While torrent sites are still important sources of unofficial content for hundreds of millions of users worldwide, streaming sites are undoubtedly eating into their market share.

Streaming platforms, easily accessible on the web and often sporting a Netflix-style interface, are enjoyed by expert pirates and the less savvy alike.

With a point-click-watch approach, streaming sites offer simplicity and convenience, features that regular torrent sites do not usually offer. As a result, a report shared with TorrentFreak by Moscow-based cyber-security company Group-IB indicates that 80% of pirated movies in Russia are now streamed, a figure that increases to 90% for TV shows.

Perhaps of more interest, however, is the supply chain and business model in place to get this content to the end-user while making a profit on the way.

In a report published earlier this week, it was revealed that in 87% of cases the first public copies of premiere titles appeared on torrent sites first, before spreading out to other platforms. While this underlines the continuing importance of torrent sites, Group-IB informs TF that “large monopolists” are now supplying content to thousands of websites via dedicated ‘pirate’ Content Delivery Networks (CDN).

“Much of the pirate underground has adopted advanced technologies of content distribution—pirate CDNs (Content Distribution Networks). CDNs store hundreds of thousands of files containing films and TV series,” the company reveals.

Group-IB says it has identified 15 ‘pirate’ CDN providers in this business while describing four as “major undertakings”. One CDN, for example, contains around 300,000 files sitting on more than five petabytes of server space.

While the storing of pirate content on servers is long-established, Group-IB says that these suppliers go an important step further by not only supplying video ‘wholesale’, but also additional services to help people set up their own professional pirate sites.

Running this kind of CDN is an expensive proposition. Group-IB estimates that the 300,000 file CDN mentioned above costs around $100,000 per month to maintain. This, however, is recouped via the content and services offered to pirate streaming site operators.

“Illegal videos are monetized via built-in CDN players. CDN platforms pay the pirate website owners on a CPM (cost per mille or thousand impressions) model. The CDNs are sponsored by bookies and online casinos, whose ads get ‘built-into’ the CDN players,” says Dmitry Tyunkin, Deputy Director Anti-Piracy at Group-IB.

“The CDN operators then become a kind of ‘wholesalers’ of pirated content that gets quickly and easily ‘fed’ to an almost unlimited number of pirate public-facing websites, such as movies and TV shows streaming portals.

“Some of these technical CDN providers also offer web modules that autofill sites with film posters and descriptions, and in some cases even supply unique reviews.”

Group-IB provided TF with details of a CDN named ‘Moonwalk’, which reportedly began operating in 2013. The company says it carries around 33,490 movies and TV shows via a maximum bandwidth of 400 Gb/s, paying out $0.60 per 1,000 views.

Given the size of these kinds of operations, we asked Group-IB whether they are a target for local law enforcement. The company said that while most developers are Russian-speaking, their infrastructure is now hosted outside the country.

“It’s not easy to take any legal actions against CDN providers for copyright owners in Russia, since CDN is a network of servers, which in most cases now are located outside of Russia,” Tyunkin says.

“Most of them in fact are located in Europe, and in the Netherlands in particular, close to so-called Internet backbones, the principal data routes between large computer networks and core routers on the Internet, for faster content distribution.”

Another interesting aspect of these pirate CDNs and the sites they service is that they appear to be undermining site-blocking efforts in the country.

While thousands of pirate domains are blocked in Russia under instruction of the Moscow City Court, the availability of CDNs behind the scenes means that any domain or site targeted for blocking can simply move on, with a minimum of disruption and with its content source intact.

“Nobody considers their domain or platform to be invaluable anymore, and the possibility of them being blocked is no real threat,” the company says.

“Pirates register dozens of domain names, content on these websites is filled automatically, and if the website is blocked, its search ratings are ‘transferred’ to a new website. This allows pirates to retain top positions in search engine results even if the original resource is blocked, which is not prohibited by the law.”

The end result is that while the number of blocked sites is increasing, there is also a trend of users who previously visited larger sites being spread over a larger number of smaller platforms. The anti-piracy memorandum signed last November by content and tech companies is having an effect, Group-IB says, but it’s “too early to talk about a complete victory.”

“Pirates know how to adapt to changing markets and are receiving support in the form of active sponsors among clandestine casinos and bookies. Not to mention creating a pirated website and moving content to it from a CDN provider is becoming increasingly easier and cheaper,” the company concludes.

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

Openload is the largest file-hosting site on the Internet, generating more traffic than popular sites such as Hulu or HBO Go.

While the site has plenty of legal uses it is also a thorn in the side of many copyright holders, due to the frequent appearance of pirated content.

This pirate stigma recently resulted in a mention on the US Government’s list of “Notorious Markets”. 

In addition, it appears that the popular social discussion platform Reddit has taken action as well. The site is actively shadowbanning posts that include Openload links.

In practice, this means that the users who submit a post can see it just fine, but for other Reddit users the post’s content is effectively removed. Here’s how it looks for the submitter.

For other users, however, the post in question looks like this, with all the text removed. 

We were alerted about this shadowbanning practice by a user who questioned why Openload uses so many different domains. That question was posted in the piracy subreddit, but it wasn’t linking to any infringing content directly. 

TorrentFreak spoke to /r/piracy subreddit moderator ‘dysgraphical,’ who notes that there is no way to reverse the action. Sometimes filtered links can be manually approved, but with the Openload URLs, that’s not an option.

“Reddit gives no explanation for how their filter works. This proves difficult for some users who often post collections of links in their threads,” dysgraphical tells us.

“Openload isn’t the only URL blacklisted by Reddit’s sitewide filter. There’s mobilism.org and a few other more; however some of them are ‘soft-filtered’ and can be manually approved,” he adds.

The shadowbanning practice isn’t limited to the /r/piracy subreddit either. We tested it in another subreddit with the same results. Links in a description are “removed” from public view. Posts linking directly to Openload.co are not showing up in a subreddit or search, but these URLs remain intact.  

When searching Reddit for link posts to Openload.co the latest result is from four months ago.

TorrentFreak contacted Reddit to find out more about the shadowbanning and why Openload was added to the list. At the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. 

It’s likely that Reddit took these steps to prevent spam or perhaps to limit the number of copyright complaints. While that’s up to the site’s management to decide, it would be helpful if they were more transparent about it. 

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

While Spotify grabs most of the headlines when it comes to premium streaming services, French firm Deezer is a smaller but serious competitor in the space.

With tens of millions of tracks on offer for a reasonable monthly subscription, Deezer has in excess of 12 million users, the majority of whom pay for a premium account. What Deezer also has is an interesting loophole.

Using third-party tools, users are able to download songs from the service and archive them on their own machines, something which has proven attractive to large numbers of subscribers but completely unpalatable to Deezer.

Over the past couple of years, Deezer has been fighting a somewhat losing battle against the creators of various tools including several connected with the Deezloader, Deezloader Reborn, and Deezloader Remix apps.

Previously the company has filed what loosely appear to be DMCA-style complaints with platforms including Github and Gitlab, complaining that these third-party tools infringe their rights. Just this week, Deezer targeted the Deezloader Remix repo on NotABug, demanding that the site take the software down. (Excerpt from notice below)

Amongst other things, security is set so as to prohibit any other use than those stipulated in our Terms and Conditions (http://www.deezer.com/legal/cgu). Is prohibited notably the unauthorised download of music tracks.

The following link makes available an application which uses illegal methods to bypass Deezer's security measures to unlawfully download its music catalogue, in total violation of our rights and those of our music licensors (phonographic producers, performing artists, songwriters and composers):

https://notabug.org/RemixDevs/DeezloaderRemix

I therefore ask that you immediately take down the application made available via the URL above.

Similar notices were previously sent to Github and Gitlab who immediately disabled access to tools with the same functionality under the DMCA. However, NotaBug doesn’t appear so willing to take the project down without additional clarification.

After receiving the takedown notice from Deezer, NotABug admin Hein-Pieter van Braam-Stewart wrote to the developer of Deezloader Remix in an attempt to discover which laws the software might breach.

“I have received [an email] from Deezer, it would be helpful if someone from the project could respond to me on the details of the program,” he wrote on the Deezloader Remix repo.

“A cursory look at the sources reveals no Deezer owned materials nor any way in which the application defeats any type of encryption or any such things.

“I have responded with a request on what laws Deezer believes this repository breaks but it would be helpful if someone could give me a little background on the application.”

That Deezer should write such a lengthy and detailed takedown notice to the site without citing any specific legislation is quite interesting in itself but by not citing the DMCA, for example, there doesn’t appear to be any official process to follow in case the developer wants to object.

That being said, he does have some thoughts of his own.

“This project uses a publicly available API from Deezer to get Tracks information and create a download link to their official servers,” he wrote in response.

“The tracks on their servers are encrypted by ‘extremely high level encryption’ that has been cracked many years ago and they don’t bother fixing.

“The only thing that could be seen as copyrighted material in this project could be the encryption key, as no tracks and no Deezer Code is directly inside this project,” he added.

It seems unlikely that an encryption key in itself could be copyrighted since it’s not the classic definition of a creative work. However, circumventing Deezer’s DRM (which protects access to copyrighted content) opens up a different can of worms on the circumvention of technological measures front.

TorrentFreak contacted NotABug to find out whether Deezer had elaborated on which legislation the streaming service feels should apply to Deezloader Remix but at the time of writing, we were yet to hear back. A request to Deezer’s international PR department also went unanswered.

What doesn’t seem to be in doubt is that using Deezer’s API for downloading tracks to a user’s machine is against Deezer’s Terms of Service. Any developer using the company’s API must agree not to do certain things, including;

• [N]ot use the Services in any way or on any website that is associated or promotes in whatever manner the illegal or unauthorized use, streaming, download, or sharing of music and associated elements content, including but not limited to the Content provided by DEEZER
• [B]ypass, by any means, these measures, for the purpose of downloading the Content, or more broadly using the Content in violation of the present Terms.

In this respect, the developer of Deezloader Remix does indeed appear to be in breach of Deezer’s Terms of Service but it remains unclear why the company hasn’t taken steps to prevent his software from grabbing music from its service. After all, the takedown notice itself claims they are able to do this.

While sending a takedown notice might be considerably easier than a technical fix, it seems fairly clear that the loophole being exploited today is the same one that’s been exploited on Deezer for years.

Maybe there’s some reason why it cannot be patched but until then, additional vague and apparently ineffective notices seem to be the only solution to the persistent ‘Deezer downloading’ problem.

All that being said, Deezloader Remix will soon be put into retirement. The developer says he’s had enough of maintaining the project so there will be no more updates, a decision that was reportedly taken before the complaint from Deezer was received, not in response to it.

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

When there are any major newsworthy developments in the file-sharing world, our ‘tips’ mailbox usually fills up pretty quickly.

That’s particularly true for topics many people care about.

This week there was a pretty historic event in the file-sharing ecosystem. To our surprise, however, several days have gone by and we have yet to receive the first tip in our inbox.

We’re referring to the token sale of BitTorrent’s new BTT token. In just a few minutes the company, which struggled financially for years, raised $7 million from investors. A pretty impressive result to say the least.

Clearly, there is a massive interest in BTT. The token is part of BitTorrent and Tron’s plan to add “paid” sharing to their torrent clients through a new and open standard called “BitTorrent Speed.”

Later this year BitTorrent and uTorrent users will be able to earn tokens by seeding or spend them to speed up downloads.  With well over 100 million users, the potential market is huge.

That said, it’s unlikely that much of the $60 million that was raised came from actual users. As with many cryptocurrency related project, most investors are ultimately in it to make a profit from trading.

Those who search social media for BitTorrent-related mentions are now immersed in trading-related stats and graphs, with specialized news sites analyzing BTT’s ‘movements’ from day to day, something we’re not particularly interested in.

Instead, we decided to take a look at a place where the potential BTT users reside – in the BitTorrent and uTorrent forums, for example. Interestingly, there is not even a single mention of the new token, Tron, or the “BitTorrent Speed” project in general.

BitTorrent used to announce and discuss new uTorrent plans in their forums, but that’s not the case anymore.

This doesn’t mean that there’s no interest all, but it looks like most of the outreach is targeted at crypto investors instead of uTorrent and BitTorrent users. Perhaps that will change later, but it certainly seems odd.

After all, these uTorrent users are the ones who are expected to actually use BTT as “currency.”

Aside from this observation, we don’t want to speculate too much. BitTorrent Speed has been praised and criticized but, for now, we will follow the developments from the sidelines.

That said, we’re very interested in seeing how “BitTorrent Speed” will be received once it’s live. There is little doubt that there will be plenty of torrent users who want to be “paid” to seed, but how many will pay to speed up their downloads remains a question.

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

When UltraViolet was first launched eight years ago, it was portrayed as a convenient alternative to piracy.

The cloud-based service, backed by major Hollywood studios, allows users to store digital copies of purchased films and TV-shows, which they can then easily access on various platforms and devices.

In the years that followed UltraViolet amassed over 30 million users, but in recent times things went downhill. The number of supported retailers slowly started to drop and this week parent organization DECE threw in the towel, Variety reports.

According to the official announcement, the planned closure on July 31 was triggered by “market factors” including the rise of new platforms.

“In the years since UltraViolet’s launch, we’ve seen the emergence of services that provide expanded options for content collection and management independent of UltraViolet.  This and other market factors have led to the decision to discontinue UltraViolet,” the statement reads.

While it’s not uncommon for services to go out of business when technology and markets progress, with digital content it’s often a sensitive issue. Especially for a platform that was once seen as a modern piracy alternative.

Those millions of UltraViolet users now realize that ‘cloud’ ownership is not the same as a physical Bru-ray or a DRM free download. The movies they own in their digital lockers will soon be locked up for good.

With this in mind, it’s interesting to revisit some comments industry insiders made about the service in the past.

Former DECE CEO Mark Teitell, for example, said that UltraViolet fulfills “a real belief among consumers that if they own [content], they should be able to watch it. No fear of losing things you buy, with the additional value that cloud storage eliminates problems if discs are lost, broken or scratched.”

Or what about Thomas Gewecke, former president of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, who previously described UltraViolet as “a new service for giving consumers a new relationship with ownership.”

This new relationship with ownership certainly has a new meaning now. After July 31, users can no longer access their movies on the UltraViolet service.

The good news is that in ‘most’ cases, users can still redeem their UltraViolet codes through the retailers which are still operating. This includes VUDU, Kaleidescape, and Sony Pictures.

“In most cases, we anticipate very little impact,” DECE notes. “While there could be some disruption, we do not anticipate this on a broad scale and are working diligently to minimize and avoid such instances.”

In all fairness, the digital ownership caveats are in no way limited to UltraViolet. Any digital media platform can ultimately go out of business. Or just as bad, depending on the rights, a movie could simply disappear from your library, including iTunes.

There is simply no guaranteed perpetual right of digital ownership for movie customers. But at least there are no scratched DVDs either.

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