It is no secret that copyright holders are monitoring unauthorized downloads around the world.

In most cases this results in harmless takedown notices but increasingly, these warnings are triggering settlement demands or automated fines.

Rightsholders in the Netherlands are planning similar action. Dutch Filmworks initially said it would send the first settlement demands last Autumn but a year later, this is yet to happen.

Local anti-piracy group BREIN also announced a similar effort, targeting frequent seeders. This campaign isn’t live either.

Considering the above, it came as a surprise when several people received emails demanding a ‘fine’ over alleged illegal downloading in recent days. The emails in question claim to be from the Dutch Government’s Telecom Agency (Agentschap Telecom), which carries some weight.

The emails may look pretty legitimate, especially to people who are unfamiliar with these type of demands, but the Telecom Agency issued a warning today which explains that they are fake.

“There appear to be fake emails in circulation that supposedly come from the Telecom Agency. These are fake e-mails regarding fines for illegal downloading of films. These are bogus e-mails. They are not from the Telecom Agency,” the warning notes.

“Have you received such an e-mail? Do not respond to the message, do not click on any links and never leave your details behind.”

It appears that the scammers are using the news that ‘fines’ will soon be sent out to alleged pirates to add legitimacy to their efforts. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that this has happened.

Last year we reported on a similar scheme where fake piracy fines were sent out, supposedly on behalf of Dutch Filmworks. This was a scam as well and the movie distributor advised recipients to throw the letters in the trash.

“There is a fake letter in circulation. This letter is NOT sent by Dutch Filmworks. Do not pay and throw the letter away,” the movie Dutch Filmworks warned at the time.

Being a Government agency, it’s unlikely that the Telecom Agency will ever send out piracy fines. These are more likely to come from rightsholders or their representatives.

How far along BREIN and Dutch Filmworks are with their real ‘fine’ schemes remains unknown.

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

Ever since computer and video games have been available to the masses, players have been able to pirate them. From the early days of cassettes and floppy disks to today’s digital downloads, games are pirated as quickly as pirates can manage.

Over the years, dozens of anti-piracy mechanisms have attempted to stem the tide, with one thing in common – all have eventually failed to prevent piracy. With billions in revenue at stake, it’s a huge and competitive market that games companies wish to protect.

In recent years, one particular product has found itself on the frontlines. Denuvo’s anti-tamper technology protects perhaps the most vulnerable of titles – PC games – and for the longest time managed to thwart even the most competent of games ‘crackers’

However, in recent years, the technology has been under attack, mainly because of its deployment on the world’s most popular games but partially because the technology presents such a challenge to those attempting to circumvent it. Slowly but surely, the unstoppable Denuvo has proven to be fallible, with several cracking groups unpicking its digital locks.

With the period of Denuvo protection diminishing from many, many months down to a few days in some cases, the company has attempted to position itself not as invulnerable, but the people to turn to if protecting early sales are important. And, according to a new statement by the company, they are very important indeed.

In a statement issued by Denuvo owner Irdeto (the latter acquired the former earlier this year), the company states that it tracked pirate downloads of an unnamed ‘AAA’ (big budget, major studio) title during the first few days after its release. Without Denuvo protection it was quickly cracked and made available on P2P networks and from there, pirates did their thing.

“Irdeto tracked the downloads of a major sports title on P2P networks after the title, which did not include anti-tamper protection, was cracked on the same day of its release,” the company says.

“During the first two weeks, Irdeto detected 355,664 torrent downloads of the illegal copy of the title. Given the retail price of the game, this puts the total potential loss of revenue from P2P downloads at $21,336,283.”

Irdeto highlights the first 14 days following release as the most critical for such a game, claiming that up to 80% of sales take place during the period. An impressive 50% of those sales take place within the first four days, the company adds.

It’s worth noting that while Denuvo games are often cracked very quickly, it’s definitely not uncommon for protection to stand up to the first two weeks of attacks. Denuvo can usually hold off crackers for the first four days, so these figures are obvious marketing tools for a technology that has been somewhat diminished after various cracking groups began taking its challenge personally.

But just in case Denuvo only manages a single day of protection, owner Irdeto suggests that the effort is worth it – even dropping down to the importance of standing firm for an hour.

“The research also found that the first day of release alone is crucial for the protection of a AAA title, as 12% of the illegal P2P downloads occurred within the first day of the cracked copy appearing on the P2P networks (and a substantial number of these in the first hour),” the company adds.

During the past couple of years, with many Denuvo-protected games finding themselves cracked within days and weeks, the company has positioned itself as a necessary speedbump, one that can make a difference straight after launch. With Denuvo limiting the above statistics to the first two weeks, there’s a suggestion that’s where its confidence lies.

“Piracy is a threat that is firmly established in the games industry and, as our research suggests, it can result in potentially huge revenue losses for publishers if their games are compromised within the 14-day window following release,” said Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director of Denuvo, Irdeto.

“With this in mind, it is crucial for publishers to implement security strategies that make their games as difficult as possible to crack and reverse engineer. This way they will be able to better protect the revenues that allow them to continue to create such compelling games.”

While the challenge presented by Denuvo protection has never proven popular with pirates, many hoped that the technology would prove unpopular with developers and publishers too. However, as a sarcastic graphic posted by a Reddit user yesterday shows, there doesn’t appear to be much lack of uptake.

New game contains Denuvo? We know…..

All that said, it appears that no variant of Denuvo is invulnerable. Even since the company managed to shut down Bulgarian cracker Voksi earlier this year, new and old players have been taking the company’s protection apart.

According to a useful table published by /r/crackwatch, cracking group CODEX recently defeated the protection on Dragon Quest XI in 13 days while Soul Caliber 6 took them just four. (Note: There’s that four-day period mentioned by Irdeto above)

A previously unheard of group ‘FCKDRM’ appeared on the scene in November, defeating Mega Man 11 in just over a month and Football Manager 2019 in just four days (there it is again). Notably, these two latter titles used Denuvo’s latest technology, labeled as 5.1 and 5.2.

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

The entertainment industries have repeatedly accused Google of not doing enough to limit piracy while demanding tougher action.

For its part, Google regularly publishes updates on the extensive measures it takes to limit piracy on its platforms.

The company has today released the latest iteration of its “How Google Fights Piracy” report. It highlights how the company generates billions in revenue for the entertainment industries while at the same time takes measures to counter copyright infringement.

The company explains that its anti-piracy efforts are guided by five principles, starting with more and better legal alternatives.

“Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply. The best way to battle piracy is with better, more convenient, legitimate alternatives to piracy, which can do far more than attempts at enforcement can,” Google writes.

The other principles include a “follow-the-money” approach, effective and scalable anti-piracy solutions, protection against abuse such as fabricated copyright infringement allegations, and transparency.

A large portion of the report describes Google’s policies and results regarding web search. The company stresses that it doesn’t want to link to any pirated content, but that it relies on copyright holders to pinpoint these URLs.

“Google does not want to include links to infringing material in our search results, and we make significant efforts to prevent infringing webpages from appearing,” the company writes.

“The heart of those efforts is cooperation with creators and rightsholders to identify and remove results that link to infringing content and to present legitimate alternatives.”

Aside from removing more than three billion URLs in recent years, the search engine also helps to promote legal alternatives. This includes “knowledge cards” (which, incidentally, have featured pirate links too), as well as offering copyright holders SEO advice.

Earlier this year we reported that the number of takedown notices was starting to decrease for the first time in years, and Google confirms that observation in its report.

“The number of URLs listed in takedown requests decreased by 9%, reversing a long-term trend where the number of URLs requested for removal increased year-over-year,” the company writes.

Last year, Google was asked to remove 882 million URLs in total, of which 95% were removed. In addition, more than 65,000 sites that were flagged persistently have been demoted in search results, lowering their visibility.

This demotion measure is “extremely effective” according to the search giant.

“Immediately upon launching improvements to our demotion signal in 2014, one major torrent site acknowledged traffic from search engines had dropped by 50% within the first week,” Google notes, citing a TorrentFreak report.

Perhaps more importantly, Google’s demotion measures also passed the tests that were carried out under the Voluntary Code of Practice that Google entered into alongside Microsoft and major UK rightsholder organizations.

This agreement was signaled by the rightsholders as a landmark deal and, reportedly, Google is doing well.

Thus far, four rounds of tests have been carried out to check whether search engines sufficiently limit the availability of infringing content. These are based on guidelines set by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO). Google passed them all.

“Thanks to the demotion signal and our other efforts to surface legitimate results in response to media-related queries, Google Search has passed the test every time with flying colors — scoring considerably under the thresholds agreed with the IPO,” Google reveals.

This suggests that the search engine doesn’t have much to fear from the UK Government, which previously warned that “legislative” measures could follow if search engines didn’t step up their game.

While Google says that it’s doing its best, the company is convinced that search is not a major driver to pirate sites and stresses that they don’t control what is on the web.

The company reiterates its earlier position that removing entire domains from search results is unacceptable, as that would restrict access to legitimate content as well. Similarly, “filtering” the entire web for pirated content is not an option either.

“It is a myth that Google could create a tool to filter the web for allegedly infringing material and remove images, video, and text from our search results proactively. Such a system is both infeasible and unnecessary,” Google writes.

Aside from search, Google has also removed content from its other services including YouTube, Google Drive, and Google images. Some of these services were extensively abused by streaming sites last year, but Google says it has taken steps to counter this.

Finally, no anti-piracy report these days would be complete without a Kodi mention. The streaming software, which is perfectly legal in its own right, is regularly used in combination with third-party piracy add-ons.

Google, which banned the term Kodi from its auto-complete feature, says it removed several set-top boxes with “suspicious” add-ons from Google Shopping. In addition, the Play Store is closely monitored to flag apps with pre-installed pirate Kodi add-ons before they appear online.

In closing, Google notes that it remains committed to fighting piracy on all fronts, albeit not at all costs.

“Through continued innovation and partnership, we’re committed to rolling back bad actors while empowering the creative communities who make everything we love about the internet today.”

—

A copy of the most recent “How Google Fights Piracy” report 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.

While Hollywood has yet to have any ‘pirate’ sites blocked by Internet service providers in the United States, over in Europe the picture is rather more intense.

At least 17 countries in the European Union now have active site-blocking programs, at last count blocking more than 1,800 sites and 5,300 related domains. This week, action by several major Hollywood studios came to fruition, adding Romania to the list.

In July 2017, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios, Universal Cable, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Disney, Columbia Pictures, and Sony Pictures targeted multiple Romanian ISPs with demands to block three pirate sites.

Of course, top of the list was The Pirate Bay, the torrent site with a reputation for being the galaxy’s most resilient, despite being blocked all around the world by dozens of ISPs. Also targeted were Filmehd.net and Filmeonline2013.biz, two movie and TV show streaming portals that are particularly popular with locals.

According to a brief decision published by the Romanian Ministry of Justice, several ISPs including market leader RCS & RDS, Telekom Romania, UPC Romania, Digital Cable Systems, AKTA Telecom, and Nextgen Communication were defendants in the case and are now required to block a long list of domains (see below).

The decision, which is underpinned by a ruling on site-blocking handed down by the European Court of Justice in 2017, is the first of its kind in Romania.

The decision is not yet final and can be appealed within 30 days to the Bucharest Court of Appeal. It is not clear if any of the ISPs intend to do so.

The decision requires the defendant ISPs to implement what appears to be a straightforward DNS blocking regime on fixed-line services. This means that customers of the affected ISPs may be able to switch to a secondary DNS provider (such as Google or OpenDNS) to evade the blocks, once they’ve been put in place.

As revealed earlier this year, The Pirate Bay is now being blocked in at least 19 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

As a result of this widespread blocking, there are now hundreds of ways to access the site, via alternative domains, mirrors, proxies, VPNs and even Tor. A huge ecosystem of third-party sites has sprung up to facilitate access to the site, with new domains appearing on a regular basis.

That goes some way to explaining why the Romanian order is so lengthy. Not only does it block ThePirateBay.org, but dozens of other domains, as listed below.

Domains to be blocked according to the latest Romanian decision

FilmeHD – filmehd.net

FilmeOnline2013 – filmeonline2013.biz

The Pirate Bay – thepiratebay.org, http://fbay.maik.rocks, http://bayproxy.net, http://thepiratebayz.org, http://tpb.portalimg.com, https://fastpiratebay.co.uk, https://gameofbay.org, https://ikwilthepiratebay.org, https://oldbayproxy.eu, https://pirate.trade, https://piratebay.click, https://piratebay.red, https://piratebayblocked.corn, https://piratebaymirror.eu, https://piratebayproxy.be, https://piratebayproxy.tf, https://piratebays.co, https://piratebays.co. uk, https://pirateproxy.cam, https://pirateproxy.dick, https://pirateproxy.sh, https://pirateproxy.tf, https://pirateproxy.wf, https://pirateproxy.yt, https://thebay.tv, https://thehiddenbay.cc, https://thehiddenbay.fi, https://thehiddenbay.info, https://thehiddenbay.ws, https://thepiratebay.bypassed.st, https://thepiratebay.co.in, https://thepiratebay.rocks, https://thepiratebay.uk.net, https://thepiratebay.unblocker.cc, https://thepiratebay-proxy.com, https://tpbbay.eu, https://tpbmirror.us, https://tpbunblocked.org, https://ukpirate.dick, https://ukpirate.org, https://ukpirateproxy.xyz, https://unblockedbay.info, https://urbanproxy.eu

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

For roughly two decades, copyright holders have been sending ISPs takedown notices to alert account holders that their connections are being used to share copyrighted material.

These notices are traditionally nothing more than a warning, hoping to scare file-sharers into giving up their habit. In recent years, this has slowly changed.

In the past, AT&T and other ISPs said that they would never terminate accounts of customers without a court order, arguing that only a court can decide what constitutes a repeat infringement.

However, after rightsholders filed several high profile lawsuits against ISPs, many companies have revised their policies. This also appears to be the case at AT&T, which reportedly plans to terminate its first customers over piracy allegations.

The ISP, which is the third-largest broadband provider in the US, plans to terminate over a dozen persistent ‘pirates’ next week, Axios reports.

The customers in question have received repeated warnings. AT&T states that it reached out to educate them about copyright infringement and prevent the issue from reoccurring, apparently without result.

“A small number of customers who continue to receive additional copyright infringement notifications from content owners despite our efforts to educate them, will have their service discontinued,” an AT&T spokesperson said, commenting on the news.

AT&T is by no means the only ISP that terminates persistent pirates, but it’s a noteworthy step since the company is no longer convinced that a court order is required to do so.

This lack of clarity is, in part, due to the language in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that deals with takedown notices.

The DMCA requires ISPs to “… adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers.”

The term “repeat infringer” is open to interpretation. Are these infringers by a court’s standards, or merely based on allegations from copyright holders?

Where AT&T previously said that a court order was needed, it will now terminate customers based on allegations from copyright holders.

There is little doubt that many of the repeatedly flagged subscribers have a ‘pirate’ in their household. That said, without a proper judicial review of the evidence, there’s more room for error.

AT&T and several other ISPs previously took part in the Copyright Alert System. Together with the MPAA and RIAA, they agreed to send warning notices to alleged pirates, escalating repeat infringers through a series of “mitigation” measures.

Ironically, this scheme didn’t require any of the ISPs to terminate any subscribers, although AT&T threatened to do so.

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