Copyright holders are increasingly urging third-party Internet services to cut their ties with pirate sites.

Hosting providers, search engines, ISPs, domain name registrars, and advertisers should all do more to counter online piracy, the argument goes.

Last year, adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan took things up a notch by dragging several third-party intermediaries to court. The company targeted CDN provider CloudFlare, advertising network JuicyAds, and several hosting providers, including Chicago-based Steadfast.

Steadfast is not happy with the allegations and has asked the court to dismiss the case. Among other things, the company argues that it’s protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions.

“Steadfast does not operate or manage the Imagebam website. Steadfast does not in any way communicate with or interact with Imagebam’s individual users. Steadfast only provides computer storage,” the company informed the court in its motion to dismiss.

ALS Scan clearly disagrees with this reasoning. According to the adult company, Steadfast should have stopped the infringements on the website of their client.

In addition, the company says that the hosting provider can’t hide behind “safe harbor” protection as it failed to implement a repeat infringer policy, branding ImageBam a frequent offender.

“Steadfast could remove the infringements on imagebam.com, or the site itself, from the Internet. Steadfast financially benefited from the draw of infringement on imagebam.com,” ALS Scan wrote in its opposition brief (pdf) last week.

“Steadfast’s safe harbor defenses are intensely factual, not susceptible of resolution on demurrer. Steadfast failed to reasonably implement a policy of terminating account holders who are repeat infringers, and thus cannot claim DMCA safe harbors,” they add.

Earlier this week Steadfast responded to these and other claims by the adult publisher, arguing that the company is misrepresenting case-law.

The hosting provider maintains that the DMCA law shields it from liability. The repeat infringer argument doesn’t apply here, as they company doesn’t have the ability to control the actions of ImageBam users, among other things.

“In its Opposition, ALS states that in order to avoid liability for contributory infringement, a service provider must terminate services to repeat infringers. This is simply not the law. The service provider must have more power to influence the activity,” Steadfast argues in its reply (pdf).

It is now up to the California District Court to decide which side is right. In addition to Steadfast, several other defendants including CloudFlare are still trying to turn the case in their favor as well.

While ALS Scan is not an internationally known rightsholder, the case may prove to be vital for many Internet-based services in the United States. As we’ve seen with the case between Cox Communication and BMG, an entire industry is put at risk when a service provider loses its safe harbor protection.

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

Anti-piracy outfit Denuvo has taken a bit of a battering lately after chinks began appearing in the company’s armor. Last weekend, cracking group CPY defeated the protection on Resident Evil 7 in just five days, a record for the anti-tamper technology.

Just a week on, Denuvo has more problems to deal with. For reasons best known to them, the company has left several private directories on its website open to the public, as shown in the image below.

Most of the content appears relatively mundane but hidden away in the logs directory is an 11MB text file called Ajax.log, which appears to contain customer support emails dating back to 2014. While some are from companies looking to hire Denuvo, a notable email in slightly broken English appears to have been sent by Capcom.

“This is Jun Matsumoto from CAPCOM Japan. I have a interested in the Denuvo Anti-Tamper solution to protect our game software. If you have a white paper about details, please send me. (ex. platform, usage, price, etc…) And, if you have a sales agent in Japan, please tell me the contact point. Thank you for your cooperations,” it reads.

Another was sent by Jan Newger of Google, who wanted to learn more about Denuvo.

“I’m working in the security team at Google, and would like to evaluate the denuvo product to get an understanding on how it would integrate with existing solutions,” it reads.

“I’m specifically interested in further strengthening existing solutions to hinder understanding/tampering with binary programs. Is it possible to obtain some kind of demo version of the product? Also, could you send a quote to me?

But for every business opportunity, there are dozens of emails from angry pirates, each looking to vent their anger.

“Why do you have to make such shit software to fuck over pc gamers with DRM bullshit. Please inform the companies you work with that if your DRM is implemented on games they are selling, they will lose thousands of customers. Thanks,” wrote someone identifying themselves as Angry Customer.

While any leak of confidential data is a serious event, this developing situation appears to be getting worse. Within the last few minutes, more insecure directories have been discovered, some of them containing relatively large files.

Needless to say, the contents of these files will be of great interest to Denuvo’s adversaries. With that in mind, TF headed over to a platform where crackers meet and sure enough, they are extremely excited and all over this breach. Thus far it appears that most of the files have been downloaded, including one that appears to contain access logs for Denuvo’s website and others which carry executables.

It’s too early to say exactly what these files do but crackers will be hoping for any piece of information or clue explaining how Denuvo works and how it can be defeated. Another bad week for Denuvo is quickly getting worse.

Breaking news, updates to follow.

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

Two to three decades ago, being a music, video or software pirate had virtually no social stigma attached at all. Pirate cassettes of all kinds were swapped in public and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who cared.

These days, however, things are somewhat different. While piracy is still widespread, it’s likely that someone will be around to tut, actively complain, or even report the activity, especially if it happens online.

That’s the result of years of hard work by copyright holders, who have elevated the act to “serious business” status within the governments of most developed nations. As a result, most politicians now speak of piracy in negative terms, in public at least.

For former Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, however, talking about piracy in a presumed private situation turned out to be risky business.

It all went south when Milanovic was telephoned by prank-call show “U Zdrav Mozak” (“In Healthy Brain”), which is a shortened version of a local phrase meaning to screw with someone. The show takes delight in messing with famous people and last week it was the turn of Croatia’s former prime minister.

Milanovic is currently in between jobs and is reportedly looking to become a business advisor. As a result, show host Davor Jurkotic called Milanovic pretending to be Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure.

Around three minutes into the conversation the topic turned to movies, with “Russinovich” saying that he watches them when out of work. At this point, Milanovic revealed he likes to do the same.

“As a rule, I watch them through these pirate apps. I shouldn’t say that… but… Moviebox, Cinemabox…,” Milanovic said, referring to the popular pirate tablet and phone applications.

Continuing the conversation, the fake Mark Russinovich said that using those apps is illegal.

“But that is a felony, Mr Milanovic. You shouldn’t be doing that,” he said.

Switching to English, Milanovic – who trained as a lawyer – indicated that he felt otherwise, with an offhand “Well, it’s like…”

Of course, “Russinovich” was happy to keep up the charade.

“In England, if they found out, especially if you were the Prime Minister, they immediately come and knock on the door,” the host warned, rapping his knuckles on the table for effect.

But Milanovic had other ideas about how things might go down.

“Yeah, right! And what if the app isn’t mine, if the iPad isn’t mine?” he said. “You know what I’ll tell you? I think I have maybe two parking violations. I am the man who respects the law of the land.”

After a conversational diversion for a couple of minutes, the discussion returned to piracy. And it turns out that the former prime minister understands his pirate politics.

“But this is something that is still developing, ethically and legally,” he said.

“In Sweden, you have a Pirate Party, in Sweden that is a more organized/regulated country than the USA. And they [Pirate Party] got 12% at the elections. So what is moral these days?”

While it would’ve been good to hear more on the piracy front, the prank eventually came to an end when the fake Russinovich said that Microsoft wanted to invest in speedboats that can travel underwater and also fly.

“This is U Zdrav Mozak, right?” Milanovic guessed, bursting into laughter.

So a good sport it seems, as well as a secret pirate admirer.

Hvala Vlaho!

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

According to copyright holders, online piracy is fueled by people’s desire to make money. The statement carries some truth but has traditionally applied to a relatively small number of people at the top of the food chain.

The advent of file-hosting platforms, however, has enabled the smaller guy to turn a small profit.

While many ‘cyberlockers’ pay out a commission to uploaders when a file is downloaded every 1000 times, there are some other ways to make a bit of cash too.

At their core, link shortening services such as Google’s goo.gl convert unmanageably long URLs into compact ones for easy sharing. They also offer analytics so people can understand who is clicking on their content.

However, there are also other services that pay out a small commission for each click. As a result, they have become popular with anyone looking to monetize all kinds of content, including pirates hoping to make a few extra bucks.

One such pirate contacted TF this week following the leaking of Resident Evil 7 online. With its Denuvo protection neutralized, owner Capcom reverted to sending DMCA notices, including to Google which was asked to remove well over 1,700 URLs from its search results.

Those notices contained requests to remove “link shortener” URLs – such as those provided by Adf.ly, Shorte.st, and Linkbucks.com – all of which pay commission to users when others click their links.

However, in addition to taking down Resident Evil 7 links from Google search, file-hosting and torrent sites, it appears that Capcom also sent complaints directly to Adf.ly. Of course, that meant the referrer links died, which in turn killed the revenue stream.

While there’s no doubt that Adf.ly links are widely used by pirates, the company informs TorrentFreak that it has a strict repeat infringer policy in place.

“We operate a 3 strike repeat offender policy. If the Company has received three valid DMCA notices, the Company will notify [the] user they have 72 hours to issue any Counter-Notices or their account will be suspended,” the policy reads.

That not only cost our source his links, but also his account and all of the commission money held in it.

“Upon suspension, no funds will be paid to the account owner and no links will be accessible belonging to the user’s account,” Adf.ly confirmed.

But perhaps of most interest is the effect this type of action has on uploader morale. If those who post Adf.ly and similar commission-based links to infringing content keep losing their accounts, ALL of the links in their account become useless for generating revenue, even if just one copyright holder such as Capcom continually files complaints.

There are also knock-on effects if content uploaders want to recover their position, our tipster notes.

“[This could] possibly screw [shortener] pirates for good since all these links are hardcoded into blog posts and not dynamically generated. Meaning once you get banned you have to manually ‘fix’ each and every link on all the previous uploads,” he explains.

“Capcom is very aggressive. If you reupload the thing they report it again after a few days. I got banned from Adfly thanks to Capcom. Adfly has a 3 strikes (in a 6 month period) policy. For me it worked, I stopped uploading Capcom games altogether.”

TF asked how easy it is to open another account with Adf.ly, in order to wipe the slate clean and start again. Apparently, it’s not straightforward since the company uses a number of techniques to spot those signing back up.

For example, according to our experience when simply accessing their site, Adf.ly blocks some popular VPN ranges. However, since the company keeps all of the money in closed accounts, other options are preferred.

“Adfly keeps all the money. No questions asked. You lose all rights immediately,” our source explains. “People usually give up and move to the next link shortener.”

And so, the cycle continues.

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

On Friday evening millions of Australians were tuning into to the long awaited rematch between the Australian boxers Anthony Mundine and Danny Green.

Those who wanted to watch it live couldn’t do so cheaply, as it was streamed exclusively by the pay TV provider Foxtel for AUS$59.95.

However, the Internet wouldn’t be the Internet if people didn’t try to find ways around this expensive ‘roadblock.’ And indeed, as soon as the broadcast started tens of thousands of people tuned into unauthorized live streams, including several homebrew re-broadcasts through Facebook.

While it’s not uncommon for unauthorized sports streams to appear on social media, the boxing match triggered a true piracy fest. At one point more than 150,000 fans streamed a feed that was shown from the account of Facebook user Darren Sharpe, who gained instant fame.

Unfortunately for him, this didn’t go unnoticed to the rightsholders. Foxtel was quick to track down Mr. Sharpe and rang him up during the match, a call the Facebook streamer recorded and later shared on YouTube.

“Sorry mate, I just had to chuck that on mute. So you want me to turn off my Foxtel because I can’t stream it?” Darren asked the Foxtel representative.

“No. I want you to stop streaming it on Facebook. Just keep watching the fight at home, there’s no dramas with that. Just don’t stream it on Facebook,” the Foxtel rep replied.

“Mate, I’ve got 78,000 viewers here that aren’t going to be happy with you. I just don’t see why it’s [not] legal. I’m not doing anything wrong, mate. What can you do to me?” Darren said in response.

“It’s a criminal offence against the copyright act, mate. We’ve got technical protection methods inside the box so exactly this thing can’t happen,” the representative replied.

Mr. Sharpe didn’t seem to be very impressed by the allegations, but Foxtel soon showed how serious it was. Since Facebook didn’t turn off the infringing streams right away, the pay TV provider decided to display the customer’s account numbers on the video streams, so they could disable the associated feeds.

According to Foxtel CEO Peter Tonagh, the streamers in question will soon face legal action. This means that the “free” streaming bonanza could turn out to be quite expensive after all.

ABC reports that Brett Hevers, another Facebook user whose unauthorized broadcast reached more than 150,000 people at its peak, believes he has done nothing wrong.

“I streamed the Mundine and Green fight mainly just so a few mates could watch it. A few people couldn’t afford the fee or didn’t have Foxtel so I just thought I’d put it up for them,” Hevers said.

“All of a sudden 153,000 people I think at the peak were watching it,” he adds.

Anticipating significant legal bills, fellow Facebook streamer Darren Sharpe has already decided to start a GoFundMe campaign to cover the cost. At the time of writing, the campaign has already reached over a quarter of the $10,000 goal.

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