The Pirate Bay is one of the most popular sites on the Internet and has inspired the creation of many copycat sites, many of which play on Pirate Bay’s imagery, branding, name, or a combination of all three.

While some sites make it obvious that they’re paying homage to the infamous torrent site, others have malicious or financial motives in mind. As a result there are plenty of domains out there looking to capitalize on users’ naivety or simple inability to spell.

Ironically, while many official Pirate Bay domains are blocked in countries around Europe, these unofficial and often fake variants are allowed to continue business as usual. Occasionally, however, the authorities step in.

One such instance involves ThePirateBay.dk, a domain whose most recent registration occurred in August 2010. The domain was owned by a James McAvoy of Bristol, UK, who appears to be a prolific purchaser of domains, as illustrated below.

Over in Denmark, where The Pirate Bay has been blocked since 2008, a Danish student had been eyeing the domain. He felt he had a good chance of wrestling it from McAvoy’s control due to the Brit’s failure to adhere to Denmark’s domain name rules.

In his complaint the student told the Complaints Board for Domain Names that he doubted that the contact listed in the WHOIS was a “genuine or real registrant” and criticized the same person’s registration of many “typosquatter” domains (such as youtupe.dk) which are deliberately linked to “advertising traps”.

With Denmark’s Domain Names Act noting that “a domain name which typosquats another domain name may be suspended and subsequently blocked or deleted”, the student’s complaint appeared valid.

Next, the student complained that ThePirateBay.dk had been put up for sale. The Domain Names Act expressly forbids a registrant to “reserve, register and maintain registrations of domain names solely for the purpose of selling or renting to other parties.”

In contrast to the owner of ThePirateBay.dk who had no valid use for the domain, the student presented an argument to the domains board that he did.

“I want to use thepiratebay.dk to protest against Danish web censorship in the form of
the blockade of the address thepiratebay.org imposed on the Danish internet providers,” the student wrote.

“I want to create a support page for The Pirate Bay where I criticize the decision and show my support for the blocked page. I am a student, not a trader, and I act as an individual in what I would call a protest against the imposed blockade.”

The complaints board weighed the arguments and in a decision published a few days ago, agreed with the student’s position and upheld his complaint.

“The Board finds that there is hereby created a strong presumption that the purpose of the defendant’s registration of the domain name ‘thepiratebay.dk’ [..] was to gain financially by its reassignment. The Respondent, who has not replied to the Complaints Board’s [attempts at contact] , did not contradict that presumption.”

All things considered it was concluded that James McAvoy’s registration of the domain should be canceled and ThePirateBay.dk should be transfered to the the student by June 13, 2014.

Exactly what form the student’s protest will take using his newly obtained domain remains unknown, but it’s nevertheless interesting that the right to protest against a website blockade of the world’s most infamous torrent site trumps making ad money from a similar looking domain.

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

This week citizens across Europe will vote for who should represent them in the European Parliament, and in more than a dozen countries local Pirate Party members are present at the ballots.

During the last elections five years ago the Pirate Party surprised friend and foe by gaining two seats at the European Parliament. This year it is hoped that this success will be equaled or improved upon, a realistic aim according to current polls.

To increase the chance of a good result the Pirate parties have been on the campaign trail over the past few weeks. Today, these efforts are increasing thanks to a secret weapon no other party has access to: The Pirate Bay.

The Pirate parties struck a deal with the notorious torrent site which is now displaying localized banners in ten countries. The banners are featured on TPB’s homepage and replace the site’s iconic logo. This is in addition to a general Pirate Party banner that had been up and running for a few days already.

The prominent placement guarantees hundreds of thousands of eyeballs per day, some of which may end up in the voting booth. Rick Falkvinge, founder of the first Pirate Party, is delighted with the “pirate” partnership.

“I’m very happy that our brothers in arms are providing this great exposure to the political arm of the movement”, Falkvinge tells TorrentFreak.

“Most offline-born politicians wouldn’t realize that this exposure roughly equals buying the whole cover of every single newspaper in Europe, every day for the whole duration of the campaign.”

As in previous elections, the Pirate parties are calling for more transparency, better privacy protections, and decriminalization of file-sharing for personal use. The latter is of course a good match with TPB’s core philosophy.

And there’s another Pirate Bay connection in this year’s election race. In Finland, TPB co-founder and former site spokesman Peter Sunde is one of the candidates. Sunde is also calling for changes to current copyright laws.

“Non-commercial file sharing should of course become legal and protected, and we must re-think copyright all together. Copyright is not the thing that makes ARTISTS money, it’s only for their brokers and distributors,” Sunde told us previously.

While a few Pirates in Parliament might not get this done without help, the track record of the current Pirate MEPs, Christian Engström and Amelia Andersdotter, shows that a difference can be made.

Below are the banners for all the Pirate parties that are currently being promoted through The Pirate Bay in their respective countries. In a few days we will know whether the Pirates can continue their presence in the European Parliament and with how many.

UK

Germany

France

Sweden

The Netherlands

Finland

Czech Republic

Belgium

Greece

Spain

Luxembourg

Slovenia

Poland

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

The polarizing nature and scale of the SOPA debate two years ago left the legislation in tatters and Hollywood in particular scrambling to repair relationships with technology companies that should’ve been their partners. With all chances of new legislation off the table, a new strategy began to form.

Hollywood and the record labels set out to achieve their aims not be force, but by cooperation. Deals, such as the six-strikes scheme and efforts at strangling the advertising finances of ‘pirate’ sites, have proven relatively easy to reach and are even gaining approval from former SOPA rivals.

Online gaming giant Zynga, the outfit behind games including Farmville, ZyngaPoker and Mafia Wars, came out in 2012 as a SOPA opponent due to concerns that it could “freeze innovation” and damage the Internet. But now the company is joining its former pro-SOPA adversaries in championing voluntary anti-piracy initiatives.

Working together is easier than dealing with Congress

In an interview preceding his appearance at the Anti-Piracy & Content Protection Summit this June, Ted Hasse, Corporate Counsel IP at Zynga, has underlined the importance of a cooperative approach to dealing with piracy.

“[Cooperation] seems to be the best avenue for the greatest results on the largest
scale in the near term. In the last year, voluntary agreements for best practices have been hot with major activity among all industry-leading ISPs, payment processors, and ad networks,” Hasse explains.

“Legislation is slow. Voluntary agreements happen much faster.”

As an example of how stakeholders can work together, Hasse cites work by the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force on how best to handle the millions of DMCA notices being issued everyday. With legislation off the table, working both cooperatively and voluntarily is the sole solution.

“The only path for DMCA reform in 2014 is through a process like this since nothing could make it through Congress,” he notes.

Hitting torrent and file-hosting sites, no laws required

Hasse says that while torrent and file-hosting sites still represent today’s biggest anti-piracy challenge, voluntary agreements are beginning to make their mark.

“Legitimate ad networks and payment processors are cutting off the money streams for pirate sites through voluntary commitment to the IAB’s best practices for combating piracy and the IACC Payment Processor Initiative, and it didn’t take a new laws, law enforcement or litigation,” the counsel says.

However, while “legitimate” advertisers can indeed be leaned on, less scrupulous companies are willing to take up the slack. These can generate decent revenues too, as Zynga knows only too well – in 2009 the company admitted making millions from scammy advertising, something pirate sites are being accused of today.

Turning a blind eye to infringement has its consequences

Citing the 2013 cases against both isoHunt and Hotfile, Hasse says that while turning a blind eye to infringement might lead to sites enjoying good growth, there comes a time when they have to account for their behavior.

“When a platform is willing to accommodate the infringing activity they get big and it eventually becomes too hard to avoid having to defend their practices in the
light of day,” Hasse says.

“And when that happens these platforms are not coming out on top, their practices have to change or their entire services are being disrupted, and I’m not convinced it’s that easy for would-be infringers to just move on to the next place to find pirated content.”

Getting harder to find infringing content

It’s a controversial assertion, but Hasse believes that it’s actually getting harder for people to find pirated content online.

“While years ago I think many or most people could easily find pirated content on the Internet, today I suspect many users don’t know where to find exactly what they want conveniently, so when a major site shutters or changes its practices to disallow infringing activity, many users are actually downloading less pirated content or stop altogether rather than finding a new channel,” he concludes.

Old rivals finding common ground

Two years ago rivals on both side of the SOPA debate could not have been further apart, yet now there appears to be growing consensus between stakeholders on how to achieve the same kinds of goals without causing anywhere near as much offense. As a result, also absent are many of the outrageous headlines that accompanied the often hyper-aggressive actions of Hollywood and the record labels.

Doing anti-piracy work this way, quietly, means there is far less opposition and much less controversy. And by having voluntary agreements in place that don’t involve breaking the Internet, the public (and potential dissent) is effectively taken out of the equation.

Photo: Flazingo Photos

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

One of the rising anti-piracy complaints of entertainment industry companies is how so-called ‘pirate’ sites are funded by advertising, both from legitimate and illegitimate advertisers.

Last month, for example, a report backed by the entertainment industries claimed that 90 percent of the top pirate sites link to malware or other unwanted software. In addition, two-thirds of the websites were said to link to credit card scams.

Helped by these numbers, copyright holders and anti-piracy groups are now framing torrent sites, streaming hubs and cyberlockers as a cyber threat. This presents them with a new angle to urge lawmakers to target these sites and services.

Last week the Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations organized a hearing on the “hidden hazards” of online adverting. For the MPAA, this offered an ideal opportunity to chime in with their piracy angle.

“As the Senators consider steps to address the safety and security of online advertisements, we hope they will also examine the extensive growth of these hazards on sites that offer infringing movies, television shows and other creative content,” MPAA writes.

The MPAA notes that several recent reports pointed out how these pirate sites are rife with malicious ads and urges lawmakers to take steps to address the issue. Not for Hollywood’s financial benefit, but to protect Americans from malware and scams.

“As the Subcommittee considers steps to address the safety and security of online advertisements, we urge the members to examine these reports and others which detail the numerous hazards on pirate sites,” MPAA notes.

“Unfortunately, these illicit sites continue to attract large numbers of Americans, especially young people who might not be aware of the harms they could easily encounter,” they add.

So there we have it. The MPAA, who are generally speaking not too concerned about the well-being of people who “steal” their work, are now asking Senators to take them under their protection. Apparently, the MPAA don’t want pirates to catch viruses or run into credit card scams.

A humbly presented goal, but of course it’s just another obfuscated attempt to disconnect ‘pirate’ sites from their revenue streams. Considering the recent push against advertising networks, including the London Police pirate site blacklist, this won’t be the last we’ve heard of this.

Photo: Michael Theis

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

This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

RoboCop is the most downloaded movie for the third week in a row.

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	(1)	RoboCop	6.5 / trailer
2	(3)	Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit	6.3 / trailer
3	(5)	3 Days To kill	6.2 / trailer
4	(…)	Tarzan	4.6 / trailer
5	(4)	Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Cam/TS)	8.3 / trailer
6	(2)	The Monuments Men	6.2 / trailer
7	(8)	That Awkward Moment	6.2 / trailer
8	(7)	The Lego Movie	8.2 / trailer
9	(…)	Winter’s Tale	6.2 / trailer
10	(9)	Rio 2 (HDTS)	6.8 / trailer

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