Every day millions of people enjoy fan-made subtitles. They help foreigners understand English-speaking entertainment and provide the deaf with a way to comprehend audio.

Quite often these subtitles are used in combination with pirated files. This is a thorn in the side to copyright holder groups, who see this as a threat to their business.

In Sweden, Undertexter was one of the leading subtitle resources for roughly a decade. The site allowed users to submit their own translated subtitles for movies and TV shows, which were then made available to the public.

In the summer of 2013, this reign came to an end after the site was pulled offline. Following pressure from Hollywood-based movie companies, police raided the site and seized its servers.

The raid and subsequent criminal investigation came as a surprise to the site’s founder, Eugen Archy, who didn’t think he or the site’s users were offering an illegal service.

“The people who work on the site don’t consider their own interpretation of dialog to be something illegal, especially when we’re handing out these interpretations for free,” he said at the time.

The arrest made it clear that the authorities disagreed. The Undertexter founder was prosecuted for distributing copyright-infringing subtitles, risking a possible prison sentence. While Archy was found guilty this week, luckily for him he remains a free man.

The Attunda District Court sentenced the now 32-year-old operator to probation. In addition, he has to pay 217,000 Swedish Kroner ($27,000), which will be taken from the advertising and donation revenues he collected through the site.

While there were millions of subtitles available on Undertexter, only 74 movies were referenced by the prosecution. These were carefully selected to ensure a strong case it seems, as many of the titles weren’t commercially available in Sweden at the time.

During the trial, the defense had argued that the fan-made subtitles are not infringing since movies are made up of video and sound, with subtitles being an extra. However, the court disagreed with this line of reasoning, the verdict shows.

While the copyright holders may have hoped for a heftier punishment, the ruling confirms that fan-made subtitles can be seen as copyright infringements. Prosecutor Henrik Rasmusson is satisfied with the outcome, IDG reports, but he will leave the option to appeal open for now.

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

In the early 2000s, when peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing was in its infancy, the majority of users had no idea that their activities could be monitored by outsiders. The reality was very different, however.

As few as they were, all of the major networks were completely open, with most operating a ‘shared folder’ type system that allowed any network participant to see exactly what another user was sharing. Nevertheless, with little to no oversight, file-sharing at least felt like a somewhat private affair.

As user volumes began to swell, software such as KaZaA (which utilized the FastTrack network) and eDonkey2000 (eD2k network) attracted attention from record labels, who were desperate to stop the unlicensed sharing of copyrighted content. The same held true for the BitTorrent networks that arrived on the scene a couple of years later.

Through the rise of lawsuits against consumers, the general public began to learn that their activities on P2P networks were not secret and they were being watched for some, if not all, of the time by copyright holders. Little did they know, however, that a much bigger player was also keeping a watchful eye.

According to a fascinating document just released by The Intercept as part of the Edward Snowden leaks, the National Security Agency (NSA) showed a keen interest in trying to penetrate early P2P networks.

Initially published by internal NSA news site SIDToday in June 2005, the document lays out the aims of a program called FAVA – File-Sharing Analysis and Vulnerability Assessment.

“One question that naturally arises after identifying file-sharing traffic is whether or not there is anything of intelligence value in this traffic,” the NSA document begins.

“By searching our collection databases, it is clear that many targets are using popular file sharing applications; but if they are merely sharing the latest release of their favorite pop star, this traffic is of dubious value (no offense to Britney Spears intended).”

Indeed, the vast majority of users of these early networks were only been interested in sharing relatively small music files, which were somewhat easy to manage given the bandwidth limitations of the day. However, the NSA still wanted to know what was happening on a broader scale, so that meant decoding their somewhat limited encryption.

“As many of the applications, such as KaZaA for example, encrypt their traffic, we first had to decrypt the traffic before we could begin to parse the messages. We have developed the capability to decrypt and decode both KaZaA and eDonkey traffic to determine which files are being shared, and what queries are being performed,” the NSA document reveals.

Most progress appears to have been made against KaZaA, with the NSA revealing the use of tools to parse out registry entries on users’ hard drives. This information gave up users’ email addresses, country codes, user names, the location of their stored files, plus a list of recent searches.

This gave the NSA the ability to look deeper into user behavior, which revealed some P2P users going beyond searches for basic run-of-the-mill multimedia content.

“[We] have discovered that our targets are using P2P systems to search for and share files which are at the very least somewhat surprising — not simply harmless music and movie files. With more widespread adoption, these tools will allow us to regularly assimilate data which previously had been passed over; giving us a more complete picture of our targets and their activities,” the document adds.

Today, more than 12 years later, with KaZaA long dead and eDonkey barely alive, scanning early pirate activities might seem a distant act. However, there’s little doubt that similar programs remain active today. Even in 2005, the FAVA program had lofty ambitions, targeting other networks and protocols including DirectConnect, Freenet, Gnutella, Gnutella2, JoltID, MSN Messenger, Windows Messenger and……BitTorrent.

“If you have a target using any of these applications or using some other application which might fall into the P2P category, please contact us,” the NSA document urges staff. “We would be more than happy to help.”

Confirming the continued interest in BitTorrent, The Intercept has published a couple of further documents which deal with the protocol directly.

The first details an NSA program called GRIMPLATE, which aimed to study how Department of Defense employees were using BitTorrent and whether that constituted a risk.

The second relates to P2P research carried out by Britain’s GCHQ spy agency. It details DIRTY RAT, a web application which gave the government to “the capability to identify users sharing/downloading files of interest on the eMule (Kademlia) and BitTorrent networks.”

The SIDToday document detailing the FAVA program can be viewed here

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

Despite the widespread availability of legal streaming services, piracy remains rampant around the world.

This is the situation in Singapore where a new study commissioned by the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) found that 39% of all Singaporeans download or stream movies, TV shows, or live sports illegally.

The survey, conducted by Sycamore Research, polled the opinions and behaviors of a weighted sample of 1,000 respondents. The research concludes that nearly half of the population regularly pirates and also found that these people are not easily deterred.

Although the vast majority of the population knows that piracy is against the law, the lure of free content is often hard to ignore. Many simply see it as socially acceptible behavior.

“The notion that piracy is something that everybody does nowadays turns it into a socially acceptable behavior”, Sycamore Research Director Anna Meadows says, commenting on the findings.

“Numerous studies have shown that what we perceive others to be doing has a far stronger influence on our behavior than what we know we ‘ought’ to do. People know that they shouldn’t really pirate, but they continue to do so because they believe those around them do as well.”

One of the main threats pirates face is the availability of malware and malicious ads that are present on some sites. This risk is recognized by 74% of the active pirates, but they continue nonetheless.

The dangers of malware and viruses, which is a key talking point among industry groups nowadays, do have some effect. Among those who stopped pirating, 40% cited it as their primary reason. That’s more than the availability of legal services, which is mentioned in 37% of cases.

Aside from traditional download and streaming sites, the growing popularity of pirate media boxes is clearly present in Singapore was well. A total of 14% of Singaporeans admit to having such a device in their home.

So why do people continue to pirate despite the risks?

The answer is simple; because it’s free. The vast majority (63%) mention the lack of financial costs as their main motivation to use pirate sites. The ability to watch something whenever they want and a lack of legal options follow at a distance, both at 31%.

“There are few perceived downsides to piracy,” Meadows notes.

“Whilst the risk of devices being infected with viruses or malware is understood, it is underweighted. In the face of the benefit of free content, people appear to discount the risks, as the idea of getting something for nothing is so psychologically powerful.”

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

While most of the headlines relating to Internet piracy are focused on North America and Europe, there are dozens of countries where piracy is a way of life for millions of citizens. India, with its booming economy and growth in technology, is certainly one of them.

According to a recently published report, India now has 355 million Internet users out of a population of more than 1.3 billion. Not only is there massive room for growth, that figure is up from 277 million just two years ago. The rate of growth is astonishing.

Needless to say, Indians love their Internet and increasing numbers of citizens are also getting involved in the piracy game. There are many large sites and prominent release groups operating out of the country, some of them targeting the international market. Carry out a search for DVDSCR (DVD screener) on most search indexes globally and one is just as likely to find Indian movie releases as those emanating from the West.

If people didn’t know it already, India is nurturing a pirate force to be reckoned with, with local torrent and streaming sites pumping out the latest movies at an alarming rate. This has caused an outcry from many in the movie industry who are determined to do something to stem the tide.

One of these is actor Vishal Krishna, who not only stars in movies but is also a producer working in the Tamil film industry. Often referred to simply by his first name, Vishal has spoken out regularly against piracy in his role at the Tamil Film Producers Council.

In May, he referred to the operators of the hugely popular torrent site TamilRockers as ‘Internet Mafias’ while demanding their arrest for leaking the blockbuster Baahubali 2, a movie that pulled in US$120 million in six days. Now, it appears, he may have gotten his way. Well, partially, at least.

Last evening, reports began to surface of an arrest at Chennai airport in north east India. According to local media, Gauri Shankar, an alleged administrator of Tamilrockers.co, was detained by Triplicane police.

This would’ve been a huge coup for Vishal, who has been warning Tamilrockers to close down for the past three years. He even claimed to know the identity of the main perpetrator behind the site, noting that it was only a matter of time before he was brought to justice.

Soon after the initial reports, however, other media outlets claimed that Gauri Shankar is actually an operator at Tamilgun, another popular pirate portal currently blocked by ISPs on the orders of the Indian government.

So was it rockers or gun? According to Indiaglitz.com, Vishal rushed to the scene in Chennai to find out.

Outside the police station

What followed were quite extraordinary scenes outside the Triplicane police station. Emerging from the building flanked by close to 20 men, some in uniform, Vishal addressed an excited crowd of reporters. A swathe of microphones from various news outlets greeted him as he held up his hands urging the crowd to calm down.

“Just give us some time, I will give you the details,” Vishal said in two languages.

“Just give us some time. It is too early. I’ll just give it to you in a bit. It’s something connected to website piracy. Just give me some time. I have to give you all the details, proper details.”

So, even after all the excitement, it’s unclear who the police have in custody. Nevertheless, the attention this event is getting from the press is on a level rarely seen in a piracy case, so more news is bound to follow soon.

In the meantime, both TamilRockers and TamilGun remain online, operating as normal. Clearly, there is much more work to be done.

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

Netflix offers a great alternative to piracy, and for dozens of millions of people it’s a favorite pastime.

Since Netflix’s priorities are shifting more to the production of original content, piracy is turning into a more serious problem for the company.

This shows, as the video giant now has an anti-piracy policy that’s on par with many major Hollywood studios. Over the past year, Netflix issued over a million takedown requests to Internet services, but they also target downloaders in a more direct fashion.

Where other Hollywood companies approach pirates with settlement demands or warning letters, Netflix is enlisting the stars of the latest Narcos season, who play the Cali Cartel.

In the message, targeted at the French market, the four drug lords warn people not to download any episodes without permission. Or else..

“Hey you, yes you, do you think you’re smart? Do you think we didn’t see you Googling ‘Narcos season 3 download’? Don’t be a fool. Narcos is a business,” Pepe begins.

“If you want your entertainment. If you want your show. You’re gonna pay the Cali Cartel, ‘hijo de puta’,” Pacho adds, using the strong language one expects from a cartel leader.

The message continues with Miguel referencing the French three-strikes law Hadopi, under which file-sharers received several warnings before facing a possible Internet disconnection. The Cali Cartel doesn’t do courtesy letters, he stresses.

“Do you think we’re like Hadopi? Do you think we’re going to send you a nice and polite letter first? Please, sir / madam, could you please not illegally download Narcos? We don’t do courtesy letters.”

“There is no please, no por favor, no s’il vous plait,” Pepe adds.

Finally, the big boss chimes in delivering the final threat. People who continue to download or point others to “shitty” websites with pop-ups that offer Narcos for free, can expect to meet the bullet.

“There’s bullets for you, your family, and all the people you send to watch Narcos on all those shitty websites full of questionable pop-ups,” Gilberto says.

“You know where to find us. Don’t mess around ‘hijo de puta’,” his brother adds.

While the message is amusing and might even be good PR for the show, one has to wonder whether it will be enough for people to sign up for a subscription. Netflix might be wondering the same, as they are still sending out takedown requests targeting pirate download and streaming sites, just in case.

Narcos “takedown”

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