When the vast majority of movies are released to the public, viewings take place exclusively in cinemas. The industry is extremely protective of this initial window, which is seen as both lucrative and protective of the theater industry.

This strict and exclusive window also causes problems, however. While huge marketing budgets are mostly successful in luring large numbers of people to the big screen, millions sit at home waiting for a cable, DVD, or VOD release. Or, alternatively, a pirate copy to appear either online or through physical piracy channels.

These illicit copies are obtained by people taking camcorders or similar devices into cinemas and recording the screen. Quality is notoriously suspect but for large numbers of impatient movie fans, a ‘cammed’ copy with blurry video and unwanted audio interruptions is still desirable.

Some countries have legislation to deal with the problem. In the US, for example, ‘camming’ is a serious offense, one that can see offenders hauled off to prison. In other regions, however, the activity isn’t viewed so seriously, something which movie companies are keen to change.

In Italy, ‘camming’ is currently considered an administrative wrongdoing, i.e something which is technically wrong to be handled in ways other than prison. It’s a position the movie industry hopes will change if new legislation under consideration is placed on the books.

According to an Adnkronos report, a new bill has just been presented by the Forza Italia party which proposes upgrading the offense significantly.

The proposal, signed by Member of Parliament Marzia Ferraioli, would transform camcording from a “mere administrative wrongdoing” to a “criminal offense punishable like other illegal acts of piracy.”

“The law proposal by Mrs. Ferraioli, whom we thank for the attention given to the issue of piracy, represents an important signal at a time, like the current one, in which the protection of audiovisual works is severely tested,” Federico Bagnoli Rossi of anti-piracy group FAPAV told Key4Biz.

“Specifically, the problem of camcording has often been underestimated or considered to be in decline but it still represents the apex of the illicit supply chain of pirated content.

“This aspect is also aggravated by the fact that these recordings are made in the very first days of the presence of films in cinemas, when the works are in their initial phase of exploitation, creating significant economic damage to the exhibitors and to the entire audiovisual industry,” Rossi said.

In common with opponents of camming around the world, Italian authorities believe that illegally-recorded first-run titles not only undermine the investment made in films and the livelihoods of those who make them, but also serve as a profit center for criminals involved in other crime.

“The profits of the illegal activity of camcording finances criminal organizations, they create huge damage to the entire chain of film, and undermine the work of the workers and professionals involved in making a film,” the legislative proposals read.

To combat the threat, it’s also envisioned that cinema owners will be able to install video surveillance systems to “monitor the introduction, installation or other abusive use of devices with camcorder functionality.”

A report published by FAPAV in July, which revealed a two percent fall in piracy overall, stated that dealing with illicit camcording was one of the anti-piracy group’s most pressing goals.

“Our priorities, at the moment, are represented by a tightening of the regulation that regulates camcording, that is the illicit video or audio recording of a film in the theater, and overcoming the problems arising from those services that hide the real owners of the websites and hosting providers that host them,” FAPAV wrote.

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

BitTorrent is often praised for its decentralized nature. The file-transfers take place between users and there’s no central service required.

That’s also one of the main reasons why pirates embraced it.

There is a weak spot though. In order to download something, you need a torrent or magnet link. These are available through torrent sites which, as history has shown, can disappear overnight.

While it’s unlikely that all torrent sites will be eradicated at once, we recently spotted a rather novel approach to this ‘problem.’ A few weeks ago OpenPGP keys with magnet links were added to SKS keyservers.

These keyservers are computers which store and index OpenPGP keys over the Internet. This helps users who rely on encrypted email, for example. The servers generally share the keys amongst each other in a pool and uploaded keys generally can’t be removed.

The permanent storage of keys generally isn’t an issue. However, when the system is used as a stealth resource to store magnet links to pirated content, this resilience is put in a different light.

This is exactly what happened.

A few weeks ago a series of rather odd, but valid, PGP keys were uploaded to SKS keyservers. These keys were not meant to encrypt email though, but as a safe storage for torrent magnet links.

As a result, popular keyservers, including the ones hosted by research university MIT and Surfnet, have transformed into pirate sites.

The magnet links, most of which point to pirated content, were added in the UID field. In examples we’ve seen, sometimes there were a hundred magnet links added to a single key entry. And with the search functionality of the keyservers, these are easy to find.

Magnet links..

While there are over a thousand magnet links on these keyservers now, there are a lot of duplicate entries. That makes it more of a gimmick than a usable tool for pirates, but still.

While keyservers are not really an alternative to pirate sites yet, these magnet links have not gone unnoticed. We received the first tip weeks ago and others spotted it too. The irremovable nature of these links is particularly intriguing.

MIT, for example, clearly states in its FAQ that it is impossible to remove keys once they’re up.

TorrentFreak spoke about the issue with Kristian Fiskerstrand, who operates the sks-keyservers website. He notes that removing keys is not possible due to the nature of these servers.

“The keyserver network is intended as an add-by-anyone key store, and structurally these are valid OpenPGP keyblocks,” Fiskerstrand says.

Only the owner of a private key can remove an entry. Keyservers are designed to keep their data online and share it with other servers. Similar to the blockchain, nothing is removed.

Fiskerstrand confirms that if copyright holders want these keys removed, they’re out of luck.

“[E}ven if the copyright holders were having issues with it they should focus on removing the underlying data not any pointer that is far off the original data,” Fiskerstrand notes.

That, however, brings us back to the beginning of this article.

Since BitTorrent transfers are decentralized there is no single source to go after. Copyright holders will have to go after each and every pirating torrent user individually…

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, dozens of streaming sites have sprung up to service users looking for a torrent-style fix, without having to deal with the relative complications of torrent sites.

With colorful and intuitive interfaces, these streaming platforms look much more like Netflix than The Pirate Bay, while offering much of the same video content. Visitors simply find the title they like and press play, with the action taking place right inside the browser.

Born just a couple of years ago, FMovies (also known as BMovies) is one such site. From a standing start the site grew exponentially, largely due to offering tens of thousands of mainstream movies and TV shows to an audience of millions, for free.

This popularity caused problems, however. With copyright holders always looking to throw a wrench in the works, FMovies has been forced to skip from domain to domain, to circumvent ISP blockades in various countries and to avoid the kind of search engine downgrading that comes with having a lot of infringing content indexed by Google.

Despite operating a number of ancillary domains, FMovies spent most of its time using the Tonga-based domain FMovies.to. However, sometime during the past few months the site decided to move to the Sweden-based FMovies.se but that hasn’t gone to plan.

According to an announcement on the site’s official Twitter account, the registrar has just deactivated the domain.

Hi folks. We've switched to https://t.co/FUn1yyZmqY again due previous registrar deactived our .se domain. Now please use https://t.co/FUn1yyZmqY for enjyoing also please help us spread this world. Thanks!

— Fmovies.to (@fmoviesdotto) September 5, 2018

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">

Indeed, checking the WHOIS details of FMovies.se reveals that despite an official expiry date of November 29, 2018, the domain was deactivated September 4, 2018 by Sweden-based registrar SE Direkt.

It now features the familiar ‘red flag’ warning signs of a domain in peril with serverRenewProhibited, serverHold, and pendingDelete status messages.

FMovies did not immediately respond to TorrentFreak’s request for comment so it’s unclear why the site lost control of its domain. It might be logical to presume that copyright issues are at the root of the problem but it took an awfully long time for The Pirate Bay to lose control of its .SE domain in similar circumstances.

That being said, FMovies is definitely on the radar of rightsholders.

In the summer of 2017, the operators of FMovies were ordered to pay $210,000 in damages after losing a case filed by media conglomerate ABS-CBN in the United States.

FMovies was found guilty on six counts; federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin, direct copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, unfair competition, and false advertising. The ruling also allowed ABS-CBN to take over the FMovies.to domain name, although that did not happen immediately.

The site is also being monitored by the United States Trade Representative. Along with GoStream (Vietnam), Movie4K.tv (Russia) and PrimeWire, the site was listed in the USTR’s ‘Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets’ report back in January.

But, despite the loss of its .SE domain, a pretty big court ruling against it, and the US Government sniffing around, FMovies rolls on. The site says it will now operate from the Iceland-based FMovies.is domain.

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

The Netherlands has long been a relaive safe haven for pirating consumers.

Downloading movies without permission, regardless of the source, was not punishable by law according to Government officials.

This eventually changed in 2014 when the European Court of Justice spoke out against the tolerant stance.

As a result, the Dutch Government quickly outlawed unauthorized downloading. However, breaking the habits of a large section of the population proved difficult and until this day, local piracy rates have remained high.

In 2015, this prompted Dutch filmmakers’ association SEKAM to hold the Government responsible, demanding compensation for the piracy losses they suffered. This week, Court of The Hague ruled on the matter, partially agreeing with the filmmakers.

In its verdict, the Court reviewed statements made by several Government officials made prior to the downloading ban, including those from former State Secretary for Security and Justice Fred Teeven.

In these statements, the Government made it clear that downloading pirated content was allowed, something that runs contrary to EU law. The Court specifically highlights a press release from 2011 where this was made apparent.

Looking ahead at future policy, the press release noted that “downloading of copyright-protected works from evidently illegal sources will become unlawful, but not punishable.”

This clearly suggests that it was fine until then, according to the Court.

“The unmistakable message that is sent is that, at that moment, downloading from illegal sources in the Netherlands is absolutely allowed,” the Court writes in its verdict.

This is particularly problematic since these and other statements were made in the public domain with the goal to inform the public.

“Based on this message, expressed by the responsible Government official in the public domain and in the media, there will have been downloaders who assumed that downloading from illegal sources was permitted, whereas this was generally known to be forbidden in other EU member states,” the verdict reads.

As a result, the Government is liable for the statements, which opens the door to a damages claim.

While the Court sides with the filmmakers on this issue, Tweakers highlights that the Court doesn’t rule on whether the Government can also be held responsible for its lack of enforcement after the download ban in 2014. That would have to be determined in a civil case.

The filmmakers’ organization Sekam sees the verdict as a “strong signal,” NOS reports. The group now plans to enter into negotiations with the Government about possible compensation.

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

Next week, MEPs will again vote on the controversial copyright proposals of Article 13.

Critics say the proposed legislation would see platforms such as YouTube compelled to introduce strict upload filters, to prevent unlicensed content being offered to the public. These systems, they say, would stifle creativity and lack the ability to differentiate in situations of fair use.

Those in favor say that YouTube has enjoyed the free ride long enough and must now play fair with other people’s content.

The theory in the music industry is that the enhanced liability regime of Article 13 will force YouTube, their main target, to properly license the music it hosts, at rates more in line with those being charged elsewhere in the industry. Removing safe harbors, insiders say, is the only way YouTube can be forced to compensate artists fairly.

The debate has raged for months – years even – with the music industry on one side and tech companies and proponents of Internet freedom on the other. However, YouTube and owners Google have remained relatively quiet, a little unusual given that they’re the prime targets of the legislation.

Now, however, YouTube Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl has weighed in on the proposals, warning of a new, more restrictive creative environment should Article 13 pass into law.

“The open internet eliminated the barriers of traditional media gatekeepers and ignited a new global creative economy for creators and artists. It has given anyone with an idea the ability to share their passion, find fans all over the world and build a business,” Kyncl writes on the YouTube Creator Blog.

“Despite best intentions, I believe this may now be at risk as European policymakers prepare to vote on a new European Copyright Directive on September 12. In fact, some parts of the proposal under consideration – and in particular the part known as ‘Article 13’ — potentially undermine this creative economy, discouraging or even prohibiting platforms from hosting user-generated content.”

Kyncl warns that passing the controversial proposal would lead to a stifling of creativity and a negative effect on YouTube users of all kinds.

YouTube creators, in particular, could find their revenues at risk, if the platform is held to higher standards of liability. Critics have long warned that erring on the side of caution would become the standard for sites like YouTube, potentially leading to censorship (filtering) of difficult or questionable content.

YouTube’s Chief Business Officer reiterates once again that his platform has invested in several technologies designed to assist copyright owners. Its Content ID and more recent Content Match systems can identify content for monetization purposes or remove it, at copyright holders’ request.

“Copyright holders have control over their content: they can use our tools to block or remove their works, or they can keep them on YouTube and earn advertising revenue. In over 90% of cases, they choose to leave the content up,” he writes.

“Enabling this new form of creativity and engagement with fans can lead to mass global promotion and even more revenue for the artist. For instance, a growing list of global artists have seen their songs go viral in fan-made dance videos, such as Drake’s ‘In My Feelings’ and Maître Gims’ Sapés Comme Jamais. Dua Lipa got her start singing covers and Alan Walker allowed his track Fade to be used in user generated content and video games, which helped him build a massive global fanbase.”

In informal discussions with music industry insiders this week, TF also questioned why tools like Content ID and Content Match aren’t able to solve the problem of infringing music content being made available on YouTube. We were told that while these systems have their uses, only the enhanced liabilities offered by Article 13 can address the undervaluation of content and ensure that YouTube pays a fair licensing rate for the content it offers.

But while the music industry seeks to render YouTube ineligible for safe harbor protections under the e-Commerce Directive, YouTube is warning that the effects of Article 13 will be felt far beyond the Internet’s most popular video site.

“The Copyright Directive won’t just affect creators and artists on YouTube. It will also apply to many forms of user generated content across the Internet. And that’s why so many other people are raising concerns too,” Kyncl writes.

“Individuals, organizations (like European Digital Rights and the Internet Archive), companies (like Patreon, WordPress, and Medium), the Internet’s original architects and pioneers (like Sir Tim Berners Lee), and the UN Special Rapporteur for free expression have spoken out. Creators across the Internet are standing up for their right to create and express themselves, including Phil DeFranco, LeFloid, and TO JUZ Jutro.”

With that, Kyncl signs off by urging opponents of Article 13 to air their opinions on social media (#SaveYourInternet) and with policymakers via ChangeCopyright.org. The all-important EU vote is set to take place September 12, so expect a crescendo of often acidic debate over the next few days.

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