While the majority of computing devices come with sophisticated operating systems installed, users will almost certainly need to buy additional software to meet their needs.

Open Source software can usually be obtained for free but millions of users opt for paid products that need to be licensed by the companies offering them.

Of course, piracy is a significant problem for the developers behind the majority of premium products. Most are available from torrent sites or file-hosting platforms, often arriving with a ‘crack’ that allows users to enjoy without paying.

Companies often have sophisticated systems to detect unlicensed products, sometimes with the reasonable aim of attempting to convert pirates into paying consumers. Earlier this year we reported on Corel’s efforts in this space after the company obtained a patent for a system which is able to offer an amnesty to illegal users via a popup.

“The amnesty offer may, for example, agree not to bring criminal charges in exchange for the user purchasing a legitimate copy of the product,” Corel’s patent reads.

“In this manner, the user of the pirated version is given the opportunity to purchase a legitimate copy which, if acted on, increases revenue for the manufacturer.”

While this is fair enough, what happens when it all goes wrong? Earlier this week, TorrentFreak was contacted by an angry Corel customer who was witnessing first hand what can happen when a piracy detection system blows a fuse.

“I am a valid and licensed user and Corel support has records of my license key and right to use this software on my work PC,” he told us.

Despite paying the company as required, he received the following popup instead.

Scary message from Corel

The message couldn’t be more clear. Corel states that the copy in use is illegal and as a result, its functionality has been severely limited. “All save, export and print features will be permanently disabled,” it warns.

According to Corel, all of these problems can be solved with a click of the blue “BUY A LEGAL COPY NOW” button, something that made our contact extremely angry.

“I get this extortion popup and threat to my means to make a living. I feel like Corel has hijacked my computer, my artwork and images and is preventing me from making a living just to sell another upgrade. This is wrong, and something needs to be done about his practice,” he told us.

It’s not surprising that the user was upset at Corel remotely disabling his software. Aside from having a valid license, his work ground to a halt. Initial emails back and forth had him messing around in his computer’s registry in an effort to fix the problem but all the time he was unable to carry on with his job.

“I have owned a licensed copy of Corel PrintShop Pro since 9/2016 and use it multiple times each day for work. I use it for editing and creating graphics and logos for customers that host events and in the medical field for patient wristbands at hospitals and clinics,” he told TF.

“These images are used to identify and even categorize different types of patients and attendees at events. At this time, I’m unable to meet the needs of my customers because I can’t save any new artwork for them. This has now gone on for more than 24 hours.”

Eventually, after lengthy email exchanges, the problem got fixed, albeit after Corel’s customer had been unable to use his software for an extended period. He says that the problem has left a bad taste in his mouth and wonders how many other people are getting the message and, crucially, whether less technical users are paying to have the anti-piracy message removed.

“I’m not sure how [the steps Corel took] corrected my license issue or if it just took me off the ‘hit list’ of victims of what I still feel was some kind of scam. Still no apology from Corel for the problems caused or the delays it forced on me,” he added.

TorrentFreak contacted Corel requesting information and received a response from Gerard Metrailler, EVP of Global Products, whose name is on the patent issued earlier this year.

“Our anti-piracy measures are designed specifically to protect our IP. And as part of this process, we offer an amnesty program on many of our products that gives users an easy way to purchase a legitimate version of our software at an affordable price,” Metrailler explained.

“Unfortunately, some users who believe they are running legitimate versions of our software are surprised to receive a notification that their license is invalid. In many of these cases, the products were purchased from online marketplaces, often at very low prices, and the users were not aware they were buying illegitimate software.

“It’s critical to note that customers should always purchase our software from authorized resellers or Corel directly,” he added.

Given comments on Corel’s forums about unlicensed resellers, early in the week TF checked with the user where he’d obtained his license. According to an original purchase receipt reviewed by TF, it was obtained from the company’s own online store and everything was in order.

Corel did, however, suggest that a customer could receive the anti-piracy warning in error and said any customers who believe they are affected should contact the company right away.

“[I]n the very rare event of a mis-identification, I can assure you that we will work quickly to get the issue corrected. We agree that even one customer affected by a mistake like this is one customer too many,” Metrailler said.

We asked Corel how many customers take them up on their offer of reduced price software as part of an amnesty but the company provided no details. We asked if there were any safeguards to prevent licensed users paying up in error but received no response.

Corel did, however, give TF a contact email address so that their customer can get directly in touch, and we’ve forwarded that to him. In the meantime, directly with the customer and independently of our discussions with him and the company, Corel support offered him a 5% discount on future purchases.

“I want to ask them if that 5% is good for Photoshop,” the customer commented dryly.

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

Academia certainly isn’t our prime focus here at TorrentFreak, but we have mentioned Elsevier repeatedly throughout the years.

With a net income of roughly $3 billion and operating profits exceeding $1 billion, Elsevier is one of the largest academic publishers in the world. One that protects its business with vigor.

The company has sued ‘pirate’ sites “Sci-Hub and “LibGen” for the unauthorized distribution of millions of scientific papers, for example.

This resulted in a million dollar verdict in favor of the publisher, which was also able to seize several domain names. While Sci-Hub and LibGen are still around, Elsevier recently stepped up its game by obtaining an ISP blocking order against the sites in question.

So far, these efforts run parallel to what we see in the media piracy world. Torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay have been sued as well, and are now blocked in countries all over the world.

There is a significant difference though. The major movie studios who sue pirates sites have a good reputation in the industry, while Elsevier is heavily criticized by universities and researchers.

This criticism is far from new, but where the battle was previously fought in op-eds and on social media, it’s now on the agenda of the European Union as well. Pressure is mounting.

The first complaint comes from researchers Dr. Jonathan Tennant and Prof. Dr. Björn Brembs, who referred Elsevier’s parent company RELX Group to the EU Anti-Competition Authority late last month.

A serious allegation, but it turned out to be just the start.

This week, it was followed by a similar call from the European University Association (EUA), which represents over 800 higher education institutions in 47 countries throughout Europe.

In a letter (pdf) to the European Commission, the organization shares its concern about the lack of transparency and competition in Europe’s academic publishing sector, mentioning Elsevier and similar publishers.

One of the main frustrations is that researchers and universities provide the manpower and articles for these publishers, work that’s often funded with public money. This is then sold back to them by the publishers at high prices.

Or as EUA puts it:

“As a well-known allegory says: ‘Imagine a farmer who owns, feeds and milks his cow in order to give away the milk for free to a dairy company – and then finally buys it back in a milk carton at a very high price’. This is the business model of big research publishers.”

While publishers such as Elsevier use copyrights to protect and exploit their work, the nature of the “competition” issue is more complex.

Jonathan Tennant, who filed the first complaint with the EU Anti-Competition Authority, tells TorrentFreak that competition is hard to achieve when every academic article is unique and valuable. The articles are not substitutable, you either have access to it or you don’t.

The second problem is that Elsevier and others keep their pricing agreements secret, often through non-disclosure agreements, which is widely seen as an anti-competitive practice.

“Both of these things together, as well as issues to do with copyright, ‘marketplace’ concentration, obscenely high profits, and vendor lock-in all create an unsuitable ‘market’ around scholarly publishing, which has a negative impact across the entire research sector,” Tennant tells us.

Tennant and Brembs don’t provide any recommendations in their report. They’re leaving it up to the European Commission to decide what’s appropriate, but they believe that banning non-disclosure clauses and providing more transparency are two possible steps.

In an ideal world, one could argue that all academic research should be available for free. In the current system, many researchers don’t have access to some of the research in their field due to financial reasons, which hinders the progress of science.

This is also the main reason why Alexandra Elbakyan started the pirate research library Sci-Hub several years ago. Many researchers rely on it as a source, but Tennant says that he has some sort of love-hate relationship with the controversial pirate library.

“I think what Alexandra and Sci-Hub have done is phenomenal in emphasing the incredible dysfunction in research access from a greedy corporate publishing sector. It has demonstrated that access to knowledge is simple to provide.

“I think it also helps to level the playing field, from an industry whose business model is based on knowledge discrimination based on elite/financial status. For these things, and for being a symptom of a broken industry, I think it is wonderful,” he adds.

However, Tennant argues that it has also had some negative consequences. As founder of Open Science MOOC, he is a strong supporter of Open Access research, where papers are published without paywalls, and believes Sci-Hub may hinder the progress of this movement.

“Because Sci-Hub provides a simple, easy shortcut to free access (not Open Access), it removes some of the incentives for researchers to engage with Open Access in a more sustainable manner. For example, by self-archiving their work for free,” he notes.

That said, Tennant doesn’t think that terms such as ‘piracy’ and ‘theft’ necessarily apply to Sci-Hub. At least, not any more than it could apply to some of the major publishers themselves.

“Sometimes I think that it is the scholarly publishing industry themselves who are the thieves, blackmailing content/copyright from researchers and then preventing access to it as their business model.

“Depends which side of the ethical fence you fall on – private or public gain,” he adds.

Tennant hopes that the European Commission will pick up the ball to end to what he sees as an abuse of power and copyright. Where Sci-Hub tries to “tear down the paywalls” through force, ultimately he believes that it’s more sustainable to change the publishing system itself.

Tennant, who was at a blockchain for science conference this week, has some ideas of his own. Ideally, the future of academic publishing should be open, flexible, and relying on modern technologies.

“My ideal scenario would be a much more granular and lightweight system of continuous editing and review – something like GitHub combined with Stack Exchange combined with Wikipedia,” he says.

“Community-owned, low cost, open source, open everything, sustainable, inherently reproducible, less biased, non-profit, collaborative, instantaneous, fair, and equitable.

“Something like that would be inherently easy to create, should we start again from scratch today,” Tennant concludes.

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

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has protected Hollywood’s interest for nearly a century now.

In recent years the organization’s anti-piracy efforts have made the headlines repeatedly. Not just domestically, but around the world, through its site-blocking efforts for example.

Traditionally, the MPAA obtains most of its revenue from the six major Hollywood studios. The latest public filings show that these membership dues totaled nearly $50 million.

This number is significantly less than before, as we reported earlier, but new information suggests that it may drop even further.

As a result of Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, the MPAA stands to lose one-sixth of its membership dues. Disney promised to pay Fox’s share for another year after the deal is finalized, but what happens next is uncertain.

According to a report from The Information, the MPAA is now discussing a makeover of the organization.

While no crystalized plans have been released, several insiders said that the group is considering accepting new members, including streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon. This would add more revenue, but also broaden the organization’s mandate.

It is unknown how concrete these plans are or whether the MPAA approached potential new members already. Whatever the eventual direction may be, it won’t be an easy task.

“This can’t just be an economic exercise,” one of the people familiar with the discussions told The Information. “It has to be a come-to-Jesus moment.”

Although Amazon and Netflix have a shared interest with Hollywood on some fronts, both have their differences as well. The MPAA has been at odds with major tech companies over the years, companies that are closely aligned with the streaming giants.

That said, Amazon, Netflix, and the MPAA already work together in another anti-piracy initiative. They are all part of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which counts 30 companies in total.

The ACE coalition is, in fact, running on the MPAA’s anti-piracy resources, including personnel. That brings up the next makeover option.

If the MPAA can’t continue in its current form and is unable to add more members, whether those are traditional movie studios or streaming providers, some people suggested that it could fold into ACE.

That’s an even more complex path, perhaps, since the MPAA does more than fighting piracy. But in theory, the MPAA could continue as is in a slimmed down version, while its anti-piracy efforts move to ACE.

For now, it’s all just speculation. But it’s clear that the MPAA has more on its mind than fighting pirates.

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

Copyright holders are increasingly demanding that ISPs should block access to pirate sites in order to protect their business.

As the bastion of online piracy, The Pirate Bay has become one of the main targets. The site has been blocked in roughly two-dozen countries already, mostly in Europe.

Earlier this week we reported that Romania had joined in on the action, following a court order, and only a few days later Greek Internet providers are now ordered to block the notorious torrent site as well.

The blocking request was filed this spring by the Society for the Protection of Audiovisual Works (EPOE), a local anti-piracy group which represents the interests of major Greek copyright holders.

The group filed an application with the IPPC, a special commission that falls under the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, which decided that ISPs must block a total of 38 domain names.

The targeted sites include The Pirate Bay, 1337x, YTS, as well as several popular local sites, such as Xrysoi, Gamatotv, and Tainiomania. With Subztv.club, Subtitles.gr, and others, subtitle sites are thrown into the mix as well.

According to the Government-affiliated commission, it is apparent that all the targeted sites are involved in large-scale copyright infringement.

The commission has set a tight deadline of 48 hours for ISPs to comply with the order. Those who fail to do so face a fine of 850 euros per day, Lawspot reports.

The order stands for three years and it specifically states that offenses committed by users are not covered.

It’s worth noting that this wasn’t the first attempt to block The Pirate Bay and other pirate sites in Greece. AEPI previously launched a civil court case, but at the time the court ruled that pirate site blocks were disproportionate and unconstitutional.

It’s questionable whether this would hold up today, though, as the EU Court of Justice ruled otherwise last year.

Whether the current blockades will help to deter piracy in a meaningful way has yet to be seen. As usual, there are several options to bypass ISP blockades, and the targeted sites themselves often offer alternative domains.

—

The full list of domain names is posted below and a copy of the order can be found here.

1. https://xrysoi.online
2. xrysoi.se
3. xrysoi.eu
4. http://gamatotv.me
5. thegmtv.org,
6. gamatotv.to
7. https: //onlinemoviestar.xyz
8. onlinemoviestar.com
9. tainies.online
10. tenies.online
11. https://tenies-online.com
12. teniesonline.ucoz.com
13. https: // oipeirates .online
14. oipeirates.eu
15. oipeirates.se
16. http://tainio-mania.com
17. tainiomania.ucoz.com
18. https: // liomen oi.com
19. moviecinema.gr
20. moviecinematv.online
21. http://tainiesonline.tv
22. https://magico.info
23. http://www.subs4free.com
24. small-industry.com
25. rnedium-industry.com
26. https://subztv.club
27. http: // www .greeksubtitles.info
28. htt : // www.subtitles.gr
29. https://thepiratebay.org
30. thepiratebay.se
31. thepiratebay.me
32. thepiratebay3.org
33. https://yts.am
34. https: //www.1337x.to
35. 1337x.st
36. 1337x.ws
37. 1337x.eu
38. 1337x.se

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

Several Russian tech giants and media companies signed a landmark anti-piracy agreement last week. It’s designed to make infringing content less visible by sanitizing search results and rapidly removing content.

The memorandum was signed by media companies Channel One, the National Media Group, Gazprom-Media, the Internet Video Association, and the Association of Film and Television Producers. Yandex, Rambler Group, Mail.Ru Group, vKontakte, and RuTube signed on the tech platform side.

A centralized database, populated with links to sites that the entertainment industry groups claim are infringing their intellectual property, will be created in a matter of weeks. Search engines and hosting platforms will query the database every five minutes and remove infringing content with six hours.

While the agreement had broad support, Russia’s publishing companies were not present during the initial signing. However, telecoms regular Roscomndazor indicated that other rightsholders and tech companies were welcome to join following a successful application.

The publishers have now shown their hand in a letter from the Russian Book Union to Roscomnadzor head Alexander Zharov.

“I ask you to assist in organizing the signing of a memorandum with the Internet Copyright Association [AZAPI] representing the interests of most major Russian publishing houses,” the letter reads.

“Direct communications between the Internet Copyright Association (AZAPI) and Roskomnadzor will remove links from search engines issued on the basis of a constructive dialogue, without waiting for the adoption of the law to develop an optimal test model.

The memorandum signed last week is valid until September 1, 2019. By then, the signatories expect new copyright legislation to be introduced, enshrining the terms of the memorandum in law.

In recent months, Yandex, in particular, has been under increasing pressure to do something about the large amounts of pirate content appearing in search results. Early September, before the signing of the memorandum, the battle again moved to the legal system.

In lawsuits filed with the Moscow City Court, Gazprom-Media outlets including TNT, TV-3, 2×2, complained that Yandex should “stop creating technical conditions that ensure the placement of [copyrighted] works on the Yandex.ru website.”

While that matter is still pending, the agreement reached last week (Yandex and Gazprom-Media both signed) could mean that GazProm-Media withdraws its complaints against Yandex. Speaking with TASS, spokesperson Ekaterina Trofimova declined to rule out the possibility of peace breaking out before the trial, provisionally arranged for December 5, 2018.

Meanwhile, the Russian IPChain Association, which earlier this year signed an agreement to digitize the patent archives of Kyrgyzstan using blockchain technology, has said it’s ready to provide a technological solution for the anti-piracy database detailed in the memorandum.

“The main infrastructure solution for implementing the conditions of the memorandum is, of course, distributed registry technology,” said a letter penned by Maxim Proksh of the government-backed innovation group, Skolkovo Foundation.

“Based on this technology, a number of projects have already been created that have passed the pilot stage and have been commercialized. This is how the IPChain intellectual property management system would work to provide a technological solution for the implementation of the memorandum.”

Through the use of blockchain technology, it’s envisioned that trust will be built between companies like Yandex and Gazprom-Media.

“It is important that the blockchain will create and cultivate an environment of trust between search engines and rightsholders. Flat registries in the form of tables are hopelessly outdated, both technologically and morally,” Proksh added.

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