Website blocking has become one of the entertainment industries’ favorite anti-piracy tools.

All over the world, major movie and music industry players have gone to court demanding that ISPs take action, often with great success.

Internal MPAA research showed that website blockades help to deter piracy and former boss Chris Dodd said that they are one of the most effective anti-tools available.

While not everyone is in agreement on this, the numbers are used to lobby politicians and convince courts. Interestingly, however, nothing is happening in the United States, which is where most pirate site visitors come from.

This is baffling to many people. Why would US-based companies go out of their way to demand ISP blocking in the most exotic locations, but fail to do the same at home?

We posed this question to Neil Turkewitz, RIAA’s former Executive Vice President International, who currently runs his own consulting group.

The main reason why pirate site blocking requests have not yet been made in the United States is down to SOPA. When the proposed SOPA legislation made headlines five years ago there was a massive backlash against website blocking, which isn’t something copyright groups want to reignite.

“The legacy of SOPA is that copyright industries want to avoid resurrecting the ghosts of SOPA past, and principally focus on ways to creatively encourage cooperation with platforms, and to use existing remedies,” Turkewitz tells us.

Instead of taking the likes of Comcast and Verizon to court, the entertainment industries focused on voluntary agreements, such as the now-defunct Copyright Alerts System. However, that doesn’t mean that website blocking and domain seizures are not an option.

“SOPA made ‘website blocking’ as such a four-letter word. But this is actually fairly misleading,” Turkewitz says.

“There have been a variety of civil and criminal actions addressing the conduct of entities subject to US jurisdiction facilitating piracy, regardless of the source, including hundreds of domain seizures by DHS/ICE.”

Indeed, there are plenty of legal options already available to do much of what SOPA promised. ABS-CBN has taken over dozens of pirate site domain names through the US court system. Most recently even through an ex-parte order, meaning that the site owners had no option to defend themselves before they lost their domains.

ISP and search engine blocking is also around the corner. As we reported earlier this week, a Virginia magistrate judge recently recommended an injunction which would require search engines and Internet providers to prevent users from accessing Sci-Hub.

Still, the major movie and music companies are not yet using these tools to take on The Pirate Bay or other major pirate sites. If it’s so easy, then why not? Apparently, SOPA may still be in the back of their minds.

Interestingly, the RIAA’s former top executive wasn’t a fan of SOPA when it was first announced, as it wouldn’t do much to extend the legal remedies that were already available.

“I actually didn’t like SOPA very much since it mostly reflected existing law and maintained a paradigm that didn’t involve ISP’s in creative interdiction, and simply preserved passivity. To see it characterized as ‘copyright gone wild’ was certainly jarring and incongruous,” Turkewitz says.

Ironically, it looks like a bill that failed to pass, and didn’t impress some copyright holders to begin with, is still holding them back after five years. They’re certainly not using all the legal options available to avoid SOPA comparison. The question is, for how long?

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

Ever since The Pirate Bay crew added a cryptocurrency miner to their site last month, the debate over user mining has sizzled away in the background.

The basic premise is that a piece of software embedded in a website runs on a user’s machine, utilizing its CPU cycles in order to generate revenue for the site in question. But not everyone likes it.

The main problem has centered around consent. While some sites are giving users the option of whether to be involved or not, others simply run the miner without asking. This week, one site operator suggested to TF that since no one asks whether they can run “shitty” ads on a person’s machine, why should they ask permission to mine?

It’s a controversial point, but it would be hard to find users agreeing on either front. They almost universally insist on consent, wherever possible. That’s why when someone comes up with something innovative to solve a problem, it catches the eye.

Earlier this week a user on Reddit posted a screenshot of a fairly well known private tracker. The site had implemented a mining solution not dissimilar to that appearing on other similar platforms. This one, however, gives the user something back.

Mining for coins – with a twist

First of all, it’s important to note the implementation. The decision to mine is completely under the control of the user, with buttons to start or stop mining. There are even additional controls for how many CPU threads to commit alongside a percentage utilization selector. While still early days, that all sounds pretty fair.

Where this gets even more interesting is how this currency mining affects so-called “upload credit”, an important commodity on a private tracker without which users can be prevented from downloading any content at all.

Very quickly: when BitTorrent users download content, they simultaneously upload to other users too. The idea is that they download X megabytes and upload the same number (at least) to other users, to ensure that everyone in a torrent swarm (a number of users sharing together) gets a piece of the action, aka the content in question.

The amount of content downloaded and uploaded on a private tracker is monitored and documented by the site. If a user has 1TB downloaded and 2TB uploaded, for example, he has 1TB in credit. In basic terms, this means he can download at least 1TB of additional content before he goes into deficit, a position undesirable on a private tracker.

Now, getting more “upload credit” can be as simple as uploading more, but some users find that difficult, either due to the way a tracker’s economy works or simply due to not having resources. If this is the case, some sites allow people to donate real money to receive “upload credit”. On the tracker highlighted in the mining example above, however, it’s possible to virtually ‘trade-in’ some of the mining effort instead.

Tracker politics aside (some people believe this is simply a cash grab opportunity), from a technical standpoint the prospect is quite intriguing.

In a way, the current private tracker system allows users to “mine” upload credits by donating bandwidth to other users of the site. Now they have the opportunity to mine an actual cryptocurrency on the tracker and have some of it converted back into the tracker’s native ‘currency’ – upload credit – which can only be ‘spent’ on the site. Meanwhile, the site’s operator can make a few bucks towards site maintenance.

Another example showing how innovative these mining implementations can be was posted by a member of a second private tracker. Although it’s unclear whether mining is forced or optional, there appears to be complete transparency for the benefit of the user.

The mining ‘Top 10’ on a private tracker

In addition to displaying the total number of users mining and the hashes solved per second, the site publishes a ‘Top 10’ list of users mining the most currently, and overall. Again, some people might not like the concept of users mining at all, but psychologically this is a particularly clever implementation.

Utilizing the desire of many private tracker users to be recognizable among their peers due to their contribution to the platform, the charts give a user a measurable status in the community, at least among those who care about such things. Previously these charts would list top uploaders of content but the addition of a ‘Top miner’ category certainly adds some additional spice to the mix.

Mining is a controversial topic which isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. But, for all its faults, it’s still a way for sites to generate revenue, away from the pitfalls of increasingly hostile and easy-to-trace alternative payment systems. The Pirate Bay may have set the cat among the pigeons last month, but it also gave the old gray matter a boost too.

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

Late August a ‘piracy disaster‘ struck the makers of The Hitman’s Bodyguard, an action comedy movie featuring Hollywood stars Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds.

The film was leading the box office charts when, eight days after its theatrical release, a high definition copy hit various pirate sites.

While it’s hard to predict whether the leak substantially impacted the movie’s revenue, the people behind the film are determined to claim damages. They hired the services of “Rights Enforcement,” an outfit which tracks down BitTorrent pirates.

Rights Enforcement sends automated ‘fines’ via DMCA notices, which is cheaper than expensive lawsuits. At the same time, this also makes the settlement process easier to scale, as they can send out tens of thousands of ‘fines’ at once with limited resources, without any oversight from a court.

TorrentFreak has seen several notices targeted at The Hitman’s Bodyguard pirates. While the notices themselves don’t list the settlement fee, recipients are referred to a page that does. Those who admit guilt are asked to pay a $300 settlement fee.

“We have evidence that someone using your Internet service has placed a media file that contains the protected content for our client’s motion picture in a shared folder location and is enabling others to download copies of this content,” the notices warn.

Part of the DMCA notice

The text, which is forwarded by several ISPs, is cleverly worded. The account holders in question are notified that if the issue isn’t resolved, they may face a lawsuit.

“You may consider this a notice of potential lawsuit, a demand for the infringing activity to terminate, and a demand for damages from the actual infringer. We invite your voluntary cooperation in assisting us with this matter, identifying the infringer, and ensuring that this activity stops. Should the infringing activity continue we may file a civil lawsuit seeking judicial relief.”

The email points users to the settlement portal where they can review the claim and a possible solution. In this case, “resolving” the matter will set account holders back a hefty $300.

People are free to ignore the claim, of course, but Rights Enforcement warns that if the infringements continue they might eventually be sued.

“If you do not settle the claim and you continue to infringe then odds are you will eventually be sued and face substantial civil liability. So first thing is to stop the activity and make sure you are not involved with infringing activity in the future.”

The notice also kindly mentions that the recipients can contact an attorney for legal advice. However, after an hour or two a legal bill will have exceeded the proposed settlement amount, so for many this isn’t really an option.

It’s quite a clever scheme. Although most people probably won’t be sued for ignoring a notice, there’s always the possibility that they will. Especially since Rights Enforcement is linked to some of the most prolific copyright trolls.

The company, which emerged earlier this year, is operated by lawyer Carl Crowell who is known for his work with movie studios such as Voltage Pictures. In the past, he filed lawsuits for several films such as Dallas Buyers Club and The Hurt Locker.

When faced with a threat of an expensive lawsuit, even innocent subscribers may be inclined to pay the settlement. They should be warned, however, once the first payment is made, many similar requests may follow.

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

While millions of people have died throughout history fighting for the right to vote, there is a significant wave of apathy among large swathes of the population in democracies where the ballot box is taken for granted.

With this in mind, an educational project in the Czech Republic aims to familiarize high school students with basic democratic principles, acquaint them with the local electoral system, while promoting dialog among students, teachers, and parents. The main goal is to increase participation of young people in elections.

In line with this project, young students across the country are invited to take part in a simulated general election, to get a taste of what things will be like when they reach voting age. This year, these Student Elections took place over two days starting October 3 in secondary schools across the Czech Republic.

Under the One World Education Program at People in Need, a nonprofit that implements educational and human rights programs in crisis zones, 40,068 students from 281 schools cast their votes for political parties, movements and coalition candidates standing for the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament in the upcoming real elections.

Students 15-years-old and above were eligible to vote and when they were all counted, the results were quite something for any follower of the worldwide Pirate Party movement.

Of all groups, the Czech Pirate Party won a decisive victory, netting 24.5% of the overall vote, double that achieved by the ANO movement (11.9%) and the right-wing TOP 09 (11.8%). The fourth and fifth-placed candidates topped out at 7.76% and 6.33% respectively.

“The results of the Student Elections will be compared to the results of the election in a couple of weeks. It is certain they will vary greatly,” says Karel Strachota, director of the One World at School Education Program and the person who launched the Student Election project seven years ago.

“At the same time, however, the choice of students seems to indicate a certain trend in the development of voter preferences. From our teachers and school visits, we know that, as in the past, most of the pupils have been able to choose responsibly.”

According to Prague Monitor, opinion polls for the upcoming election (October 20-21) place the ANO movement as the clear favorites, with the Pirates having “a big chance to succeed” with up to 7% of the vote. Given the results of the simulation, elections in coming years could be something really special for the Pirates.

The full results of the Student Elections 2017 can be found on the One World website here. Meanwhile, Czech Pirate Party President Ivan Bartos sings to voters in the pre-election video below, explaining why Pirates are needed in Parliament in 2017.

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

Around the same time as Hollywood’s MPAA, the RIAA has also submitted its overview of “notorious markets” to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR).

These submissions help to guide the U.S. Government’s position toward foreign countries when it comes to copyright enforcement.

The RIAA’s overview begins positively, announcing two major successes achieved over the past year.

The first is the shutdown of sites such as Emp3world, AudioCastle, Viperial, Album Kings, and im1music. These sites all used the now-defunct Sharebeast platform, whose operator pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement.

Another victory followed a few weeks ago when YouTube-MP3.org shut down its services after being sued by the RIAA.

“The most popular YouTube ripping site, youtube-mp3.org, based in Germany and included in last year’s list of notorious markes [sic], recently shut down in response to a civil action brought by major record labels,” the RIAA writes.

This case also had an effect on similar services. Some stream ripping services that were reported to the USTR last year no longer permit the conversion and download of music videos on YouTube, the RIAA reports. However, they add that the problem is far from over.

“Unfortunately, several other stream-ripping sites have ‘doubled down’ and carry on in this illegal behavior, continuing to make this form of theft a major concern for the music industry,” the music group writes.

“The overall popularity of these sites and the staggering volume of traffic it attracts evidences the enormous damage being inflicted on the U.S. record industry.”

The music industry group is tracking more than 70 of these stream ripping sites and the most popular ones are listed in the overview of notorious markets. These are Mp3juices.cc, Convert2mp3.net, Savefrom.net, Ytmp3.cc, Convertmp3.io, Flvto.biz, and 2conv.com.

Youtube2mp3’s listing

The RIAA notes that many sites use domain privacy services to hide their identities, as well as Cloudflare to obscure the sites’ true hosting locations. This frustrates efforts to take action against these sites, they say.

Popular torrent sites are also highlighted, including The Pirate Bay. These sites regularly change domain names to avoid ISP blockades and domain seizures, and also use Cloudflare to hide their hosting location.

“BitTorrent sites, like many other pirate sites, are increasing [sic] turning to Cloudflare because routing their site through Cloudflare obfuscates the IP address of the actual hosting provider, masking the location of the site.”

Finally, the RIAA reports several emerging threats reported to the Government. Third party app stores, such as DownloadAtoZ.com, reportedly offer a slew of infringing apps. In addition, there’s a boom of Nigerian pirate sites that flood the market with free music.

“The number of such infringing sites with a Nigerian operator stands at over 200. Their primary method of promotion is via Twitter, and most sites make use of the Nigerian operated ISP speedhost247.com,” the report notes

The full list of RIAA’s “notorious” pirate sites, which also includes several cyberlockers, MP3 search and download sites, as well as unlicensed pay services, can be found below. The full report is available here (pdf).

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Stream-Ripping Sites

– Mp3juices.cc
– Convert2mp3.net
– Savefrom.net
– Ytmp3.cc
– Convertmp3.io
– Flvto.biz
– 2conv.com.

Search-and-Download Sites

– Newalbumreleases.net
– Rnbxclusive.top
– DNJ.to

BitTorrent Indexing and Tracker Sites

– Thepiratebay.org
– Torrentdownloads.me
– Rarbg.to
– 1337x.to

Cyberlockers

– 4shared.com
– Uploaded.net
– Zippyshare.com
– Rapidgator.net
– Dopefile.pk
– Chomikuj.pl

Unlicensed Pay-for-Download Sites

– Mp3va.com
– Mp3fiesta.com

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