As one of the leading CDN and DDoS protection services, Cloudflare is used by millions of websites across the globe.

This includes thousands of “pirate” sites which rely on the U.S.-based company to keep server loads down.

While Cloudflare is a neutral service provider, rightsholders are not happy with its role. The company has been involved in several legal disputes already, including the RIAA’s lawsuit against MP3Skull.

Last year the record labels won their case against the MP3 download portal but the site ignored the court order and continued to operate. This prompted the RIAA to go after third-party services including Cloudflare, to target associated domain names.

The RIAA demanded domain blockades, arguing that Cloudflare actively cooperated with the pirates. The CDN provider objected and argued that the DMCA shielded the company from the broad blocking requirements. In turn, the court ruled that the DMCA doesn’t apply in this case, opening the door to widespread anti-piracy filtering.

While it’s still to be determined whether Cloudflare is indeed “in active concert or participation” with MP3Skull, the company recently asked the court to vacate the order, arguing that the case is moot.

MP3Skull no longer has an active website, and previous domain names either never used Cloudflare or stopped using it long before the order was issued, the company argued.

The RIAA clearly disagrees. According to the music industry group, Cloudflare’s request relies on “misstatements.” The motion wasn’t moot when the court issued it in March, and it isn’t moot today, they argue.

Some MP3Skull domains were still actively using Cloudflare as recently as April, but Cloudflare failed to mention these.

“CloudFlare’s arguments to the contrary rely largely on misdirection, pointing to the status of domain names that expressly were not at issue in Plaintiffs’ motion,” the RIAA writes.

Even if all the domain names are no longer active on Cloudflare, the order should remain in place, the RIAA argues. The group points out that nothing is preventing the MP3Skull owners from relaunching the site and moving back to Cloudflare in the future.

“By its own admission, CloudFlare took no steps to prevent Defendants from using its services at any time. Given Defendants’ established practice of moving from domain to domain and from service to service throughout this case in contempt of this Court’s orders, Defendants could easily have resumed — and may tomorrow resume — their use of CloudFlare’s services.”

In addition, the RIAA stressed that the present ruling doesn’t harm Cloudflare at all. Since there are no active MP3Skull domains using the service presently, it need take no action.

“The March 23 Order does not require CloudFlare to do anything. All that Order did was to clarify that Rule 65, and not Section 512(j) of the DMCA, applied,” the RIAA stresses.

While it seems pointless to spend hours of legal counsel on a site that is no longer active, it shows the importance of the court’s ruling and the wider site blocking implications it has.

The RIAA wants to keep the door open for similar requests in the future, and Cloudflare wants to avoid any liability for pirate sites. These looming legal consequences are the main reason why the CDN provider asked the court to vacate the order, the RIAA notes.

“It is evident that the only reason why CloudFlare wants the Court to vacate its March 23 Order is that it does not like the Court’s ruling on the purely legal issue of Rule 65(d)’s scope,” the RIAA writes.

It is now up to the court to decide how to move forward. A decision on Cloudflare’s request is expected to be issued during the weeks to come.

—

The RIAA’s full reply is available here (pdf).

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

Last week, news broke that a hacker, or hackers, had compromised the network of the American cable and television network HBO.

Those responsible sent out an email to reporters, announcing the prominent breach, and leaked files surfaced on the dedicated website Winter-leak.com.

While the latter is no longer accessible, the hackers are not done yet. Another curated batch of leaked files has now appeared online, revealing more Game of Thrones spoilers, marketing plans, and other confidential HBO files.

The first leak put a preliminary outline of the fourth episode of the current Game of Thrones season in the spotlight, and the second batch follows up with the same for the upcoming fifth episode.

Although the outline was prepared over a year ago, it likely contains various accurate spoilers, which we won’t repeat here.

Preliminary outline S07E05

The new data dump, which is a subsection of the 1.5 terabytes of data the hackers claimed to have in their possession, also lists a variety of other Game of Thrones related files.

Among other items, there’s a confidential cast list for the current season, a highly confidential “Game of Ideas” brief, an outline of GoT marketing strategies, and a Game of Thrones roadmap. The information all appears to be a few months old.

The hackers took a screenshot of several folders, where the files may have been taken from, as seen below.

Folders screenshot

In addition, the hackers provided ‘proof’ that they have emails, which according to AP point to HBO’s vice president for film programming Leslie Cohen.

Finally, the new batch contains a video letter to HBO CEO Richard Plepler, titled “First letter to HBO,” where a certain Mr. Smith takes credit for the hack. The letter offered to keep the information away from the public, in exchange for a ransom payment.

First letter to HBO

For spoiler-eager Game of Thrones fans the hack is a true treasure trove. However, like the first batch, no leaked episodes are included. And, based on another screenshot, these are probably not on the way either.

A “Series Screenshot” includes a list of likely compromised titles, such as The Deviant Ones and the previously leaked Barry, Ballers, and Room 104, but no Game of Thrones.

A leak of the fourth GoT episode did appear online late last week, but this wasn’t linked to the breach of HBO’s network. Still, HBO is likely not amused and will do everything in its power to catch those responsible.

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

In 2015, Australia passed controversial legislation which allows ‘pirate’ sites located on servers overseas to be blocked at the ISP level.

“These offshore sites are not operated by noble spirits fighting for the freedom of the internet, they are run by criminals who profit from stealing other people’s creative endeavors,” commented then Foxtel chief executive Richard Freudenstein.

Before, during and after its introduction, Foxtel has positioned itself as a keen supporter of the resulting Section 115a of the Copyright Act. And in December 2016, with the law firmly in place, it celebrated success after obtaining a blocking injunction against The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound and isoHunt.

In May, Foxtel filed a new application, demanding that almost 50 local ISPs block what was believed to be a significant number of ‘pirate’ sites not covered by last year’s order.

Today the broadcasting giant was back in Federal Court, Sydney, to have this second application heard under Section 115a. It was revealed that the application contains 128 domains, each linked to movie and TV piracy.

According to ComputerWorld, the key sites targeted are as follows: YesMovies, Vumoo, LosMovies, CartoonHD, Putlocker, Watch Series 1, Watch Series 2, Project Free TV 1, Project Free TV 2, Watch Episodes, Watch Episode Series, Watch TV Series, The Dare Telly, Putlocker9.is, Putlocker9.to, Torlock and 1337x.

The Foxtel application targets both torrent and streaming sites but given the sample above, it seems that the latter is currently receiving the most attention. Streaming sites are appearing at a rapid rate and can even be automated to some extent, so this battle could become extremely drawn out.

Indeed, Justice Burley, who presided over the case this morning, described the website-blocking process (which necessarily includes targeting mirrors, proxies and replacement domains) as akin to “whack-a-mole”.

“Foxtel sees utility in orders of this nature,” counsel for Foxtel commented in response. “It’s important to block these sites.”

In presenting its application, Foxtel conducted live demonstrations of Yes Movies, Watch Series, 1337x, and Putlocker. It focused on the Australian prison drama series Wentworth, which has been running on Foxtel since 2013, but also featured tests of Game of Thrones.

Justice Burley told the court that since he’s a fan of the series, a spoiler-free piracy presentation would be appreciated. If the hearing had taken place a few days earlier, spoilers may have been possible. Last week, the latest episode of the show leaked onto the Internet from an Indian source before its official release.

Justice Burley’s decision will be handed down at a later date, but it’s unlikely there will be any serious problems with Foxtel’s application. After objecting to many aspects of blocking applications in the past, Australia’s ISPs no longer appear during these hearings. They are now paid AU$50 per domain blocked by companies such as Foxtel and play little more than a technical role in the process.

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

This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

The Mummy, which came out as a Web-DL last week, is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(2)	The Mummy 2017	5.8 / trailer
2	(1)	Spider-Man: Homecoming (HDTS)	8.0 / trailer
3	(10)	Alien Covenant	6.7 / trailer
4	(6)	The Boss Baby	6.5 / trailer
5	(8)	Wonder Woman (Subbed HDrip)	8.2 / trailer
6	(3)	King Arthur: Legend of the Sword	7.2 / trailer
7	(9)	The Wall	6.2 / trailer
8	(5)	Ghost In the Shell	6.8 / trailer
9	(…)	How To Be a Latin Lover	5.7 / trailer
10	(4)	Going In Style	6.8 / trailer

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

For more than a decade, copyright holders have been sending ISPs takedown notices to alert them that their subscribers are sharing copyrighted material.

Under US law, providers have to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances” and increasingly they are being held to this standard.

Earlier this year several major record labels, represented by the RIAA, filed a lawsuit in a Texas District Court, accusing ISP Grande Communications of failing to take action against its pirating subscribers.

The ISP is not happy with the claims and was quick to submit a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. One of the arguments is that the RIAA’s evidence is insufficient.

In its original motion, Grande doesn’t deny receiving millions of takedown notices from piracy tracking company Rightscorp. However, it believes that these notices are flawed as Rightscorp is incapable of monitoring actual copyright infringements.

The RIAA disagreed and pointed out that their evidence is sufficient. They stressed that Rightcorp is able to monitor actual downloads, as opposed to simply checking if a subscriber is offering certain infringing content.

In a response from Grande, late last week, the ISP argues that this isn’t good enough to build a case. While Rightcorp may be able to track the actual infringing downloads to which the RIAA labels hold the copyrights, there is no such evidence provided in the present case, the ISP notes.

“Importantly, Plaintiffs do not allege that Rightscorp has ever recorded an instance of a Grande subscriber actually distributing even one of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. Plaintiffs certainly have not alleged any concrete facts regarding such an act,” Grande’s legal team writes (pdf).

According to the ISP, the RIAA’s evidence merely shows that Rightscorp sent notices of alleged infringements on behalf of other copyright holders, who are not involved in the lawsuit.

“Instead, Plaintiffs generally allege that Rightscorp has sent notices regarding ‘various copyrighted works,’ encompassing all of the notices sent by Rightscorp on behalf of entities other than Plaintiffs.”

While the RIAA argues that this circumstantial evidence is sufficient, the ISP believes that there are grounds to have the entire case dismissed.

The record labels can’t hold Grande liable for secondary copyright infringement, without providing concrete evidence that their works were actively distributed by Grande subscribers, the company claims.

“Plaintiffs cannot allege direct infringement without alleging concrete facts which show that a Grande subscriber actually infringed one of Plaintiffs’ copyrights,” Grande’s lawyers note.

“For this reason, it is incredibly misleading for Plaintiffs to repeatedly refer to Grande having received ‘millions’ of notices of alleged infringement, as if those notices all pertained to Plaintiffs’ asserted copyrights.”

The “misleading” copyright infringement evidence argument is only one part of the ISPs defense. The company also notes that it has no control over what its subscribers do, nor do they control the BitTorrent clients that were allegedly used to download content.

If the court ruled otherwise, Grande and other ISPs would essentially be forced to become an “unpaid enforcement agent of the recording industry,” the company’s lawyers note.

The RIAA, however, sees things quite differently.

The music industry group believes that Grande failed to take proper action in response to repeat infringers and should pay damages to compensate the labels. This claim is very similar to the one BMG brought against Cox, where the latter was eventually ordered to pay $25 million.

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