Week in and week out copyright holders scour the Internet to detect and report millions of alleged infringements.

They report these links to Google and other services, with requests to take them offline.

Unfortunately, not all of these allegations are correct. Over the years, we have written dozens of articles on DMCA takedown abuse and mistakes. While these usually focus on other sites, we are sometimes targeted as well.

For example, a few days ago Estonian Theatrical Distribution tried to have two Torrentfreak.com URLs removed from Google’s search results.

The outfit in question owns the local distribution rights for the Dreamworks’ movie Trolls and indirectly accused us of spreading pirated copies.

Of course, reality is a bit more nuanced. If we take a look at the reported URLs it’s immediately clear that they’re not infringing at all. In fact, they’re not even about the movie in question.

As can be seen below, one of the “infringing” links points to a news report about the Swedish invasion of copyright trolls that was canceled last week. The other link is harmless as well, referencing our archive of “copyright trolls” articles.

The takedown notice

Apparently mentioning the word “trolls” in a news article can put you at risk of being scrapped from Google’s search results. Needless to say, these type of mistakes are quite worrisome.

And it’s not the only mistake they’ve made. The same notice also lists a link to a Boxtrolls torrent. While this may be pointing to infringing content, it’s an entirely different movie that’s accidentally targeted for using the word trolls.

Luckily for us, we have Google on our side.

The company wisely decided not to take any action and has kept our content in its search results. However, it’s easy to see how a mistake like this get missed in the millions of reports that come in every week.

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

At TorrentFreak we have no interest in reporting on politics, except when it’s relevant to copyright issues.

After the surprising victory of Donald Trump earlier this week, several people asked what this would mean for the country’s stance on piracy and copyright enforcement in general.

While we would love to dissect the issue in detail, there are no concrete policy proposals yet. Neither Trump nor Clinton have gone into detail over the past few months.

So what do we know?

It’s not a secret that Donald Trump made some rather dubious remarks during his election campaign. For example, he suggested that it might be worth considering whether to “close up” the Internet over terrorist threats.

Extreme or not, we believe that extrapolating these kinds of one-liners into copyright policy proposals goes a bit far, to say the least.

A concrete promise Trump has made on copyright issues came a few hours after his election victory. The president-elect vowed to end foreign trade abuses with help from the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), which keeps a close eye on pirate sites.

“I will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately,” Trump said.

This is tough language. Still, the promise is hardly any different from the general policy that’s been in place over the past several years. After all, identifying and addressing foreign trade abuses is one of the key goals of the USTR.

Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that Trump is not on his own. He needs Congress to steer the country in a new direction, and it may not always be easy to reach consensus.

Trump may very well have a pro-copyright agenda. But would that really change anything? Let’s review some of the copyright-related developments that took place under President Obama’s reign.

– The Department of Homeland Security seized dozens of domain names of alleged copyright infringing websites, leading to various constitutional complaints.

– The Government had to give back some of the seized domains and accidentally took down 84,000 websites.

– President Obama’s IP-Czar laid the groundwork for the controversial SOPA and PIPA bills, which were close to becoming law.

– The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to keep high staturory damages for copyright infringement intact to deter pirates.

– The U.S. Government tried to have UK student Richard O’Dwyer extradited for operating a linking site.

– The Department of Justice started major criminal prosecutions against the operators of Megaupload and KickassTorrents.

– Several U.S. site owners and other pirates were sent to jail, serving multiple years for copyright infringements.

And the list goes on and on.

Of course things can easily get more extreme, but thus far there haven’t been any concrete signs of that happening.

Ironically, one of Trump’s main promises is to end the TPP trade agreement, which digital rights activists widely condemned for its draconian copyright plans. So that’s definitely not a pro-copyright move.

This article is not an attempt to defend or critisize Trump. However, we do try to break away from all the one-sided and sensationalist analyses by trying to put things in perspective.

Perhaps it’s a good idea to take a step back and just wait and see. There will be plenty of policy proposals during the coming years, just as we’ve seen under Obama. If the Trump administration goes after The Pirate Bay, that would not be a change of course…

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

Each year, The Internet Foundation In Sweden (IIS) produces a report titled ‘Swedes and the Internet.’ As its name suggests, the report aims to shine light on how people behave online.

Covering issues from social media to smartphones, gambling, and of course, content consumption and file-sharing, the survey of 3,000 citizens aged 11-years-old and up has provided interesting insights in previous years. 2016 is no different.

“We continue to use the Internet to listen to music and watch movies. Eight out of ten listen to music and just over six out of ten watch movies. This is most popular among the young where almost everyone is doing it,” the report reads.

“Youtube is the most popular site for all ages. It begins in the pre-school years and almost all four-year-olds are using Youtube, but also the oldest are frequent users.

“With the arrival of streaming services more have begun to pay for music and film, but nevertheless file-sharing remains around 20 percent of the population, which it has done for almost ten years.”

But while the survey indicates that peer-to-peer file-sharing has remained static, other areas of unauthorized content consumption have been on the increase. Notably, web-based streaming services are gaining traction, particularly among lower age groups.

But of course, people obtaining content for free is only part of the puzzle. People paying for official online services has been on the increase since their inception. In 2011, for example, 15% of the population streamed music. That had increased to 38%, 42% and 44% in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively.

In 2015, after a late start for video, 28% were subscribing to a Netflix-like service and this year that figure reached 38%. Roughly speaking, four-out-of-ten now pay for a music or video streaming service but it is the young (and traditionally the most likely to pirate) who are the most enthusiastic customers.

In fact, IIS says that those who engage in illegal file-sharing and unauthorized streaming are also more likely to pay.

“File-sharers previously bought at least as many CDs as those who do not file-share and today we can see that it is more common for file-sharers to subscribe to streaming services for music and movies than those who do not,” the organization explains.

“60 percent of file-sharers pay for music streaming services, compared with 39 percent of those who do not share files and 44 percent of the population.

“The ratio is similar for those who use the sites where you can download movies for free. 53 percent of those pay for a Netflix-like streaming service, compared with 34 percent of those who are not downloading movies for free,” IIS notes.

The figures are an improvement on those reported in last year’s survey.

In 2015, 58% of music pirates put their hands in their pockets to pay versus just 39% of non-filesharers. The figures for the movie sector were 46% and 24% respectively.

The full report can be downloaded here (pdf, Swedish)

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

Google regularly checks websites for malicious and harmful content to help people avoid running into dangerous situations.

This safe browsing service is used by modern browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, which throw up a warning before people attempt to visit risky sites.

Frequent users of The Pirate Bay are familiar with these ominous warning signs. The site has been flagged several times over the past few years and twice in recent weeks.

This issue is more common on pirate sites as these only have access to lower-tier advertising agencies, some of which have minimal screening procedures for ads.

Thus far the browser roadblocks have always disappeared after the rogue advertisements have gone away, but according to Google, the red flag can become more permanent in the future.

The company has announced that it has implemented a “repeat offender” policy to address sites that frequently run into these problems. This is to prevent sites from circumventing the security measures by turning malicious content off and on.

“Over time, we’ve observed that a small number of websites will cease harming users for long enough to have the warnings removed, and will then revert to harmful activity,” Google’s Safe Browsing Team writes.

“Safe Browsing will begin to classify these types of sites as ‘Repeat Offenders’,” the announcement adds.

Chrome’s Pirate Bay block

The new policy will only affect sites that link to harmful content. So-called ‘hacked’ sites, which Google also warns about, are not part of these measures.

Under these new rules, The Pirate Bay is also at risk of being benched for 30 days if it’s caught more than once in a short period of time. The same applies to all other sites on the Internet of course.

TorrentFreak asked Google what the timeframe is for sites to get a repeat offender classification, but the company hasn’t yet replied.

The Pirate Bay team isn’t really concerned about the new policy. They stress that in their case, the issue lies with third-party advertisers which they have no control over.

“Tell Google to get an ad blocker?” TPB’s Spud17 notes.

“Seriously though, there aren’t a lot of ad agencies willing to work with sharing sites. The ones we have access to aren’t very concerned with what they put up, and don’t exactly give us a preview of what their clients send them before they air it.”

The TPB team doesn’t see their site as a repeat offender. However, for the ad agencies there’s a lot at stake so perhaps this measure will trigger them to be more vigilant.

“It’s infrequent enough, I don’t believe TPB will be flagged as a Repeat Offender. Ultimately, that will cost the ad agencies dearly if all their clients were permanently denied visitors.

“So maybe in the long run those agencies with a tendency to serve malicious ads will better screen their clients,” Spud17 adds.

Even if The Pirate Bay or other pirate sites get banned for thirty days, it’s not the end of the world. People can easily disable the malware checking option in their browser to regain direct access. That is, if they are willing to take the risk.

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

Following changes to Canada’s copyright law in early 2015, ISPs are now required to forward copyright infringement notices to their customers. Copyright owners and anti-piracy outfits have taken full advantage, with tens of thousands of users becoming targets for warnings and even demands for cash.

With opportunities for generating revenue piling up, the volume of notices has continued to increase, causing headaches for users and ISPs alike. The phenomenon has also been felt at the University of Calgary, which acts as a service provider to thousands of students.

Inevitably, some of those students have been using their connections to obtain music and movies for free, which has led to the university receiving large numbers of notices. So, in an effort to reduce the instances of alleged infringement, the university has recently banned BitTorrent usage on several WiFi networks.

Speaking to student newspaper The Gauntlet, vice-president finance and services Linda Dalgetty said that the effect was felt immediately. During the first eight days of the ban, the university received 90% fewer notices than usual.

“I think what we’re finding is it has definitely made a difference. But we have to monitor that, because statistically, we have to go through a longer time frame than eight days,” Dalgetty said.

According to Dalgetty, reducing the number of infringement notices wasn’t the only consideration. The volume of traffic and other threats were also on the agenda.

“The more streaming we have on the campus, the more it impacts network performance and that takes away the user experience for other pursuits,” she said. “The third [reason] is security. The more streaming we have, the [higher chance] of inadvertently downloading something that would create issues.”

Despite the ban, if people at the university simply must use BitTorrent as part of their academic activities they can apply for an exemption. Any use must be permitted under copyright law for the application to be successful.

Moving forward, the university may not stop at only blocking BitTorrent. Speaking with TorrentFreak, The Gauntlet news editor Scott Strasser shared information which indicates that if there are problems with other file-sharing tools, they too could be subjected to a block.

The university’s BitTorrent ban is the latest fallout from Canada’s notice-and-notice regime. Earlier this month, Christine McMillan from Ontario made the headlines as the more recent victim of copyright trolls. They accused the 86-year-old of illegally downloading a zombie game and warned that a $5,000 fine could follow.

McMillan has refused to pay the fine.

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