In 2003, when The Pirate Bay was in its infancy, its main domain was ThePirateBay.org. The site still uses that domain today but it has burned through many others over the years.

One that has stood the test of the time is the site’s iconic ThePirateBay.se domain. It’s been in use for many years, often relied upon as a fall-back measure when other domains have been seized or suspended.

Notably, in 2012 the site switched from its .org domain to .se, a move which triggered a domain-hopping exercise which lasted until 2015 when the site moved back again.

While several other Pirate Bay domains have been consigned to Davy Jones’s Locker, ThePirateBay.se has always weathered the storms of the high seas. Now, however, all that might be coming to an end.

During Thursday, ThePirateBay.se temporarily stopped redirecting to ThePirateBay.org, at least for some users. Intrigued as to why this might be the case, TF carried out some routine checks and was confronted with what appears to be an unconnected surprise. According to its WHOIS entry, the domain has been put up for sale.

Clicking through reveals a sale underway on domain auction site Sedo. Probably due to the short time it’s been on offer, there has been little to no interest thus far. At the time of writing, bidders are able to offer as little as $90 (plus VAT) to the seller of the domain, who according to Sedo is located in Barbados.

Of course, it’s unlikely the domain will sell for such a low amount but perhaps more importantly, it’s debatable whether it’s worth anything at all.

In 2013, anti-piracy prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad filed a motion targeting ThePirateBay.se and lesser-used alternative PirateBay.se. He argued that Punkt SE (IIS), the organization responsible for Sweden’s top-level .SE domain, should be held liable for Pirate Bay’s copyright infringements unless it suspended the domain.

The case was heard in April 2015 and a month later the Stockholm District Court ruled that The Pirate Bay should forfeit both ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se to the Swedish state. The case later went to the Svea Court of Appeal, which upheld the decision of the District Court, but things weren’t over yet.

While the Court agreed that Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij had transferred the domains to a third party in 2012, it determined the transaction to be mere ‘paperwork’ and held that Neij had effectively retained control of the domains.

What followed was a June 2016 appeal by Neij to the Supreme Court, which challenged the Court of Appeal’s opinion that a domain name is a type of intellectual property that can be seized under copyright law.

Whether the Supreme Court will take the case remains to be seen. It’s clear, however, that whatever happens ThePirateBay.se is up to its neck in legal disputes and is already prone to seizure, something that casts doubt over its future potential.

TorrentFreak spoke to Sweden’s IIS to find out how any potential sale might affect the ongoing Pirate Bay domain legal dispute but the organization declined to comment. The operators of The Pirate Bay have not confirmed the sale, which appears to have been running for a few weeks.

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

In most jurisdictions it’s standard practice for those who commit online copyright infringement to be held responsible for their own actions. In Germany, however, the situation is more complex.

Due to a legal concept known as ‘Störerhaftung’ (‘interferer liability’), a third party who played no intentional part in someone else’s infringements can be held responsible for them. This type of liability has raised its head in a number of file-sharing cases where WiFi owners have been considered liable for other people’s piracy.

As a direct result of this precarious legal position, Germany has found itself trailing behind its European neighbors when it comes to providing public Internet hotspots. Some have described the situation as an embarrassment for one of the most advanced countries in the world.

Under pressure and in response to a European Court of Justice opinion on the matter last March, the government eventually decided to rescind liability for open WiFi operators. In September, a full decision from the EU Court of Justice further underlined the position.

Since then the government has been working on changes to local law to bring it into line with EU standards. This Wednesday a third draft presented by Brigitte Zypries, Minister for Economics and Energy, was adopted by the cabinet.

Should the amendments receive parliamentary approval, businesses will be free to offer open WiFi to their customers, without fear of being held liable for their actions. They will also be able to offer truly open WiFi, with no requirement to verify the identities of users or have them log in with a password.

While copyright holders won’t be pleased by the changes, they will still have opportunities to clamp down on infringement. If a certain WiFi location is connected with online piracy, a properly filed complaint will require the operator to bar access to websites connected with the infringement.

How this will work in respect of P2P transfers like BitTorrent will remain to be seen but WiFi operators are likely to be more relaxed blocking domains in their routers than appearing in court charged with copyright infringement.

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

Increasingly, people are trading in their expensive cable subscriptions, to use cheaper or free Internet TV instead.

In recent years this has become much more convenient with help from a variety of easy-to-use media players, Kodi boxes included.

Following this trend, there has also been an uptick in the availability of unlicensed TV streams, with vendors offering virtually any channel imaginable, for free or in exchange for a small fee.

Rightsholders are not happy with this development and are actively cracking down on sellers of these illicit services and devices.

This week one of the largest IPTV piracy groups was dismantled in Europe. The operation was headed by the Spanish National Police, with help from Bulgarian authorities, Europol and Eurojust.

The investigation was triggered by a complaint from the UK-based Premier League. In total, 12 searches were carried out in both Spain and Bulgaria, leading to the arrest of eight people that are allegedly connected to the dismantled piracy group.

Spanish police carrying out the raid

The enforcement effort, dubbed “Operation Casper,” found that the piracy ring was operating through several shell companies. Two legitimate ISPs were setup in Spain and Bulgaria, through which the group offered their IPTV services.

“Operation Casper began when a representative from a broadcast rights holder filed a complaint against the owner of an Internet Service Provider located in Málaga (Spain), for illicitly distributing pay-TV channels to thousands of clients in different EU countries,” Europol writes.

“Investigators also unveiled the existence of a second ISP in Silistra (Bulgaria) owned by the network, which was permanently connected to the ISP in Spain and provided coverage to other European countries.”

The owner of the two ISPs is a Danish citizen, the investigation revealed. This man is being seen as the mastermind behind the IPTV piracy ring which offered its services throughout Europe.

This is not the first time that Spanish police have raided a company that provides unauthorized IPTV services. A similar operation took place last year. That case was also based on a Premier League complaint and involved a local Internet provider as well.

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

With dozens of millions of monthly views, Putlocker is the go-to video streaming site for many people. Or was, we should say.

The site has had its fair share of trouble over the past year. It had to switch domain names on a few occasions, in part due to legal pressure.

Most recently, the Putlocker.is domain name started redirecting to putlockertv.is and with this switch came another crucial change. For more than a week now, the site has become unusable.

Regular visitors have noticed the absence of new content and are no longer able to leave comments.

Even worse, perhaps, the movies and TV-shows that are still listed don’t link to actual content. Instead, they are advertising a suspicious third-party service that asks for people’s credit card details, and is unlikely to offer what they’re looking for.

While Putlocker has had some technical issues before, the current situation appears to be different. We can only speculate, but it might very well be that the site won’t return to its former glory and that the operator has decided to throw in the towel.

In fact, with all the recent domain changes it’s unknown whether the site is still in the hands of the original operator at the moment.

Video ad on Putlocker

What we do know is that the site has faced quite a bit of legal pressure over the past few months. Late last year the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) marked the site as a notorious market that should be dealt with.

“The operator of Putlocker is believed to be based in Vietnam and appears to be taking actions to evade enforcement measures,” USTR wrote in its annual overview.

“For example, in 2016 Putlocker hopped domains from the country code top-level domain of Iceland (.is) to Switzerland (.ch) and started using reverse proxy services to obscure the location of its hosting provider,” the report added.

And that wasn’t all. Two weeks ago, right before the current trouble started, the US Ambassador to Vietnam urged the local Government to criminally prosecute the operator of Putlocker.

Whether or not Putlocker will return is uncertain, but considering the pressure it might not be a surprise if the operator has decided to step aside, at least for the time being.

This doesn’t mean that the Putlocker brand will disappear, however. As usual, there are several copycats waiting in line to take over the site’s traffic, taking advantage of the confusing situation.

Update: Putlockertv.is now redirects to Putlockers.cc, but otherwise nothing has changed.

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

^{If you enjoy this episode, consider becoming a patron and getting involved with the show. Check out Steal This Show’s Patreon campaign: support us and get all kinds of fantastic benefits!}

In this episode we meet Samer Hassan, researcher in decentralized collaboration, activist and Berkman Center fellow. We discuss why the swarm is safer than the cloud, the new decentralized tools powering resistance movements, and how and why the centralization of online services is a threat to our freedom.

With a background in Social Sciences, Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, Samer is passionate about how to build free/open source privacy-aware decentralized systems (e.g. blockchain) to facilitate collaborative communities and social movements.

He led the technical team that built the backend-as-a-service for collaborative apps SwellRT; the app for collaborative communities Teem, used by a diversity of social collectives; and the real-time collaborative editor JetPad, which aims to provide a fully-fledged free/open source alternative to Google Docs.

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Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing copyright and file-sharing news. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary, and analysis.

The guests for our news discussions will vary, and we’ll aim to introduce voices from different backgrounds and persuasions. In addition to news, STS will also produce features interviewing some of the great innovators and minds.

Host: Jamie King

Guest: Samer Hassan

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Riley Byrne
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Siraje Amarniss

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