Like every general search engine on the web, Google indexes every page it can find. That’s what it’s for, after all.

Torrent meta-search engines do things quite differently. These sites are only interested in torrent links found on external sites.

This includes Torrentz2, which is without a doubt the most popular torrent meta-search engine on the Internet. The site took over from the original Torrentz site, which after it surprisingly closed its doors during the summer of 2016.

Over the past three years, the site has rolled out some updates, most of which have gone unnoticed. However, recently our interest was piqued by a rather unusual addition to the Torrent2’s indexed sites.

Starting a few weeks ago, Torrentz3 began listing “Google” as a ‘source’ in its search results. Not somewhere down the bottom, but as the top result for every piece of content. Here’s what shows up on the “Ubuntu desktop 19.04” page.

The Google link on top leads to a Google search for the associated torrent hash, which finds dozens of pages where the Ubuntu torrent is available as well. This works the same for all other results. Usually, Google returns plenty of options, including several sites that Torrentz2 doesn’t search.

What’s also interesting to note is the number of hashes Google has listed in its search engine. According to Torrentz2, Google is currently able to find 82,085,976 unique torrent hashes.

While that’s already an impressive amount, the number of torrent pages indexed by Google is actually much higher, as it often has dozens of pages for each torrent hash. After all, the same torrents generally appear on several torrent sites.

Google, like any other search engine, has always indexed torrent sites. In fact, it even has a dedicated filetype:torrent command. This allows users to search for .torrent files directly on Google, but it isn’t as effective as the hash-based method.

Also, in recent years the site took several measures to make copyright-infringing content harder to find. Nowadays it can be quite a challenge to find something in Google by simply assing “torrent” to a search query.

With Torrentz2 + Google, however, that doesn’t appear to be an issue.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Even when one has visited many countries around the world, subtleties of cultural differences can be difficult to grasp.

What’s funny or makes sense in one country may draw a blank expression in another, which is why a recent set of stories from Nigeria catch the eye.

Music industry group IFPI describes Africa as a whole as an emerging opportunity for business, with digital music services sometimes available alongside mobile phone services. Nevertheless, the physical music market, while dwindling, is still going strong – even if piracy remains a big problem.

Enter stage left popular musician and comedian Koffi Idowu, who in sits on the board of the Copyright Society of Nigeria. COSON, as it’s known locally, describes itself as Africa’s fastest-growing copyright collective management organization.

While ‘Koffi’ is known locally for his comedy, one might think that joking about piracy would be off-limits, considering his position. However, it’s almost impossible for outsiders to determine whether his recent comments are serious or not.

Content leaks from manufacturing and distribution processes can sometimes be tackled using watermarking, for example. However, Koffi is publicly advocating the use of a “modern technology” that actually debuted in the 1970s.

“Modern trends need to be applied by the right commissions to successfully combat piracy. People in the creative industry need to start barcoding their works,” he said, according to several local sources.

“We also need to start tracing these works from the sources where they were being stolen. We cannot monitor them physically but with technology, we can go a long way,” he added.

Without being disrespectful to Nigeria’s position as an emerging nation (and, of course, presuming this isn’t a joke that doesn’t translate across borders), it seems bizarre to think that a barcode could prevent music piracy in any way. One CD out, and it gets copied, barcode or not.

But then Koffi advocates getting the military involved to deal with the problem.

“When we discover warehouses where piracy is being carried out, arrests and sanctions can only be done by the appropriate officials,” he said.

It all sounds real enough, but it’s only when one takes a look at articles on Nigeria’s market published in the West that one gets a grip on just how different things are in the African nation. Not just different, but also bizarre.

An article in Billboard published in April describes how local digital music streaming service uduX is making progress in Nigeria. We’re all used to installing apps for music and banking, for example, but what if they were the same thing?

“Through GTBank’s Habari app, a platform for shopping and lifestyle content, uduX, whose name derives from a musical instrument played in Nigeria called udu, will gain access to a community of 16.8 million users,” the Billboard piece reads.

“Since consumers have already entered their banking information, they can subscribe to the streaming platform in a few clicks.”

Now while this makes sense on a basic level, the privacy-conscious among us might be thinking “what could possibly go wrong?” As it turns out, those fears appear to be not only well-founded but considered a feature in Nigeria.

That’s according to Chidi Okeke, the CEO of Groove Platforms, the company behind uduX.

“I want to get people to pay for my service and for that, I just needed to be close to where the money is,” Okeke said.

And thanks to the partnership with the bank, the streaming service can get information on the bank’s customers, including their ages and location, and perhaps a whole lot more.

“We know how they spend their money, so it’s easier for us to target people,” said Okeke.

That doesn’t sound like a joke. But the barcodes and military are up for debate, potentially. Or maybe not.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Back in June we reported on massive waves of what appeared to be bogus DMCA notices targeting various adult-focused sites.

Some of the sites hit hard in these earlier waves were so-called ‘hentai’ sites which focus on adult-orientated comics and cartoons.

They complained that a ‘company’ called Copyright Legal Services Inc. (there’s no obvious record of such an entity online) was the author of many notices which attempted to delist thousands of URLs and in some cases homepages and even entire sites from Google. It claimed to be working on behalf of DLSite.com, a platform operated by Japan’s EYSIS, Inc.

Since the initial reports, the same kind of activity has continued, with force. However, notices similar to the ones originally sent by Copyright Legal Services are now being sent by a new entity, Right Protection Corporation, which not only target the main domain pages of various sites but also their entire web structures.

In common with Copyright Legal Services before them, Right Protection Corporation (RPC) doesn’t appear to exist on the web, even though their notices claim they have bases in at least three countries – United States, Japan and China. They are sending volume requests to delete countless thousands of URLs from Google, even though they appear to have no right to do so.

One takedown notice pointed out to TF reveals a notice that has been sent in the form of a PDF, meaning that it can’t easily be searched for using the tools offered by DMCA transparency portal Lumen Database.

However, looking inside proved useful as it reveals that the ‘RPC’ is attempting to have thousands of URLs delisted from a single site – rule34.paheal.net – including its main page which displays nothing but a warning that it carries adult material and a note about cookies. There are many other examples, such as this one, which attempt to do the same thing.

TorrentFreak is informed that some operators of the affected sites, including the operator of Konachan.com, have filed counter-notices with Google and have achieved some success in having their URLs reinstated.

However, the operator of Gelbooru.com, which was hit hard in the first wave, says he’s had huge difficulties in getting touch with Google’s legal team for them to take restorative action, as required when a proper DMCA counter-notice is filed.

“Their [Standard Operating Procedure] is ignore until sued, so we are moving forward with trying to get anyone who runs a website that was affected by this whole situation to contact us directly if they’d be interested in joining a class action that will be filed,” he informs TF.

“We require at least three others to be a class action, and Google must have ignored or denied any counter DMCA notices sent to them to be able to join. Message me, ‘lozertuser’, directly on our Discord.”

The overall aim appears to have Google either respond to the counter-notices or preferably get in touch with Gelbooru’s lawyers, in order to sort out the issue without either company having to waste any more time on the problem. Hopefully, no class action will be required but it remains a possibility.

In the meantime, it’s worth highlighting that DLSite.com, the platform which the notices claim to protect, has categorically denied it is behind the mass notices sent in its name.

A statement sent to the OneAngryGamer site, which covered our earlier report, has the company stating that it had reviewed our article and noted that “EISYS, Inc. / DLsite is not involved in this matter. When we send a DMCA request it will be via: Eisys, Inc. We do not know anything about the company: ‘Copyright Legal Services INC’.”

Them and everyone else, then…

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Online piracy is an international problem for the content industries, one that’s particularly hard to curb.

Pirate site blocking appears to be the preferred countermeasure, which has been rolled out in dozens of countries over the years.

While industry reports and academic research have shown signs that this can indeed be effective, it’s certainly no a silver bullet.

With few other options to hand, rightsholders do see it as one of their best bets for now. As such, they frequently push lawmakers to lay the groundwork for ISP blocking, if that’s not available.

It’s also a topic of interest in South Africa at the moment, where the Government has been working on a new ‘Cybercrimes Bill. The proposed legislation doesn’t have any blocking requirements, but there have been calls from industry groups to require ISPs to block blatantly-infringing pirate sites.

While this doesn’t come as a complete surprise considering the global trend, local Internet providers are fiercely against any type of piracy enforcement. Speaking with MyBroadband, the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (ISPA) describes site blocking as ineffective and concerning.

“Blocking is technically complicated and subject to false positives, yet it is relatively trivial for consumers and content providers to bypass the blocks, bringing its effectiveness into question,” ISPA said.

“There are also complex freedom of expression concerns which are not for ISPs or copyright associations to resolve and which need to be properly ventilated through the courts,” the group added.

The ISP association points out that new technologies such as Encrypted DNS could render website blocking pretty much useless, without the need to use proxies or a VPN.

The group doesn’t deny that blocking may have a marginal anti-piracy effect but says that it’s unsure whether the positive impact of such as “blunt and limited” measure will outweigh the potential negative consequences.

“It is not clear that there will be any significant benefit to copyright holder associations and their members from this approach and certainly no indication that any positive impact will outweigh the risks to freedom of expression and access to information outlined above, as well as the cost of implementation,” ISPA noted.

There is currently no indication that the Government is seriously considering implementing any blocking-related obligations. However, it’s always possible that rightsholders will try to have such measures put in place through the judicial route.

ISPA didn’t comment on this option specifically, but going through the court will at least mean that the interests of the public at large will be carefully weighed.

Finally, ISPA also commented on some scaremongering which suggested that, under the new Cybercrimes Bill, ISPs will have to report all pirates to the authorities.

According to ISPA, this is an incorrect interpretation of the bill. The group stressed that current law makes it clear that ISPs don’t have to monitor their customers. In fact, doing so may be illegal.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

To protect copyright holders, YouTube uses an advanced piracy recognition system that flags and disables videos that are used without permission.

This system, known as Content ID, works well most of the time, but it’s not perfect. In recent years it’s been heavily criticized by YouTube users and rightsholders alike.

YouTubers, for example, have repeatedly complained that their content has been inaccurately claimed. On the other side, there are tens of thousands of copyright holders who would love to join the Content ID program but are not allowed to.

For now, YouTube’s Content ID system is limited to a few thousand participants. These are claimants which own the exclusive rights to a “substantial body of material” that is “frequently uploaded” by YouTube users. In other words, not the average indie creator.

This exclusivity is a thorn in the side of smaller artists, who instead have to manually go through YouTube to find infringing content. While that’s no different from any other site on the Internet, they feel left out and disadvantaged by the video streaming site.

This issue hasn’t gone unnoticed by US lawmakers. This week, a group of eight members of Congress, including Sen. Marcha Blackburn, Sen. Christopher Coons, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, and Rep. Adam Schiff, invited Google CEO Sundar Pichai to a roundtable discussion specifically about Content ID.

The members explain that they are quite content with Google’s copyright enforcement efforts, but they are also concerned that smaller content creators are being left out.

“We are concerned that copyright holders with smaller catalogs of works cannot utilize Content ID, making it more difficult or impossible for them to effectively protect their copyrighted works from infringement and, ultimately, impacting their livelihoods,” they write.

The lawmakers stress that many copyright holders have been denied access to Content ID. While they are still able to take infringing content down manually, they have to do more work than some larger competitors and with fewer resources.

“We have heard from copyright holders who have been denied access to Content ID tools, and as a result, are at a significant disadvantage to prevent the repeated uploading of content that they have previously identified as infringing,” the letter explains.

“They are left with the choice of spending hours each week seeking out and sending notices about the same copyrighted works, or allowing their intellectual property to be misappropriated,” they add.

The Congress members hope to obtain more insight into the matter during a roundtable, where representatives of the creative community will also be present. They’ve prepared a set of questions for Google’s CEO, which they hope to have answered.

Among other things, the members want to know how the Content ID system works, what type of rightsholders are able to join now, whether Google plans to open it up to more rightsholders, and if it will be expanded to other Google services, such as Blogger.

The entire roundtable appears to be limited to the perspective of external rightsholders. There is no mention of the many inaccurate claiming requests YouTubers (who are also content creators) complain about, nor is Content ID abuse on the agenda.

The goal of the roundtable is clear. The Congress members want YouTube’s Content ID system to be available to a wider range of rightsholders, as clearly indicated in their closing words.

“Again, we appreciate the efforts that you have made to combat distribution of infringing content on YouTube. Given its apparent benefits to rights holders, we hope that you will consider making Content ID and the benefits it provides available to a larger category of content creators.”

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A copy of the letter the Members of Congress sent to Google CEO Sundar Pichai is available here (pdf), via IPWatchdog.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.