It’s fair to say that of all video games anti-piracy technologies, Denuvo is perhaps the most hated of recent times. That hatred unsurprisingly stems from both its success and complexity.

Those with knowledge of the system say it’s fiendishly difficult to defeat but in recent times, cracks have been showing. In 2017, various iterations of the anti-tamper system were defeated by several cracking groups, much to the delight of the pirate masses.

Now, however, a new development has the potential to herald a new lease of life for the Austria-based anti-piracy company. A few moments ago it was revealed that the company has been bought by Irdeto, a global anti-piracy company with considerable heritage and resources.

“Irdeto has acquired Denuvo, the world leader in gaming security, to provide anti-piracy and anti-cheat solutions for games on desktop, mobile, console and VR devices,” Irdeto said in a statement.

“Denuvo provides technology and services for game publishers and platforms, independent software vendors, e-publishers and video publishers across the globe. Current Denuvo customers include Electronic Arts, UbiSoft, Warner Bros and Lionsgate Entertainment, with protection provided for games such as Star Wars Battlefront II, Football Manager, Injustice 2 and others.”

Irdeto says that Denuvo will “continue to operate as usual” with all of its staff retained – a total of 45 across Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the US. Denuvo headquarters in Salzburg, Austria, will also remain intact along with its sales operations.

“The success of any game title is dependent upon the ability of the title to operate as the publisher intended,” says Irdeto CEO Doug Lowther.

“As a result, protection of both the game itself and the gaming experience for end users is critical. Our partnership brings together decades of security expertise under one roof to better address new and evolving security threats. We are looking forward to collaborating as a team on a number of initiatives to improve our core technology and services to better serve our customers.”

Denuvo was founded relatively recently in 2013 and employs less than 50 people. In contrast, Irdeto’s roots go all the way back to 1969 and currently has almost 1,000 staff. It’s a subsidiary of South Africa-based Internet and media group Naspers, a corporate giant with dozens of notable companies under its control.

While Denuvo is perhaps best known for its anti-piracy technology, Irdeto is also placing emphasis on the company’s ability to hinder cheating in online multi-player gaming environments. This has become a hot topic recently, with several lawsuits filed in the US by companies including Blizzard and Epic.

Denuvo CEO Reinhard Blaukovitsch

“Hackers and cybercriminals in the gaming space are savvy, and always have been. It is critical to implement robust security strategies to combat the latest gaming threats and protect the investment in games. Much like the movie industry, it’s the only way to ensure that great games continue to get made,” says Denuvo CEO Reinhard Blaukovitsch.

“In joining with Irdeto, we are bringing together a unique combination of security expertise, technology and enhanced piracy services to aggressively address security challenges that customers and gamers face from hackers.”

While it seems likely that the companies have been in negotiations for some, the timing of this announcement also coincides with negative news for Denuvo.

Yesterday it was revealed that the latest variant of its anti-tamper technology – Denuvo v4.8 – had been defeated by online cracking group CPY (Conspiracy). Version 4.8 had been protecting Sonic Forces since its release early November 2017 but the game was leaked out onto the Internet late Sunday with all protection neutralized.

Sonic Forces cracked by CPY

Irdeto has a long history of acquiring anti-piracy companies and technologies. They include Lockstream (DRM for content on mobile phones), Philips Cryptoworks (DVB conditional access system), Cloakware (various security), Entriq (media protection), BD+ (Blu-ray protection), and BayTSP (anti-piracy monitoring).

It’s also noteworthy that Irdeto supplied behind-the-scenes support in two of the largest IPTV provider raids of recent times, one focused on Spain in 2017 and more recently in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece and the Netherlands (1,2,3).

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The Motion Picture Distributors’ Association (MPDA) is a non-profit organisation which represents major international film studios in New Zealand.

With companies including Fox, Sony, Paramount, Roadshow, Disney, and Universal on the books, the MPDA sings from the same sheet as the MPAA and MPA. It also hopes to achieve in New Zealand what its counterparts have achieved in Europe and Australia but cannot on home soil – mass pirate site blocking.

In a release heralding the New Zealand screen industry’s annual contribution of around NZ$1.05 billion to GDP and NZ$706 million to exports, MPDA Managing Director Matthew Cheetham says that despite the successes, serious challenges lie ahead.

“When we have the illegal file sharing site the Pirate Bay as New Zealand’s 19th most popular site in New Zealand, it is clear that legitimate movie and TV distribution channels face challenges,” Cheetham says.

MPDA members in New Zealand

In common with movie bosses in many regions, Cheetham is hoping that the legal system will rise to the challenge and assist distributors to tackle the piracy problem. In New Zealand, that might yet require a change in the law but given recent changes in Australia, that doesn’t seem like a distant proposition.

Last December, the New Zealand government announced an overhaul of the country’s copyright laws. A review of the Copyright Act 1994 was announced by the previous government and is now scheduled to go ahead this year. The government has already indicated a willingness to consider amendments to the Act in order to meet the objectives of New Zealand’s copyright regime.

“In New Zealand, piracy is almost an accepted thing, because no one’s really doing anything about it, because no one actually can do anything about it,” Cheetham said last month.

It’s quite unusual for Hollywood’s representatives to say nothing can be done about piracy. However, there was a small ray of hope this morning when Cheetham said that there is actually one option left.

“There’s nothing we can do in New Zealand apart from site blocking,” Cheetham said.

So, as the MPDA appears to pin its hopes on legislative change, other players in the entertainment industry are testing the legal system as it stands today.

Last September, Sky TV began a pioneering ‘pirate’ site-blocking challenge in the New Zealand High Court, applying for an injunction against several local ISPs to prevent their subscribers from accessing several pirate sites.

The boss of Vocus, one of the ISP groups targeted, responded angrily, describing Sky’s efforts as “dinosaur behavior” and something one would expect in North Korea, not in New Zealand.

“It isn’t our job to police the Internet and it sure as hell isn’t SKY’s either, all sites should be equal and open,” General Manager Taryn Hamilton said.

The response from ISPs suggests that even when the matter of site-blocking is discussed as part of the Copyright Act review, introducing specific legislation may not be smooth sailing. In that respect, all eyes will turn to the Sky process, to see if some precedent can be set there.

Finally, another familiar problem continues to raise its head down under. So-called “Kodi boxes” – the now generic phrase often used to describe set-top devices configured for piracy – are also on the content industries’ radar.

There are a couple of cases still pending against sellers, including one in which a budding entrepreneur sent out marketing letters claiming that his service was better than Sky’s offering. For seller Krish Reddy, this didn’t turn out well as the company responded with a NZ$1m lawsuit.

Generally, however, both content industries and consumers are having a good time in New Zealand but the MPDA’s Cheetham says that taking on pirates is never easy.

“It’s been called the golden age of television and a lot of premium movies have been released in the last 12 or 18 months. Content providers and distributors have really upped their game in the last five or 10 years to meet what people want but it’s very difficult to compete with free,” Cheetham concludes.

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Through a series of new proposals, the European Commission is working hard to modernize EU copyright law. Among other things, it will require online services to do more to fight piracy.

These proposals have not been without controversy. Article 13 of the proposed Copyright Directive, for example, has been widely criticized as it would require online services to monitor and filter uploaded content.

This means that online services, which deal with large volumes of user-uploaded content, must use fingerprinting or other detection mechanisms – similar to YouTube’s Content-ID system – to block copyright infringing files.

The Commission believes that more stringent control is needed to support copyright holders. However, many legal scholars, digital activists, and members of the public worry that they will violate the rights of regular Internet users.

In the European Parliament, there is fierce opposition as well. Today, six Members of Parliament (MEPs) from across the political spectrum released a new campaign video warning their fellow colleagues and the public at large.

The MEPs warn that such upload filters would act as “censorship machines,” something they’ve made clear to the Council’s working group on intellectual property, where the controversial proposal was discussed today.

“Imagine if every time you opened your mouth, computers controlled by big companies would check what you were about to say, and have the power to prevent you from saying it,” Greens/EFA MEP Julia Reda says.

“A new legal proposal would make this a reality when it comes to expressing yourself online: Every clip and every photo would have to be pre-screened by some automated ‘robocop’ before it could be uploaded and seen online,” ALDE MEP Marietje Schaake adds.

Stop censorship machines!

Schaake notes that she has dealt with the consequences of upload filters herself. When she uploaded a recording of a political speech to YouTube, the site took it down without explanation. Until this day, the MEP still doesn’t know on what grounds it was removed.

These broad upload filters are completely disproportionate and a danger for freedom of speech, the MEPs warn. The automated systems make mistakes and can’t properly detect whether something’s fair use, for example.

Another problem is that the measures will be relatively costly for smaller companies ,which puts them at a competitive disadvantage. “Only the biggest platforms can afford them – European competitors and small businesses will struggle,” ECR MEP Dan Dalton says.

The plans can still be stopped, the MEPs say. They are currently scheduled for a vote in the Legal Affairs Committee at the end of March, and the video encourages members of the public to raise their voices.

“Speak out …while you can still do so unfiltered!” S&D MEP Catherine Stihler says.

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When perfect copies of movies leak out onto the Internet in advance of their official release dates, there’s usually an element of skullduggery at play.

This can sometimes involve people intercepting, stealing, or borrowing DVD screener discs, for example. However, other problems can unexpectedly raise their heads.

Case in point – the pre-release leak of Marvel’s Thor Ragnarok this past weekend.

With a disc release planned for February 26th just four months after the superhero movie’s theatrical debut, digital distribution on iTunes was set to go ahead on February 19th.

However, due to what appears to be a significant blunder at Apple, the $180 million movie is now being furiously pirated all over the Internet. A small sample of the latest leak (all releases with an upload date of ‘today’) can be seen in the screenshot below, sourced from The Pirate Bay.

Plenty of choice for pirates….

So what went wrong? According to a user on Reddit who has since deleted his post, a legal pre-order purchase was incorrectly made available for download a month early.

“I pre-ordered Thor Ragnarok on Vudu yesterday and it links it to my iTunes also,” the user explained.

“But curiously it showed up in my iTunes library this morning (pre-orders shouldn’t). And now I can watch the full movie in HD. I obviously downloaded it right away. I know its supposed to come out February 20th.”

The precise mechanism behind the movie incorrectly appearing on iTunes isn’t clear but the user reported that he didn’t buy it on the platform. Instead, he purchased the 4K version on Vudu, which was linked to his MoviesAnywhere account, which was in turn linked to iTunes.

For anyone unaware, MoviesAnywhere is a completely free service that allows people to watch their iTunes, Vudu, Google Play and Amazon movies in one place, on Apple, Android, Roku, Amazon and Chromecast devices.

Shortly after, other users noted that after purchasing the movie using the same process, they achieved the same result.

“Just tried the same way as you and it is now available for viewing on iTunes,” one reported.

Of course, one can’t simply share iTunes movies with others online but there are people out there prepared to put in the effort to make that possible. Release group ‘EVO’, which has the most popular torrent of Thor Ragnarok out there at the moment, took the time to explain the headaches it gave them.

“More than 10 hours working in a way to remove this fucking protection finally come to a end,” the group said.

“Casualties: 1 account banned. Lol. But it was worth it. Enjoy fellas. Have a good weekend. No VIP required. No pennies needed. All free.”

From a piracy perspective, illegal downloads are now metaphorically flying off the shelves. It won’t be what Marvel wanted so getting to the bottom of who is to blame will now be a top priority.

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This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

The Shape of Water is the most downloaded movie again.

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	(1)	The Shape of Water (DVDScr)	8.0 / trailer
2	(…)	Thor Ragnarok	8.1 / trailer
3	(2)	Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (HDTS)	7.3 / trailer
4	(3)	Blade Runner 2049	8.9 / trailer
5	(…)	Geostorm	5.4 / trailer
6	(5)	Jigsaw	6.0 / trailer
7	(4)	Coco (DVDscr)	8.9 / trailer
8	(6)	Justice League	7.1 / trailer
9	(7)	Dunkirk	8.3 / trailer
10	(…)	Molly’s Game	7.6 / trailer

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