Signed into law nearly twenty years ago, the DMCA is one of the best known pieces of Internet related legislation.

The law introduced a safe harbor for Internet services, meaning that they can’t be held liable for their pirating users as long as they properly process takedown notices and deal with repeat infringers.

In recent years, however, various parties have complained about shortcomings and abuse of the system. On the one hand, rightsholders believe that the law doesn’t do enough to protect creators, while the opposing side warns of increased censorship and abuse.

To address these concerns, the U.S. Copyright Office hosted a public consultation asking stakeholders to submit comments as well as research. One of the organizations participating is Engine, a non-profit organization representing the interests of the startup and tech communities.

Previously, several copyright industry representatives suggested that piracy filters are an efficient and effective way to deal with piracy. This would save rightsholders a lot of work, and in part shift the ‘policing’ burden to Internet services. However, not everyone in the tech community agrees.

Balancing the scale, Engine teamed up with Professor Nick Feamster of Princeton University to show that automated filters are far from perfect. In their research report titled “The limits of Filtering,” they list a wide variety of drawbacks.

“Before considering dangerous mandatory content filtering rules, policymakers should understand the inherent limitations of filtering technologies,” they write in their report.

“Reversing two decades of sensible copyright policy to require OSPs to deploy tools that are costly, easily circumvented, and limited in scope would deeply harm startups, users, and content creators alike.”

The researchers point out that filtering has a limited scope. File-formats continuously change or can be masked, for example, and even in the ideal case where a site only hosts straightforward audio files, it’s not perfect either.

The report cites a recent case study which found that the music fingerprinting system Echoprint misidentifies between 1 and 2 percent of all files. This might not sound like a lot, but when a site hosts millions of files, it adds up quickly.

With these numbers, tens of thousands of files would be taken down in error, which is far from ideal.

“Given the reported error rates, one could thus expect the state of the art fingerprinting algorithm to misidentify about one or two in every 100 pieces of audio content,” the researchers write.

“Accordingly, a 1–2 percent false positive rate for an automated filtering procedure is problematic for the same reasons, as such a technique would result in filtering legitimate content at rates that would frequently obstruct speech.”

That’s in an ideal situation. The reality is more complicated. An automated filtering tool can’t effectively decide fair use cases, for example. And for some types of content there are no good filtering options available to begin with.

On a broader scale, Engine’s research also predicts an overall negative impact on Internet services. The costs involved could prove to be problematic for smaller startups, for example. Medium-sized file-sharing services would have to pay between $10,000 and $25,000 in licensing fees alone.

A filtering requirement will also create uncertainty among startups. Are they required to filter, to what degree, and is their fingerprinting technology sufficient?

Finally, there’s an elephant in the room. Even if filtering magically works 100%, there will always be plenty of rogue pirate sites in foreign jurisdictions that still offer infringing content.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Engine’s Executive Director Evan Engstrom, who co-authored the report, hopes that lawmakers will seriously consider the concerns. Not just the US Copyright Office, but also the European Commission (EC) which has concrete plans to make piracy filters mandatory.

“All filtering technologies are limited in significant ways: they are only able to process a relatively narrow range of content files and all can be circumvented through encryption or basic file manipulation. And contrary to the EC’s belief, fingerprinting technologies can be quite expensive, particularly for startups,” Engstrom says.

“We hope this paper provides policymakers considering such mandatory filtering proposals with the technical and economic evidence necessary to fully understand their implications.”

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

In a blow to privacy advocates across the United States, the House of Representatives voted Tuesday to grant Internet service providers permission to sell subscribers’ browsing histories to third parties.

The bill repeals broadband privacy rules adopted last year by the Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration, which required ISPs to obtain consumer consent before using their data for advertising or marketing purposes.

The House of Representatives voted 215-205 in favor of overturning the regulations after the Senate voted to revoke the rules last week. President Donald Trump’s signature is needed before it can go into law but with the White House giving its full support, that’s a given.

“The Administration strongly supports House passage of S.J.Res. 34, which would nullify the Federal Communications Commission’s final rule titled ‘Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunication Services’,” the White House said in a statement yesterday.

“If S.J.Res. 34 were presented to the President, his advisors would recommend that he sign the bill into law.”

If that happens, the US will free up the country’s Internet service providers to compete in the online advertising market with platform giants such as Google and Facebook. Of course, that will come at the expense of subscribers’ privacy, whose every browsing move online can be subjected to some level of scrutiny.

While supporters say that scrapping the regulations will mean that all Internet companies will operate on a level playing field when it comes to privacy protection, critics say that ISPs should be held to a higher level of accountability.

Whereas consumers have a choice over which information can be shared with websites, browsing history via an ISP is total, potentially exposing sensitive issues concerning health, finances, or even sexual preferences.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that US Internet users are beginning to realize that everything they do online could soon be exposed to third-parties intent on invading their privacy in the interests of commerce. Predictably, questions are being raised over what can be done to mitigate the threat.

Aside from cutting the cord entirely, there’s only one practical way to hinder ISPs, and that’s through the use of some form of encryption. Importantly, visitors to basic HTTP websites will have no browsing protection whatsoever. Those using HTTPS can assume that although ISPs will still know which URLs they’ve visited, content exchanged will be cloaked.

Of course, for those looking for a more workable solution, VPNs – Virtual Private Networks – can provide a much greater level of encrypted protection, especially among providers who promise to keep no logs.

As a result, various providers, including blackVPN, ExpressVPN, LiquidVPN, StrongVPN and Torguard, have weighed in on the debate via social media. NordVPN have also spoken out against the bill in the press, and Private Internet Access even took out a full page ad in the New York Times this week.

It’s now becoming clear that while it was once a somewhat niche activity, VPN use could now be about to hit the mainstream.

Taking a look at Google Trends results for the search term ‘VPN’, we can see that interest across the United States is now double what it was back in 2012. The significant surge to the right of the chart is likely attributable to the past few weeks of debate surrounding the repeal of broadband privacy rules.

While most VPN providers have been campaigning against the changes, there can be no doubt that the signing of the bill into law will be extremely good for business. As seen from the above, record numbers of people are learning about VPNs and there’s even encouragement coming in from people at the very top of Internet commerce.

Following the vote yesterday, Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde took to her company’s platform to‏ suggest that citizens should take steps to protect their privacy.

Her tweet, which was later attributed to her own opinion and not company policy, was retweeted by Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey.

It will be interesting to see how the new rules will affect VPN uptake longer term when the fuss around the debate this month has died down. Nevertheless, there seems little doubt that VPN use will rise to some extent and that could be bad news for copyright holders seeking to enforce their rights online.

In addition to stopping ISPs from spying on users’ browsing histories, a good VPN also prevents users being monitored online when using BitTorrent. A further handy side-effect is that they also render site-blocking efforts useless.

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

Pirate movie streaming sites and services continue to gain popularity, with 123movies at the forefront of this trend.

However, growth doesn’t always come easy. Over the past week the site has been suffering significant downtime, for unknown reasons. The site eventually returned during the weekend on the domain 123movieshd.to, but that wasn’t the end of the upheaval.

Yesterday the site switched to a new home, first renaming itself to Memovies, only to switch to Gomovies a few hours later.

While the site’s operators are staying quiet on the exact reason for the downtime, a site representative told TorrentFreak that GoMovies.to will be the site’s official domain, at least for the time being.

When asked about the reason for the name change, the representative said that it is in part to set itself apart from the many fake sites and proxies that appeared online recently.

The operators grew tired of the many fake sites that ranked very high in search engines with the 123movies brand. With the change, GoMovies will try to regain momentum.

The old 123movies.is and 123movies.to domain names are now linking to the new GoMovies one, and the site also confirmed the surprising brand change on its official Twitter account.

“We’re back at GoMovies.to – This is our Official Domain – new Home for 123Movies users. Old data remains the same. Please spread.”

123movies / Gomovies on Twitter

While GoMovies has a new domain name and logo, the rest of the site is pretty much intact. In fact, most of the references to 123movies are still present on the site, even in the site title and the FAQ section.

Although the turbulent week with several days of downtime remains largely unexplained, the site representative hopes that they will remain on the new domain for a while. However, we were told that it’s possible that they will have to change again in the future.

In addition to the site’s millions of users, 123movies / GoMovies developments are also being closely watched by copyright holders, who see the site as one of their main targets.

Hollywood previously reported the site to the U.S. Government’s Trade Representative, labeling it one of the most “notorious” pirate markets, and the site is blocked by UK ISPs as well. Last week, the US Ambassador to Vietnam turned up the pressure by urging a local minister to prosecute the site’s operators, who allegedly reside there.

Update: Perhaps unsurprisingly, at least one of the fake sites has switched to Gomovies already… Beating fake sites might not be as easy as expected.

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

Representing various major record labels, the RIAA filed a lawsuit against MP3Skull in 2015.

With millions of visitors per month the MP3 download site had been one of the prime sources of pirated music for a long time. This frustrated many music industry insiders who claimed millions in losses.

Last year a Florida federal court sided with the RIAA, awarding the labels more than $22 million in damages. In addition, it issued a permanent injunction which allowed the RIAA to take over the site’s domain names.

Despite the million dollar verdict, MP3Skull continued to operate for several months using a variety of new domain names, which were subsequently targeted by the RIAA’s legal team.

As the site refused to shut down, the RIAA moved up the chain targeting CDN provider Cloudflare with the permanent injunction. According to the RIAA, Cloudflare should stop offering its services to all MP3Skull websites, arguing that the CDN provider was “in active concert or participation” with the pirates.

Cloudflare disagreed and countered that the DMCA protects it from liability for the copyright infringements of its customers, limiting the scope of anti-piracy injunctions. In an effort to resolve this difference of opinion, the RIAA has asked the Florida federal court for a “clarification” of the existing injunction.

After hearing the arguments from both sides, the court has now ruled against Cloudflare’s DMCA defense, opening the door for an injunction against the CDN provider itself.

In her order, District Court Judge Marcia Cooke notes that Section 512 of the DMCA protects service providers from copyright infringement liability for the actions of others of which they are not aware.

However, this is different from the current case where Cloudflare is not being held liable by the RIAA but is well aware of the copyright infringements, the Judge clarifies.

“Here, Plaintiffs do not allege Cloudflare is directly liable for copyright infringement. Further, CloudFlare has been aware of Defendants’ infringing behavior since at least May 2015 when it first assisted Plaintiffs in identifying relevant online information involving Defendants.

“Simply put, Section 512’s limits to online service provider liability are inapplicable here,” Judge Cooke adds (pdf).

In the present case, the scope of the permanent injunction is guided by Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which may apply to any third-party that’s “in active concert or participation” with the offender.

With the ruling, the court has opened the door to broad injunctions which could force Cloudflare to implement a variety of anti-piracy measures. These aren’t limited to terminating existing accounts, as the RIAA also wanted Cloudflare to monitor new clients that use the keyword “MP3Skull” in their domain name.

However, before issuing an injunction against Cloudflare, it still has to be determined whether the CDN provider is “in active concert or participation” with the pirate site.

“Though I have determined Section 512 does not effect the scope of Rule 65 and the Permanent Injunction here, I do not believe I can make a formal ruling on whether Cloudflare was in ‘in active concert or participation’ with Defendants until CloudFlare has had a reasonable opportunity to be heard,” Judge Cooke notes.

The order is a victory for the RIAA and other rightsholders who have repeatedly called out Cloudflare for the services it provides to pirate sites. As such, it is likely to be referenced in similar cases in the future.

While the legal precedent may be important, the case itself will have very little effect. MP3Skull appears to have given up a few months ago. It was last active on the MP3Skull.vg domain but disappeared last October, forwarding the leftover traffic to an unrelated site.

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

While torrent clients such as qBitTorrent and Deluge have a passionate following among enthusiasts, there can only be one winner when it comes the true king of BitTorrent transfers.

Owned by San-Francisco based BitTorrent Inc., uTorrent is the leading torrent client in the West. It has more than 150 million active users a month, a staggering achievement for a piece of software that started out as a one-man project in Sweden back in 2004.

Now on version 3.4.9, uTorrent has undergone more than 12 years of development, 11 years under the guidance of BitTorrent Inc., who took control of the client (and its creator Ludvig Strigeus) back in 2006. The client’s massive success since has had a significant effect on BitTorrent Inc., generating tens of millions of dollars in advertising and affiliate revenue.

Indeed, this revenue has been the major contributor to BitTorrent Inc.’s very existence, financing a basket of other products the company has brought to the table in recent years, such as the popular Dropbox competitor BitTorrent Sync.

But despite the huge contribution uTorrent has made to the company and its various forays into other areas, in recent years the software has descended into something of an unsung hero.

Caught between the bad publicity generated by millions of pirates using the software for less than legal activities, a reliance on its huge revenue, plus its role in distributing content from signed-up artists, BitTorrent Inc. has at times been required to delicately maneuver around the client’s very existence.

Now, however, that might be about to change. According to a report from Variety, changes are underway at BitTorrent Inc that could see uTorrent and its Mainline sister client come back into the limelight.

First up, the company has yet another new CEO. Rogelio Choy joins the company after spending two years at parking service Luxe Valet. However, Choy is also a former BitTorrent employee, serving as its Chief Operating Officer between 2012 and 2015.

The hiring of Choy reportedly coincides with a shake-up of BitTorrent Inc.’s product line. BitTorrent Live, the patented live video streaming project developed by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen, will be set loose as a separate, venture-funded company, Variety reports.

That company will be headed up by Cohen himself, who will reportedly step back from his day-to-day involvement with BitTorrent Inc. but remain on the company’s board. He also has a little something up his sleeve.

Cohen, a serial inventor and self-confessed puzzle enthusiast, is said to be focusing on a new crypto-currency project. Given how active Cohen has been in related and often heated discussion online in recent years, that doesn’t come as a surprise.

But with all these changes underway, perhaps the most important news for torrent fans is that BitTorrent Inc. will refocus on its flagship products, the uTorrent and Mainline clients. Quite how this will manifest itself is open to debate, however.

Most of the really important additions such as magnet links, PEX, and the network-friendly uTP protocol enhancement happened before 2010, some seven years ago. There have been a few minor additions in recent times, such as altruistic mode in 2016, but other than that development has been flat.

Pulling something exciting out of the hat at this late stage in a product’s life could be a big ask but considering BitTorrent’s success and longevity (nothing else has come along to beat it from a technical perspective in 15 years), the company could yet deliver a surprise.

It’s certainly possible, however, that BitTorrent Inc. will choose to continue its policy of focusing on what positive things the software can do, rather than the software itself. For years the company has been trying to attract artists to its distribution platform, even going as far as offering to finance them through its discovery fund.

But with that now scrapped, it will need to rely on artists who understand the benefits of BitTorrent Bundles. They will join the likes of Bribery Corporation, who recently struck a deal with BitTorrent to provide the exclusive platform for all their releases.

Whatever happens, uTorrent remains an exciting part of the P2P landscape and doesn’t look like it will disappear anytime soon. Whether it can receive an unexpected technological boost will remain to be seen, but in the meantime it will remain the client of choice for tens of millions of fans, many of whom are happy with it, just the way it is.

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