On the occasion of its 10th anniversary last Saturday, The Pirate Bay shared a gift with its users – the PirateBrowser.

Faced with ISP blockades all over the world, The Pirate Bay is arguably the most censored website on the Internet. The PirateBrowser software allows people to bypass these restrictions, using the Tor network to obfuscate people’s locations.

Unlike the Tor browser, PirateBrowser does not provide full anonymity. It’s only meant to unblock The Pirate Bay in regions where it’s censored, which is good enough for most users of the site. Downloads of the tool are going through the roof.

The Pirate Bay team informs TorrentFreak that the PirateBrowser notched up its 500,000th download earlier this week. At the time of publication it has surpassed 550,000 with no signs of a decline in interest.

Aside from the impressive download figures, the browser was also repeatedly linked to another news event this week.

Around the same time the PirateBrowser was launched, the number of users on the Tor network started to grow rapidly. Tor project leader Roger Dingledine mentioned the spike on the Tor email list, hinting that PirateBrowser may have something to do with it.

As can be seen in the graph below, in little over a week the number of Tor users jumped from a stable average of 550,000 to well over 1,400,000.

Daily Tor users worldwide

While it is a coincidence that PirateBrowser was launched around the same time the growth started, it seems unlikely that the two events are related.

First of all, the number of daily Tor users increased by more than 800,000, which is far more than the total number of downloads of PirateBrowser thus far. In addition, looking more closely at the increase in Tor users we see that the spike started August 19, more than a week after PirateBrowser launched.

Finally, the country specific Tor usage shows that the increase is most pronounced in South America. In Argentina and Brazil for example, where The Pirate Bay isn’t censored, Tor usage increased by more than 1000%. In the UK and the Netherlands, where blocks are in place, we only see a “modest” doubling in Tor users.

Daily Tor users Brazil

From the above it is safe to conclude that given that there was no significant Tor related news on the 19th, the most likely explanation is that the growth is unnatural. Perhaps a Botnet might explain it?

While PirateBrowser may not be responsible for the increase in Tor users, the half million download milestone is no less impressive. The Pirate Bay team informs TorrentFreak that they will continue developing the browser and Mac and Linux versions will be out later this year.

At the same time The Pirate Bay continues development on another anti-censorship tool, one that is destined to have an even bigger impact. They are working on a special BitTorrent-powered application, which lets users store and distribute The Pirate Bay and other websites on their own computers, making it impossible for third parties to block them.

This new tool should be able to keep The Pirate Bay operational, even if the site itself is pulled offline.

Source: PirateBrowser Hits 500,000 Downloads, Tor Traffic Surges

Just how far should liability for copyright infringement be stretched?

In years gone by it was fairly widely accepted that if you host infringing material without permission then that is illegal. Now we are used to the idea that linking to that material is also illegal, and even indexing a link that links to a page that links to a mere torrent file can be painted as infringement.

Book publishers in Germany, however, think they can take this never ending game to a whole new level.

Last Sunday Der Tagesspiegel published an interesting interview with a representative of a site offering ebooks without the permission of the authors. The site, which was founded in late 2012 and claims to be the largest pirate ebook site in Germany, says it serves up 1.5 million books every month.

“We are publishers, not shoplifters,” protested one of the site’s operators. “The servers we pay for with donations. I think the project is unique. In that sense, we are therefore a download platform for e-books that can be distinguished from others in that our offer is broad, like a library.”

The interview explained how publishers had developed an interest in the site and had tasked anti-piracy group GVU with an investigation.

“I say it openly: we are not interested in the legal opinion of German publishers,” the site’s owner responded. “We see ourselves as a supplier in the market, such as Amazon and [regular] bookstores.”

By now many readers will be wondering which site this is. Der Tagesspiegel obviously thought the same so quite reasonably named it as Boox.to.

The reaction from the publishers to that revelation was quite astonishing.

According to Buchreport the publishers filed a criminal complaint, not against Boox.to, but against both Der Tagesspiegel and Zeit.de who had republished the article. Their claim: by naming the site the publications had assisted copyright infringement.

“With the direct and multiple naming of the Internet address the reader is immediately aware of the illicit supply of the website. With regard to objective journalistic reporting there was no need for direct nomination,” the publishers write in their complaint.

“The publication of the Website and its Internet address immediately enabled a broad mass of readers to become aware of the site. The reader is also indirectly encouraged to take advantage of the offer, taking advantage of the illegal site that has been highlighted by the play of the interview.”

Speaking with TorrentFreak, the admin of Boox.to says he was “enthusiastic” when he learned of the criminal complaint, but the best was yet to come.

“Soon people found out that the online magazine of the German Book Publishers Association had itself published the complete URL of the site. Well, then there was just laughter and tears,” Spiegelbest told us.

“So the criminal complaint was publicly dumped during the first few hours. The criminal complaint itself was made as a matter of principle without any prospect of success in a German court room.”

Although the publishers were quick to take action against the news sites, they’re apparently struggling to do much about the site itself. The secret, Spiegelbest told TorrentFreak, is in the way the site is setup.

“What is really new in Germany for the ebooks is that we cannot be abused practically,” he explains. “We have a hidden server (Tor) with our content. The public address is our proxy. So this proxy can be abused but we have a second proxy running to replace it. So of course you can abuse our proxy but an international court order will cost a lot more than replacing the proxy. That’s why there is little effort to take our site down. It’s a matter of finances.”

And now it appears that Germany just isn’t big enough for Boox.

“We are planning to open our site for ebooks in all languages. This is our vision for the future. For the weeks ahead we have to cope with an escalation in the number of new registrations. But in 2014 an international site (for all languages) may well be our project,” Spiegelbest concludes.

It’s notable that the criminal complaint also named the site in question so that the authorities could properly investigate the matter. Maybe the publishers should have instead performed a creative mime, with the police asking “Is it a TV show? Is it a movie? Is it a book?”

Reporting is not a game of charades and it is definitely not, as the publishers tried to suggest, an act of copyright infringement to refer to a pirate site by name. Streisand Effect in 3….2….1

Source: Journalists Face Criminal Complaint For Mentioning Name of Pirate Site

Two years ago The Pirate Bay renamed itself to The Research Bay to promote its collaboration with the Cybernorms research group at Lund University.

The notorious BitTorrent site encouraged visitors to take part in a survey into people’s file-sharing habits and their views on copyright enforcement. In total 75,000 people from all over the world eventually participated in the study, making it the largest of its kind.

Since the study took place the researchers have already shared many of their findings. For example, we know that girls are just as much into porn as guys, and that the majority of Pirate Bay users planned to use VPNs or other measures to become more anonymous.

Today the Cybernorms research group has opened up all the findings to the public, sharing a wealth of information. On The Survey Bay people can check a wide variety of statistics, and compile their own graphs.

The graph below, for example, shows how many North American Pirate Bay users, who share daily, had a VPN or wanted to use one in the future.

VPN use among daily sharing North Americans

In addition to answering the fixed questions, roughly 25,000 people provided a comment to explain why they use The Pirate Bay. Recurring themes that we have identified are an inability to pay, either because respondents have no money or because there are no decent legal options available. In addition, many respondents feel that they have a right to share.

The justifications come in all shapes and sizes, and we have made a selection of a few notable ones from a diverse range of demographics.

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A 66+ year old woman from United States writes:

“I don’t know these things. Even though I’ve been in computers (pause) since 1965. The corporations are out to make us slaves and to rule through fear. And I am certain, life will find a way. I will support communication. People need it for freedom and decisions. (just to recall, the corporations have made copy-write law a tool of money and not of encouraging innovation. Remember Microsoft’s words echoing 1984, (have to paraphrase) Innovation through standardization. Information wants to be free. (Because you are Swedish Ill remind you that those are words of the Internet pioneers. We built this for the people.)”

A 25-29 year old man from United States writes:

“As an artist myself, along with being an avid Sci-Fi buff, I believe that if we focused more on sharing ideas and less on making ourselves filthy rich that we would currently be at a point of technological advancement far beyond our imaginations. Law is necessary to prevent anarchy but not at the oppression of ideas or the people who imagine them. Most laws in the USA go against our founding fathers original ideals. Most laws in the USA are tailor made to suit corporations who, above all else, desire money and power. File-sharing will never die, regardless if laws are passed to prevent it, as long as people in the world are willing to fight for the right to share information.”

A 18-24 year old woman from Western Europe writes:

“The authorities just don’t understand the zeitgeist and continue to unintentionally encourage illegal filesharing all over the place. In Germany you can’t access most YouTube videos with commercial music because of a GEMA lawsuit: if you just wanted to check out this one song by an artist for free to see whether you liked it (as you would do on the radio which nobody listens to anymore) you are encouraged to download their album (after seeing it on YouTube some may have bought it instead). More generally: you may not buy the music but pay for concert tickets. Well not anymore because ticket prices are skyrocketing because the music industry is out of money.”

A 66+ year old man from Europe writes:

“I am so old and find it rather expensive to buy anything these days, being a pensioner it does not leave a great deal of money to spend on goods once you have paid all the usual bills, gas, electric and like wise. but keep up the good work and thank you.”

A 37-45 year old woman from South East Asia writes:

“If it wasn’t for file sharing, I wouldn’t be able to watch movies. In the country I live in, I cannot go to the cinema/movies to see an American film or other films in the English language. I’m pretty thankful for these sites.”

A 30-36 year old man from East Asia writes:

“I only file share because I live on US military bases and the MPAA and other stupid laws don’t exempt us from the blocks they put in place to watch things legally. So…why I do it? I do it just to give them the proverbial finger. If it was on TV out here, I would watch it. If it was available overseas to me, I would watch it. The problem is, there is NO LEGAL means to watch it from.”

A 53-65 year old woman from Australia writes:

“Hi, as an Australian academic researcher and a file-sharer am very interested in your survey as I had intended to run a similar project via an ISP, and many of my questions were similar to yours! As you will probably know Big Content has recently lost (twice, once on appeal) its case against major Aussie ISP iinet that the ISP was helping copyright infringements. This case is likely to be heard one last time, before the highest court. In the meantime iiNet has developed a model proposing an independent authority mediate between content owners and alleged file-sharers. Despite our relatively slow net speeds and high chargers, Australians download much content — in part because TV is woeful here and popular UK and US seasons take often 1-2 years to reach the airwaves. I predict more people will use TOR and VPN as the government is likely to implement anti-file-sharing regulations following the final episode of the iiNet court saga..whatever the outcome.”

A -17 year old man from New Zealand writes:

“I believe the biggest problem facing file-sharing is the idea of forcing ISPs to monitor traffic to make sure people aren’t illegally sharing file. This is a blatant breach of privacy and unless major corporations take a step back and stop interfering in the processes involved in catching cyber-criminals, they face widespread backlash from the file-sharers and activists of the world.”

A 30-36 year old woman from Southern Africa writes:

“In my opinion developing countries cannot cater to the huge demand for current commercial tv series. TV series are sometimes years behind the country of origin. The demand is out there, people get hooked on their favorite shows but their countries conditions may cause them to satisfy the demand by means of file-sharing. Many people would not mind paying eg $1.99 per show download as is available on amazon, but the facility is not available outside the US. So, in my opinion, file-sharing will probably soon force networks to expand their services to include the international online demand.”

A 18-24 year old man from Central Africa writes:

“In Africa most online services are unavailable, file sharing is the at times the only way to have some material coming from developed countries so most Africans use file sharing more as a means of staying at the same level as the rest of the world than trying to somehow forge or steal copyrighted products. It is their right for people to share things they came to own, so it is as well their right for people to take what is shared! The assets of sites like google, youtube or ebay tend to neglect the third world where a real market is present. Hopefully changes will be made in a near future we cross our fingers.”

A 18-24 year old woman from South America writes:

“In my country its common to see street vendors with pirate copies of films. Some of them are linked to organized crime (the kind that also deals with drugs and politics). I remember one particular national film made it to the streets way before it was out either in Theaters or at download sites (it actually helped with the marketing, but the point is whoever was responsible was well positioned in the film industry, had some interesting friends and didn’t do it for the sharing). I wish file sharing was legalized and the time and public resources spent on it were focused on dismantling *those* networks. And that artists\crew\creators (and local communities, when applicable) had a larger cut of the earnings.”

A 37-45 year old man from Paraguay writes:

“Hello! I live in Paraguay, i consume incredible amounts of music (Rock-Metal) and Video Games, I only use file sharing to like trial stuff, for example, I download some mp3s, and if I like the music, I buy the original CD online, in Amazon or The End Records etc. For me, is wrong to download software, or videogames, but in the case of music, helps me to discover new bands, styles etc. In the software or video games, i do the same thing, but as we all know, a downloaded software or game never works well, so I tested it, then if I like It, I deleted the download and buy the original stuff..!! Thanks!”

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The above is of course just a small and rather random selection of the responses. There are plenty more gems available on The Survey Bay website.

To all Pirate Bay users that haven’t filled out the survey, but want to have their say, feel free to do so in the comments below. Links to other notable comments are welcome too.

Source: Find Out Who’s Using The Pirate Bay… and Why

BitTorrent is perfect for distributing all kinds of content, from movies to music and from software to backups. However, there is one particular type of content that users rarely seem to tire of.

TV show downloading is a very popular pastime among file-sharers. The ability to grab almost any show from the present or even distant past and watch it at a time and place of a user’s choosing is a powerful lure.

As a result, specialist TV torrent sites such as EZTV continue to flourish, even at a time when broadcasters are starting to offer improved catchup and replay services. These products are helping to bridge the gap somewhat but are still miles away from the kind of service required to render specialist torrent sites obsolete.

One such site is TheBox.bz, a private torrent tracker specializing in UK TV show and radio content. From its roots way back in 2007 to last count in May this year, the site had amassed more than 90,000 members. That thriving community (the site also has busy forums) uploaded more than 110,000 torrents and at times the tracker coordinated more than a million peers overall.

But this coming Saturday it will all come to an end.

“Sadly, I can confirm that TheBox.bz is shutting down the site’s torrent section on September 1st,” one of the site’s operators told TorrentFreak.

“The decision to retire the site was not in response to any specific threat, but it is in reaction to the rapidly changing and increasingly hostile political climate we find ourselves in. We feel that being proactive and closing the doors is the most prudent move.”

There can be little doubt that the hostile climate referenced by TheBox can be traced back to actions being planned by City of London Police, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, the UK Premier League, plus other local groups such as Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Television. Right now a dark cloud is hanging over many sites and nobody has much of any idea what will happen next.

There is already talk of a new site in place to take over from TheBox but nothing has been confirmed by official sources. In the meantime though, TheBox will stay open for just a little while longer.

“As TheBox has always been as much about community as about sharing, forums and private messages will remain functional for a while longer. Afterward, we will securely wipe all account details before retiring the server for good,” the site’s operators conclude.

So another site bites the dust but there’s still no authorized service to bridge the gap. Perhaps there should be a future rule of thumb for rights holders, one that might actually motivate them to do better and please their customers more? A suggestion might be:

Don’t pressure sites to shut down until you are offering a better service than they do

When people can walk directly into a better service when a ‘pirate’ service shuts down, why would they have any motivation to seek out another? Now that’s a sustainable anti-piracy tactic right there.

Source: Major TV Torrent Site TheBox.bz Calls it Quits

Once one of the ten largest file-sharing sites on the Internet, Hotfile has become a prime target for Hollywood.

February 2011 the inevitable happened when the MPAA filed a lawsuit against the file-hosting service. Since then they have been battling fiercely in court and Hotfile even sued MPAA member Warner Bros. right back for allegedly abusing its copyright takedown tools.

The MPAA hoped to avoid a trial and asked for a summary judgment on the alleged copyright infringements committed by Hotfile. The file-hosting service, which accused the MPAA of foul play, insisted that it’s merely a service provider and wants a jury to decide the outcome of the case.

After a thorough review and several motions, Florida District Court Judge Kathleen Williams has now decided in favor of the MPAA. The verdict has yet to be released in public but the MPAA has already claimed its victory.

According to the MPAA the court noted that “Hotfile was successful in large part because it did not control infringement activity on its system.” Judge Williams most likely found the file-hosting site liable for secondary copyright infringement, or a related charge.

The Hollywood movie studios praise the verdict which, according to them, shows that Hotfile’s entire business revolved around piracy.

“We applaud the court for recognizing that Hotfile was not simply a storage locker, but an entire business model built on mass distribution of stolen content,” MPAA CEO Chris Dodd commented on the decision.

The MPAA boss went on to describe the ruling as “a victory for all of the men and women who work hard to create our favorite movies and TV shows.”

Hotfile has always contested the characterization of being a “pirate haven,” and previously pointed out to the court that it had been following the DMCA for quite a while.

In addition, the site showed that the most downloaded files on the cyberlocker were not pirated movies but Open Source software. Hotfile also argued that affiliate programs are useful for compensating content creators for their efforts.

In the end, however, the District Court sided with the MPAA and issued a summary judgment.

TorrentFreak reached out to Hotfile for a comment on the decision, but we have yet to hear back from them. Considering the time and effort that has gone in to the legal battle thus far it wouldn’t be a surprise if Hotfile files an appeal.

The summary judgment is certainly a landmark ruling that may have negative implications for other file-hosting sites. We will take a closer look at this when the full verdict is released.

Source: MPAA Wins Landmark Piracy Battle Against Hotfile