I’ve actually been using this feature for awhile. It works perfectly as a backend to XBMC for instance and is also a great way of streaming movies to your mobile devices when traveling.

PirateBox 1.0 also offers a image/message bullet board called Kareha by default which is similar to the software used on 4chan. This means that PirateBox 1.0 offers 4chan in a box functionality, which I think is pretty cool. And of course, it also comes with a chat room and browser-based file sharing system.

TF: What role do you see PirateBox fulfilling in the future and what plans do you have for the next 12 months?

DD: The holy grail of offline networking is wireless mesh and we’ve been experimenting with it in the PirateBox. Matthias has been playing with Forban over the last year and we’ve successfully deployed and connected small sets of PirateBoxes using the B.A.T.M.A.N. protocol. This is really just an experimental feature at this point but it is something we’re planning to keep developing.

I’ve also been experimenting with connecting the PirateBox to the Internet, which, in some ways, is counter to the philosophy of the project as an offline file sharing and communications system.

However, I also think there’s real value in providing people with ways to connect online that help preserve their privacy. This is especially important for those who are less tech-savy and thus may not know how to protect themselves from tracking, etc. While the PirateBox will continue to be an offline file sharing and communications system, we may consider providing an optional feature in the future that allows it to be used online. Or this may become a new fork of the project…..

Interested in making your own PirateBox? Try here.

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

The Pirate Bay has altered its operations quite a bit over the years, moving from a full-fledged BitTorrent tracker to a trimmed-down and highly portable torrent index.

First the tracker was removed, then the torrents followed, and later the infamous torrent site canceled nearly all central servers after moving to the cloud. In addition, the site switched domain names on multiple occasions.

All these changes were carried out to make the site more resilient and less likely to be shut down by the authorities. This determination to escape the long arm of justice is deeply rooted in the site’s history, dating back to the raid eight years ago.

Most of the site’s current users are probably unaware that without a few essential keystrokes in the site’s early years, The Pirate Bay may have not been here today.

May 31, 2006, less than three years after The Pirate Bay was founded, 65 Swedish police officers entered a datacenter in Stockholm. The policemen had instructions to shut down the largest threat to the entertainment industry at the time – The Pirate Bay’s servers.

While the police were about to raid the datacenter, Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid and Fredrik got wind that something was up. In the months before the raid they were already being watched by private investigators day and night, but this time something was about to happen to their trackers.

At around 10am in the morning Gottfrid told Fredrik that there were police officers at their office, and asked him to get down to the co-location facility and get rid of the ‘incriminating evidence’, although none of it, whatever it was, was related to The Pirate Bay.

As Fredrik was leaving, he suddenly realized that the problems might be linked to their tracker. He therefore decided to make a full backup of the site, just in case.

When he later arrived at the co-location facility the concerns turned out to be justified. There were dozens of policemen floating around taking away dozens of servers, most of which belonged to clients unrelated to The Pirate Bay.

In the days that followed it became clear that Fredrik’s decision to start a backup of the site was probably the most pivotal moment in the site’s history. Because of this backup Fredrik and the rest of the Pirate Bay team managed to resurrect the site within three days.

The site’s operators were not impressed and renamed the site “The Police Bay” complete with a new logo shooting cannon balls at Hollywood. A few days later this logo was replaced by a Phoenix, a reference to the site rising from its digital ashes.

Logos after the raid

Instead of shutting it down the raid brought the site into the mainstream press, not least due to its amazing three-day resurrection. All this publicity resulted in a huge traffic spike for TPB, exactly the opposite effect Hollywood had hoped for.

Despite a criminal investigation leading to convictions for the site’s founders, The Pirate Bay kept growing and growing in the years that followed. The site’s assets, meanwhile, had been transferred to the Seychelles-based company Reservella.

Under new ownership several major technical changes occurred. In the fall of 2009 the infamous BitTorrent tracker was taken offline, turning The Pirate Bay into a torrent indexing site.

Early 2012 The Pirate Bay went even further when it decided to cease offering torrent files for well-seeded content. The site’s operators moved to magnet links instead, allowing them to save resources while making it easier for third-party sites to run proxies.

These proxies turned out to be much-needed, as The Pirate Bay is now the most broadly censored website on the Internet. In recent years ISPs in Denmark, Italy, UK, the Netherlands and elsewhere have been ordered by courts to block subscriber access to the BitTorrent site.

On its tenth anniversary last summer the Pirate Bay team released another option for its users to circumvent the increased censorship, the PirateBrowser. With this browser users in blocked countries can bypass ISP blockades without having to use a proxy.

Over the past year The Pirate Bay also encountered some domain name troubles. Fearing a domain seizure through the Swedish court the site moved from its .SE domain to Greenland’s .GL ccTLD. However, TPB wasn’t welcome there, a rejection that signaled the start of a domain hopping exercise via Iceland’s .IS to Sint Maarten’s .SX, to Ascension Island’s .AC, Peru’s .PE, and back via Guyana’s .GY to the good old .SE domain, where it resides again today.

Looking ahead The Pirate Bay plans to become even more indestructible, partially moving away from the web. The TPB team is working on a special BitTorrent-powered application, which lets users store and distribute The Pirate Bay and other websites on their own computers. Instead of bypassing external censors, this new tool will create its own P2P network through which sites can be accessed without restrictions.

This “p2p browser” should be able to keep The Pirate Bay operational, even if the site itself is pulled offline. There is currently no estimated release date set for this second project, but it will take a few more months of development at minimum.

And so The Pirate Bay is expected to live on and on. A few months ago the site turned ten years old and today it’s celebrating the raid anniversary, which it declared “Pirate Independence Day” back in 2008.

“Let today be the pirates independence day! Today we celebrate the victories we’ve had and the victories that will come. Today we celebrate that we’re united in our efforts. Keep on seeding!,” the TPB team said at the time.

The site’s millions of regular visitors indeed kept on seeding. But remember, if there hadn’t been a recent backup back in 2006, things may have turned out quite differently.

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

As the owners of two of the most-used BitTorrent clients on the Internet, BitTorrent Inc. is catering to an audience of close to 200 million regular users.

Needless to say there is plenty of interest in the BitTorrent brand, and in some cases this demand is being exploited by third-party companies. One of the outfits that has operated in this space is the German-based Bittorrent Marketing GMBH.

The company owns the German and European trademark for Bittorrent and has several related domain names such as Bit-Torent.com, Bit-Torrent.com and Bitorrent.net. These domains have been mainly used for advertising, pointing people to paid products.

This has been a thorn in the side for BitTorrent Inc. who launched a lawsuit against its German nemesis two years ago. Since the German company and its owner Harald Hochmann failed to respond in court, BitTorrent is moving for a default judgment. In a filing submitted this week they demand $5.8 million in damages.

“BitTorrent filed this action to put an end to Defendant’s use of BitTorrent’s trademarks to promote what Defendant touts as an ‘advertising affiliate program’ used to ‘post ads and earn commissions..’,” the company explains.

According to the complaint the sites don’t link people to the free software, but to sites where people have to pay for a mere redirection to third-party services.

“For example, after paying over $50 to sign up for ultimate-downloadscenter.com, U.S. users are redirected to third-party websites of other digital media providers, like Netflix.com and Hulu.com, and invited to sign up for membership with those services.”

These “scams” are a problem for BitTorrent Inc. as they reflect negatively on the company’s brand. However, there is another issue with the domains. Since the German company owns a lot of domains based on misspellings, they occasionally get emails that are intended for the U.S. company.

“Hochmann admitted that his company registered many misspellings of BITTORRENT as or as part of domain names, and that, as a result of registering these domain names, he was able to intercept internal emails of BitTorrent when employees and executives of BitTorrent misspelled “bittorrent” in typing the domain name,” the company explains in its motion.

Among other emails, the owner of Bittorrent Marketing GMBH obtained internal financial projections from early 2008. Based on this intercepted communication Hochmann allegedly suggested that BitTorrent Inc. should buy the German company for millions of dollars.

Through the U.S. federal court BitTorrent Inc. now hopes to obtain an injunction against its German namesake. In their motion for summary judgment they demand a total of $5.8 million in damages and in addition BitTorrent Inc. wants ownership of all the BitTorrent related domain names.

“BitTorrent requests an award of statutory damages in the amount of $100,000 per domain name for each of the 58 Infringing Domain Names identified in the accompanying memorandum of points and authorities, for a total statutory damages award of $5,800,000.”

Interestingly, while Hochmann and his company failed to respond to the complaint in court, he did release a long statement and supporting documents which are available via the Bittorrent.eu domain.

In the statement Hochmann details his version of the dispute, which started more than a decade ago. Among other things, he disputes that he offered BitTorrent Inc. the opportunity to buy his company for millions, and he points to domain disputes his company won in the past against BitTorrent Inc.

Talking to TorrentFreak, Hochmann said that in a week or two he will issue a more detailed response explaining why not he, but BitTorrent Inc. are the “scammers.”

For the U.S. case this may be too late, due to the lack of response in the past it’s likely that the default judgment will be entered. It’s now up to the judge to decide what the exact punishment should be.

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

Mike Weatherley, a Conservative MP and Intellectual Property Adviser to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, has become increasingly involved in the online piracy debate in recent months.

Weatherley’s current focus is on the role search engines can play in reducing infringement. In contrast to the approach taken by the entertainment industries, the MP has taken a much more positive stance when speaking of Google’s efforts thus far. In a new report, however, Weatherley lays out often far-reaching recommendations that puts him almost completely in sync with industry demands.

The report, which Weatherley says is intended to stimulate debate, begins with praise for Google for “engaging positively” during its creation. Its recommendations are directed at all search engines, but as the market leader Google is called on to show leadership. Where Google goes, others will follow, Weatherley believes.

Search results – demoting illegal sites

The music and movie industries have long complained that illegal content is too easy to find and for a long time they’ve been putting Google under pressure to do something about that. Weatherley believes that by working with two existing sources of information – Google’s Transparency Report and the recently formed Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit’s infringing site “blacklist” – Google has a ready formula at hand.

The BPI’s input suggests that when a search engine has received 10,000 infringement notices for a site, that site should no longer appear on the first page of search results. Any that receive 100,000 notices should no longer appear in the first 10 pages. However, it’s envisioned that “certificates” could be handed out to some sites to help them avoid being relegated – more on that later.

Voluntarily complying with site-blocking court orders

In the UK around 30 ‘pirate’ sites are now blocked via the UK’s major ISPs after both the BPI and MPA went to court to obtain injunctions. While these injunctions only legally apply to their formal targets (the ISPs), in future Weatherley would like Google to acknowledge the existence of injunctions by immediately removing the affected sites from all search results. The MP acknowledges that this may require a change in the law.

Accepting takedown notices for AutoComplete terms

For some time Google has been accepting applications from rightsholders to remove “infringing” terms from its AutoComplete service. Weatherley now wants to see this process formalized.

“Given that Google has accepted that Autocomplete for pirate sites should not occur, it seems uncontroversial to recommend that steps are taken to continue to ensure this does not happen,” he writes.

AutoComplete takedown notices should be included in Google’s Transparency Report, the MP says.

Incorporating “Trust Marks” and “Warnings” to inform consumers

The idea here is that somehow Google will consider the reputation of a site when formulating its algorithms and when it presents its search results. “Trust Marks” would be used to denote a legal and licensed resource while “Warnings” would be used to highlight an illegal site.

The exact process through which a site could become trusted is unclear, but suggestions from the BPI indicate that a “certificate” could be obtained from its own Music Matters project to indicate that a resource is “clean”. Similar certificates could be obtained by sites that receive a lot of takedown notices but operate legally (YouTube for example) so that they are whitelisted by Google and not downgraded in search results.

In terms of warning against unlicensed sites, rightsholders suggest that Google takes note of PIPCU’s “pirate” site blacklist by either negatively marking affected sites in search results or removing them completely.

Referencing a TorrentFreak article published last month reporting how Google had signaled that Demonoid was a potentially dangerous site, Weatherley said Google can do more to protect consumers.

“Google has not only proven in relation to malware on certain torrent sites that it has the technical capability within its systems to deliver consumer messaging in search listings, but that such messages can be an effective deterrent to consumers,” the MP explains.

Licensed services should do more to help themselves in search results

While the music and movie industries complain endlessly about “pirate” results appearing above their own licensed content, not much time is given to explaining why that’s the case. Weatherley reveals that Google has made a request for movie and music streaming services behind a paywall to allow Google to crawl their sites in order for consumers to be able to see them in results. For some services, apparently that’s not currently allowed.

“Google maintains that it is perfectly possible to create crawlable pages for each movie or album title in a security-friendly way. I am told by rights holders that there are potential security issues around making licensed services crawlable and they have concerns with this proposal,” Weatherley notes.

Conclusion

While Weatherley is currently praising Google in order to keep the tone positive and the discussion flowing, the IP advisor clearly believes that the search engine is capable of assisting rightsholders much more but is failing to do so.

The MP’s report has no official standing in respect of government policy but it addresses most if not all of the movie and music industries’ main problems with Google. Expect this document to become a point of reference in the months to come.

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