The times when pirates were stereotyped as young men in a college dorm are long past us.

Nowadays you can find copyright infringers throughout many cultures and all layers of society.

In the past we’ve discovered ‘pirates’ in the most unusual places, from the FBI, through major record labels and the U.S. Government to the Vatican.

This week we can add another location to the list, Osama Bin Laden’s former Abbottabad compound, where he was captured and killed on 2 May 2011.

The CIA has regularly released documents and information found on the premises. This week it added a massive treasure trove of 470,000 files, providing insight into the interests of one of the most notorious characters in recent history.

“Today’s release of recovered al-Qa‘ida letters, videos, audio files and other materials provides the opportunity for the American people to gain further insights into the plans and workings of this terrorist organization,” CIA Director Pompeo commented.

What caught our eye, however, is the material that the CIA chose not to release. This includes a host of pirated files, some more relevant than others.

For example, the computers contained pirated copies of the movies Antz, Batman Gotham Knight, Cars, Chicken Little, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Home on the Range and The Three Musketeers. Since these are children-oriented titles, it’s likely they served as entertainment for the kids living in the compound.

There was also other entertainment stored on the hard drives, including the games Final Fantasy VII and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, a Game Boy Advance emulator, porn, and anime.

Gizmodo has an overview of some of the weirdest movies, for those who are interested.

Not all content is irrelevant, though. The archive also contains files including the documentary “Where in the World is Osama bin Laden,” “CNN Presents: World’s Most Wanted,” “In the Footsteps of Bin Laden,” and “National Geographic: World’s Worst Venom.”

Or what about “National Geographic: Kung Fu Killers,” which reveals the ten deadliest Kung Fu weapons of all time, including miniature swords disguised as tobacco pipes.

There is, of course, no evidence that Osama Bin Laden watched any of these titles. Just as there’s no proof that he played any games. There were a lot of people in the compound and, while it makes for a good headline, the files are not directly tied to him.

That said, the claim that piracy supports terrorism suddenly gets a whole new meaning…

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Credit: Original compound image Sajjad Ali Qureshi

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

It’s been spoken about thousands of times in the past half-decade but the 2012 raid on Kim Dotcom’s home in New Zealand was extraordinary by any standard.

At the behest of the US Government, 72 police officers – including some from the elite heavily armed Special Tactics Group (STG) – descended on Dotcom’s Coatesville mansion. Two helicopters were used during the raid, footage from which was later released to the public as the scale and nature of the operation became clear.

To be clear, no one in the Dotcom residence had any history of violence. Nevertheless, considerable force was used to attack rooms in the building, all of it aimed at detaining the founder of what was then the world’s most famous file-hosting site. The FBI, it seems, would stop at nothing in pursuit of the man they claimed was the planet’s most notorious copyright infringer.

As the dust settled, it became clear that the overwhelming use of force was not only unprecedented but also completely unnecessary, a point Dotcom himself became intent on pressing home.

The entrepreneur was particularly angry at the treatment received by former wife Mona, who was seven months pregnant with twins at the time. So, in response, the Megaupload founder and his wife sued the police, hoping to hold the authorities to account for their actions.

The case has dragged on for years but this morning came news of a breakthrough. According to information released by Kim Dotcom, the lawsuit has been resolved after a settlement was reached with the police.

“Today, Mona and I are glad to reach a confidential settlement of our case against the New Zealand Police. We have respect for the Police in this country. They work hard and have, with this one exception, treated me and my family with courtesy and respect,” Dotcom said.

“We were shocked at the uncharacteristic handling of my arrest for a non-violent Internet copyright infringement charge brought by the United States, which is not even a crime in New Zealand.”

Dotcom said police could have simply asked to be let in, at which point he could have been arrested. Instead, under pressure from US authorities and “special interests in Hollywood”, they turned the whole event into a massive publicity stunt aimed at pleasing the US.

“The New Zealand Police we know do not carry guns. They try to resolve matters in a non-violent manner, unlike what we see from the United States. We are sad that our officers, good people simply doing their job, were tainted by US priorities and arrogance,” Dotcom said.

“We sued the Police because we believed their military-style raid on a family with children in a non-violent case went far beyond what a civilised community should expect from its police force. New Zealanders deserve and should expect better.”

Kim Dotcom has developed a reputation for fighting back across all aspects of his long-running case, and this particular action was no different. He’d planned to take the case all the way to the High Court but in the end decided that doing so wouldn’t be in the best interests of his family.

Noting that New Zealand has a new government “for the better”, Dotcom said that raking up the past would only serve to further disrupt his family.

“Our children are now settled and integrated safely here into their community and they love it. We do not want to relive past events. We do not want to disrupt our children’s new lives. We do not want to revictimise them. We want them to grow up happy,” he said.

“That is why we chose New Zealand to be our family home in the first place. We are fortunate to live here. Under the totality of the circumstances, we thought settlement was best for our children.”

According to NZ Herald, the Dotcoms aren’t the only ones to have made peace with the police. Other people arrested in 2012, including Dotcom associates Bram van der Kolk and Mathias Ortmann, were paid six-figure sums to settle. The publication speculates that as the main target of the raid, Dotcom’s settlment amount would’ve been more.

But while this matter is now closed, others remain. It was previously determined that Kiwi spy agency the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) unlawfully spied on the Dotcoms over an extended period. Ron Mansfield, New Zealand counsel for the Dotcoms, says that case will continue.

“The GCSB refuses to disclose what it did or the actual private communications it stole. The Dotcoms understandably believe that they are entitled to know this. That action is pending appeal in the Court of Appeal,” he says.

Also before the Court of Appeal is the case to extradite Dotcom and his associates to the United States. That hearing is set for February 2018 but whatever the outcome, a further appeal to the Supreme Court is likely, meaning that Dotcom will remain in New Zealand until 2020, at least.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

At the end of the year movie industry insiders traditionally receive their screener copies, which they use to vote on the Oscars and other awards.

As is tradition, quite a few of these advance screeners will leak on various pirate sites. Last year the action started late, but eventually more than a dozen copies found their way to pirate sites.

The problem is not minor. Over the past fifteen years, screener copies of more than half of all the Oscar-nominated films have leaked online. Many of them appeared while the movies were still playing in theaters, or even before.

Hollywood has been working hard to contain the problem with watermarks and other security protocols but it seems hard to contain. This isn’t really a surprise when you look at the numbers. According to reports, studios send out 70,000 physical discs every year.

“No matter how much you try to secure your product, if you’re sending out a movie, it will leak online,” an anonymous source at a top awards screeners distributor told Variety, which reported on the issue.

In recent years several new online screening options have been developed. These are much cheaper, less than $4 compared to up to $35 for a watermarked physical disc. On top of that, they’re also much more secure and less likely to be stolen or copied in the distribution process.

Interestingly, however, many studios are reluctant to make this change. Not because they are worried about the technology itself, which works just fine, but because they fear that older voters are not tech savvy enough to handle an online screener.

This is corroborated by Matt Suggs, the executive VP of the online screening platform Mediafly. “The No. 1 concern is the older awards-voter demographic. This is brought up by every one of our customers,” he says.

Apparently, awards votes are more important than security in this instance. This is good news for pirates who have a better chance of seeing advance screener copies leak because of it. The question is, how long will this last?

Technology advances at a rapid pace. Just ten years ago it was pretty much impossible to stream a Hollywood movie online, something that everyone takes for granted today. So, eventually, screeners will all move to the Internet as well.

Suggs compares it to the shift from VHS to DVDs. At first, many older voters were not happy with the change, but eventually, everyone caved in.

“The same concerns existed when the studios moved to DVDs. For several years, they still had older members asking for VHS tapes. It’s just inevitable that they’re going to migrate to eScreeners in the same way. The real solution to this problem is time,” he says.

That said, even when all screeners move to a well-protected online platforms, leaks will still be possible. After all, pirates and hackers tend to be very familiar with the online playground.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

When Megaupload was shut down in January 2012, US authorities did everything within their power to financially ruin Kim Dotcom and his associates.

Aside from taking much of his personal property, tens of millions of dollars of assets were seized around the world.

Under instruction from the U.S. government, US$42.57m in assets were seized in Hong Kong and since then Dotcom has been trying to claw it back, bit by bit.

Back in July, Dotcom revealed that the Hong Kong High Court had released more of his funds, plus four containers of seized property. Noting that he missed the country, he gave thanks for the lifeline.

“Thanks to a Hong Kong Judge my family can move to Queenstown and my kids will be surrounded by beautiful mountains & lakes instead of spies,” Dotcom said.

That move eventually went ahead, with Dotcom regularly tweeting beautiful waterside views from his new home over the past few months. But of course, nice things tend to cost quite a bit of money, so Dotcom’s legal team have been working hard in Hong Kong to have more funds released.

According to a report from NZHerald, his latest request is fairly sizeable, reaching NZ$1.2m (US$829,400), everything considered.

First up, Dotcom is seeking around NZ$1m (US$691,200) for costs relating to his relocation from Auckland to Queenstown. That’s comprised of two years worth of rent at NZ$40,000 (US$27,648) per month (no typo), plus NZ$150,000 (US$103,680) to cover the actual cost of the move.

On top, Dotcom is looking for NZ$73,000 (US$50,457) per month for living expenses, an amount that’s roughly US$2,000 per month up on the amount he currently receives.

According to the report, Dotcom’s team are also proposing a further amount of NZ$200,000 (US$138,240) to cover emergency items including “medical expenses of the family, car maintenance, household repairs and two holidays of the family”.

It seems unlikely that this will be the final request from Dotcom. According to Gerard McCoy, Dotcom’s lawyer in Hong Kong, the extradition process in New Zealand is nowhere near complete. In fact, McCoy told the court that proceedings won’t be completed during the next two years.

That takes us to 2020, at least, meaning that Dotcom will still be in New Zealand a full eight years after the raid. Given the massive number of court battles and subsequent appeals into every detail of several resulting cases, that’s probably not a surprise, however.

The progress in the extradition process itself is also somewhat glacial, with the next hearing set for the first quarter of 2018 in the Court of Appeal. If past experience is anything to go by, neither side will be happy with the outcome. This means that an appeal to the Supreme Court is almost inevitable.

Over in the United States, progress has also been slow. Recently, a petition from Dotcom and his former Megaupload colleagues over millions of dollars in seized assets was denied by the US Supreme Court.

While this decision means that the battle over a further US$67 million in assets has been exhausted, the question of whether Dotcom and former colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato will ever stand trial in the US remains unanswered.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Increasingly, people are trading in their expensive cable subscriptions, opting to use cheaper or free Internet TV instead.

This is made easy and convenient with help from a variety of easy-to-use set-top boxes, many of which are specifically configured to receive pirated content.

Following this trend, there has also been an uptick in the availability of unlicensed TV subscriptions, with dozens of vendors offering virtually any channel imaginable. Either for free or in exchange for a small fee.

Until now the true scope of this piracy ecosystem was largely unknown, but a new report published by Canadian broadband management company Sandvine reveals that it’s massive.

The company monitored traffic across multiple fixed access tier-1 networks in North America and found that 6.5% of households are communicating with known TV piracy services. This translates to seven million subscribers and many more potential viewers.

One of the interesting aspects of IPTV piracy is that most services charge money, around $10 per month. This means that there’s a lot of money involved. If the seven million figure is indeed accurate, these IPTV vendors would generate roughly $800 million in North America alone.

“TV piracy could quickly become almost a billion dollar a year industry for pirates,” Sandvine writes in its report, noting that the real rightsholders are being substantially harmed.

Pirate subscription TV ecosystem

According to Sandvine, roughly 95% of the IPTV subscriptions run off custom set-top boxes. Kodi-powered devices and Roku boxes follow at a respectable distance with 3% and 2% of the market, respectively.

With millions of viewers, there’s undoubtedly a large audience of pirate subscription TV viewers. This is also reflected in the bandwidth these services consume. During peak hours, 6.5% of all downstream traffic on fixed networks is generated by TV piracy services.

To put this into perspective; this is more than all BitTorrent traffic during the peak hours, which was “only” 1.73% last year, and dropping.

The pirate IPTV numbers are quite impressive, also when compared to Netflix and YouTube. While the two video giants still have a larger share of overall Internet traffic on fixed networks, pirate TV subscriptions are not that far behind.

Internet traffic share throughout the day

The graph above points out another issue. It highlights that many IPTV services continue to stream data even when they’re not actively used (tuned into a channel with the TV off). As a result, they have a larger share of the overall traffic during the night when most people don’t use Netflix or YouTube.

This wasted traffic is referred to as “phantom bandwidth” and can be as high as one terabyte per month for a single connection. Physically powering off the box is often the only way to prevent this.

Needless to say, “phantom bandwidth” increases IPTV traffic numbers, so it doesn’t necessarily mean that all this traffic is actively consumed.

Finally, Sandvine looked at the different types of content people are streaming with these pirate subscriptions. Live sporting events are popular, as we’ve seen with the megafight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. The same is true for news channels and premium TV such as HBO and international broadcasts.

The most viewed of all in North America, with 4.6% of all pirated TV traffic, is the Indian Star Plus HD.

All and all it is safe to conclude that IPTV piracy is making up a large part of the pirate ecosystem. This hasn’t gone unnoticed to copyright holders of course. In recent months we have seen enforcement actions against several providers and if this trend continues, more are likely to follow.

Looking ahead, it would be interesting to see some numbers of the “on demand” piracy streaming websites and devices as well. IPTV subscriptions are substantial, but it would be no surprise if pirate streaming boxes and sites generate even more traffic.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.