In July 2015, Portugal’s Ministry of Culture announced the signing of a memorandum between its own General Inspection of Cultural Activities (IGAC), the Portuguese Association of Telecommunication Operators (APRITEL), various rightsholder groups, the body responsible for administering Portugal’s .PT domain, and representatives from the advertising industry.

The memorandum laid out a new mechanism for blocking so-called ‘pirate’ sites. In common with similar frameworks elsewhere, the process can be triggered by a complaint from a rightsholder association. Local anti-piracy group MAPINET then collates evidence that a site is engaged in the unlawful distribution of copyright works and has failed to cease its activities.

The system was quickly utilized by rightsholders seeking to block access to their content. Within six months, 330 sites had been blocked by ISPs, but that was only the beginning. In the months and years that followed, hundreds more sites were rendered inaccessible but in common with similar programs elsewhere, no official list of blocked sites was made available. People are keeping watch, however.

SitesBloqueados (Blocked Sites) is a web portal run by Revolução dos Bytes (Bytes’ Revolution), a group of like-minded anti-censorship activists in Portugal. Created a few months after blocking began in the region, their comprehensive database now contains almost 1,400 domains, the majority of which have been blocked on copyright grounds.

“SitesBloqueados was mainly created because, although the Memorandum of Understanding contained certain requirements to make a site eligible to be blocked – such as 500 items [or links] to copyright content or one third of the site containing copyrighted material – there was no official way to validate that data and make sure that these ‘rules’ are being respected,” team member Henrique Mouta informs TF.

The manner in which the list is maintained is quite unique. As mentioned earlier, there are no official sources listing blocked domains so the people behind SitesBloqueados had to get creative. Alongside this project they also run Ahoy!, a Chrome and Firefox extension that allows users to circumvent censorship in Portugal and it’s through that tool they gather information.

“Ahoy! basically bypasses any traffic to a blocked site through our own proxies, allowing the users to navigate in a free, uncensored internet,” Henrique explains.

As this extension works on a whitelist basis, we had to create a mechanism to automatically detect and whitelist sites that have been blocked, so if a user accesses a blocked site that is not on our list yet, we get a notification so we can review the site and add it to the list. That is the list that is also powering SitesBloqueados.pt.”

When the voluntary agreement was first announced, local ISPs came under intense criticism for agreeing to work with copyright holders without need for a court process. However, Henrique says they are actually in a precarious position.

“We usually see the ISPs as the bad guys, blocking sites, throttling our internet and, more recently, going against the Internet Neutrality. But, in this particular case, all the major ISPs are forced to block any sites that have been requested in 15 days, or they might pay fines for every single day after the deadline.

“MAPiNET (MOVIMENTO CÍVICOANTI PIRATARIA NA INTERNET) is the organization, alongside with IGAC (Inspecção Geral Das Actividades Culturais), that compiles the lists of sites and sends them to the ISP. It’s usually two lists per month. Of course, I’m not excusing the ISPs, as they should stand up against censorship. But we all know that’s asking too much of them,” Henrique adds.

Interestingly, the first site blockade in Portugal wasn’t actioned on copyright grounds. It was, in fact, targeted at Uber.com.

“This happened in June 2015, after a court order to suspend all Uber activity in Portugal. This opened a huge precedent, with all these anti-piracy organizations seeing how easy is to block a site, technically speaking.

“So, at the end of August of that same year, the [anti-piracy] Memorandum was signed by all the parties and, since then, both MAPiNET and IGAC have the power to request any site block, without any court order, without any legal order,” Henrique notes.

This lit a fire under the team and two and half years later, Ahoy! is now being used by 100k people to unblock almost 1,400 sites, while feeding back information on newly blocked domains. These are then added to the blocklist database and considered for unblocking methods via the addon.

Currently, around 50 new domains are blocked every month in Portugal and Henrique and the team are determined to document every one of them. They believe that by keeping an eye on things publicly, it lets the anti-piracy groups know they are being watched and cannot act with impunity. Around 90% of all blocked domains are restricted on copyright grounds but some also fall foul of new gambling laws that forbid unlicensed sites.

From the beginning, the big question has surrounded potential abuse. So, given the lack of a court process, have any players attempted to game the system?

“So far, we haven’t seen any signs of intentional abuse. There have been a few problems with sites being wrongly blocked. The most popular case is Carbon Games site that was blocked nearly two years ago, and it was mistaken for a different site, a Gambling site, named Carbon Gaming,” Henrique says.

“A few months later, we detected another case. A Spanish journalist had a website where he was posting videoclips of the latest releases. All of these releases were originally on YouTube, uploaded by the respective owners, however that was not enough to keep the site alive.”

Under pressure from Revolução dos Bytes this block was reversed but it’s not the only instance of errors. Non-existent sites have been blocked as have sites publishing headlines and linking to the respective online newspapers.

With blocking continuing at a steady pace, dozens of new domains are restricted every month. But Henrique and the team believe it won’t achieve anything positive and only serves to harm the Internet and democracy.

“Blocking sites to prevent piracy is the same as being on a sinking submarine, trying to patch every leaking hull hole with duct tape. If they want to fight piracy, they should try to understand, in the first place, why it happens and what they can do to change it.

“It’s well known that having cheap and quality services like Netflix and Spotify helped Internet piracy levels drop to record lows, DRM issues aside, of course. And the worst of it is the timing: these organizations see the decreasing levels of piracy as a signal that their stupid censorship is actually working. I’m really afraid that this is now an unstoppable snowball. The Internet in Portugal has seen much better days,” Henrique concludes.

But while he’s pessimistic over current developments, it appears that the Ahoy! movement is only set to grow. The team say they want to bring the browser-based system to other countries that are suffering from similar blockades and that suggestions from the public are welcome.

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

Every year we write roughly 900 articles here at TorrentFreak, and some are more popular than others.

On the brink of 2018, we look back at 2017 by going over the 17 most read news items of the year.

The ExtraTorrent shutdown was a clear eye catcher. Not only was it the most read article, there are also two related news items in the list.

All in all, it was quite a controversial year once again. Website and domain issues tend to be popular items, as the full list shows, as are the inevitable Game of Thrones mentions.

But what will 2018 bring?

1. ExtraTorrent Shuts Down For Good

Popular torrent site ExtraTorrent shut down in May. The abrupt decision was announced in a brief message posted on the site’s homepage and came as a complete surprise to many friends and foes.

2. Pirate Streaming Site 123Movies Rebrands as GoMovies

Pirate movie streaming site 123movies renamed itself to GoMovies for a fresh start last March. With the brand change and a new domain name, the popular site hoped to set itself apart from the many fake sites. Interestingly, the site has recently moved back to the old 123movies brand again.

3. Game of Thrones Episode “S07E06” Leaks Online Early

The sixth episode of the last Game of Thrones season leaked online early in August. Soon after, it was widely shared on various streaming and download portals The leak turned out to be the result of an error at HBO Spain.

4. ExtraTorrent’s Main Domain Name Shut Down By Registrar

Prior to its shutdown, ExtraTorrent lost control of its main domain Extratorrent.cc. The domain name was disconnected by the registrar, presumably after a copyright holder complaint.

5. ‘Putlocker’ Loses Domain Name Following Court Order

Putlockers.ch lost its domain name in February. The site’s registrar EuroDNS was ordered to suspend the domain name following a decision from a Luxembourg court, in favor of an entertainment industry group.

6. ExtraTorrent’s Distribution Groups ettv and EtHD Keep Going

ExtraTorrent shut down, but several popular release groups that originated on the site kept the name alive. Later in the year, ettv and EtHD launched their own website which is slowly gaining traction.

7. Anime Torrent Site NYAA Goes Down After Domain Name Deactivation

Popular anime torrent site NYAA lost control over several of its domain names last Spring. Several people later pointed out that NYAA’s owner decided to close the site voluntarily.

8. Popular Kodi Addon ‘Exodus’ Turned Users into a DDoS ‘Botnet’

Users of the popular Kodi addon Exodus became unwittingly part of a DDoS attack in February. After the issue raised eyebrows in the community, the Exodus developer rolled back the malicious code and retired.

9. Porn Pirate Sites Use ‘Backdoor’ to Host Videos on YouTube

Last January adult streaming sites were found to use Google’s servers to store infringing material at no cost. While streaming sites have exploited Google’s servers for a long time, the issue hit the mainstream news this year.

10. The Pirate Bay’s .SE Domain is Back in Action

The Pirate Bay’s .SE domain name sprang back into action in October, after it was deactivated. A few months later, the Supreme Court decided that it should be handed over to the authorities. TPB, meanwhile, sails on, relying on its original .org domain.

11. Man Leaks New ‘Power’ Episodes Online, Records His Own Face

Last summer a man leaked several episodes of the smash-hit TV series Power. The episodes were ‘cammed’ using a phone, with the ‘cammer’ recording his own face for good measure.

12. Live Mayweather v McGregor Streams Will Thrive On Torrents Tonight

The Mayweather v McGregor fight last August was a streaming success, but not just on legal channels. While centralized streaming services had a hard time keeping up with the unprecedented demand, lesser known live streaming torrents thrived.

13. The Pirate Bay Website Runs a Cryptocurrency Miner

In September, The Pirate Bay decided to use the computer resources of its visitors to mine Monero coins. This resulted in a heated debate. Supporters saw it as a novel way to generate revenue and a potential to replace ads, while opponents went out of their way to block the mining script.

14. Hackers Leak Netflix’s Orange is The New Black Season 5

In April the hacking group “TheDarkOverlord” leaked a trove of unreleased TV shows and movies. The group uploaded several videos, including episodes of Netflix’s Orange is The New Black, which it obtained the content from a post-production studio.

15. Demonoid Returns After Two Months Downtime

After nearly two months of downtime, the semi-private BitTorrent tracker Demonoid resurfaced online in March. The site was pulled offline due to hosting problems and had to endure some internal struggles as well.

16. “We Won’t Block Pirate Bay,” Swedish Telecoms Giant Says

In February a landmark ruling compelled a Swedish ISP to block The Pirate Bay. Copyright holders hoped that other ISPs would follow suit but telecoms giant Telia said it had no intention of blocking The Pirate Bay, unless it’s forced to do so by law.

17. Former Vuze Developers Launch BiglyBT, a ‘New’ Open Source Torrent Client

In August two long-time developers of the Vuze BitTorrent client, formerly known as Azureus, launched BiglyBT. The client emerged at a time when Vuze development stalled. The developers promised to take the project forward while removing all advertising and other annoyances.

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

Last year, adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan dragged several third-party Internet services to court.

The company targeted several companies including CDN provider CloudFlare and the Chicago-based hosting company Steadfast, accusing them of copyright infringement because they offered services to pirate sites.

More than a year has passed and both sides have yet to resolve their differences.

ALS Scan recently asked the court for a partial summary judgment, determining that Steadfast contributed to copyright infringement and that it has no safe harbor protection. If this was granted, the hosting provider would be in serious trouble.

The copyright holder argued that Steadfast refused to shut down the servers of the image sharing platform imagebam.com, which was operated by its client Flixya. ALS Scan sees the site as a repeat offender as it was targeted with dozens of DMCA notices, and accuses Steadfast of turning a blind eye to the situation.

In a new filing submitted this month, Steadfast fiercely denies the allegations. The hosting provider indeed leased servers to Flixya for ten years but says it forwarded all notices to its client.

The hosting company could not address individual infringements, other than shutting down the entire site, which would be disproportionate in their view.

“Steadfast had no ability to terminate services to individual users of Imagebam.com other than unilaterally shutting down the entire server which would have violated the law. Imagebam.com was not a pirate site when it was operated by Flixya,” Steadfast informs the court.

“Steadfast was not a direct infringer; Steadfast’s client Flixya was not a direct infringer. The direct infringers of the ALS content were the users of Flixya’s Imagebam.com website. Discovery has shown that many, if not all the infringers of the ALS content, were actually ALS’s own members who posted ALS content with impunity.”

Interestingly, the users who posted pirated images on the site were ALS Scan’s own customers. According to Steadfast, ALS took absolutely no steps to curb these infringements themselves.

Instead, ALS hired an agent, Steve Easton, to track down infringements on external sites and issue takedown requests. Steadfast received several of these as well, but believes it responded appropriately, even though the notices were not DMCA compliant.

“Once Easton sent his legally insufficient notices to Steadfast, Steadfast immediately forwarded the notices to Flixya. In turn, Flixya disabled access to the allegedly infringing works that were hosted on imagebam.com,” the company writes.

While ALS Claims that imagebam.com was a repeat offender, Steadfast sees things differently. They point out that Flixya is a service provider as well, and that they were the ones who had to address the alleged infringements.

It would certainly not be an “appropriate circumstance” to disconnect the servers of an entire website, not in the way Congress intended the DMCA to work, the hosting provider notes.

“An ‘appropriate circumstance’ to terminate a user does not include terminating a user who follows the law. Here, the facts in the record demonstrate that Flixya did not blatantly infringe copyright,” Steadfast writes.

“Rather, the facts show that Flixya complied with the DMCA. Flixya posted the required DMCA information on its imagebam.com website, had users agree to the terms of service, and informed users that his or her account will be terminated.”

The hosting provider wants the case to be thrown out, but ALS Scan clearly disagrees. According to the copyright holder, Steadfast should have terminated the imagebam.com servers.

“Steadfast maintained its own theory that if its own client was an Internet service provider, Steadfast had no burden to terminate services to its client, or indeed take any action, in response to notifications of infringement,” ALS writes.

“The law is that a service provider must stop providing services to whomever it is providing such services as long as such services materially contribute to infringement.”

It is now up to the court to decide whether Steadfast is indeed liable. If the company loses its safe harbor, this will have implications for the broader hosting industry.

It would essentially mean that large hosting companies are responsible for the infringing content that their clients’ users upload or link to, which could get quite messy.

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Steadfast’s response is available here (pdf) and ALS Scan’s reply can be found here (pdf).

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

On dozens of occasions during the past year, TF has been compelled to cover the latest entertainment industry anti-piracy scare campaigns. We never have a problem doing so since news is to be reported and we’re all adults with our own minds to evaluate what we’re reading.

Unfortunately, many people behind these efforts seem to be under the impression that their target audience is compromised of simpletons, none of whom are blessed with a brain of their own. Frankly it’s insulting but before we go on, let’s get a few things clear.

Copyright infringement – including uploading, downloading, sharing or streaming – is illegal in most countries. That means that copyright holders are empowered under law to do something about those offenses, either through the civil or criminal courts. While unpalatable to some, most people accept that position and understand that should they be caught in the act, there might be some consequences.

With that said, there are copyright holders out there that need to stop treating people like children at best, idiots at worst. At this point in 2017, there’s no adult out there with the ability to pirate that truly believes that obtaining or sharing the latest movies, TV shows and sports is likely to be completely legal.

If you don’t believe me, ask a pirate why he or she is so excited by their fully-loaded Kodi setup. Hint: It’s because they’re getting content for free and they know full well that isn’t what the copyright holder wants. Then ask them if they want the copyright holder to know their name, address and everything they’ve downloaded. There. That’s your answer.

The point is that these people are not dumb. They know what they’re doing and understand that getting caught is something that might possibly happen. They may not understand precisely how and they may consider the risk to be particularly small (they’d be right too) but they know that it’s something best kept fairly quiet when they aren’t shouting about it to anyone who will listen down the pub.

Copyright holders aren’t dumb either. They know only too well that pirates recognize what they’re doing is probably illegal but they’re at a loss as to what to do about it. For reputable content owners, suing is expensive, doesn’t scale, is a public relations nightmare and, moreover, isn’t effective in solving the problem.

So, we now have a concerted effort to convince pirates that piracy is not only bad for their computers but also bad for their lives. It’s a stated industry aim and we’re going to see more of it in 2018.

If pirate sites aren’t infecting people’s computers with malware from God-knows-where, they’re stealing their identities and emptying their bank accounts, the industries warned in 2017. And if somehow people manage to run this gauntlet of terror without damaging their technology or their finances, then they’ll probably have their house burnt down by an exploding set-top box.

Look, the intention is understandable. Entertainment companies need to contain the piracy problem because if they don’t, it only gets worse. Again, there are few people out there who genuinely expect them to do anything different but this current stampede towards blatant scaremongering is disingenuous at best and utterly ridiculous at worst.

And it won’t work.

While piracy can be engaged in as a solo activity, it’s inherently a social phenomenon. That things can be pirated from here and there, in this way and that, is the stuff of conversations between friends and colleagues, in person and via social media. The information is passed around today like VHS and compact cassettes were passed around three decades ago and people really aren’t talking about malware or their houses catching fire.

In the somewhat unlikely event these topics do get raised for more than a minute, they get dealt with in the same way as anything else.

People inquire whether their friends have ever had their bank accounts emptied or houses burnt down, or if they know anyone who has. When the answer comes back as “no” from literally everyone, people are likely to conclude that the stories are being spread by people trying to stop them getting movies, TV shows, and live sports for free. And they would be right.

That’s not to say that these scare stories don’t have at least some basis in fact, they do.

Many pirate sites do have low-tier advertising which can put users at risk. However, it’s nothing that a decent anti-virus program and/or ad blocker can’t handle, which is something everyone should be running when accessing untrusted sites. Also, being cautious about all electronics imported from overseas is something people should be aware of too, despite the tiny risk these devices appear to pose in the scheme of things.

So, what we have here is the modern day equivalent of Reefer Madness, the 1930’s propaganda movie that tried to scare people away from marijuana with tales of car accidents, suicide, attempted rape and murder.

While somewhat more refined, these modern-day cautionary messages over piracy are destined to fall on ears that are far more shrewd and educated than their 20th-century counterparts. Yet they’re all born out of the same desire, to stop people from getting involved in an activity by warning them that it’s dangerous to them, rather than it having a negative effect on someone else – an industry executive, for example.

It’s all designed to appeal to the selfish nature of people, rather than their empathy for others, but that’s a big mistake.

Most people really do want to do the right thing, as the staggering success of Netflix, iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon show. But the ridiculous costs and/or inaccessibility of live sports, latest movies, or packaged TV shows mean that no matter what warnings get thrown out there, some people will still cut corners if they feel they’re being taken advantage of.

Worst still, if they believe the scare stories are completely ridiculous, eventually they’ll also discount the credibility of the messenger. When that happens, what little trust remains will be eroded.

Then, let’s face it, who wants to buy something from people you can’t trust?

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

Lists, list, lists, it’s that time of the year again. In December many prominent search engines publish their overviews of most used search terms.

On Google, Hurricane Irma was the most searched for term of the year, globally. With “It” and “Stranger Things” ending up as the most sought after movie and TV show respectively.

But what’s happening on torrent search engines? With billions of searches every year, it’s worth taking a look at the most-entered keywords on the dominant file-sharing network.

With data from one of the most visited torrent indexes, we compiled a list of 50 popular terms, to give an indication.

2017’s number one query is “Game of Thrones,” which was entered in several variations, often paired with the episode number. While it’s no surprise, considering the show’s popularity, as a TV-show it’s somewhat of an outlier.

The top 50 is mostly made up of movie titles. “Spider Man: Homecoming” ended up in the second spot, followed by “Baby Driver” and “War for the Planet of the Apes.”

The only non-title entry in the top ten is “Telugu 2017,” which shows how popular BitTorrent is in India. On most torrent sites nowadays, a large chunk of all visitors come from the Asian country.

Torrent sites are predominantly used to download video, which is evident from the list. There are no references to music at all, and “CracksNow” appears to be the only software related search.

Below is the full list of the Top 50 most-entered search queries based on a data sample provided by one of the most popular torrent sites on the Internet. Searches pointing to the same title have been combined.

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Note that searches are not the same as download activity. The former are, in theory, easier to manipulate by outsiders.

What Pirates Searched for in 2017

rank	search
torrentfreak.com
1.	Game of Thrones
2.	Spider Man Homecoming
3.	Baby Driver
4.	War for the Planet of the Apes
5.	Star Trek Discovery
6.	Telugu 2017
7.	Transformers the last knight
8.	Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales
9.	Thor Ragnarok
10	Alien Covenant
11.	Wonder Woman
12.	The Mummy
13.	Atomic Blonde
14.	Malayalam 2017
15.	Riverdale
16.	Kingsman The Golden Circle
17.	Designated Survivor
18.	2017 Movies
19.	Half Girlfriend
20.	Dunkirk
21.	The Fate of the Furious
22.	The Orville
23.	Baywatch
24.	Blade Runner 2049
25.	Tigole
26.	Golmaal again
27.	Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
28.	Midnight Texas
29.	King Arthur Legend of the Sword
30.	Tamil 2017
31.	Justice League
32.	Tubelight
33.	Annabelle Creation
34.	Geostorm
35.	The Handmaids Tale
36.	Young Sheldon
37.	Toilet Ek Prem Katha
38.	Logan lucky
39.	13 reasons why
40.	Baadshaho
41.	Jagga Jasoos
42.	CracksNow
43.	Dangal
44.	The Lost City of Z
45.	Suits
46.	Power Rangers
47.	The Big Bang Theory
48.	The Hitman’s Bodyguard
49	Secret Superstar
50.	Jab Harry Met Sejal

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