Pirate video streaming sites are booming. Their relative ease of use through on-demand viewing makes them a viable alternative to P2P file-sharing, which traditionally dominated the piracy arena.

Copyright holders are not happy with this development and are doing everything in their power to stop this trend, both through legal action and lobbying.

This week they received support on a diplomatic level. On Tuesday, Ted Osius, US Ambassador to Vietnam, held a meeting with the local Minister of Information and Communications, Truong Minh Tuan.

One of the topics high on the agenda was an increased cooperation between the Vietnamese Government and US Internet companies such as YouTube and Facebook. The Government wants these services to remove or block offensive content that violates local laws.

The minister said he is happy to provide access to these American sites as long as they prevent the distribution of malicious information “that adversely affects the morals, customs, and habits” of Vietnam. Obviously, the perception of what’s appropriate may be somewhat different from US standards.

Ideally, Vietnam would like the American companies to open up local offices so these issues can be better regulated, local news sites report.

Responding to this proposal, the US ambassador affirmed that he would continue to encourage the companies to do so, while actively working with the Ministry of Information and Communications to solve these difficult issues. However, at the same time, he also presented a request of his own.

Ambassador Ted Osius highlighted his interest in protecting intellectual property on the Internet. He specifically mentioned three websites in Vietnam that should be criminally prosecuted for copyright infringement – Putlocker, 123movies and Kisscartoon.

These three sites are believed to operate from Vietnam, and the ambassador urged the local authorities to look into their operations and take appropriate action when possible.

123Movies (currently down)

Information and Communications Minister Truong Minh Tuan assured the ambassador that this is also a matter that Vietnam is very interested in, adding that the Ministry Inspector will soon decide how to handle the three ‘pirate’ streaming sites.

However, the minister also noted that even on YouTube there are many video clips that infringe the copyrights of Vietnamese organizations. He therefore requested that Google should take immediate measures to deal with copyright infringement on YouTube, while the authorities look at businesses and users who infringe copyright in Vietnam.

Whether the requests from both sides will ultimately be addressed remains to be seen. To our knowledge, it’s unprecedented for a US Ambassador to ask a foreign Government to prosecute alleged pirate sites, in public at least.

How Ambassador Osius came up with the three sites in question is unknown. The office of the US trade representative highlighted Putlocker’s ties to Vietnam in its recent overview of notorious markets, but 123movies and Kisscartoon were absent from this list.

A likely explanation is that copyright holders directly or indirectly lobbied for enforcement action against the sites in question, something that happens regularly behind the scenes.

Interestingly, both 123movies and Kisscartoon ran into significant downtime this week. 123movies is still down at the time of writing and says it will post an update in the near future. Kisscartoon is also inaccessible on its official domain name, which was stripped from its nameservers.

That said, there’s no indication that these issues are tied to the ambassador’s request or any specific enforcement actions.

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

Due to what some have described as a drafting error in Australia’s implementation of the Australia – US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), so-called safe harbor provisions currently only apply to commercial Internet service providers Down Under.

This means that while local ISPs such as Telstra receive protection from copyright infringement complaints, platforms such as Google, Facebook and YouTube face legal uncertainty.

In order to put Australia on a similar footing to technology companies operating in the United States, proposed amendments to the Copyright Act would’ve seen enhanced safe harbor protections for technology platforms such as search engines and social networks.

But that dream has now received a considerable setback after the amendments were withdrawn at the eleventh hour.

In a blow to Google, Facebook and others, the government dropped the amendments before they were due to be introduced to parliament yesterday. That came as a big surprise, particularly as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had given the proposals his seal of approval just last week.

“Provisions relating to safe harbor were removed from the bill before its introduction to enable the government to further consider feedback received on this proposal whilst not delaying the passage of other important reforms,” Communications Minister Mitch Fifield said in a statement.

There can be little doubt that intense lobbying from entertainment industry groups played their part, with a series of articles published in ‎News Corp-owned The Australian piling on the pressure in favor of rightsholders.

This week the publication accused Google and others of “ruthlessly exploiting” safe harbor protections in the US and Europe, forcing copyright holders into an expensive and time-consuming battle to have infringing content taken down.

While large takedown efforts are indeed underway in both of those regions, companies like Google argue that doing business in countries without safe harbor provisions presents a risk to business development and innovation. Being held responsible for millions of other people’s infringements could prove massively costly and certainly not worth the risk.

Startup advocacy group StartupAUS criticized the withdrawal of the amendments, describing the move as “a blow to Australian entrepreneurs.”

“Australia’s copyright laws have still not caught up with the realities of the internet. As a result, the laws still struggle to provide clarity and protection for organizations doing business online,” said CEO Alex McCauley.

“Copyright safe harbor is international best practice and without it Australian startups will be held back from participating in the rich global market for content and ideas. We strongly urge the government to reconsider the need for safe harbor provisions.”

But for players in the entertainment industry, safe harbor protections are not something to be quickly revisited without significant preparation.

Welcoming their withdrawal, Dan Rosen, chief executive of the Australian Recording Industry Association, called for a “full, independent and evidence-based review” in advance of similar proposals being raised in the future.

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

Aside from the thorny issue of price, content availability is often cited as one of the major drivers of Internet piracy. If consumers can access content easily without being made to wait, it’s believed that significant numbers will choose legal options.

With its global Friday release strategy and largely instantaneous availability on streaming platforms, the music industry has taken massive strides in dealing with this gaping hole in supply and demand. But for the movie industry, with its complex structure and multi-platform delivery system, things are not so straightforward.

Giving customers access to new movies on multiple formats on the day they’re released might seem to be the logical move to combat piracy, but Hollywood is fiercely protective of its windowing system since it offers multiple opportunities to sell and re-sell the same content to the same people.

Now, however, there are signs that the studios could be softening their stance towards consumers being able to rent new movies in the home shortly after their theatrical release.

According to a Variety report, six of the seven biggest Hollywood studios are considering plans to allow new movies to be delivered via VOD into the living room between 30 and 45 days after launch for around $30.

Fox and Warner are said to favor this structure but other plans are also floating around. Universal are reported to be pushing for a VOD release less than three weeks after launch, with Warner Bros. suggesting a shorter 17-day delay but with a larger $50 rental price.

Of course, any move to bring content to the home more quickly could have a profound effect on the many theater chains around the United States and present a serious stumbling block in negotiations. However, a proposal from Warner would see exhibitors receiving a cut of VOD revenues, if they agree to a narrowing of the theatrical release window.

While the rest of the major studios are keen to move forward, Disney is reported to be against the proposal. For a company that came up with the artificial restrictions embodied in the Disney Vault, for example, that probably won’t come as too much of a surprise.

But for those hoping for a smooth transition to quick releases in the home, breath holding is not advised, at least for now. Variety reports that negotiations have been underway for more than a year already and due to a number of considerations, they are pretty complex.

While Universal wants to go early across the board, others are considering longer or shorter release windows depending on the number of screens a movie is still showing on. In other words, the sooner people get bored of the theatrical release, the quicker it might appear in homes. That probably doesn’t bode well for fans of the more successful movies that enjoy longer theatrical runs and are more prone to piracy.

But while innovation is being sought, it’s also worth noting that exhibitors are seeking to reel it back in other areas. Lower priced movie rentals can currently appear 90 days after release and exhibitors are reported as seeking assurances that this will remain the case for up to 10 more years.

The news that the studios are considering their own model for early distribution will come as a blow to Napster founder Sean Parker. A year ago this month, news broke that the disrupter had a plan to bring first-run movies to the home on the same day they’re released in theaters.

While that may have been a little optimistic, Parker’s overall framework sounds very much like the plan Warner is now in favor of – a $50 rental price tag with a $20 cut going to exhibitors. Also included in Parker’s price would have been two free movie tickets, something that doesn’t appear to be on the table now.

Also in doubt is whether the currently proposed two to four-week window will be long enough to quash fears that early VOD delivery would contribute heavily to online piracy.

Last year, Art House Convergence, a cinema organization representing 600 theaters and allied cinema exhibition businesses, said that Parker’s day-and-date model would encourage the “wildfire spread of pirated content” and herald a “decline in overall film profitability through the cannibalization of theatrical revenue.”

It’s safe to say that nobody in the movie business wants that. Stay tuned.

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

Last month, news broke that Cogent, which operates one of the largest Internet backbone networks, blackholed IP-addresses that were linked to several ‘pirate’ sites including The Pirate Bay.

As a result of this action, people from all over the world were unable to access their favorite download or streaming portals.

The blocking intervention was quite controversial, not least because the IP-addresses in question don’t belong to the sites themselves, but to the popular CDN provider Cloudflare.

After the mysterious blocking efforts were first reported, we found out that Cogent acted in response to a Spanish court order. This compelled the company to block the IP-addresses in question.

Ironically, many of the popular pirate sites were not the direct target, but collateral damage simply because they shared the same IP.

In response, Cloudflare moved The Pirate Bay and other ‘innocent’ sites to a new set of IP-addresses, so they became accessible once more. Cloudflare’s General Counsel Doug Kramer further informed us that they worked together with Cogent to prevent similar over-blocking issues in the future.

“We have taken technical steps on our end to permit Cogent to comply with a court order issued to them without additional impacts,” Kramer informed TorrentFreak.

Despite this promising collaboration, however, Cogent has now blocked Cloudflare’s new IP-addresses as well. This effectively renders The Pirate Bay and other sites such as TorrentProject, Icefilms, Torlock, Popcorn-Time, Movie4k and 1Channel inaccessible on its network.

The Pirate Bay blocked by cogent again

Cogent has blackholed the IP-addresses 104.31.16.3 and 104.31.17.3 which are all shared by these sites. This is likely another case of over-blocking, unless there is a new court order listing all the sites on these IP-addresses.

TorrentFreak reached out to Cloudflare to find out more about the situation, but at the time of writing we have yet to hear back.

The Cogent episode is not the first time that innocent Cloudflare customers have been affected by a court order. Previously, UK ISPs blocked several websites because they shared an IP-address with The Pirate Bay.

Last month, Cloudflare’s General Counsel cautioned against broad blocking orders. If they are issued by judges who don’t fully understand the effects, these could affect a wide range of sites which they are not intended for.

“It’s important for courts to understand how Internet systems work so they can write orders that don’t end up having unintended consequences,” Kramer stressed at the time.

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

From a niche hobbyist affair under its former name XBMC, Kodi is now grabbing international headlines on a daily basis. The media player is both benign and entirely legal in standard form, but boost it with special addons and it becomes a piracy powerhouse.

One of the main problems for the content industries arises from the software’s ability to run on cheap Android and similar hardware. Whether that’s a phone, tablet, set-top box or a device such as Amazon’s Fire Stick, these setups are now in millions of homes, delivering free content to the masses.

Authorities everywhere are now scrambling to deal with the problem and Canada is one of the areas where content producers and cable providers have resorted to legal action. Last year, Rogers Communications, Bell, Videotron and others targeted several retailers who supplied so-called “fully loaded” Android and Apple set-top boxes to the public.

The original defendants, including ITVBOX.NET, My Electronics, Android Bros Inc., WatchNSaveNow Inc and MTLFreeTV, all sold devices that came pre-configured to receive content that customers would otherwise have had to pay for.

Inquiries into the sales began in April 2015 and in the months that followed test purchases were made. The plaintiffs found that the devices not only provided access to their content for free but that the sellers advertised their products as a way to avoid paying bills.

In response, the TV and content companies went to the Federal Court with claims under the Copyright Act and Radiocommunication Act. Last June they were successful in obtaining an interlocutory injunction to stop the devices being made available for sale.

“The devices marketed, sold and programmed by the Defendants enable consumers to obtain unauthorized access to content for which the Plaintiffs own the copyright,” Judge Daniele Tremblay-Lamer wrote in her order.

“For the time being, I am satisfied that the Plaintiffs have established a strong prima facie case of copyright infringement and that an injunction would prevent irreparable harm without unduly inconveniencing the Defendants.”

While the majority of the defendants in the case have been silent (the list has now grown to more than 50 sellers), WatchNSaveNow and MTLFreeTV took the decision to appeal the injunction, arguing that it was never established in court that sales of the devices would hurt the plaintiffs’ business in advance of a trial.

According to CBC, that argument failed to convince the Appeal Court, which yesterday upheld the Federal Court’s decision to hand down an injunction. Turning the box-sellers’ marketing material against them, the Court noted that they’d advertised their devices as providing a way to access free content and avoid paying cable bills.

One of the sellers to appeal, Vincent Wesley of MTLFreeTV, was the only box-seller to turn up at the original Federal Court hearing last year. Back then he said he had nothing to do with the development or maintenance of the software installed on the devices he sold. That didn’t appear to help back then and now the Appeal Court has failed to see the case in the defendants’ favor.

“I’m actually very disappointed. We weren’t even given a fair shot,” Wesley said.

Unsurprisingly, the plaintiffs were rather pleased with the outcome, with both Bell and Rogers welcoming the decision to uphold the injunction.

“Today’s swift dismissal of the appeal of the Federal Court’s injunction speaks to what this case is all about — an obvious case of piracy,” Rogers spokesperson Sarah Schmidt told CBC.

A Bell spokesperson said the decision provided more confirmation that the devices are illegal and that those that sell them face “significant consequences.”

For Wesley, those consequences are already being felt in the shape of a $5,000 court costs bill, something which he says has left him “at the end of his finances.”

With no money left to fight, any trial will almost certainly go the way of the cable and TV companies. Certainly, the public hasn’t signaled any intention to come to the sellers’ rescue. A GoFundMe campaign set up by Wesley in June last year has seen just 10 people deposit $350 of a $30,000 target.

The legal assaults on Kodi, Showbox, and Popcorn-Time enabled devices seems set to continue for some time but one has to wonder what effect the endless flood of news articles is doing to promote the availability of free content through the platforms. Legal action is perhaps inevitable but every case only serves to raise the profile of this new piracy phenomenon.

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