A few months ago a criminal investegation by the U.S. Government brought down KickassTorrents, the largest torrent site at the time.

As a result, millions of people were left without their favorite torrent site. This included a very active community of admins, moderators and forum members.

Shortly after the shutdown, several KAT-crew members regrouped in an effort to get the community part of the site back up. They launched the Katcr.co forum as their new home and hinted that torrents could come back too, in the future.

Today is the big day as Katcr.co (KATcr) has now launched a fully operational torrent site, which looks identical to its predecessor. The site starts with a clean user database but many members of the original staff are on board.

“The majority of our original Staff, Admins and Moderation team joined us after Kat.cr went down – which is something we’re very proud of. This shows the loyalty, dedication and real love for KAT that we all share,” The KATcr team told TorrentFreak.

At the original KAT, site administrators and crew were clearly separated from those who technically and financially ran the place. This means that the people in charge of KATcr didn’t have access to the original code and data.

Still, they managed to put together bits and pieces to make it look identical, so former KAT users should feel right at home.

The new Katcr.co

Perhaps just as importantly, many of the site’s renowned uploaders are also back. As a result, the site will be populated with a lot of fresh content right from the start.

“We have all our major uploaders on board and they continued to share tirelessly even before the torrent engines returned. The torrent community can continue to expect to see uploads from all the names they know and trust,” the KATcr crew says.

Uploading to KATcr

Putting everything together took quite a bit of time, but the team wanted to make sure that everything is secure, which they are confident is the case now.

“In order to keep our members safe we chose to rebuild and keep only safe elements. Despite the fact that a rebuild took longer, the safety of our community comes first,” the KATcr crew told us.

While some might see it as a bold move to relaunch a site whose alleged operators are still wanted by the U.S. Government, the current staff sees no major legal issues ahead.

They point out that the site has a proper DMCA takedown procedure, just like YouTube, adding that they don’t store any copyrighted material on the site’s servers.

“KAT is a community-based forum and a torrent search engine. It’s the heart of who we are and that will never change. Despite opinions to the contrary, torrents are not illegal and we do not host any content.

“So long as Kickass Torrents continues to operate to the absolute letter of the law then we are most certainly not conducting criminal activities,” they note.

In a similar vein, the KATcr crew believes that the original operators of the site will walk free.

“We strongly believe the investigation carried out by Homeland Security and the IRS is unlawful in basis, targeting a foreign citizen and prosecuting them under US law. We have every confidence in the outcome of the pending legal action,” they say.

Over the past months, many KAT copies and mirrors emerged claiming to be the real reincarnation. In reality, the original site is still gone, but with many old staffers and uploaders onboard, KATcr might have some legs.

Update: The site appears to have some technical issues, as it went down after a short while.

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

This summer the U.S. Government shut down KickassTorrents, which was then the largest torrent site on the Internet.

The complaint was the result of an elaborate FBI investigation, pointing out the Ukrainian Artem Vaulin as one of the alleged masterminds.

However, it turns out that it wasn’t just the U.S. Government who put the pieces together. There’s another major force behind the shutdown that hasn’t been mentioned thus far.

MPAA boss Chris Dodd suggests that the Hollywood group also played a key role in the case. Their international arm, the MPA, is headquartered in Europe from where it actively helped the U.S. authorities to shut down KickassTorrents.

“We have now established a global hub — an office in Brussels. It has been tremendously successful in closing down Kickass Torrents, the single largest pirate site in the world,” Dodd told Variety in an interview.

The major movie studios have helped in similar criminal cases before, so this doesn’t come as a complete surprise. Generally speaking, however, the MPAA is not particularly open about the role it plays in federal investigations.

Although the takedown of KickassTorrents was a major success for Hollywood, piracy remains a problem. It’s even come to a point where Dodd himself is using the “hydra” terminology, which The Pirate Bay’s crew first brought up a decade ago.

The MPAA says that successes are still being booked every day, but they require more sophisticated methods than were used in the past.

“We make great inroads, but it is a problem that isn’t going away. Some days I do feel it is hydra-headed. But in the past few years, we have developed a more sophisticated and efficient way of dealing with piracy issues.”

At the same time, however, the pirates are getting smarter as well.

Over the years operators of sites and services have found better ways to shield their themselves from law enforcement, while making it easier for their users to consume content. While Dodd has a positive outlook, he recognizes the challenges that lie ahead.

“I am feeling more optimistic, but the pirates are getting more sophisticated. Technology not only is increasing our opportunity for more people to consume our content, but technology is also making it possible for people to steal our content, and it is not insignificant,” he concludes.

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

It’s been several years in the making and a move that required legislative change and cooperation between rightsholders and ISPs, but Australians will soon be subjected to the site-blocking phenomenon.

Following a case brought by rightsholders including Roadshow Films, Foxtel, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, and 20th Century Fox, more than fifty Internet service providers Down Under are now required to start barring subscriber access to ‘pirate’ sites.

In an order handed down a few hours ago, Justice John Nicholas of the Federal Court ruled that The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and streaming service SolarMovie will all have to be rendered inaccessible to consumers in Australia. The same applies to dozens of affiliated and non-affiliated proxy and mirror sites.

The decision, however, was not without its complications. Torrentz, TorrentHound, and Solarmovie have all shut down since the beginning of the legal action.

In the end, the Judge concluded there was a risk that the platforms could rise again so agreed to a ban. However, a small number of inactive Pirate Bay proxies and mirrors were excluded as no evidence of infringing activity was presented against them in Court.

Ruling all of the remaining sites to based overseas and in breach of Australian copyright law, the Judge gave ISPs including Telstra, Optus, TPG and iiNet just 15 days to comply with the blocking order, meaning that the blocks could be put in place before the end of the year.

ISPs were given a choice over how to implement the blocks. The Judge said they must all take “reasonable” steps which include DNS blocking, IP address blocking (or IP re-routing), URL blocking, or “any alternative technical means” approved by a rightsholder.

The Judge also determined that when being denied access to a blocked site, consumers must be informed what is happening. As a result, ISPs will either have to redirect subscribers to a landing page or, alternatively, redirect them to a page put in place by rightsholders.

The big argument over who will pay for the blockades has also been settled. The Internet service providers will all have to foot the bill for putting their own blocking mechanisms in place but rightsholders must pay AUS$50 per domain moving forward. The rightsholders were also ordered to pay the ISPs’ legal costs.

Today’s ruling and these initial blockades represent the beginning of mass site-blocking in Australia. Rightsholders re-attending Court to have more sites blocked is likely to become a regular occurrence in 2017 and beyond.

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

In recent years, file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees, or face legal repercussions.

These so-called “copyright trolling” efforts have been a common occurrence in the United States for more than half a decade.

The makers of the Adam Sandler movie The Cobbler are one of the parties actively involved in these practices. In one of their Oregon cases they recently settled with local resident Santos Cerritos, after a lengthy legal back-and-forth.

Cerritos eventually agreed to pay the statutory minimum damages of $750 and reasonable attorney fees. A substantial amount, but better than the $150,000 maximum damages rightsholders often want.

However, when the filmmakers announced their fees demand things took a turn for the worse. They wanted Cerritos to pay for their entire legal bill of $17,348, which is many times more than the damage award itself.

The accused pirate protested this request in court and in a recent ruling Oregon Magistrate Judge Stacie Beckerman agreed that the “fee-shifting” request is unreasonable.

The Judge notes that the damages amount in the settlement is already substantial and that it acts as a proper deterrent. That is enough. The defendant should not be required to fund the filmmakers’ copyright enforcement actions.

“In light of the substantial financial penalty already imposed, an attorney fee award is not necessary to deter further infringement, nor is a fee award necessary to encourage Plaintiff to continue to protect its rights, where Plaintiff has been vigilant to date and has the resources to police their copyright,” Judge Beckerman writes.

In a critical note, the Judge adds that these BitTorrent cases are creating results that are not in line with the goals of the Copyright Act. Instead, the threat of unreasonably high damages creates an unequal and unfair bargaining position.

“For this Court to award Plaintiff its attorney’s fees in this case would only contribute to the continued overaggressive assertion and negotiation of these Copyright Act claims,” she notes.

As a result of such overaggressive actions, several defendants have chosen not to defend themselves at all, opting for a default judgment instead. This isn’t purely in the interest of justice, but rather to exploit copyright law for commercial gain, the Judge suggests.

“A startling number of subscribers are failing to show up for Rule 45 depositions, and alleged infringers are more often than not choosing default judgments over litigation,” Judge Beckerman writes.

“By allowing this scenario to occur for several years now, the federal courts are not assisting in the administration of justice, but are instead enabling plaintiffs’ counsel and their LLC clients to receive a financial windfall by exploiting copyright law.”

Another argument against the high demand for attorney fees is the fact that the filmmakers unnecessarily prolonged the case. The case could have been settled early, but the rightsholder refused to do so, likely for financial reasons.

Keeping Cerritos’ financial position in mind, Judge Backerman doesn’t see it as appropriate to leave the defendant with more than $17,000 in debt that could have been avoided with an early settlement.

“If the Court were to force Cerritos to pay Plaintiff’s counsel his fee of $17,348.60, it would take Cerritos and his family years and years to satisfy that debt. It is a debt that was avoidable had counsel working together cooperatively to resolve this case.”

The Judge therefore denies the motion for attorney fees. While admitting that piracy is a problem, she doesn’t believe that these high costs are a burden an individual downloader should carry.

“Online piracy is a serious problem that demands meaningful solutions. Plaintiff has every right to enforce the copyright it holds, but not to demand that individual consumers who downloaded a single movie pay more than their share of the problem,” Judge Beckerman concludes.

Although Cerritos still lost the case and still owes the $750 in damages and $525 in other costs, he will be pleased with this outcome. Others who are in the same position will be glad too. It presents another hurdle to the ‘copyright trolls’ and makes it a little easier for their targets to fight similar demands.

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

In a matter of weeks the United States will have a brand new president, so it’s now time to resign a bitter election battle to history and make plans for the future.

This afternoon, representatives of some of the most significant technology companies on the planet will meet with President-elect Donald Trump for a round-table discussion in New York.

Heading to Trump Tower will be Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google parent Alphabet, Tim Cook of Apple, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and Satya Nadella of Microsoft. According to the New York Times, the companies are keeping a low profile about the event, but with giants like IBM, Intel and Cisco also in attendance, flying under the radar just isn’t possible.

The meeting today clearly hasn’t gone unnoticed by America’s music industry either. Despite some attempts at building bridges with companies such as Google, there is a gaping chasm of understanding due to the manner in which platforms like YouTube are said to utilize music without properly compensating artists. The industry feels that Trump has a role to play in solving this problem.

In an open letter to president-elect Trump congratulating him on his election, the RIAA and an A to Z of music groups make it clear that he should keep them in mind when he meets with the technology giants this afternoon. Protection of their intellectual property is paramount, they argue.

“Congratulations on your election to serve as the 45th President of the United States. We look forward to working with you and your Administration on behalf of American music – one of our nation’s most valuable forms of art and intellectual property, and a powerful driver of high – quality U.S. jobs and exports,” they begin.

Pointing to a statement Trump issued earlier this year when he described intellectual property as “a driving force in today’s global economy of constant innovation” while calling for its protection, the groups paint themselves as sharing the president-elect’s goals.

“So much of what you wrote in your platform this summer about intellectual property and private property rights resonated with many of us,” they write, adding that they share the desire to take strong action to enforce intellectual property laws against infringers.

Noting that they’re aware of the meeting today, the music groups lay out the significance of their industry, claiming a $1.2m trillion contribution to the economy while supporting the jobs of 5.5 million Americans. However, they also remind America’s forthcoming new leader that some of the companies he will meet with today owe a great debt to the music industry.

“Indeed, many of today’s popular technology platforms owe much of their growth and success to music. Music is responsible for the most-followed accounts on Facebook and Twitter, the most-watched videos on YouTube, and is one of the most popular draws for phones and other personal devices,” they note.

The music groups say that such platforms thrive by delivering the work created by artists and many deserve to be commended for valuing and protecting the music industry. But while some have developed systems to “deter theft”, much more needs to be done.

“Search engines, user upload content platforms, hosting companies, and domain name registrars and registries should follow others’ example to effectively stop theft and assure fair payment,” they say.

“Further, there is a massive ‘value grab’ as some of these corporations weaken intellectual property rights for America’s creators by exploiting legal loopholes never intended for them – perversely abusing U.S. law to underpay music creators, thus harming one of America’s economic and job engines.

“Surely the world’s most sophisticated technology corporations can do better – by helping to prevent illegal access and paying fair market value for music with prices set by or based on the free market.”

All of these issues were covered by the Joint Strategic Plan for Intellectual Property Enforcement released by the Obama administration this week. At this point (and despite political differences) it seems unlikely that Trump will deviate far from its key goal of protecting American interests both domestically and overseas.

However, as the SOPA debate of almost five years ago brought sharply into focus, technology companies and the content industries might need each other to progress, but agreement on IP issues are usually tough to come by, especially when that involves holding tech companies responsible for the infringements of others. Trump certainly has a balancing act up ahead, but the music groups know which way they want him to go.

“Strong protection for intellectual property rights will assure growth in both creativity and technology, benefiting the American economy as a whole. We hope you will lead the effort to assure American creativity is encouraged, invested in, protected and fairly compensated in a manner that carries out the exclusive rights guaranteed in the Constitution to those who, with the genius of their mind, form the cultural identity of our great nation,” they conclude.

The original letter can be found here (pdf)

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