August last year the popular BitTorrent tracker Demonoid had its servers taken down by Ukrainian hosting company Colocall.

Local authorities explained that Interpol had requested the action as part of a criminal investigation into the site’s alleged owners in Mexico.

Months earlier Mexican authorities had carried out raids in Monterrey, the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León. Their prime target was a Demonoid operator, and one person connected to the BitTorrent tracker was subsequently imprisoned but later released.

While the legal troubles may have played a role in Demonoid’s continued downtime, the site was already suffering with technical problems at the end of July last year. Talking to TorrentFreak the site’s admin blamed a DDoS attack. At the time, however, the tech admin of the site was determined to get the site back online.

“You know how it goes with Demonoid. It might take a while but it will come back,” the admin told us.

But in the year that followed the Demonoid team kept their trademark silence. The last official update we received dates back to September last year when hopes for a quick resurrection were tempered. At the time, Demonoid’s tech admin told us that the site might not come back soon.

“We are down, and we’re not looking into putting the site back up at the moment,” the admin said.

And he was right.

Of course there are still many who believe the site may eventually return. The hopes of these Demonoid users was fueled in November when the tracker briefly returned, as well as by a follow-up switch to a new .HK domain. But this short-lived excitement wasn’t followed up by anything concrete.

Still, the Demonoid “spirit” is still very much alive and touching many people who miss it dearly. Over the past months we have seen the rise of imposters and a standalone tracker inspired by Demonoid. The closest to a true resurrection is the mysterious D2.vu site, which launched using a copy of the Demonoid user and torrent database.

However, none of these sites has come close to the millions of active users Demonoid had before it collapsed. These newer “alternatives” simply miss the truly unique community and collection of fresh and rare content.

Of course there is no shortage of “pirate” sites on the Internet, but many users saw Demonoid as something more than that.

While the music and movie industries would quickly label Demonoid as a piracy haven, for members it was often the go-to place for rare and unique content that was not available elsewhere on the Internet, even through legal channels. In addition, it was also a place where creators were happy to share their work.

However, we have now come to a point where we are tempted to draw a sad conclusion for the “comeback kid.”

After a year of Demonoid downtime, which is double the 2007/2008 downtime record of six months, it is very unlikely that the famous tracker will ever return to its former glory. Never say never, but even those who are optimistic by nature have to agree that Demonoid’s future is looking grimmer than ever before.

The end?

Source: Demonoid Down For One Year: The End?

The introduction this week of Russia’s new anti-piracy law was greeted by rightsholders in the movie and TV show industry but few others had reason to celebrate.

Internet users and website owners large and small are concerned by the law’s provisions and music and other rightsholders aren’t yet protected by the legislation.

The first target was social-networking giant vKontakte, who were reported to the courts by an art-house movie distributor as soon as the law went live. However, the company failed to provide the correct documents to prove that they own the movies in question and the case was rejected.

And now, just two days into the scheme, there is controversy surrounding the government body charged with the law’s implementation.

Among other tasks the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roscomnadzor) will maintain a piracy site blacklist which was launched yesterday along with the new anti-piracy law. However, Roscomnadzor has now been forced to acknowledge that the watchdog itself may not be entirely innocent when it comes to copyright infringement.

The problems date back to July 9, 2013 when a technology audit at Roscomnadzor offices led officers from the Economic Crime unit and the Interior Ministry to seize five computers suspected of containing unlicensed software.

According to preliminary information from local law enforcement agencies, two of the seized computers contained unlicensed copies of Photoshop but apparently the problems don’t stop there as unlicensed software from Microsoft, Corel and Autodesk was also found.

“Further investigation carried out by the management has shown that [the software] was installed several years ago by employees who do not work as management. Currently the option of self-installation of software is excluded,” Roskomnadzor said in a statement.

Speaking with CNews, lawyer Natalia Kalin who works protecting the rights of Adobe in Russia, said that if it’s decided that the damages caused by the unlicensed software exceeds 100,000 rubles ($3,020), those responsible could be held criminally liable and face up to two years in prison.

Roskomnadzor notes, however, that it is yet to receive official confirmation that it used unlicensed software but once that arrives it will remedy the violations and punish those responsible.

The news that the agency tasked with administering Russia’s anti-piracy law is itself guilty of piracy will be particularly unwelcome, so expect the authorities to live up to their promise of holding people accountable.

Source: Russian ‘SOPA’ Anti-Piracy Body Under Investigation For Software Piracy

Over the past several years we’ve covered dozens of ‘troll’ lawsuits against hundreds of thousands of alleged copyright infringers.

While many cases have been dismissed in the past, the one we’re reporting on today is quite special.

It started back in March when a lawsuit filed by the Swiss company Contra Piracy targeted individuals said to have downloaded and shared the 50 Cent movie All Things Fall Apart.

Contra Piracy, a claimed non-profit group, said they had monitored 2,919 individuals infringing the movie on more than 280,000 occasions. In order to stop these infringements they said they would need the identities of file-sharers from ISPs.

The Swiss firm didn’t hide the fact that they were nothing to do with the making of the film and they also admitted not being involved with traditional movie distribution channels. Instead, they licensed “BitTorrent distribution” and “enforcement” rights from Los Angeles-based Hannibal Pictures.

Confronted with the case, Chief Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte wondered whether Contra Piracy actually had the rights to pursue this case in court. In one of her orders she noted that a “bare right to sue” for copyright infringement isn’t enough to allow the case to proceed.

Responding to this comment Contract Piracy handed over the rights agreements it had with Hannibal Pictures. The company argued that since they licensed the “BitTorrent distribution” rights, they should be allowed to sue.

However, Judge Laporte disagreed and in an order last week she dismissed the case with prejudice, concluding that Contra Piracy lacks jurisdiction. According to the Judge, Contra Piracy’s only intention is to obtain quick settlements, which means they lack the legal rights to pursue a copyright-related action.

In her order Laporte mentions that when Contra Piracy was asked what options they had to commercially exploit the BitTorrent distribution rights, the company admitted that they had very few, and that they were not actively involved in any.

“Plaintiff’s employee acknowledged that there are little [to no options] and did not claim that Plaintiff engaged in any such commercial use,” she notes.

In addition, the Judge said that the agreement between Contra Piracy and Hannibal Pictures only talks about divvying up the revenue from out-of-court settlements. No legal venues were discussed, and Contra Piracy further admitted that copyright enforcement was central to its business model.

“Plaintiff acknowledges that it is in the business of providing counter-piracy services to copyright owners by accepting assignments of copyrights and suing to enforce these copyrights,” Judge Laporte writes in her order.

Finally, the agreement also makes it clear that Contra Piracy does not intend to take any cases to trial, but that they just want to obtain the personal details of the alleged BitTorrent pirates so they can demand quick cash settlements.

“The agreements are noticeably devoid of any provision for the disposition of any revenues that could be obtained from verdicts or court orders of fees or costs upon success in court, suggesting a business model of using the information obtained from early discovery into the identities of individual defendants to negotiate quick settlements under the threat of embarrassing and expensive litigation without actually litigating claims on their merits,” the Judge explains.

The above leads to the conclusion that Contra Piracy only has a “bare right to sue,” which is not enough to pursue people for alleged copyright infringement. “The case is dismissed with prejudice,” Laporte concludes.

And so All Things Fall Apart for Contra Piracy.

To our knowledge this is the first file-sharing related case that has come to a Righthaven-type conclusion, showing that it’s worthwhile delving deeper into the licence agreements that are at the basis of these mass-BitTorrent lawsuits.

Source: 2,919 Movie Pirates Walk Free as BitTorrent Trolling Scheme Falls Apart

At midnight yesterday a brand new anti-piracy law went into effect in Russia. The legislation, which has been criticized by netizens and companies such as Google and Yandex, was met by a wave of protests.

In total around 1,700 sites and services took part in a SOPA-style ‘blackout’ in an effort to show how the law, which allows for pre-trial blocking of websites, could effect the nation.

A petition against the legislation has also been gathering lots of support. On Tuesday when TorrentFreak spoke with Pirate Party of Russia press secretary Natalia Malysheva, signatures were at 55,000. Today almost 75,000 have made their mark.

The law allows rightsholders to file an official complaint about any sites carrying infringing content or links to the same. Failure to remove that content in a timely manner can lead to entire domains being blocked at the ISP level.

Wasting no time, yesterday a local movie company was first out of the blocks. Distributor Kino Bez Granits (Cinema Without Borders) filed a lawsuit in the Moscow City Court against social networking giant vKontakte.

Company boss Sam Klebanov said the site was carrying copies of five of his movies included titles from Steve McQueen and David Cronenberg. He added that he’d told vKontakte about the problem two weeks earlier but they failed to respond. Vknotakte denied that version of events.

“Cinema without Borders turned to VKontakte with the requirement to remove the movies. We provided VKontakte with a list of our films and asked them to take measures to eliminate our content from their portal, otherwise we would use the mechanisms of the new law and go to court, and we did that,” Klebanov said.

However, everything did not go smoothly.

Along with its complaint, Cinema Without Borders was required to show that the company is the legal owner of the movies in questions. The art-house movie distributor thought that copies of that documentation would suffice, but the court disagreed. The lawsuit was subsequently rejected on the basis of inadequate paperwork.

Vkontakte is yet to comment on developments but has spoken out in the past on the difficulties of policing a site with more than 45 million users, any of whom could upload illegal copies or links to infringing content.

Finally, vKontakte will make headlines today on an entirely different issue. Yesterday National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia which allowed him to leave Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.

The papers given to him by the Immigration Service not only allow him to live in Russia but also to work there and if vKontakte have their way, he will be doing that under their guidance.

“Edward Snowden – a man who denounced crimes against the citizens of the U.S. by intelligence services around the world – has received temporary asylum in Russia. At such moments, you feel proud of our country and regret towards U.S. policy – a country committed to the principles on which it was once built,” vKontakte founder Pavel Durov said in a statement.

“We invite Edward to St. Petersburg and will be happy if he decides to join our stellar team of programmers at VKontakte. In the end, there is no more popular European Internet company than VK. I think Edward might be interested in protecting the personal data of millions of our users,” Durov concludes.

Source: Court Rejects First Russian ‘SOPA’ Lawsuit, Target Offers Snowden a Job

With its uTorrent and BitTorrent mainline clients, BitTorrent Inc caters to more than 150 million monthly users.

Considering the size of this massive userbase, one doesn’t need a lot of imagination to come up with several disaster scenarios that might unfold should a malicious third-party gain access to all these clients. But that is exactly what could’ve happened earlier this year if it wasn’t for “MentaL”, an admin at RaGEZONE.

This Spring, MentaL was looking for a hosting provider for a friend when he stumbled upon the Jenkins panel of BitTorrent Inc. This turned out to be the gateway to a treasure trove of highly confidential information that could have destroyed the company if it had landed in the wrong hands.

“They forgot to set a user/pass to the admin panel, that had access to github from a master account. Github accounts had usernames and passwords that were linked to everything,” MentaL told TorrentFreak.

BitTorrent’s Jenkins panel

Luckily for BitTorrent Inc, MentaL wasn’t out to do harm. He contacted the company in May to report his findings and was duly thanked and promised a reward in return. BitTorrent Inc. quickly secured the Jenkins panel but to MentaL’s surprise no reward was forthcoming.

MentaL says that when he contacted BitTorrent Inc he was treated rudely and was eventually offered a $500 reward for which he should send an invoice. MentaL was insulted by this “low” offer and instead of taking it he decided to share his findings with the rest of the world. While he never copied any of the files available through the panel, he did take screenshots which show how severe the “leak” was.

Through the open Jenkins panel anyone had access to the heart of the company, including financial details, user accounts and the source code to pretty much all released and unreleased software including uTorrent.

“Anyone who had the access I had would be able to steal the source code of all BitTorrent products and more,” MentaL told TorrentFreak.

“Truth be told, I had access to so much content that I was really unaware of what most of it would and could do! But one extreme scenario that I could have done hypothetically if I was some idiot would be to tweak the actual live build and push an update that could include a virus that would destroy all user content who installed the update,” he adds.

uTorrent source code (more)

So, in theory, a malicious person could have updated millions of live torrent clients with viruses, or worse. In addition, it would be possible to reveal stacks of confidential documents including financial information and detailed job offerings.

“In regards to the financial documents, I only checked several and it included payments and balances to and from the company. Other documents I saw were job offers with introductory salaries that reached over $150,000 starting wage,” MentaL told us.

“It was quite extreme and shocking.”

Below is a screenshot of a letter that was sent to the Brazil consulate in Los Angeles. As MentaL has no intention of doing the company any permanent harm, the details of the letter have been redacted.

Letter to the consulate

In another screenshot several source files of BitTorrent’s software and databases are visible. In addition, MentaL tells us that he had access to username and passwords for SQL databases. Needless to say, there are plenty of possibilities to exploit this kind of data for nefarious purposes.

BitTorrent data

The above clearly shows that BitTorrent Inc has narrowly escaped a massive disaster. Perhaps they could have been a bit more appreciative of the way MentaL reported the problems, as that would have saved the company from having the rather embarrassing mistake out in the open.

“I felt I wanted to share and express my annoyance regarding the matter. They make millions a year in ad revenue alone and I never released, tweaked, sent fake builds or nothing out to any user and I feel insulted,” MentaL concludes.

TorrentFreak contacted BitTorrent Inc for a comment on the potential disaster and we will add their response when it comes in. It could be that they are still busy counting their blessings.

Source: BitTorrent Inc. Escapes Disaster as Source Code and Financials Leak