As millions of often younger gamers immerse themselves in the latest 3D romp-fests from the world’s leading games developers, huge numbers of people are reliving their youth through the wonders of emulation.

The majority of old gaming systems can be emulated on a decent PC these days, opening up the possibility of reanimating thousands of the greatest games to ever grace the planet. While that’s a great prospect, the good news doesn’t stop there. The games are all free – if you don’t mind pirating them.

While many people go the do-it-yourself route by downloading emulators and ROMs (the games) from the Internet, increasingly people are saving time by buying systems ready-made online. Some of these are hugely impressive, housed in full-size arcade machine cabinets and packing many thousands of games. They also have sizeable price tags to match, running in some cases to thousands of dollars. But there are other options.

The rise of affordable compact computers has opened up emulation and retro gaming to a whole new audience and inevitable some people have taken to selling these devices online with the games pre-bundled on SD cards. These systems can be obtained relatively cheaply but despite the games being old, companies like Nintendo still take a dim view of their sale.

That’s also the case in the Netherlands, where Nintendo and other companies are taking action against people involved in the sale of what are effectively pirate gaming systems. In a recent case, Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN took action against the operator of the Retrospeler (Retro Player) site, an outlet selling a ready-made retro gaming system.

Retro Player site (translated from Dutch)

As seen from the image above, for a little under 110 euros the player can buy a games machine with classics like Super Mario, Street Fighter, and Final Fantasy pre-installed. Add a TV via an HDMI lead and a joypad or two, and yesteryear gaming becomes reality today. Unfortunately, the fun didn’t last long and it was soon “Game Over” for Retro Player.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, BREIN chief Tim Kuik says that the system sold by Retro Player was based on the popular Raspberry Pi single-board computer. Although small and relatively cheap, the Pi is easily capable of running retro games via software such as RetroPie, but it’s unclear which product was installed on the version sold by Retro Player.

What is clear is that the device came pre-installed with a lot of games. The now-defunct Retro Player site listed 6,500 titles for a wide range of classic gaming systems, including Gameboy, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Megadrive and Playstation. Kuik didn’t provide precise numbers but said that the machine came packaged with “a couple of thousand” titles.

BREIN says in this particular case it was acting on behalf of Nintendo, among others. However, it doesn’t appear that the case will be going to court. Like many other cases handled by the anti-piracy group, BREIN says it has reached a settlement with the operator of the Retro Player site for an unspecified amount.

The debate and controversy surrounding retro gaming and emulation is one that has been running for years. The thriving community sees little wrong with reanimating games for long-dead systems and giving them new life among a new audience. On the other hand, copyright holders such as Nintendo view their titles as their property, to be exploited in a time, place and manner of their choosing.

While that friction will continue for a long time to come, there will be few if any legal problems for those choosing to pursue their emulation fantasies in the privacy of their own home. Retro gaming is here to stay and as long as computing power continues to increase, the experience is only likely to improve.

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

Last year, media conglomerate ABS-CBN took the popular pirate streaming site FMovies to court in the United States.

FMovies is one of several streaming sites that has grown explosively over the past year. It offers tens of thousands of mainstream movies and TV-shows to an audience of millions of people.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the media company branded FMovies as a classic pirate site, offering unauthorized streams of content they own.

Despite facing hefty damages, FMovies’ operators didn’t defend themselves. Several months passed without any response from FMovies in court, which prompted the copyright media company to move ahead and file for a default judgment.

This week District Court Judge Otis D. Wright II issued his verdict, which doesn’t offer much good news for the streaming site.

Without evidence to the contrary, the Judge went along with ABS-CBN’s assessment that FMovies’ operators used the company’s trademarks and copyrighted works to draw in more visitors, generating a healthy profit through advertising.

In total, FMovies was found guilty on six counts; federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin, direct copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, unfair competition and false advertising.

Judge Wright’s order compels FMovies’ operators to pay the requested $30,000 in statutory copyright infringement damages for seven works, as well as $7,200 in attorneys’ fees and costs.

“Defendants shall pay ABS-CBN Two Hundred Eighteen Thousand Two Hundred Dollars ($218,200) in attorneys’ fees, costs, and statutory damages for Defendants’ infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrights,” the judgment (pdf) reads.

Fmovies.to/se

The media conglomerate was also granted a preliminary injunction, which forbids FMovies from infringing ABS-CBN’s trademarks and copyrights going forward. In addition, ABS-CBN can also take over the FMovies.to domain name, according to the default judgment.

At the time of writing, Fmovies is still operational from the .to and .se domain names, but that may change in the near future, if the court order is enforced.

With a user base of millions of people, FMovies.to is by far the largest movie streaming site that has ever been targeted in a U.S. Court. With this in mind, it’s somewhat surprising that ABS-CBN ‘only’ requested $210,000 in statutory damages.

In a similar default judgment ABS-CBN requested two years ago, a U.S. federal court in Oregon ordered the operator of several tiny streaming sites to pay $10 million in damages to the company.

Then again, the FMovies operators have thus far remained in the shadows, so it’s unlikely that any damages will ever be paid.

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

Website blocking in Russia is becoming a pretty big deal. Hundreds of domains are now blocked at the ISP level for a range of issues from copyright infringement through to prevention of access to extremist material.

In common with all countries that deploy blocking measures, there is a high demand in Russia for services and software that can circumvent blockades. As a result, VPNs, proxies, mirror sites and dedicated services such as Tor are growing in popularity.

Russian authorities view these services as a form of defiance, so for some time moves have been underway to limit their effectiveness. Earlier this year draft legislation was developed to crack down on systems and software that allow Internet users to bypass website blockades approved by telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor.

This week the draft bill was submitted to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. If passed, it will effectively make it illegal for services to circumvent web blockades by “routing traffic of Russian Internet users through foreign servers, anonymous proxy servers, virtual private networks and other means.”

As it stands, the bill requires local telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor to keep a list of banned domains while identifying sites, services, and software that provide access to them. Once the bypassing services are identified, Rozcomnadzor will send a notice to their hosts, giving them a 72-hour deadline to reveal the identities of their operators.

After this stage is complete, the host will be given another three days to order the people running the circumvention-capable service to stop providing access to banned domains. If the service operator fails to comply within 30 days, all Internet service providers will be required to block access to the service and its web presence, if it has one.

This raises the prospect of VPN providers and proxies being forced to filter out traffic to banned domains to stay online. How this will affect users of Tor will remain to be seen, since there is no way to block domains. Furthermore, sites offering the software could also be blocked, if they continue to offer the tool.

Also tackled in the bill are search engines such as Google and Yandex that provide links in their indexes to banned resources. The proposed legislation will force them to remove all links to sites on Rozcomnadzor’s list, with the aim of making them harder to find.

However, Yandex believes that if sites are already blocked by ISPs, the appearance of their links in search results is moot.

“We believe that the laying of responsibilities on search engines is superfluous,” a spokesperson said.

“Even if the reference to a [banned] resource does appear in search results, it does not mean that by clicking on it the user will get access, if it was already blocked by ISPs or in any other ways.”

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

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has targeted pirates of all shapes and sizes over the past several years.

It’s also one of the few groups that actively tracks down copyright infringers on Usenet, which still has millions of frequent users.

BREIN sets its aim on prolific uploaders and other large-scale copyright infringers. After identifying its targets, it asks providers to reveal the personal details connected to the account.

Last December, BREIN asked Usenet provider Eweka to hand over the personal details of one of its former customers but the provider refused to cooperate voluntarily.

In its defense, the Usenet provider argued that it’s a neutral intermediary that would rather not perform the role of piracy police. Instead, it preferred to rely on the court to make a decision.

The provider had already taken a similar position earlier last year, but the Court of Haarlem ruled that it must hand over the information.

In a new ruling this week, the Court issued a similar order.

The Court stressed that in these type of situations the Usenet provider is required to hand over the requested details, without intervention from the court. This is in line with case law.

Under Dutch law, ISPs can be obliged to hand over the personal details of their customers if the infringing activity is plausible and the aggrieved party has a legitimate interest.

The former Eweka customer was known under the alias ‘Badfan69’ and previously uploaded 9,538 allegedly infringing works to Usenet, Tweakers reports. He was tracked down through information from the headers of the binaries he posted.

BREIN is pleased with the verdict, which once again strengthens its position in cases where third-party providers hold information on infringing customers.

“Most of the intermediaries adhere to the law and voluntarily provide the relevant data when BREIN makes a motivated request,” BREIN director Tim Kuik responds.

“They have to decide quickly because rightsholders have an interest in stopping uploaders and holding them liable as soon as possible. This sentence emphasizes this once again.”

The court ordered Eweka to pay legal fees of roughly 1,500 euros. In addition, the provider faces a penalty of 1,000 euros per day, to a maximum of 100,000 euros, if it fails to hand over the requested information in its possession.

Eweka hasn’t commented publicly on the verdict yet. But, with two rulings in favor of BREIN, it is unlikely that the provider will continue to fight similar cases in the future.

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

In April, one of the best known TV Scene groups suddenly disappeared.

DIMENSION has been a high profile name for over a decade, both in the Scene and on torrent sites, good for tens of thousands of TV-show releases.

Nearly two months had passed since the sudden disappearance and most followers had already said their virtual goodbyes. Out of nowhere, however, several new DIMENSION releases began popping up this week.

It started with a Gotham episode on Tuesday, followed by Angie Tribeca and Pretty Little Liars. The sudden reapparance came without a public explanation, but it’s pretty clear that the group is back in full swing.

DIMENSION returns

The question remains why the group was absent for so long and if the old crew is intact. TorrentFreak spoke to a source who says that the leader and several top members are no longer with the group.

A recent Scene notice titled “Farewell.To.Team-DIMENSION” appeared to confirm that there were internal struggles in the group. However, this appears to be fake, as it was copied from an earlier notice.

Still, there is no doubt that DIMENSION (and the associated LOL “group,” which releases the SD versions) has picked up where it left a few weeks ago, with new TV-releases coming out on a regular basis.

And while reputation is key in the Scene, the average downloader probably can’t be bothered by internal troubles and politics.

They just want their TV fix.

Pirate responses to the comeback

Update: The Scene notice referred to in this article is fake, we updated the article to reflect this.

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