Four years ago many popular torrent sites added an option to donate via Bitcoin. The Pirate Bay was one of the first to jump on board and still lists its address on the website.

While there’s nothing wrong with using Bitcoin as a donation tool, adding a Javascript cryptocurrency miner to a site is of a totally different order.

A few hours ago many Pirate Bay users began noticing that their CPU usage increased dramatically when they browsed certain Pirate Bay pages. Upon closer inspection, this spike appears to have been caused by a Bitcoin miner embedded on the site.

The code in question is tucked away in the site’s footer and uses a miner provided by Coinhive. This service offers site owners the option to convert the CPU power of users into Monero coins.

The miner does indeed appear to increase CPU usage quite a bit. It is throttled at different rates (we’ve seen both 0.6 and 0.8) but the increase in resources is immediately noticeable.

The miner is not enabled site-wide. When we checked, it appeared in the search results and category listings, but not on the homepage or individual torrent pages.

There has been no official comment from the site operators on the issue (update, see below), but many users have complained about it. In the official site forums, TPB supermoderator Sid is clearly not in agreement with the site’s latest addition.

“That really is serious, so hopefully we can get some action on it quickly. And perhaps get some attention for the uploading and commenting bugs while they’re at it,” Sid writes.

Like many others, he also points out that blocking or disabling Javascript can stop the automatic mining. This can be done via browser settings or through script blocker addons such as NoScript and ScriptBlock. Alternatively, people can block the miner URL with an ad-blocker.

Whether the miner is a new and permanent tool, or perhaps triggered by an advertiser, is unknown at the point. When we hear more this article will be updated accordingly.

Update: We were told that the miner is being tested for a short period (~24 hours) as a new way to generate revenue. This could eventually replace the ads on the site. More info may be revealed later.

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

Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has been very active in recent years, targeting uploaders on various sharing sites and services.

This week the anti-piracy group announced yet another victory against a group of frequent copyright infringers in the Netherlands.

BREIN successfully tracked down and settled with two key members of the “Libra Release Team” (LRT), which is estimated to consist of eight to ten people in total.

LRT is best known in the Netherlands for repackaging English movie and TV releases with Dutch subtitles. These were then shared on torrent sites and Usenet forums.

According to court papers, the files in question were uploaded to place2home.org and place2home.net. However, they often spread out over other sites as well. In total, the release team has published nearly 800 titles.

BREIN tracked down the founder of LRT, who had already stopped uploading, and obtained an ex-parte court order against a more recent uploader. Both have settled with the anti-piracy group for a total of 8,000 euros, an amount that takes their financial situations into account.

The uploader was further summoned to and stop his activities effective immediately. If not, an ex-parte court order requires him to pay an additional penalty of €2,000 per day, up to a maximum of €50,000.

The court papers don’t mention how the members were uncovered, but it is likely that they left traces to their real identities online, which is often the case. The group also recruited new members publicly, using Skype and Gmail as contact addresses.

It’s unclear whether the settlements means the end of the Libra Release Team. While the targeted persons are unlikely to pick up their old habit, some of the others may still continue, perhaps under a new name.

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

A few weeks ago MetalKettle, one of the most famous Kodi addon developers of recent times, decided to call it quits.

Worried about potential legal risks, he saw no other option than to halt all development of third-party Kodi addons.

Two months before this announcement, the developer proceeded to remove the GitHub account which was used to distribute his addons. However, he didn’t realize that this might not have been the best decision.

As it turns out, GitHub allows outsiders to re-register names of deleted accounts. While this might not be a problem in most cases, it can be disastrous when the accounts are connected to Kodi add-ons that are constantly pinging for new updates.

In essence, it means that the person who registered the Github account can load content onto the boxes of people who still have the MetalKettle repo installed. Quite a dangerous prospect, something MetalKettle realizes as well.

“Someone has re-registered metalkettle on github. So in theory could pollute any devices with the repo still installed,” he warned on Twitter.

“Warning : if any users have a metalkettle repo installed on their systems or within a build – please delete ASAP,” he added.

MetalKettle warning

It’s not clear what the intentions of the new MetalKettle user are on GitHub, if he or she has any at all. But, people should be very cautious and probably remove it from their systems.

The real MetalKettle, meanwhile, was contacted by TVAddons regarding the situation and they have placed the repository on their Indigo blacklist of banned software. This effectively disables the repository on devices with Indigo installed.

GitHub on their turn may want to reconsider their removal policy. Perhaps it’s smarter to not make old usernames available for registration, at least not for a while, as it’s clearly a vulnerability.

This is also shown by another Kodi repo controversy that appeared earlier today. Another GitHub account that was reportedly deleted earlier, resurfaced today pushing a new version of the Exodus addon and other sources.

According to some, the GitHub account is operated by the original Exodus developers and perfectly safe, but others warn that the name was reregistered in bad faith.

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

In the current climate, creators and distributors are forced to play a giant game of whac-a-mole to limit the unlicensed spread of their content on the Internet.

The way the law stands today in the United States, EU, and most other developed countries, copyright holders must wait for content to appear online before sending targeted takedown notices to hosts, service providers, and online platforms.

After sending several billion of these notices, patience is wearing thin, so a new plan is beginning to emerge. Rather than taking down content after it appears, major entertainment industry groups would prefer companies to take proactive action. The upload filters currently under discussion in Europe are a prime example but are already causing controversy.

Continuing the momentum in this direction, Reuters reports that the European Union will publish draft guidelines at the end of this month, urging platforms such as Google and Facebook to take a more proactive approach to illegal content of all kinds.

“Online platforms need to significantly step up their actions to address this problem,” the draft EU guidelines say.

“They need to be proactive in weeding out illegal content, put effective notice-and-action procedures in place, and establish well-functioning interfaces with third parties (such as trusted flaggers) and give a particular priority to notifications from national law enforcement authorities.”

On the copyright front, Google already operates interfaces designed to take down infringing content. And, as the recent agreement in the UK with copyright holders shows, is also prepared to make infringing content harder to find. Nevertheless, it will remain to be seen if Google is prepared to give even ‘trusted’ third-parties a veto on what content can appear online, without having oversight itself.

The guidelines are reportedly non-binding but further legislation in this area isn’t being ruled out for Spring 2018, if companies fail to make significant progress.

Interestingly, however, a Commission source told Reuters that any new legislation would not “change the liability exemption for online platforms.” Maintaining these so-called ‘safe harbors’ is a priority for online giants such as Google and Facebook – anything less would almost certainly be a deal-breaker.

The guidelines, due to be published at the end of September, will also encourage online platforms to publish transparency reports. These should detail the volume of notices received and actions subsequently taken. Again, Google is way ahead of the game here, having published this kind of data for the past several years.

“The guidelines also contain safeguards against excessive removal of content, such as giving its owners a right to contest such a decision,” Reuters adds.

More will be known about the proposals in a couple of weeks but it’s quite likely they’ll spark another round of debate on whether legislation is the best route to tackle illegal content or whether voluntary agreements – which have a tendency to be rather less open – should be the way to go.

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

Australia has been struggling to find an adequate response to online piracy for several years, but progress has been slow.

While pirate site blockades are in effect now, an earlier plan to implement a three-strikes anti-piracy regime failed.

Despite this setback, Australian legislators are still determined to tackle widespread copyright infringement. The most recent effort comes through an overhaul of the country’s copyright regulations, with a new proposal (pdf) to adopt a voluntary anti-piracy code.

The code would apply to carriage service providers, including Internet providers, to agree on a joint anti-piracy strategy. The voluntary code should be supported by “broad consensus” and include technical measures that are “used to protect and identify copyright material.”

The proposal further stresses that the anti-piracy measures should be “non-discriminatory.” They also shouldn’t impose “substantial costs” on the service providers or “substantial burdens on their systems or networks.”

The code proposal

The description of the code is quite broad can include a wide variety of measures, including a new iteration of the “strikes” scheme where copyright holders report copyright infringements. A website blocking agreement, which avoids costly court procedures, also belongs to the options.

An accompanying consultation paper published by the Government stresses that any monitoring measures to track infringements should not interfere with the technology used at the originating sites, ZDNet notes.

While the Government pushes copyright holders and ISPs to come to a voluntary agreement, the failed “three strikes” negotiations suggest that this will be easier said than done.

At the time, the Australasian Music Publishers Association (AMPAL) noted that merely warning users did not go far enough. Instead, they recommended a system where ISPs themselves would implement monitoring and filtering technology to stop piracy.

It appears, however, that extensive monitoring and filtering on the ISPs’ networks goes beyond the scope of the proposed regulations. After all, that would be quite costly and place a significant burden on the ISPs.

The proposed regulations are not limited to the anti-piracy code but also specify how Internet providers should process takedown notices, among other things.

Before any changes are implemented or negotiations begin, the Government is first inviting various stakeholders to share their views. While it doesn’t intend to change the main outline, the Government welcomes suggestions to simplify the current proposal where possible.

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