At TorrentFreak we have been keeping a close eye on the torrent ecosystem for more than a decade.

During this time, many sites have closed their doors, either voluntarily or after being forced by a court order.

However, 2016 has been a particularly ‘bad’ year for torrents, after two icons were pushed offline in a matter of weeks last summer. In total, three sites that were among the top ten most popular sites at the start of the year are now gone.

Perhaps just as importantly, with the demise of What.cd one of the largest private torrent trackers vanished as well.

KickassTorrents

The trouble started in July when Polish law enforcement officers arrested Artem Vaulin, the alleged founder of KickassTorrents (KAT). The arrest was part of a U.S. criminal case which also listed two other men as key players.

At the time, KAT was the most-used torrent site around, so the authorities couldn’t have hit a more prominent target.

The arrests meant the end of the torrent site and up until this day Artem remains in custody at a local hospital. While several KAT copies and mirrors appeared over the past several months, including one operated by original staffers, the original site is still dearly missed by many.

Torrentz

Not long after KickassTorrents went offline, Torrentz.eu decided to close its doors voluntarity. Without prior warning, all torrent listings were removed from the meta-search engine, which was the third largest torrent site at the time.

The site’s operator confirmed the shutdown to TorrentFreak and left its users with the following message: “Torrentz will always love you. Farewell.”

Torrentz.eu says farewell

An official explanation for the drastic action was never given, but it’s likely that the trouble at KAT weighed into the decision.

Now, several months later, several copies and proxies have taken over the Torrentz brand. While these have nothing to do with the original site they are serving millions of pageviews a day, with Torrentz2.eu as the clear leader.

TorrentHound

TorrentHound is the third site out of last year’s top ten that shut its doors unexpectedly. The site was significantly smaller than the other two, but a home to many regular torrenters.

Initially, the site’s operator gave no official explanation. After a while, however, he confirmed to TorrentFreak that the closure was due to a combination of less revenue and constant pressure from anti-piracy groups.

“It’s a combination of less traffic, less revenue and our bills piling up. Then add on constantly getting bugged by anti-piracy agents, just wasn’t worth the headache anymore,” he said.

What.cd

The torrent troubles weren’t limited to public sites only. In fact, one of the biggest stories of the year is the shutdown of the world’s most comprehensive library of digital music, the private music tracker What.cd.

The site went offline after several of its servers were raided by the French military police. The local music industry group SACEM confirmed that the law enforcement efforts were part of a criminal investigation which is ongoing.

What.cd’s initial farewell message

Soon after the first reports came out, What.cd’s operators shut down the site and deleted crucial data to keep its users safe. In addition, they released a detailed farewell message on Twitter.

“What.CD has completed its shutdown. We are confident that our staff and users are safe. It is with enormous sorrow in our hearts that we must now move on with our lives,” the site’s operators said.

However, music aficionados aren’t easily defeated. Within a matter of days several new trackers appeared online, growing harder than What.cd or its predecessor OiNK ever did.

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The above are just a few examples of major sites that have fallen, but it shows that 2016 was a year to remember. At the end of the week we’ll be heading into 2017 and the big question is; where will things go from here?

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

Last year during the Christmas period, pirates got much more than their fair share of festive booty. Screener copies of many of the latest movies appeared online, much to the disappointment of Hollywood.

The group that received much of the credit (or blame, depending on viewpoint) was Hive-CM8. This peer-to-peer release outfit famously released both The Hateful Eight and The Revenant in excellent quality before their theatrical release.

The group promised to deliver 40 screeners but the backlash was so severe that the run was eventually limited to ‘just’ 14 titles, a sum still not improved upon. As recently reported, the latter half of 2016 has been extremely quiet on the screener front overall, prompting many public discussions over whether any will actually appear.

Interestingly, however, Hive-CM8 has just put out a statement which suggests that January might be the month to watch. Alongside a TS (telesync) release of the new Assassins Creed movie, the group notes its absence but expresses eagerness to start leaking screeners again – with some caveats attached. (note: statement edited to fix typos/grammar)

“Yes, still here and kicking, we had to have a break for some time. Bet you are waiting for screeners, yep why not,” Hive-CM8 begin.

“We were definitely not in the mood to make the same mistakes as last year with screeners before Christmas or cinema release date.”

The fact that Hive-CM8 want to tone things down isn’t really a surprise. With last year’s Christmas bonanza still making waves, in late December 2015 the group actually published an apology, noting that releasing movies before their official debut wasn’t acceptable.

That said, Christmas 2016 is now over, and it appears that Hive-CM8 are ready to get going again.

“Now that Christmas holidays have passed we are actually looking forward to getting the dice rolling,” they say.

“We want to get the screeners out safely and securely like every year. Whoever has a screener or knows someone who has one and wants to share privately or in public, just let us know. We are here.”

The Hive ‘NFO’ file for Assassins Creed

A separate source informs TF that Hive-CM8 already has some screeners in hand but the group itself has not yet responded to our request for comment. Either way, we have a somewhat unique set of circumstances this year.

While studio security was expected to improve following 2015’s debacle, it appears that at least some pirates are consulting their moral compasses before making what could be a potentially damaging release.

Hollywood is likely to be quietly pleased with that result but don’t ever expect them to admit it. Theft is theft, ladies and gentlemen, or so the mantra goes.

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

In 2012, adult industry businessman Robert King embarked on a mission to destroy the “bad players” of the cyberlocker market. At the time, the Australian told TF that he would stop at nothing to rid the world of their influence.

“What I hope to achieve is very simple. I want to tear apart the illegal file locker industry by removing its supply of funds and then ultimately removing its supply of network connectivity,” King said.

“In the main file lockers are simply modern-day ‘fences’ of stolen goods. Just like a thief would take a stolen television or car radio to the pub and sell it for a few dollars, there are thousands of people around the world who take copyright content, upload it to an incentivized file locker, then get a few dollars to as much as $30 for 1000 downloads of that content.”

During the months that followed, King became one of the most hated people in the cyberlocker and linking-site sphere. Within three months of the launch of the campaign, King claimed to have shut down payment processing for more than 500 sites.

For almost three more years, controversy continued to build but suddenly, in April 2015, King announced the shutdown of the project, declaring a victory of sorts. Today, however, an ironic situation of head-shaking proportions has emerged.

It appears to have begun during the summer when King told members of the GFY forum (NSFW) that he’d begun work on a new search engine for porn.

Exactly how Node.xxx started life isn’t clear (Wayback Machine has no archive) but there can be no doubt what purpose it is being put to today. The domain is serving up a fully-fledged pirate streaming link index catering for consumers of every TV show imaginable.

Aside from the mere existence of the site, perhaps the greatest irony is to be found in the places where Node.xxx-indexed TV shows are hosted. Yes, of course, they’re all hosted on cyberlocker sites, the same kind of sites King waged war on during his StopFileLockers campaign.

To give a specific example, this page (indexing Gangland Undercover) has a “Click Here to Play” button, which opens up the episode in question which had previously been uploaded to cyberlocker Openload.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Node.xxx domain was registered by AdultKing (backup image here) and uses sales@adultking.co.uk as the contact email.

The AdultKing.co.uk domain (also owned by Robert King) points to the same server as AdultKing.com.au, a domain which is owned and operated by Robert King’s Melbourne-based company, AdultKing PTY Ltd.

Domain-wise, however, that’s just the tip of the iceberg (backup) of those owned by AdultKing PTY, with Node.xxx nestled somewhere in the middle of a long list.

A mirror of Node.xxx (which in turn appears to be a clone of watchseriesgo.to) can be found here, should this mystery deepen with the mysterious taking down of the site following the publication of this article.

We’ve asked Robert King for a comment and will update when we receive a response. He has plenty of enemies so while there are other explanations, it’s possible that someone is having some excitement at his expense.

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

A few weeks ago Netflix announced that it would allow users to download a small selection of videos for offline use, on mobile devices.

While this is a great step forward, there’s also a large group of users who would like to do the same with other videos on other operating systems.

Free Netflix Downloader is application that offers exactly this. Developed by DVDVideoSoft, it is the first Windows application that allows people to download Netflix videos to their computers through an easy-to-use interface.

After logging in to Netflix, users simply enter the video URL and ‘Free Netflix Downloader’ then downloads any video in a few minutes. The tool also offers the option to convert the output files to AVI, MP3, or a version optimized for iPhone and iPad.

“This is the ONLY app in the world that can do this trick now!” DVDVideoSoft’s Alex informs TF.

The software supports multiple downloads at the same time and according to the developer, it is ideal for people who have slow Internet connections, among other things.

“[It is intended for] users with slow Internet connections, for those who like to store everything on their computer, for those who don’t have smart TVs; it’s also great for downloading a whole series season at a time,” Alex says.

Free Netflix Downloader in action

While ‘Free Netflix Downloader’ works as advertised, there is also a major drawback. The video quality appears to be rather low and certainly not what people are used to when watching Netflix.

The developers don’t go into detail on this issue but say higher quality video may follow later. However, it’s likely that Netflix’s higher resolution video is better protected, which makes it much harder to rip.

Finally, it should be stressed that people who use the tool might violate Netflix’s Terms of Service, which forbids users to archive or download content without permission. This is also the main reason why Netflix and rightsholders are probably not too fond of the service.

For now, Free Netflix Downloader’s developers don’t anticipate any pushback from Netflix. However, they realize that this could change if their software becomes very popular in the future.

“Maybe if the program becomes very popular,” Alex says, but she also notes that Netflix just created its own downloader feature for mobile users.

For now, however, the tool is still freely available. More information on ‘Free Netflix Downloader’ and its capabilities is available at DVDVideoSoft’s official site. As always, those who are interested should proceed at their own risk.

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

By now, most readers will understand how the Kodi experience operates. The software itself is an entirely legal media player but one which can be augmented with various addons.

For millions of users, it is these addons that really give Kodi its spice. Created by third-party developers, these add-ons allow Kodi to serve a massive range of often pirated content, including movies, TV shows (both live and on demand), plus sports and PPVs.

TV Addons is one of the world’s largest repositories of Kodi addons. It is not affiliated with the creators of Kodi but has become host to some of the software’s most-used tools. As such, its popularity has soared in recent months.

With Kodi add-ons now a major talking point around the world, TF caught up with Eleazar from TV Addons to get his thoughts for 2017.

“We never intended our community to be considered to be a source for sketchy content. There are many popular addons that have been developed as a more convenient way to access legitimately licensed content,” he explains.

“Some of the best and most popular addons include USTVnow, FilmOn, BBC iPlayer and EarthCam. We make open source addons to make the viewing of online content feel more natural when you’re watching on your living room TV.”

While there doesn’t appear to be any intention of reducing the availability of the most popular and controversial addons, Eleazar says a greater emphasis will be placed on tools that don’t fall into potential legal gray areas. Accessibility will also be improved.

“In the New Year, we hope to boost the more legitimate type of addons, from both the development perspective and end user point of view. We’re also in the process of streamlining the entire Kodi addon experience, making it easier for everyone, with our new website design coming very, very soon,” he adds.

In addition to all the excitement over Kodi and its addons in 2016, there have been considerable amounts of bad news for people who have tried to monetize the experience. Hundreds of sellers of pre-configured Android devices have popped up on eBay, Amazon, and other marketplaces, promising free media for all. Some have been arrested, particularly in the UK where there have been quite a few raids. Eleazar hopes there will be less of this in 2017.

“We really hope that people stop selling cheap pre-programmed Android TV devices. The main reason for our concern is the recent media attention these people have been getting. They are bundling Kodi addons with paid IPTV (something we are strongly against) and then getting busted for it and bringing negative attention to everyone,” he says.

“Secondly, in most cases, the kind of people who sell these devices aren’t the type of people who care about their reputations and thus end up making ridiculous promises to their customers, promises they will never be able to keep. People are maintaining addons for free, and profiteers are ruining it for everyone.”

Eleazar also has harsh words for the much of the hardware these suppliers sell to the public. Often of poor quality from the Far East, these devices can fail to live up to their billing. Better options are available for people to buy themselves, he says.

“If anyone is wondering what the best Kodi devices are, I’ll make it very clear. There’s no point in buying some cheap Chinese-manufactured no name device when you can buy much better devices manufactured by big electronics brands,” he advises.

“If you have no budget, the NVIDIA Shield TV is definitely the top choice. The second best choice would be the Xiaomi Mi Box, which sells for a mere $69 at Wal-Mart, and the third choice would be the Amazon Fire TV. Kodi can be installed to the first two in a few clicks through the Google Play Store, while it would need to be sideloaded to the Amazon Fire TV due to the lack of Android app store support.”

2017 is likely to be another big year for Kodi, its addons, and the streaming services that underpin them. As previously reported, the relationship between all three is somewhat uneasy, with the makers of Kodi and the operators of streaming sites both annoyed (1,2) at the creators of many addons.

Nevertheless, it seems the platform is here to stay – at least until the next big thing comes along.

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