Late 2015 a Virginia federal jury ruled that Internet provider Cox Communications was responsible for the copyright infringements of its subscribers.

The ISP was found guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered to pay music publisher BMG Rights Management $25 million in damages.

Last November Cox filed its appeal arguing that the district court made several errors which may ultimately restrict the public’s access to Internet services.

One of the crucial factors in the case is whether Cox has safe harbor protection under the DMCA. In order to qualify, the company is required to terminate accounts of repeat infringers, when appropriate.

According to a 65-page reply brief just filed by BMG, the Internet provider failed to satisfy this burden as it willingly kept serving some customers, even after they had received over a dozen infringement notices.

“… Cox ignores its burden and points to no evidence that it adopted or implemented such a policy. Indeed, the undisputed evidence shows that Cox’s claim to terminate repeat infringers was an elaborate sham,” BMG writes (pdf).

“Though the precise mechanism changed in the Fall of 2012, Cox’s actual policy throughout the entire time period covered by the complaint was not to terminate repeat infringers because ‘for DMCA – we don’t want to lo[]se the revenue’.”

BMG notes that from 2010 until the Fall of 2012, Cox had a “policy” under which it purported to terminate accounts of repeat infringers. However, these were instead swiftly reactivated to keep customers on board and generate more revenue.

“Over and over, Cox failed to terminate flagrant repeat infringers, including one who admitted to ‘years of doing this’ and whom Cox abuse employees regarded as ‘well aware of his actions’,” BMG writes.

In its appeal, Cox mentioned that it doesn’t believe that one-sided piracy complaints are enough to warrant account terminations. In addition, the ISP noted that several of the infringement notices BMG sent via Rightscorp contained serious errors.

However, BMG believes that this is a red herring which didn’t warrant the decision to disregard hundreds of thousands of infringement notices.

“Cox claims that BMG’s notices are ‘littered with flaws.’ But Cox was able to identify errors in a tiny handful of the 1.8 million BMG notices at issue. The evidence showed that Rightscorp’s system was ‘well over 99%’ accurate.”

In addition to the repeat infringer issue, the music group also maintains that the ISP is liable for contributory infringement. Also, it disputes Cox’s argument that the jury instructions were incorrect on several points.

With the appeal, Cox hopes to reverse the judgment or at least have the opportunity of a new trial, but BMG asks the court to keep the district court ruling intact instead.

The outcome of the case, which may go all the way to the Supreme Court, will be crucial in determining what obligations ISPs have when it comes to repeat copyright infringers. As such, we can expect some more fireworks later in the year, as the case moves forward.

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

Previously known as Antipiratbyrån, Rights Alliance is Sweden’s foremost anti-piracy group. It has been front and center of countless copyright battles, including one that ended with the jailing of The Pirate Bay’s founders.

While The Pirate Bay continues to this very day, another long-time Rights Alliance target has just thrown in the towel.

Founded around 2005, ‘The Internationals’ was a tight-knit private tracker with a decent reputation for content availability. That placed it on the radar of copyright holders, who started an investigation.

In 2009, in the wake of The Pirate Bay convictions, then-Antipiratbyrån sent out a batch of warnings to other sites hosted in Sweden. Shut down or else, they warned. The Internationals heeded the warning almost immediately, but after a month the site returned.

Two years later in 2011, police carried out raids in two locations in Sweden, seizing the site’s tracker and community data servers. Two men were also arrested, including the site’s operator, Joel Larsson.

In 2015, Larsson was found guilty of copyright infringement and was sentenced to 90 hours community service. In the meantime, however, The Internationals had already been resurrected under another domain name and was operating normally.

A few days ago, however, Rights Alliance showed that it has a long memory. According to a report from The Internationals operator ‘Hachiko’, the site received correspondence from the anti-piracy group ordering it to shut down.

“Hi all. As of now, all torrents on The Internationals has been removed. Download, upload, offers and requests have been deactivated,” Hachiko told the site’s members.

“Why? We’ve been informed on Dec. 29, -16, by a representative, Anders Nilsson, from something called ‘Rättighetsalliansen’, that it’s illegal according to local laws in their country, Sweden.”

Anders Nilsson is a Rights Alliance investigator and former policeman who has been with the anti-piracy outfit for a number of years.

“Due to this fact, we have no other option than to disable all torrents and deactivate all possibilities to engage in what they call illegal file-sharing,” Hachiko said.

While all torrents have now disappeared from the site, it will stay open to enable the community to stay together. Whether that will happen will remain to be seen. History tells us that sites rarely maintain their strength after the content has been removed.

Aside from its long-running issues with copyright holders, The Internationals will be remembered for being perhaps the only site to have its webhost prosecuted for its activities. When the site’s operator was raided in 2011, the owner of webhosting company PatrikWeb was also detained.

Patrik Lagerman had been previously ordered by Rights Alliance to take down The Internationals’ site but without a court order, he refused. That eventually landed him in court but he stood firm and was acquitted of all charges.

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

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(…)	Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (Subbed HDRip)	6.3 / trailer
2	(1)	Deepwater Horizon	7.4 / trailer
3	(4)	The Accountant (subbed HDrip)	7.6 / trailer
4	(2)	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (HDTS)	8.3 / trailer
5	(…)	Assassin’s Creed (HDTS)	6.6 / trailer
6	(3)	The Magnificent Seven	7.1 / trailer
7	(…)	Keeping Up with the Joneses	5.8 / trailer
8	(7)	Doctor Strange (HDTS)	8.0 / trailer
9	(9)	Trolls	6.6 / trailer
10	(10)	Moana (HDTS)	8.1 / trailer

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

At the turn of the century and just before Napster began to burn, a whole generation was turned on to the possibilities of Internet file-sharing.

With the music industry bewildered by the sudden and unauthorized transition to digital media via platforms such as KaZaA, another beast appeared on the horizon. BitTorrent had arrived and quickly became a painful thorn in Hollywood’s side.

By 2004, with hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of users frequenting both public and private torrent sites, Hollywood ran out of patience. With plans already being formed to target some of the larger US-based sites, the MPAA decided it was time to educate the consumer.

The ‘Respect Copyrights’ campaign launched with the now-common multi-faceted approach, with the MPAA first explaining what copyright is all about in a tone which by today’s standards seems a little old-fashioned.

“When some people hear the word ‘copyright,’ they think of a complicated legal term that doesn’t apply to them. In fact, copyrights touch us all. Simply put, copyrights protect creativity,” the MPAA said.

Of course, today’s audience is a lot more aware of what copyright is all about, but when it comes to the scare tactics deployed now and then, not much has changed.

“If you use peer-to-peer file-sharing services, you are almost certainly exposing your computer to harmful viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and annoying popups, and you are inviting strangers to access your private information. That makes it pretty easy for law enforcement to track you as well,” the MPAA warned.

Respect Copyrights campaign, 2004

The idea that file-sharing in 2004 and 2005 wasn’t an anonymous activity was one that the MPAA was determined to drive home. As part of the larger campaign, Hollywood launched a sub-project which aimed to convince growing numbers of file-sharers that the Internet offered them no privacy.

The ‘You Can Click But You Can’t Hide’ campaign appeared to take its lead from comments made by boxer Joe Louis in 1946. When asked about upcoming opponent Billy Conn’s touted “hit and run” tactics, Louis said he might be able to run, but he wouldn’t be able to hide. The MPAA hoped the same would be true of file-sharers.

The subsequent campaign was targeted at young people at home, largely sitting in their bedrooms, together with students studying in the United States and further afield. Yes, you can download movies from file-sharing networks, the campaign said, but we can see everything you do.

To say that the ‘You Can Click But You Can’t Hide’ campaign wasn’t well received was a bit of an understatement. In addition to using emotive terms such as “trafficking” to describe file-sharing, it also tried to convince ordinary members of the public that sharing a single movie was very likely to result in a $150,000 fine.

Perhaps worse still, the campaign was also run as an advert in cinemas before movies. By default, that meant targeting paying customers in a way that the still current FBI warning does at the start of official DVDs and Blu-rays. That prompted the inevitable parody backlash.

Annoying customers…

However, the most remembered use of the campaign’s logo and message was on websites that had been shut down by the MPAA and FBI during 2004 and 2005. Perhaps the best early example was the appearance on popular public torrent site LokiTorrent which was shut down by the MPAA in 2005.

Previously, 28-year-old site admin Ed Webber told almost 700,000 users he was going to fight Hollywood’s lawsuit after accepting around $43,000 in legal battle donations. However, that money quickly disappeared into what was presumed to be the MPAA’s coffers. Were those donors and other site members going to be able to hide after they’d clicked?

The same questions were to be asked later in 2005 when the same campaign message went up on the busted EliteTorrents private tracker, a raid that resulted in several multi-year jail sentences for its operators and uploaders. In the end, no regular site users were ever punished, which certainly took some of the sting out of the campaign.

While its claims were still technically true for most people, as time went by the MPAA’s message began to look more and more dated. The campaign was eventually withdrawn but by then file-sharers were becoming acutely aware that anonymity is something you have to work for online. Then, in 2006, file-sharers were offered a solution, at a price.

Although not the first service of its type, the Relakks VPN service promoted by the Swedish Pirate Party was the first to be targeted mainly at file-sharers. Just a year after the MPAA’s campaign and for a small price, anyone could click whatever they liked and hide, pretty much completely.

Now, ten years later, protecting anonymity online is big business. There are hundreds of VPN suppliers, some better than others, which ensure that there could never be a repeat of the MPAA’s “Click But Can’t Hide Campaign.” Nevertheless, plenty of people are still falling into its trap and failing to heed a decade-old warning.

Every month, millions of file-sharers are tracked online due to them using no kind of protection, with thousands receiving warning notices, fines and even lawsuits for their trouble. It’s surprisingly easy to both click and hide these days, but the majority still haven’t got the message.

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

Following the latest trends is one of the main tasks at the TorrentFreak newsroom and this job continues in the New Year.

While we can’t predict the future, we are in a good position to take some wild guesses as to what 2017 has in store.

As always, The Pirate Bay is on top of the list. The site is once again the most-used torrent site on the Internet which brings along responsibilities as well as various threats.

The Pirate Bay Gets Asylum, in The Caribbean

The Pirate Bay has had its fair share of problems over the years. While the past months have been relatively quiet, our crystal ball says that it’s going to change soon.

After nearly 14 years The Pirate Bay will lose its beloved .org domain name. A few months from now copyright holders will launch a court case and obtain a subpoena against the U.S-based Public Interest Registry (PIR). PIR previously resisted a voluntary suspension but will be forced to seize the domain by court order.

With the Swedish .SE domain also at risk, The Pirate Bay is going to send a special envoy to Antigua and Barbuda, requesting virtual asylum in the Caribbean.

This proves to be an excellent match, as Antigua and Barbuda is still engaged in a long-running dispute with the U.S. The Caribbean nation has already threatened to lift the protection of US intellectual property rights in 2017. In addition, it toyed with the idea of starting its own pirate site.

So, it’s a no-brainer that at the and of 2017 The Pirate Bay will be operating ‘carefree’ from a brand new .AG domain name.

Google Bans Torrent Sites and starts a Torrent Search Engine

2017 will also be the year that Google finally runs out of patience with all the ‘copyright bullying’ that it’s endured in recent years. While the search giant initially showed good will, it will soon go rogue.

After realizing that copyright holders always come back for more, no matter what anti-piracy measures they take, Google rolls out an evil plan that has been in the pipeline for a while.

The MPAA and RIAA will have their way as Google will remove all torrent sites from its search results. Not before launching their own torrent meta-search engine, however.

Perhaps the company secretly put the founder of Torrentz.eu at the helm of this project a few months ago, which explains the site’s sudden disappearance last summer.

The torrent search engine launch won’t come as a complete surprise though. Google has had this service in beta for well over a decade, and it’s ready to stand on it own two feet now.

Pirate Site Blockades Come to America

For several years, U.S-backed copyright holder groups have obtained site blocking orders in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. However, in 2017 they will realize that they’ve forgotten something.

All these years they have been pointing their fingers at other countries, while pirate sites are still readily available on their home turf.

Admitting this gross oversight, MPAA and RIAA will team up to sue the country’s largest Internet providers. With billions of dollars at stake, they’ll demand immediate action.

After a short but intense legal fight, the U.S. federal court will surprisingly rule that broad website blocking goes too far. Then, copyright holders will suddenly remember why they didn’t start a case earlier.

uTorrent’s Comeback

Remember uTorrent?

With hundreds of millions of installs worldwide the torrent client is still one of the most popular pieces of software in history. However, in recent years its development has ground to a halt.

In a few weeks’ time it will be three years since uTorrent 3.4 was released and today it still hasn’t managed to make another 0.1 leap.

Initially, we wanted to predict the release of uTorrent 3.5 in 2017, but that would be rather wild. So let’s keep it realistic with just a 3.5 beta.

The new beta will introduce a revolutionary feature though. Building on several other successful products BitTorrent Inc. has launched over the years, such as their chat client, a browser and live streaming, it will augment the torrent client with a social layer.

The new Beta will allow users to follow or spy on other downloaders to see what their interests are, complete with hashtags, status updates, and a news feed.

Kim Dotcom Announces Megaupload+1 (aka M+1)

In a few weeks from now, Kim Dotcom is going to unveil his plans for Megaupload 2.0 (MU2) and we expect that it will be awesome.

The new Megaupload promises to be better than its predecessor MEGA, which Dotcom launched four years ago as Megaupload’s first reincarnation, but eventually had to abandon.

However, despite the positive reception of Megaupload 2 there are going to be legal and political issues that will force the New Zealand-based entrepreneur to leave the ship once again. For a good reason though.

Our prediction engine shows that the U.S. Department of Justice will drop the Megaupload case after being exposed by Wikileaks. Soon after, Dotcom will switch his focus to politics with the already announced revival of the Internet Party.

Towards the end of 2017, Kim Dotcom will announce the fourth iteration of Megaupload, called Megaupload+1 (M+1). As expected, it will be better, bolder and braver than the earlier versions.

—

Happy new year everyone!

—

Don’t believe in any of the above? Look how accurate we were last year! Don’t forget the salt…

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