Every month new pirate sites appear online, hoping to be the next big thing. Many fall by the wayside, having fizzled out in what is already an extremely crowded marketplace.

To gain traction, sites need to offer something different, either through innovation or by polishing existing experiences to stand out as a desirable alternative. Seemingly out of nowhere, movie and TV show streaming platform Nites.tv seemed to hit the bullseye recently by offering high-quality content with little fuss.

After registering its domain in the summer of 2019, Nites.tv was slow to get off the mark but starting October its traffic began loosely doubling every few weeks and by January 2020, according to SimilarWeb stats, was receiving around 350,000 visitors per month.

In overall terms, this isn’t huge amounts of traffic for a pirate streaming platform but there can be no doubt that, among its users, Nites.tv was considered a desirable platform. With a clean interface and large library of content, given more time it could have grown into something particularly notable. But then things began to get a little unusual.

Around a week ago, a number of news sites around the world began publishing stories about Nites.tv. In the UK, for example, The Sun ran a feature on the platform, explaining what it offers and questioning whether it was legal or not.

While Nites.tv is clearly not legal, the fact that The Sun wrote about a relatively obscure site with no news angle whatsoever was unusual in itself but the publication did point to a large number of recommendations on social media in its opening paragraphs.

Over in Asia, an Indonesian news site also mentioned increased discussion about the site online and felt sufficiently curious to refer the matter to the country’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology for comment.

The existence of Nites.tv also came to the attention of Israeli news publication Ynet, which reported that the streaming platform was being heavily promoted on social networks including Twitter and Whatsapp messages. According to the publication, the messages on Whatsapp were noticed by security company ESET, which issued a warning about not clicking random links in messages in case they carry something nefarious.

Ynet speculated that the interest in Nites.tv may have been boosted as a result of people sitting home bored due to the coronavirus and looking for something to watch. Supporting this theory, a Reddit user reported that a Facebook campaign promoting the site stated that “USA has made all this content free during lockdown”, which of course is absolute nonsense.

Then yesterday, completely out of the blue, visitors to Nites.tv were greeted with an unpleasant surprise. Instead of all the latest movies and TV shows available for immediate streaming in high-quality, they were presented with the familiar ‘seizure’ notice of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the global anti-piracy coalition that has taken down similar sites for breaches of copyright infringement.

This, of course, piqued our interest. We have covered dozens of these actions in the past and have become fairly familiar with how these things play out. Following a credible threat from ACE, sites tend to go dark for a while and then later, when some type of agreement has been reached with site operators, their domains are handed over to the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

Seized domains are subsequently redirected to the ACE anti-piracy portal but that traditional pattern doesn’t appear to have been replicated here.

We can’t rule out that ACE has filed a complaint against the site and it remains possible that the site owner responded immediately by voluntarily redirecting his domains (nites.tv, nites.cz, nites.ac) to the ACE portal. However, the owners of the domains aren’t currently listed as the MPA (as they mostly are) and their nameservers remain with Cloudflare, not the nameservers operated by the MPA that usually serve seized domains.

That leads us to another piece of the puzzle. Yesterday, around the time the Nites domains began redirecting to ACE, the official Nites Twitter account put up a poll, requesting feedback from site users as to how the platform should operate moving forward.

As things stand, very little of the above seems normal. The media attention isn’t in proportion to the size of the site and a pirate site campaign on WhatsApp is almost unheard of. Furthermore, the ‘seizure’ indicators don’t add up either, especially when combined with an immediate user outreach to determine where the site goes next.

One to watch from a distance perhaps, at least for now.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Bad Boys for Life is the most downloaded movie.

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 Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(…)	Fantasy Island	4.7 / trailer
2	(1)	Bad Boys for Life	7.1 / trailer
3	(2)	Trolls World Tour	6.1 / trailer
4	(4)	The Gentlemen	8.0 / trailer
5	(3)	Gretel & Hansel	6.1 / trailer
6	(…)	The Rhythm Section	5.2 / trailer
7	(…)	Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge	7.5 / trailer
8	(6)	Sonic The Hedgehog	6.6 / trailer
9	(5)	IP Man 4	7.2 / trailer
10	(7)	Bloodshot	5.7 / trailer

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

Music and video piracy grab most headlines, but there’s also a thriving market for pirated copies of books.

Due to their small size, ebooks can be passed around without much trouble. With a file size of just a few megabytes, at most, they can easily be attached to an email.

This is also what happened with the memoir of former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Although the official release is today, the book was being sent round en masse over the weekend, reaching the highest levels of Australian politics.

While it’s understandable that Turnbull’s former colleagues want to read all the juicy details first, they are not allowed to. Passing around copies of the book without permission is considered piracy, that’s something lawmakers should be well aware of.

After discovering the unauthorized sharing, Turnbull and his publisher Hardie Grant, decided to take action. They identified a top adviser of Scott Morrison, the current prime minister, as one of the senders.

The publisher reportedly alerted its law firm which sent the advisor a cease and desist notice accusing him of sending pirated copies of the book to dozens of people over email.

“It has occurred on a massive scale. Further, that you are encouraging others to also distribute it. Such an act is calculated to cause irreparable harm and damage to my clients,” the notice, reported by The Age, reads.

The law firm urged the advisor to immediately stop this infringing activity and save all related communication for future investigation. This includes potential legal action.

“My clients will be proceeding against this malicious conduct and infringement of copyright immediately,” the publisher’s law firm wrote.

The strong language caused shockwaves across the highest echelons of Australian politics, with even the prime minister himself being asked to comment on the unusual piracy allegations.

While the current prime minister hasn’t personally commented, his advisor, identified by the Guardian as Nico Louw, did respond. Louw reportedly apologized for sharing a pirated copy of the memoir to 59 people.

The pirated book also became a hot topic at ABC’s political discussion program Insiders. There, Australia’s foreign minister Marise Payne said she “received and deleted” a copy herself, encouraging others “to do the same thing.”

This comment piqued the interest of the book’s publisher, especially because the minister refuses to say who sent her the book. Sandy Grant, a chief executive at the publisher, suggested they might even subpoena politicians to get more details.

The publisher wants to get to the bottom of the matter and Grant said they plan to make a referral to the Australian Federal Police.

“When I watch a senior government minister saying they received stolen goods but can’t help us know where they came from, you despair,” Grant said, quoted by SMH.

“The bookshops in their electorates are closed or struggling, our staff are working reduced hours or being stood down and they seem to see that theft as something they can ignore. Would they ignore someone stealing from the local servo?” he added.

It’s clear that many details are still missing from this story, but perhaps the subpoenas and a police investigation could fill in some gaps.

The publisher of the memoir sees itself as a victim here, which is understandable. However, it’s not all bad news. The piracy scandal is being picked up in mainstream media outlets throughout Australia, which is priceless free advertising.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

For more than a decade, countries around the world have mimicked United States policies regarding copyright infringement.

The DMCA, which refers to the 1999 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, has become the standard for how rightsholders and online services deal with pirated content.

While many believe that this is still sufficient, in recent years criticism has swelled. Many prominent copyright holders believe that the DMCA is ineffective, as removed content can reappear a day later. In addition, they feel that online services use the law as a shield to profit from copyright infringements.

This critique of the DMCA has now led to a situation where some of the largest media companies advise foreign governments not to copy US copyright law. This is also the message the Motion Picture wants to send to Kenya.

In a letter, addressed to the US Trade Representative (USTR), which is currently considering a new trade deal with the African country, the movie industry group notes that exporting US copyright law might not always be a good thing.

Anissa Brennan, who’s the Senior Vice President International Affairs and Trade Policy at the MPA, stresses that simply copying the DMCA isn’t going to cut it. Instead, a trade deal should include more effective anti-piracy measures.

“With regard to online enforcement, a U.S.-Kenya agreement should include disciplines that can effectively address online piracy. This means moving away from a rote recitation of Section 512 of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” Brennan writes (pdf).

“Rather, we recommend moving to highlevel language that reflects the fundamental principles of the DMCA. Such an approach would be fully consistent with U.S. law and create some policy space for Kenya to be innovative in its approach to online piracy.”

Or put differently, the MPA wants Kenya to implement copyright legislation that’s more strict or effective than the US has in place.

What the more ‘innovative’ approach looks like isn’t explained in detail. However, the Hollywood group previously advocated in favor of “staydown” policies, where online services have to make sure that infringing content or links don’t resurface.

In addition, the MPA also argued in favor of ‘proactive’ measures against infringing content, which hints at upload filters. At the same time, legislation should make it easier to hold online services liable for infringing users, instead of offering the DMCA’s broad ‘safe harbor’ protections.

The MPA has lobbied US lawmakers for similar changes. While Congress is currently reviewing the DMCA, no concrete changes have been suggested yet. With their letter, the MPA suggests that Kenya could be a pioneer in this area.

While the DMCA is no longer seen as sufficient, the MPA does urge the African country to implement another US copyright policy that has become a global standard. That is, a copyright term of the author’s life plus 70 years, which is substantially longer than the current 50-year term.

“A U.S.-Kenya agreement should reflect the global consensus on term of protection for copyrighted works which is life of the author plus 70 years and a comparable term for works measured by date of publication,” the MPA writes.

In addition, there are various other proposed changes, including statutory damages for copyright infringement, as well as the option to issue injunctions against third-party services in copyright lawsuits.

Whether any of these changes will make their way into potential new trade agreements remains to be seen. During the negotiation phase of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement there were also repeated calls not to copy the DMCA language, but those proved to be unsuccessful.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

Site-blocking is one of the entertainment industries’ preferred tools for dealing with the spread of unlicensed content.

Operated in dozens of countries around the world and currently being championed as an effective anti-piracy solution for the United States, site-blocking is not only controversial but also struggles to keep up with piracy innovations.

When file-sharing hit the mainstream, it was via software clients such as Napster, Kazaa and LimeWire. After traversing through torrent clients it then hit the web, with people more likely to stream or download from a site using a browser. Over the past few years, however, part of the market came full circle, with dedicated piracy apps gaining in popularity once again.

While these pieces of software are usually downloaded from websites, they are effectively aggregators pulling content from a wide range of third-party platforms. It is technically possible to block all of those platforms to prevent apps from working but Russia now wants to deny access to the apps themselves.

According to draft amendments to copyright law reviewed by Kommersant, the plan is for telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor to contact app developers/owners with a request for them to cease distribution of their infringing tools. They will be expected to respond positively and quickly, within a day.

In the event that fails, Roscomnadzor will then turn to the entity that “ensures the placement of the application”, i.e websites, distribution platforms etc. If no action is taken there, they could find themselves subjected to ISP blocking instead.

According to Karen Ghazaryan, leading analyst at the Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC), services such as Google Play and Apple’s App Store will be covered by the legislation.

While some will view blocking of legitimate platforms as draconian, there doesn’t appear to be any desire to block entire sites after a failure to restrict access to infringing apps. Instead, the proposed blocking is at least intended to be precise, targeting the specific locations where the apps can be found.

Whether that will be possible or whether over-blocking will raise its head again is unclear but Ghazaryn is concerned by the development and questions whether it is needed at all. Faced with copyright or trademark complaints, official platforms already remove applications from their stores.

Nevertheless, Alexei Byrdin of anti-piracy group Internet Video Association suggests that such distributors should also face sanctions for failing to respond.

“It’s worth expanding the ways of influencing aggregators so that they really respond, for example, provide for significant fines – such as those in place for search engines for not deleting links to pirated resources,” he told Kommersant.

It’s certainly possible the government is hoping to tackle a broader range of distribution mechanisms other than Google Play or the App Store, however. When applications are denied distribution on the larger services, they tend to get pushed out to file-hosting platforms and third-party websites, which can also be blocked.

That being said, pirate apps are typically quite small so they can also be distributed via email or chat applications. Those mechanisms are hard or even impossible to block but restricting access to the masses is probably the pragmatic goal of the legislation, not eradicating the apps completely.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.