Bulgarian cracker Voksi is unlike many others in his line of work. He makes himself relatively available online, interacting with fans and revealing surprising things about his past.

Only last month he told TF that he is entirely self-taught and had been cracking games since he was 15-years-old, just six years ago.

Voksi is probably best known for his hatred of anti-piracy technology Denuvo and to this day is still one of just four groups/people who have managed to crack v4 of the anti-tamper technology. As such, he and his kind are often painted as enemies of the gaming industry but that doesn’t represent the full picture.

In discussion with TF over the weekend, Voksi told us that he’s a huge fan of the Serious Sam franchise so when he found out about the latest title – Serious Sam’s Bogus Detour (SSBD) – he wanted to play it – badly. That led to a remarkable series of events.

“One month before the game’s official release I got into the closed beta, thanks to a friend of mine, who invited me in. I introduced myself to the developers [Crackshell]. I told them what I do for a living, but also assured them that I didn’t have any malicious intents towards the game. They were very cool about it, even surprisingly cool,” Voksi informs TF.

The game eventually hit the market (without Voksi targeting it, of course) with some interesting additions. As shown in the screenshot taken from the game and embedded below, Voksi was listed as a tester for the game.

An unusual addition to the game credits….

Perhaps even more impressively, official Stream screenshots here show Voksi as a player in the game. It’s not exactly what one might expect for someone in his position but from there, the excitement began to fade. Despite a 9/10 rating on Steam, the books didn’t balance.

“The game was released officially on 20 of June, 2017. Months passed. We all hoped it’d be a success, but sadly that was not the case,” Voksi explains.

“Even with all the official marketing done by Devolver Digital, no one batted an eye and really gave it a chance. In December 2017, I found out how bad the sales really were, which even didn’t cover the expenses for the making game, let alone profit.”

Voksi was really disappointed that things hadn’t gone to plan so he contacted the developers with an idea – why didn’t he get involved to try and drum up some support from an entirely unconventional angle? How about giving a special edition of the game away for free while calling on ‘pirates’ to chip in with whatever they could afford?

“Last week I contacted the main dev of SSBD over Steam and proposed what I can do to help boost the game. He immediately agreed,” Voksi says.

“The plan was to release a build of the game that was playable from start to finish, playable in co-op with up to 4 players, not to miss anything important gameplay wise and add a little message in the bottom corner, which is visible at all times, telling you: “We are small indie studio. If you liked the game, please consider buying it. Thank you and enjoy the game!”

Message at the bottom of the screen

But Voksi’s marketing plan didn’t stop there. This special build of the game is also tied to a unique giveaway challenge with several prizes. It’s underway on Voksi’s REVOLT forum and is intended to encourage more people to play the game and share the word among family, friends and whoever else can support the developers.

Importantly, Voski isn’t getting paid to do any of this, he just wants to help the developers and support a game he feels deserves a lot more attention. For those interested in taking it for a spin, the download links are available here in the official thread.

The ‘pirate’ build – Serious.Sam.Bogus.Detour.B126.RIP-Voksi – is slightly less polished than those available officially but it’s hoped that people will offer their support on Steam and GOG if they like the game.

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

This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 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 weekly movie download chart.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(10)	Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle	7.7 / trailer
2	(…)	Star Wars: The Last Jedi	7.4 / trailer
3	(1)	The Shape of Water	8.0 / trailer
4	(…)	Downsizing	5.7 / trailer
5	(5)	Thor Ragnarok	8.1 / trailer
6	(3)	Black Panther (HDTS)	7.9 / trailer
7	(2)	Ferdinand	6.7 / trailer
8	(…)	The Greatest Showman	7.9 / trailer
9	(4)	Justice League	7.1 / trailer
10	(…)	Pitch Perfect 3	6.1 / trailer

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

The movie industry sees movies that are illegally recorded in theaters as one of the biggest piracy threats worldwide.

To combat this, audio and video watermarking tools are used to detect pirates and their favorite locations. In addition, night-vision goggles and other spy tech are employed to monitor moviegoers during high profile film premieres.

Despite these efforts, so-called ‘cam’ releases of hundreds of films still end up on pirate sites.

In fact, the majority of all new pirated movies that appear online can be traced to a digital recording in a movie theater. This can be the movie itself, the audio, or both. The good news for the movie industry is that the total number seems to be dropping somewhat.

According to statistics gathered by the MPAA, 447 illegal recording of its members’ movies were detected in 2017. This is down 11% compared to the year before when 503 titles were recorded. This suggests that enforcement actions and preventive measures are paying off. However, this is not visible everywhere.

This week Kevin Rosenbaum of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which represents various industry groups including the MPAA, informed the US International Trade Commission that camcording piracy is on the rise in Russia.

In his oral testimony, Rosenbaum signaled three key copyright issues in Russia that deserve attention from the US Government.

“First is to dramatically improve enforcement against online piracy, particularly piracy sites and services directed to users outside of Russia,” Rosenbaum said.

In addition, the country also has to address the problem with the Russian collecting societies, to effectively handle music licensing. These currently lack transparency or good governance, IIPA noted.

The third issue that needs attention is camcording piracy. According to IIPA’s statement, there has been a dramatic increase in illegally recorded movies over the past several years.

“Russia must address the problem of camcording motion pictures, which has risen dramatically over the past three years (200% since 2015) and fuels online piracy,” Rosenbaum noted.

In 2015 the movie industry traced 26 camcorded copies to Russia and by last year this number had increased to 78. These releases are linked to movie theaters around the country, from Moscow, Kazan, Tatarstan, St. Petersburg, all the way up to Siberia.

The Russian camcording piracy problem was also highlighted in IIPA’s recent Special 301 submission to the US Trade Representative.

“Russia remains the home to some of the world’s most prolific criminal release groups of motion pictures.” IIPA wrote last month. “The illicit camcords that are sourced from Russia are only of fair quality, but they remain in high demand by international criminal syndicates.”

With help from the Russian-Anti Piracy Organization over a dozen cammers were caught last year. In addition, four criminal cases were launched.

IIPA hopes that these will result in convictions, to create a deterrent effect. In addition, the group highlights that Russia could strengthen its laws, perhaps with a little push from the US.

—

A copy of Kevin Rosenbaum’s statement before the United States International Trade Commission is available here (pdf). In addition to Russia, it also highlights issues in other countries.

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

Over the past several years, the last couple in particular, piracy has stormed millions of homes around the world.

From being a widespread but still fairly geeky occupation among torrenters, movie and TV show piracy can now be achieved by anyone with the ability to click a mouse or push a button on a remote control. Much of this mainstream interest can be placed at the feet of the Kodi media player.

An entirely legal platform in its own right, Kodi can be augmented with third-party add-ons that enable users to access an endless supply of streaming media. As such, piracy-configured Kodi installations are operated by an estimated 26 million people, according to the MPAA.

This popularity has led to much interest from tabloid newspapers in the UK which, for reasons best known to them, choose to both promote and demonize Kodi almost every week. While writing about news events is clearly par for the course, when one considers some of the reports, their content, and what inspired them, something doesn’t seem right.

This week The Express, which has published many overly sensational stories about Kodi in recent times, published another. The title – as always – promised something special.

Sounds like big news….

Reading the text, however, reveals nothing new whatsoever. The piece simply rehashes some of the historic claims that have been leveled at Kodi that can easily apply to any Internet-enabled software or system. But beyond that, some of its content is pretty weird.

The piece is centered on comments from two McAfee security experts – Chief Scientist Raj Samani and Chief Consumer Security Evangelist Gary Davis. It’s unclear whether The Express approached them for comment (if they did, there is no actual story for McAfee to comment on) or whether McAfee offered the comments and The Express built a story around them. Either way, here’s a taster.

“Kodi has been pretty open about the fact that it’s a streaming site but my view has always been if I use Netflix I know that I’m not going to get any issues, if I use Amazon I’m not going to get any issues,” Samani told the publication.

Ok, stop right there. Kodi admits that it’s a streaming site? Really? Kodi is a piece of software. It’s a media player. It can do many things but Kodi is not a streaming site and no one at Kodi has ever labeled it otherwise. To think that neither McAfee nor the publication caught that one is a bit embarrassing.

The argument that Samani was trying to make is that services like Netflix and Amazon are generally more reliable than third-party sources and there are few people out there who would argue with that.

“Look, ultimately you’ve got to do the research and you’ve got to decide if it’s right for you but personally I don’t use [Kodi] and I know full well that by not using [Kodi] I’m not going to get any issues. If I pay for the service I know exactly what I’m going to get,” he said.

But unlike his colleague who doesn’t use Kodi, Gary Davis has more experience.

McAfee’s Chief Consumer Security Evangelist admits to having used Kodi in the past but more recently decided not to use it when the security issues apparently got too much for him.

“I did use [Kodi] but turned it off as I started getting worried about some of the risks,” he told The Express.

“You may search for something and you may get what you are looking for but you may get something that you are not looking for and that’s where the problem lies with Kodi.”

This idea, that people search for a movie or TV show yet get something else, is bewildering to most experienced Kodi users. If this was indeed the case, on any large scale, people wouldn’t want to use it anymore. That’s clearly not the case.

Also, incorrect content appearing is not the kind of security threat that the likes of McAfee tend to be worried about. However, Davis suggests things can get worse.

“I’m not saying they’ve done anything wrong but if somebody is able to embed code to turn on a microphone or other things or start sending data to a place it shouldn’t go,” he said.

The sentence appears to have some words missing and struggles to make sense but the suggestion is that someone’s Kodi installation could be corrupted to the point that someone people could hijack the user’s microphone.

We are not aware of anything like that happening, ever, via Kodi. There are instances where that has happened completely without it in a completely different context, but that seems here nor there. By the same count, everyone should stop using Windows perhaps?

The big question is why these ‘scary’ Kodi non-stories keep getting published and why experts are prepared to weigh-in on them?

It would be too easy to quickly put it down to some anti-piracy agenda, even though there are plenty of signs that anti-piracy groups have been habitually feeding UK tabloids with information on that front. Indeed, a source at a UK news outlet (that no longer publishes such stories) told TF that they were often prompted to write stories about Kodi and streaming in general, none with a positive spin.

But if it was as simple as that, how does that explain another story run in The Express this week heralding the launch of Kodi’s ‘Leia’ alpha release?

If Kodi is so bad as to warrant an article telling people to avoid it FOREVER on one day, why is it good enough to be promoted on another? It can only come down to the number of clicks – but the clickbait headline should’ve given that away at the start.

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

While doing business with clients and suppliers is the usual day-to-day routine for most businesses, companies in the entertainment sector seem keener than most to spend time with those in power.

Whether there’s pressure to be applied in respect of upcoming changes in policy or long-term plans for modifying legislation, at least a few times a year news breaks of rightsholders having private meetings with officials. Most of the time, however, the head-to-heads fly under the radar.

This week, however, the UK government published a response to a Freedom of Information Request which asked for details of meetings between the government and copyright owner organizations, enforcement organizations, and collection societies (think BPI, MPA, FACT, Publishers Association, PRS, etc) including times, dates and topics discussed.

The request asked for details of meetings held between May 2016 and April 2017 but the government declined to provide all of this information since the effort required to extract the information “would exceed the cost limit.”

Given the amount of data published, this isn’t a surprise. Even though the government chose to limit the response to events held between January 16, 2017 and April 17, 2017, the meetings between the government and the above groups number in their dozens.

January 2017 got off to a pretty slow start but week three and beyond saw a flurry of meetings with groups and companies such as ITV, BBC, PRS for Music, Copyright Licensing Agency and several other organizations to discuss the EU’s Digital Single Market proposals.

On January 18, 2017 Time Warner had a meeting to discuss content protection and analytics, followed a day later by the Premier League who were booked in to discuss “illicit streaming devices” (a topic mirrored in March during a meeting with the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance).

Just a few days later the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit held a “Partnership Working Group Meeting involving industry” and two days after that the police, Trading Standards, and the EU Police Agency convened to discuss enforcement activity.

January 26, 2017 saw an IP Outreach Workshop involving members of the IP Crime Group. This was potentially a big meeting. The IPCG consists of several regional police forces, PIPCU, National Crime Agency, Crown Prosecution Service, Department of Culture, Media and Sport, Trading Standards, HMRC, IFPI, BPI, FACT, Sky TV, PRS, FAST and the Publishers Association, to name just a few.

As the first month of the year was drawing to a close, Amazon met with the government to discuss “current procedures for removing copyright, design and trademark infringing material from their platform.” A similar meeting was held with eBay on February 1 and on February 20, Facebook had its turn on the same topic.

All three companies had come in for criticism from copyright holders for not doing enough to stem the tide of infringing content available on their platforms, particularly so-called Kodi boxes that provide access to movies, shows, and live TV.

However, in the months that followed they each responded positively, with eBay, Amazon and Facebook announcing restrictions on devices sold. While all three platforms still have a problem with infringing device sales, the situation appears to have improved since last year.

On the final day of January 2017, the MPAA attended a meeting to discuss the looming Digital Economy Bill and digital TV piracy. A couple of days later they were back again for a “business awareness seminar” with other big shots including the Alliance for IP, the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, Trading Standards and the Premier League.

However, given the dozens that took place, perhaps one of the more interesting meetings in terms of the mix of those in attendance took place February 7.

Titled “Organized Crime Task Force Meeting – Belfast” it was attended by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the National Crime Agency, Trading Standards, HM Revenue and Customs, the Border Force, and (spot the odd one out) the Federation Against Copyright Theft.

This seems to suggest that FACT (a private company) is effectively embedded at the highest level of law enforcement, something that has made people very uncomfortable in the past.

Later in February, there was a roundtable meeting with the Alliance for IP, MPAA, Publishers’ Association, BPI, Premier League and Federation Against Copyright Theft (again) to discuss Brexit, the Digital Single Market, IP enforcement and industrial strategy. A similar meeting was held in March which was attended by UK Music, BPI, PRS, Featured Artists Coalition, and many more.

The full list of meetings, which number in their dozens for just a three-month period, can be found here pdf. Whether the volume is representative of other three-month periods isn’t clear but it seems reasonable to conclude that copyright organizations have the ears of government officials in the UK on an almost continual basis.

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