Invented by Bram Cohen nearly two decades ago, BitTorrent has established itself as the premier protocol to share large files among a broad audience and minimal cost.

While BitTorrent is used by many pirates, the technology itself is neutral and does a lot of good as well.

In fact, some of the largest tech companies including Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter all embraced it to distribute files within their internal networks.

Still, the pirate stigma is strong. Not without a reason, perhaps, because that remains the primary reason for most people to use it. However, an outright ban on everything torrent related can be a bit much.

A few weeks ago, we were approached by developer “Maurerr,” who maintains a repository of Linux packages for an opensource project. The ‘Entware-backports‘ project includes over two thousand packages that can be installed on MIPSel routers.

One of the packages is the Open Source LibTorrent library, which is widely used by torrent clients including qBittorrent, Deluge, rTorrent, and Tribler. It’s a basic piece of software that can handle torrent downloads, which isn’t infringing in any way.

However, when Maurerr uploaded the “libtorrent.pkg” to a backup mirror at the free hosting service Profreehost.com, his account was swiftly suspended. Apparently, the hosting service’s automatic filters flagged it as “prohibited activity.”

 

Apparently, the “prohibited” activity was related to the word torrent. The hosting service didn’t provide much more detail, and when we asked why the LibTorrent package wasn’t allowed the answer was short but clear.

“Torrents and torrent related content is strictly prohibited on our service,” a representative informed us.

Profreehost.com offers a free service and has all the right to ban whatever content they please, of course. Perhaps the company has limited staff or negative experiences with torrent related abuse in the past.

However, in this case, the filter appears a bit broad, to say the least.

This isn’t the first time the developer ran into an issue with the hosting service. His free account was previously suspended for hosting a binary installer for a ‘rutorrent-plugin,’ which isn’t infringing either.

When Maurerr explained to the hosting company that this software wasn’t infringing either and that he planned to use it for his open source repository, a representative told him that torrents and warez are not allowed.

Profreehost’s Terms of Service does indeed ban warez, as it should, but we read nothing about a blanket ban on torrent there.

“Sites must not contain Warez, copyright or other illegal material including links or redirects to copyright material hosted on 3rd party websites / resources.”

While the hosting company confirmed that anything torrent related is not allowed, we were able to sneak a TorrentFreak logo onto the service. At the time of writing, that remains online.

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

On August 1, 2013, Russia implemented new legislation which allowed rightsholders to block video content that had been posted online illegally.

Following amendments, a year later the same protections were extended to other kinds of intellectual property, excluding photographic works.

On May 1, 2015, yet more new rules made it possible for sites to be permanently blocked if they are considered to repeat or persistent infringers. Authorities revealed that around 3,400 sites were affected.

Last year, telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor revealed that around 5,000 were being blocked by local ISPs on copyright grounds. This put the country at the forefront of pirate site blocking worldwide. But the blocking efforts were to continue at an accelerated pace.

This week, to mark six years since the introduction of the original law and five since the amendments that allow most rightsholders to request a blocking order, Roscomnadzor told TASS that the total of blocked sites has rocketed.

“To date, Roskomnadzor has processed about 6 thousand complaints at the Moscow City Court on taking interim [blocking] measures,” a spokesperson from the watchdog told the publication.

This means that more than 9,500 ‘pirate’ sites are now blocked in Russia, almost double the amount reported last year. For reference, the United States, Russia’s fiercest critic when it comes to intellectual property issues, currently blocks zero sites on copyright grounds.

Just last week, Roscomnadzor revealed that it had taken drastic measures in order to protect the new series of Game of Thrones from piracy.

“Based on the claims of the right holders received by Roskomnadzor, response measures are being taken to restrict access to illegal copies of the foreign series Game of Thrones,” it said in a statement.

The watchdog revealed that the complaints led it to take action against 327 sites providing access to the infringing content.

While blocking pirate sites is an option in Russia, taking that kind of action against big legal sites such as social networking giant vKontakte isn’t practical. That’s why after almost six years of blocking, Eksmo – one of Russia’s largest publishers – sued vKontakte last month for the fourth time. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 24.

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

Last year, a group of prominent record labels filed a piracy lawsuit against the Russian operator of YouTube-ripping sites FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com.

The labels hoped to shut the sites down, but this effort backfired.

In January, US District Court Judge Claude M. Hilton dismissed the case due to a lack of jurisdiction. The Court carefully reviewed how the sites operate and found no evidence that they purposefully targeted either Virginia or the United States.

Many copyright cases against foreign operators result in default judgments. However, this lawsuit transformed into a landmark case that will determine when such operators can be sued in the United States.  As such, the record labels swiftly appealed the District Court’s dismissal.

Tofig Kurbanov, the Russian operator of the stream-ripping sites, is not backing off though. With help from his US-based legal team, he maintained that US courts have no jurisdiction over the matter. If the record labels want a legal battle, they should come to Russia instead.

In a reply brief filed at the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit this week, the record labels counter the defense’s arguments. The operator of the stream-ripping sites argued that his contacts with the U.S. were “random, fortuitous, or attenuated,” but the music companies state that the opposite is true.

The labels note that the site operator knows exactly where all users are located. Millions are in the U.S., and together these people ripped close to 100 million streams last year. Many of these ripped streams were of copyrighted content, the music companies argue.

“Appellee knows down to the person the geographic location of the 32 million U.S. users and more than half-a-million Virginian users who visited the Flvto.biz and 2conv.com websites in 2018. Those users engaged in almost one hundred million stream-ripping sessions,” the reply brief reads.

“During a substantial number of those sessions, the websites transmitted illegal copies of appellants’ sound recordings to users’ home computers in the U.S. and Virginia. Indeed, the United States is appellee’s third largest market globally, both by number of users and number of stream-ripping
sessions conducted.”

The United States is the third largest market for the stream ripping websites, the labels argue. Not just that, but it’s also a market that’s specifically targeted with geo-located advertisements.

In his defense, Kurbanov stressed that the advertisements are outsourced to third-party advertising brokers. However, the labels counter that the website owner willingly hired these and that he, therefore, bears responsibility.

“Moreover, appellee earns huge revenues from the advertisements his U.S. users view while conducting their stream-ripping sessions—advertisements specifically targeted to users’ geographic location in the U.S. because of the geotargeting technology that appellee uses. Appellee knows full well this geo-targeting is occurring,” the reply brief reads.

The record labels also point out that the site operator cited various contacts with the U.S. to then argue that, in isolation, these are not sufficient to warrant jurisdiction. However, the rightsholders say that a different picture emerges when all elements are taken together.

Looking at the big picture, a US Court should be allowed to take on this case, the record labels conclude.

The alternative would be to sue the site operator in Russia. This is what the defense has suggested, admitting that this would be somewhat burdensome for the U.S. companies. The record labels, however, believe that would be absurd.

“In short, nothing in the Constitution requires that U.S. copyright holders travel to Rostov-on-Don, Russia to sue for violations of U.S. law that occur in the United States and that generate huge profits for appellee from ads targeted at U.S. users.

“The decision of the district court should be reversed,” the labels add.

It is clear that both sides have a completely different take on the matter and with various rightsholder groups and EFF jumping in as well, the gravity of this case is obvious.

It is now up to the Court of Appeals to weigh the arguments from both sides and come to a conclusion.

—

A copy of the record labels’ reply brief is available here (pdf).

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

This is the first part of a two-part interview in which Tim Tayshun (AKA Tim Curry) of EZCoinAccess discusses taking on OneCoin, the massive crypto Ponzi scheme responsible for bilking investors out of $4.6bn dollars.

We discuss how OneCoin was supposed to work vs. the dismal reality, its colourful cast of leaders and the lengths they went to in order to establish OneCoin as a valuable investment, and the risk OneCoin posed to the growth of Bitcoin itself.

—

Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing crypto, privacy, copyright and file-sharing developments. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary, and analysis.

Host: Jamie King

Guest: Tim Tayshun

^{If you enjoy this episode, consider becoming a patron and getting involved with the show. Check out Steal This Show’s Patreon campaign: support us and get all kinds of fantastic benefits!}

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Lucas Marston
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Eric Barch

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

Over the past several years, third-party Kodi add-ons have given many Internet users a new enthusiasm for streaming live TV.

For many, the next logical step was to upgrade to a premium provider of IPTV services. For a relatively small fee, these platforms grant access to hundreds and often thousands of live channels at a fraction of the official cost.

Needless to say, few – if any – of these providers have the necessary licensing in place to conduct their business legally.

While a few prominent names have risen to the top of the pile, without doubt one of the most well-known brands is Vader. Notable for its Darth Vader logo (of which dozens of variants exist online), Vader has long been the go-to choice for IPTV fans. Now, however, the ride appears to be over.

For the past couple of days, online chatter has suggested that Vader might be about to throw in the towel. A few hours ago, that was confirmed on the service’s Telegram channel with an official announcement that Vader would be shutting down.

“We have no choice but to close down Vader. We can’t reveal much publically, but by now some of you should know through the other means what happened,” the notice begins.

“We tried everything in our power to avoid this, to avoid any outage, but enough people worked against us.”

Being a customer of a service like Vader is not like dealing with HBO or Netflix, so those expecting a clear and definitive explanation for why the service has disappeared will be disappointed. The fact that something “happened” isn’t really up for dispute but precisely what that was remains open to speculation.

TorrentFreak has received as-yet unconfirmed reports that Vader is currently the subject of an anti-piracy investigation, complicated by the departure of a member of staff a while back. We’ll seek comment from the anti-piracy group implicated before elaborating further.

The notion that Vader is on the radar of content companies will come as a surprise to absolutely no one. In addition to its live TV offering, Vader also offered catchup and many movies on demand, which was understandably problematic for the provider from a Hollywood perspective.

It’s fairly obvious that Vader was under pressure and that they feared negative consequences from continuing. However, the service has taken the time to reassure customers of all kinds that they will do their best to protect them.

“We’re going to make sure, no Email, IP, account + reseller name goes to the wrong hands. Everything will be wiped clean and that’s all,” the service’s statement adds, without further detail.

Anyone Googling the name Vader and IPTV will find themselves confronted with a dazzling array of sites that claim to be Vader. However, many of these sites are operated by “re-sellers”. These people generally have access to a ‘panel’ operated by the official Vader service which provides tools for them to offer the product to the public, while earning a profit.

Several sources indicate that these panels are no longer available. This claim is supported when accessing many of the sites that act as Vader re-sellers, whose pages dedicated to the product now invariably return 404 “Not Found” errors or divert to offerings from other providers.

This in itself is a big issue for those re-sellers. First of all, paying up front for Vader services probably means that they will lose money. Quite how much will depend on the scale of the re-seller but Vader is appealing for them not to pursue their losses.

“I understand a lot of clients will be pissed and will dispute [try to claim the money back from the source from which it was paid]. We would appreciate if everyone would take the financial losses we are all going to take, as resellers and direct sellers. But we will also understand people who will want [their] money back,” Vader adds.

The fact that Vader has shut down will send decent-sized ripples across much of the IPTV space. Of course, those behind the service and their re-sellers will take a hit, but everyone who subscribed to the platform faces losing their money too.

Former customers could try claiming the money back from their re-seller but there are already signs that some are seeking to shift their clients to alternative providers. Some are making noises about doing this for free but it’s possible that other re-sellers will head for the hills.

This is the downside of dealing with IPTV providers and/or re-sellers. The product is essentially a bargain but is subject to termination at any moment. It’s therefore often accepted that anyone who signs up should make peace with losing their money right from the start but be grateful when any service works as planned.

Signing off, the operators of Vader wish their former customers and re-sellers well. “May you find a new and welcoming home!” they conclude.

The big question now is how prepared other providers are for the influx of new subscribers. It’s not clear how close to capacity the current wave of big providers are operating, or have many subscribers Vaders had, so there could be service issues moving forward.

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