ABS-CBN is the largest media and entertainment company in the Philippines and it is extremely aggressive when it comes to protecting its intellectual property. In fact, it now targets way more ‘pirate’ sites in the United States than the MPAA.

One of the tactics employed by ABS-CBN is targeting the domains of ‘pirate’ sites. On several occasions, the TV outfit has found courts willing to step in with ex parte orders, based on allegations of copyright and trademark infringement.

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida is a popular venue for ABS-CBN and in April the company approached the Court again, this time with allegations against 19 streaming platforms (list below).

“Through their websites operating under the Subject Domain Names, Defendants advertise and hold out to the public that they have ABS-CBN’s copyrighted content and perform ABS-CBN’s copyrighted content over the Internet, in order to illegally profit from ABS-CBN’s intellectual property, without ABS-CBN’s consent,” the company wrote in its complaint.

“Defendants’ entire Internet-based website businesses amount to nothing more than illegal operations established and operated in order to infringe the intellectual property rights of ABS-CBN and others.”

Claiming direct and contributory copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition, among other things, ABS-CBN demanded maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement, plus injunctive relief to avoid future infringement. Following an ex parte process, the Court responded favorably.

In an order granting a preliminary injunction, the Florida district court agreed that the sites present an ongoing threat to ABS-CBN’s business and it’s likely they’ll continue to deceive the public by illegally using the company’s trademarks and content without a license.

Judge Robert N.Scola Jr. restrained everyone connected to the sites from “advertising, promoting, copying, broadcasting, publicly performing, and/or distributing” any of ABS-CBN’s content and/or abusing its trademarks.

While this is fairly standard for this kind of process, it was also remarkably easy for ABS-CBN to deprive the sites of their domains.

In his order, the Judge ordered the domain registrars of the ‘pirate’ sites to transfer the domains to a holding account operated by a new registrar of ABS-CBN’s choosing, pending the outcome of the case. If they fail to do that within a single business day, the TLD (top-level domain) registries are instructed to do it for them.

While the case is underway, each domain is ordered to be re-directed away from the pirate sites and towards a new URL displaying copies of the complaint and subsequent orders.

“After the New Registrar has effected this change, the Subject Domain Names shall be placed on lock status, preventing the modification or deletion of the domains by the New Registrar or the Defendants,” the order reads.

While 19 domains are listed, any other domains “properly brought to the Court’s attention” can be seized in the same manner, the order notes.

Since the ‘pirate’ site operators are unlikely to defend the action, the domains are almost certainly out of reach already. ABS-CBN says it now wants $40m in damages, so arguing over the fate of a few domains is probably low on the operators’ agenda.

“We will continue to shut down these pirate sites to protect the public from harm,” said ABS-CBN assistant vice president and head of global anti-piracy Elisha Lawrence.

“There is only one genuine ABS-CBN internet subscription service that is safe for our fans to use and that is TFC and TFC.t.”

The affected domains

cinesilip.net
pinoychanneltv.me
pinoytambayantv.me
pinoytambayanreplay.net
drembed.com
embeds.me
fullpinoymovies.com
lambingan.ph
magtvna.com
pinoye.com
pinoyteleserye.org
pinoytvnetwork.net
pinoytopmovies.info
teleserye.me
watchpinaytv.com
wildpinoy.net
pinoy-hd.com
pinoytvreplay.ws
pinoychannel.co
wowpinoytambayan.ws
pinoytelebyuwers.se

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

When the Australian government introduced new legislation to allow ‘pirate’ sites to be blocked Down Under, there was never any question that the law would go underused.

December last year following a lawsuit brought by Roadshow Films, Foxtel, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, and 20th Century Fox, the Federal Court ordered ISPs to block The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and streaming service SolarMovie.

This February the same rightsholders were back again, this time with even more targets in mind including ExtraTorrent, RarBG, Demonoid, LimeTorrents, YTS and EZTV, plus streaming portals 123Movies, CouchTuner, Icefilms, Movie4K, PrimeWire, Viooz, Putlocker and many more.

With blocking efforts gathering momentum, the fifth case seeking injunctions against pirate sites has just hit Australia’s Federal Court. It’s the second to be filed by Foxtel and again targets streaming sites including Yes Movies, Los Movies, Watch Series and Project Free TV.

In common with earlier cases, ISPs named in the latest application include TPG, Telstra, Optus and Vocus/M2. Once various subsidiaries are included, blocking becomes widespread across Australia, often encompassing dozens of smaller providers.

Speaking with ABC, a Foxtel spokesperson said the company has confidence that the Federal Court will ultimately order the sites to be blocked.

“Foxtel believes that the new site blocking regime is an effective measure in the fight to prevent international operators illegitimately profiting from the creative endeavours of others,” he said.

Indeed, the earlier cases brought by both the studios and record companies have pioneered a streamlined process that can be tackled relatively easily by rightsholders and presented to the court in a non-confrontational and easily understood format.

ISPs are not proving too much of a hindrance either, now that the issue of costs appears to be behind them. In Foxtel’s earlier case involving The Pirate Bay, the judge said that ISPs must be paid AUS$50 per domain blocked. That now appears to be the standard.

So what we have here is a quickly maturing process that has already developed into somewhat of a cookie-cutter site-blocking mechanism.

Applications are made against a particular batch of sites and after the court assesses the evidence, an injunction is handed down. If further similar and related sites (such as proxies and mirrors) need to be blocked, those are dealt with in a separate and simplified process.

That was highlighted last week when an application by Universal Music, Warner Music, Sony Music and J Albert & Son, resulted in a range of KickassTorrents spin-off sites being approved for blocking by the Federal Court. The ISPs in question, 20 in total, have been given two weeks to block the sites.

Whether this will have the desired effect will remain to be seen. Australians are well-versed in unblocking solutions such as VPNs. Ironically, most learned of their existence when trying to gain access to legal services such as Netflix, that were available overseas for years before hitting Aussie shores.

Since that has now been remedied with a local launch, rightsholders and companies such as Foxtel are hoping that pirate services will be less attractive options.

“We trust that Australians recognize that there are increasing numbers of ways to access content in a timely manner and at reasonable prices. [This] ensures that revenue goes back to the people who create and invest in original ideas,” a Foxtel spokesperson said.

If the United Kingdom is any template (and all signs suggest that it is), expect hundreds of similar ‘pirate’ sites to be blocked in Australia in the coming months.

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.

Ghost in The Shell, which came out as subbed HDRipo 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	(10)	Ghost in The Shell (Subbed HDRip)	6.9 / trailer
2	(…)	xXx: Return of Xander Cage	5.3 / trailer
3	(1)	Logan (Subbed HDRip)	8.6 / trailer
4	(3)	Kong: Skull Island (Subbed HDRip)	7.0 / trailer
5	(…)	Gifted	7.0 / trailer
6	(5)	Split	7.0 / trailer
7	(2)	Fifty Shades Darker	4.7 / trailer
8	(5)	The Fate of the Furious	6.7 / trailer
9	(8)	The Boss Baby (HD-TS)	6.5 / trailer
10	(7)	Get Out (Subbed HDRip)	8.1 / trailer

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

Piracy has always been a reasonably popular topic in the UK and there can barely be a person alive today who hasn’t either engaged in or been exposed to the phenomenon in some way. Just lately, however, things have really entered the mainstream.

The massive public interest is down to the set-top box craze, which is largely fueled by legal Kodi software augmented with infringing addons that provide free access to premium movies, TV channels and live sports.

While this a topic one might expect technology sites to report on, just recently UK tabloids have flooded the market with largely sensational stories about Kodi and piracy in general, which often recycle the same story time and again with SHOCKING click-bait headlines YOU JUST WON’T BELIEVE.

We’ve had to put up with misleading headlines and stories for months, so a while ago we made an effort to discuss the issues with tabloid reporters. Needless to say, we didn’t get very far. Most ignored our emails, but even those who responded weren’t prepared to do much.

One told us that his publication had decided that articles featuring Kodi were good for traffic while another promised to escalate our comments further up the chain of command. Within days additional articles with similar problems were being published regardless and this week things really boiled over.

10 Years for Kodi users? Hardly

The above report published in the Daily Express is typical of many doing the rounds at the moment. Taking Kodi as the popular search term, it shoe-horns the topic into areas of copyright law that do not apply to it, and ones certainly not covered by the Digital Economy Act cited in the headline.

As reported this week, the Digital Economy Act raises penalties for online copyright infringement offenses from two to ten years, but only in specific circumstances. Users streaming content to their homes via Kodi is absolutely not one of them.

To fall foul of the new law a user would need to communicate a copyrighted work to the public. In piracy terms that means ‘uploading’ and people streaming content via Kodi do nothing of the sort. The Digital Economy Act offers no remedy to deal with users streaming content – period – but let’s not allow the facts to get in the way of a click-inducing headline.

The Mirror has it wrong too

The Mirror article weaves in comments from Kieron Sharp from the Federation Against Copyright Theft. He notes that the new legislation should be targeted at people making a business out of infringement, which will hopefully be the case.

However, the article incorrectly extrapolates Sharp’s comments to mean that the law also applies to people streaming content via Kodi. Only making things more confusing, it then states that people “who casually stream a couple of movies every once in a while are extremely unlikely to be prosecuted to such extremes.”

Again, the Digital Economy Act has nothing to do with people streaming movies via Kodi but if we go along with the charade and agree that people who casually stream movies aren’t going to be prosecuted, why claim “10 year jail sentences for Kodi users” in the headline?

The bottom line is that there is nothing in the article itself that supports the article’s headline claim that Kodi users could go to jail for ten years. In itself, this is problematic from a reporting standpoint.

Published by IPSO, the Editors’ Code of Practice clearly states that “the Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.”

But singling out the Daily Express and The Mirror on this would be unfair. Dozens of other publications jumped on the same bandwagon, parroting the same misinformation, often with similar click-bait headlines.

For people dealing with these issues every day, the ins-and-outs of piracy alongside developing copyright law can be easier to grasp, so it’s perhaps a little unfair to expect general reporters to understand every detail of what can be extremely complex issues. Mistakes get made by everyone, that’s human nature.

But really, is there any excuse for headlines like this one published by the Sunday Express this morning?

According to the piece, readers of TorrentFreak are also at risk of spending ten years in prison. You couldn’t make this damaging nonsense up. Actually, apparently you can.

In addition to a lack of research, the problem here is the prevalence of click-bait headlines driving traffic and the inability of the underlying articles to live up to the hype. If we can moderate the headlines and report within them, the rest should simply fall into place. Ditch the NEEDLESS capital letters and stick to the facts.

Society in 2017 needs those more than ever.

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

Last summer a criminal investigation by the U.S. Government brought down KickassTorrents, the largest torrent site at the time.

Upon request from the United States, law enforcement in Poland arrested Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of KickassTorrents, who’s been held in a local prison ever since.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) also went after six domain names that were tied to the site, including KickassTorrents.com, Kat.cr, Kickass.to and Kat.ph. However, it appears that not everything went as planned.

While seizing U.S. linked domains including the .com was relatively easy, the Philippine .ph domain was never seized.

KAT domains, listed by the DoJ

In the legal paperwork, the DoJ mentions that the foreign registries would be approached through a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, and asked to point the domains to servers controlled by Homeland Security Investigations.

“The seizure warrants for the remaining Subject Domains will be sent through Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty requests to Costa Rica, Tonga, and the Philippines to seize and redirect the name server to an HSI-owned server.”

This did indeed happen for Kickass.to but KAT.ph was never properly seized. On the contrary, the owners let it expire after which the registrar Dynadot auctioned it off. This allowed a third-party company to pick it up without trouble.

TorrentFreak spoke to the new owner of Kat.ph, who bought the domain name for a little over $9,000.

He explains that his company Marshall Domains LTD specializes in buying domains names that are expected to generate a decent amount of traffic. They buy all sorts of domains, which they monetize through Google advertising feeds.

The KAT.ph domain wasn’t a great investment though. In terms of traffic, it’s a winner. The domain had more than 700,000 unique visitors over the past month, mostly people looking for the old KickassTorrent site. However, it is banned from Google’s ad services.

There are other advertising options, but those are pretty scammy and not an option for the new owner.

“I’m not really happy with sending my traffic to these feeds. They get good results, but it’s all spammy, malware installing crap. I don’t want to be associated with this form of monetization,” Mr. Marshall informs TorrentFreak.

Instead, he has decided to put the domain up for sale, and it’s currently availble for at least $7,000. This means taking a loss, but at the moment the domain isn’t generating any income.

Kat.ph for sale

Thus far there hasn’t been many offers from potential buyers. Funnily enough, most inquiries come from former KickassTorrents users who missed the shutdown and are wondering where the site went.

“I’ve had some interest, but mainly from people asking to download things or where KickassTorrents has gone, but I just ignore these,” Mr. Marshall says.

Perhaps the Department of Justice might want to buy it after the failed seizure? If only to prevent it from being used by KAT knockoffs in the future…

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