Google Maps is an extremely useful service that’s made it easier for people to navigate in the real world, pointing the way to a local movie theater, for example.

However, for a few months, the service has also been leading people to places where pirated content is available, online. Spammers are using the “My Maps” feature to bookmark custom locations with links to a wide variety of pirated media.

The goal of this strategy is to have these links show up high in search results. This appears to be effective, especially since Google has started to push results from known pirate sites down.

These “treasure maps” have captured quite a few eyeballs, as some of the custom maps have already been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

You’re here?

In some cases, the links point to actual torrent sites or download portals, but they are also used to lure people into downloading malware or other scammy content. For example, one of the links we tried triggered an automatic download of “gone_girl_torrent.exe,” which doesn’t promise anything good.

And the problem appears to be widespread, with links appearing for all sorts of content. A search for “Mymaps” URLs with the keyword “MP3” returns 44,900 results at the time of writing, and a search for the keywords “torrent download” shows 23,300 results, with a lot of popular video titles.

Pirate maps

Spammers’ use of Google’s My Maps hasn’t gone unnoticed to copyright holders either. Many of the links have been reported to Google, but thus far the problem remains.

Since Google has started to downrank pirate sites in search results, spammers are increasingly using legitimate services to promote their content. Just last week we pointed out a similar problem at Discogs and Change.org has been targeted as well.

One solution would be for Google to start flagging its own Maps service as a pirate site and downrank its results, but that may just be a bit too drastic.

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

Despite approaching the problem from a number of directions, major copyright holders have been unable to do much to stop millions of BitTorrent-based infringements taking place every day.

A new lawsuit filed by the RIAA against ISP Grande Communications aims to change all that.

Yesterday, UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Warner Bros, Sony Music, Arista Records, Atlantic Records and almost a dozen other music companies sued the Texas-based provider over the infringements of its subscribers.

“Defendants have been notified that their internet customers have engaged in more than one million infringements of copyrighted works over BitTorrent systems, including tens of thousands of blatant infringements by repeat infringers of Plaintiffs’copyrighted works,” the lawsuit reads.

“Despite their knowledge of repeat infringements, Defendants have permitted
repeat infringers to use the Grande service to continue to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights without consequence.”

Right from the outset it’s clear that this case has a lot in common with the litigation currently underway against Cox Communications. In that case, Cox was accused by publishing company BMG of not taking significant action against thousands of its customers who persistently shared content using BitTorrent.

Like BMG’s case against Cox, the RIAA’s suit against Grande aims to strip away the protection the ISP normally enjoys under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. By not taking “meaningful action” against repeat infringers, the RIAA says that Grande can be held liable for the copyright infringements of its customers.

“Neither Grande or its management company Patriot has taken any meaningful action to discourage this continuing theft, let alone suspend or terminate subscribers who repeatedly commit copyright infringement through its network, as required by law,” the RIAA writes.

“Upon information and belief, this is so even where Defendants have specific and actual knowledge of those subscribers’ blatant, repeat infringement. Defendants’ effective acquiescence in this wholesale violation of Plaintiffs’ rights, coupled with their failure to adopt and reasonably implement a policy to stop repeat infringers, excludes Defendants from the safe harbor protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (‘DMCA’).”

The RIAA says that since Grande failed to take action against infringers, especially those identified as repeat infringers, it protected a “significant revenue stream” it receives each month from pirating subscribers. As such it is not only liable for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, but inducement of copyright infringement too.

What’s also interesting about this case is the involvement of anti-piracy outfit Rightscorp. The anti-piracy settlement company is deeply involved in the Cox case having provided the infringement data for the litigation. The same is true of the case against Grande.

It appears that Rightscorp’s claimed expertise in identifying repeat infringers is now central to the case, having had contact with Grande in the past. It seems likely that historical data collected by the company is now proving useful in the RIAA’s case against Grande.

“Rightscorp has provided Grande with notice of specific infringers using Grande’s internet service to infringe various copyrighted works. Rightscorp also requested that Grande terminate the ‘subscribers and account holders’ who are repeat infringers of copyrighted works,” the RIAA writes.

“Despite its knowledge of specific repeat infringers of copyrighted works, Grande apparently refused to do so.”

The RIAA says that Grande received notices that 1,840 of its customers had engaged in infringement at least 100 times, with 456 customers generating 500 infringement notices between them. More than 200 subscribers generated 1000 notices each with some generating more than 2000.

In closing, the RIAA seeks statutory damages, which could go up to $150,000 per infringed work, actual damages, plus profits generated by Grande as a result of infringement. The music group also asks for preliminary and permanent injunctions preventing Grande from further infringement, plus a jury trial in due course.

Having backed away from the so-called “six strikes” scheme earlier this year, the RIAA was left without any effective means to tackle online infringement. It’s now clear that it intends to force Internet service providers to be its unpaid enforcers.

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

With around 150 million active users a month, uTorrent remains the leading torrent client, by far.

Despite its popularity, the introduction of new features has stalled in recent years. In fact, some of the more prominent changes date back five years, when uTorrent launched its long awaited 3.0 version.

However, according to BitTorrent creator and BitTorrent Inc founder Bram Cohen, this will change in the near future. In an interview with our Steal This Show podcast, which will be released this weekend, he promises some interesting updates, both for uTorrent and its owning company.

Firstly, BitTorrent Inc. is coming out of a rough period during which outsiders took the helm and burnt through millions of dollars in cash. According to Cohen, however, things have calmed down again and the company is getting back on track.

There are about 50 people working at BitTorrent Inc. right now. Former CTO Ro Choy came back to the company as well and has taken the role of CEO.

In the future the company will refocus on products that have proven to work, including uTorrent. Initially, the application generated most revenue from toolbar installs, but after web browsers started to frustrate this business, they successfully switched to in-client advertising, which is the main revenue source now.

“The plan is to consolidate the business and focus on revenues. We have actually a fair amount of expertise in client application advertising, which is kind of a pain to do. So leverage that and bring that to other applications as well,” Cohen says.

While it’s clear that the advertisements will keep their prominent role in uTorrent, there is a major change coming. The future version of the client will be running directly from the browser.

“We’re also taking the opportunity here to actually clean up our client experience. So, from a product standpoint, the new revision of uTorrent is going to run in the user’s default browser. That’s just a nicer experience,” Cohen notes.

By moving uTorrent to the browser it will be able to use modern widgets, and the developers will also integrate a greatly improved streaming experience, based on new technology.

The new uTorrent will allow users to stream torrents directly from their browser, much like regular streaming sites. This is also reminiscent of BitTorrent’s own browser project, Maelstrom, which was quietly killed despite various positive reviews.

According to Cohen, Jeremy Johnson, one of the two CEOs who briefly ‘hijacked’ the company, decided not to ship Maelstrom because he thought he could do better.

“What came of Maelstrom is that Jeremy just decided not to ship Maelstrom because he thought he had some genius idea that would be so much better. And he is so utterly incompetent at doing product he couldn’t even put together an actual product out of it and just killed the whole project.”

While Maelstrom will not return, many of its features will be present in the new uTorrent, including streaming. The main difference is that users won’t have to install a separate browser, but can use the one they already use to browse the web.

“The features behind it that people really want, being able to see torrents in the browser, we’re basically going to be shipping with the new uTorrent. It’s going to be your browser instead of a separate browser,” Cohen says.

Traditionally, end users are very conservative when it concerns major changes like this. That said, the Internet has changed quite a bit since uTorrent first came out over a decade ago. Most applications now live in the browser and BitTorrent Inc. is confident that uTorrent has its future there as well.

In any case, BitTorrent Inc. will be very careful not to force a new version onto users before they know that people are going to be happy with it.

“We’re very, very sensitive. We know people have been using uTorrent for a very long time and love it. So we’re very, very sensitive to that and gonna be sure to make sure that people feel that it’s an upgrade that’s happening. Not that we’ve just destroyed the experience.”

“We’re going to roll it out and get feedback and make sure that people are happy with it before we roll it out to everybody,” Bram concludes.

—-

The full “Steal This Show” interview with Bram Cohen will be available this weekend.

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

For millions of people around the world, subtitles are absolutely essential for enjoying the most popular movies and TV shows. Many consumers don’t have English as their mother tongue and the deaf have few other options.

As a result, subtitles are extremely popular among Internet users. These files, which are tiny when compared to the videos they accompany, are downloaded in their millions every month. Some are ripped from official media, but others are the product of fans who painstakingly create their own subtitles from scratch.

For many years these ‘fansubbers’ have flown under the radar, but increasingly they’ve come under pressure from anti-piracy groups who accuse them of infringing copyright and fueling piracy. BREIN has been quite active on this front, forcing several subtitling groups into retreat, but last year faced a unique response from a tenacious group of fansubbers.

After raising their own funds, last year the “Free Subtitles Foundation” (Stichting Laat Ondertitels Vrij – SLOV) took the decision to make a stand for subtitling groups in the Netherlands, suing BREIN with the hope of obtaining a favorable legal ruling.

The group’s lawyer, Camiel Beijer, previously told TF that the case revolved around two issues.

“The main question is whether the creation and publishing of film subtitles is an act only reserved to the maker of the film work in question,” Beijer said

“The second issue concerns a review of the conduct of BREIN against people who create and reproduce subtitles. The Free Subtitles Foundation anticipates that a court verdict will shed more light on these two themes.”

This week the Amsterdam District Court handed down its decision (pdf) and it was bad news for the fansubbers. The Court rejected all of their claims and sided with BREIN on each count.

The Court found that subtitles can only be created and distributed after permission has been obtained from copyright holders. Doing so outside these parameters amounts to copyright infringement.

“There are several so-called release teams actively making films and TV series available from illegal sources and adding illegal subtitles for the Dutch market. This judgment makes it clear once again that this is illegal,” BREIN director Tim Kuik said in a statement.

BREIN maintains that whatever their intentions, the work carried out by fansubbers is not only damaging to copyright holders, but also amounts to unfair competition for emerging business models involving movies and TV shows. With that in mind, BREIN will continue its crackdown.

“With this decision in hand it will be easier for BREIN to maintain its work against illegal subtitlers and against sites and services that collect illegal subtitles and add movies and TV shows from an illegal source,” Kuik concludes.

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

Internet provider Windstream is among the companies that are gravely concerned about the verdict against fellow ISP Cox, which was held liable for pirating subscribers in 2015.

With more than a million subscribers nationwide, it is one of the larger Internet providers in the United States, and as such it regularly receives takedown notices targeting its subscribers.

Many of these notices come from music rights group BMG and its anti-piracy partner Rightscorp, which accused the ISP of being liable for the actions of its customers.

Windstream wasn’t happy with these accusations and the associated risk, filing a request for declaratory judgment at a New York District Court last year. It asked the court to rule that it’s not liable for the infringing actions of its subscribers under the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions.

For their part, BMG and Rightscorp protested the request and told the court that a lawsuit is premature, as the copyright holder hasn’t even officially filed an infringement complaint. Instead, they accused the ISPs of trying to get broad immunity without going into specifics, such as their repeat infringer policies.

In a motion to dismiss the case music rights group told the court that concrete actions and policies play a crucial role in determining liability, accusing Windstream of trying to escape this responsibility.

This week the court issued its final verdict in the case, which brings bad news for the Internet provider.

The court ruled that there is indeed no actual controversy and that it can’t issue a hypothetical and advisory opinion without concrete facts. As such, the case is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

“The amended complaint does not present such a controversy. Instead, Windstream seeks a blanket approval of its business model, without reference to any specific copyright held by BMG or any specific act of direct infringement by any Windstream subscriber,” the court writes.

“Windstream seeks the kind of hypothetical and advisory opinion, isolated from concrete facts, that cannot confer jurisdiction upon this Court,” the order adds (pdf).

The ISP hoped to get clarity on how to respond to the copyright infringement notices BMG sends, but the court says that it can’t decide on this without concrete examples.

This doesn’t mean that Windstream is liable, of course. The ISP may very well be protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions, but this has to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

“Because Windstream seeks declarations untethered from any actual instances of copyright infringement or any mention of a specific copyrighted work, the complaint fails to identify an actual case or controversy and the declaratory judgment claims must be dismissed,” the court writes.

The order is a major disappointment for Windstream, which can still only guess whether it’s doing the right thing or not.

BMG and Rightscorp previously said that the ISP was liable for damages as high as $150,000 per infringed work, and with the current order this threat is still hanging over its head.

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