In July, Polish law enforcement officers arrested Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of KickassTorrents, who’s been held in a local prison ever since.

While awaiting the start of extradition hearings, Vaulin’s U.S. defense team has asked the Illinois federal court to dismiss the entire case.

In a detailed memorandum, lead counsel Ira Rothken argues that the U.S. Government’s allegations of criminal conduct are flawed. Assuming that Vaulin is indeed the site’s founder, he didn’t commit any crimes.

KickassTorrents (KAT) was merely a torrent search index, the defense explains. It provided a search function for torrent files which in and by themselves do not contain any copyrighted content.

“Websites like KAT are devoid of content files. Instead, KAT is nothing more than a search engine, no different in any material way from Google and other popular website search engines, except that KAT indexes BitTorrent files,” Rothken writes.

“Thus, at its core, the indictment merely alleges that visitors to KAT may take advantage of KAT’s automated search processes to search for and locate ‘dot torrent’ files. Such files contain textual information assembled by automated processes and do not contain copyrighted content.”

If KAT’s users downloaded any infringing content, this would occur away from the site on their local computers, beyond KAT’s control. Merely downloading a torrent file by itself is not an infringing act.

The fact that torrents themselves are not illegal means that operating a torrent index can’t be classified as a direct copyright infringement, according to the defense. As such, torrent search indexes don’t commit any criminal acts.

“The fundamental flaw in the government’s untenable theory of prosecution is that there is no copyright protection for such torrent file instructions and addresses. Therefore, given the lack of direct willful copyright infringement, torrent sites do not violate criminal copyright laws,” the memorandums reads.

It is possible to hold torrent site operators liable for “secondary” infringements committed by their users, as we have seen in the past. However, this is only possible under civil law, Vaulin’s defense team argues.

Congress has declined to include “secondary copyright liability” in criminal legislation. As such, the indictment accuses Vaulin of a crime that doesn’t exist.

“The indictment would make defendant responsible for infringements committed by former visitors to KAT who are acting in an entirely different online context. In the global connected culture, such elastic expansions of criminal exposure cannot be permitted to stand absent overt action by Congress updating the Copyright Act,” the defense notes.

Vaulin’s legal team further points out that the indictment fails to specify any copyrighted media that was downloaded or infringed in the United States. In addition, the money laundering claims are moot since these are based on the criminal copyright infringement claims.

In summary, the defense says that the U.S. Government’s claim of willful direct criminal copyright infringement for operating a torrent site fails. As such, they ask the federal court to dismiss the case in its entirety.

“Any theory that a torrent search engine could be held responsible for the offsite infringing acts of its users would be a theory of civil secondary copyright infringement. Such a civil theory is not an offense against the United States and fails as a matter of law.”

“Any and all counts that are dependent on criminal copyright infringement, including the conspiracy and money laundering counts, must fail. For all the reasons set forth above, the Court should dismiss the indictment,” Rothken adds.

The KAT case shows a lot of similarities to the criminal proceedings against Kim Dotcom, for whom Ira Rothken is also the lead counsel. Both cases center around questions of whether the defendants be extradited for secondary copyright infringement charges.

The U.S. Government is expected to counter these claims during the weeks to come, after which the court must make a decision.

The full memorandum of law in support of the motion to dismiss is available here (pdf).

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

There have been a number of anti-piracy technologies that have become loathed by video games pirates over the years. Some are hated due to their tendency to reduce the quality of the gaming experience. Others are predictably hated due to their effectiveness.

In fact, if one took the time to map dislike of a particular technology and place it on a timeline of how long it takes it to get bypassed or ‘cracked’, those graphs would look very similar indeed. So, when we say that Denuvo is currently the most-hated of all anti-piracy technologies, there’s no real need to ask why.

Just recently, however, pirates have had reason to celebrate. In a matter of months, Denuvo has gone from pretty much uncrackable to a little bit vulnerable.

Early August, a cracker known as Voksi found a loophole in Steam which allowed many Denuvo-protected titles to be played for free. It was a Denuvo bypass, not a full crack, but pirates were grateful. Then, just a few days later the gratitude developed into glee when the first full crack of Denuvo appeared online courtesy of cracking group CPY.

But pirates are always hungry for more and immediately wanted to know when new games would become available. They didn’t have to wait long. Just a couple of weeks later the iteration of Denuvo protecting ‘Inside’ was cracked in record time.

Not long after, those victories were followed by cracks for new games including Doom and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, so was this the beginning of the end for Denuvo? Well, it all depends on one’s perspective.

Over the years, anti-piracy companies have learned that claiming their technology is flawless has always come back to bite them. Denuvo is no different. In a new interview with MCVUK, the company explains that being uncrackable is neither the claim nor the aim.

“You have to have a realistic view of anti-piracy measures,” marketing director Thomas Goebl explains.

“There is no such thing as unbreakable protection. That’s something we always tell our clients to help manage their expectations. Our scope is to prevent early cracks for every title. We want to allow an initial window when a game is released to have an uncracked version and thus guarantee sales.”

When one considers the effort and funds expended leading up to a game’s release, it’s no surprise that the first few days and weeks are the most important in terms of sales. For so-called ‘AAA titles’ (a big target market for Denuvo), marketing expenses can run into millions of dollars, with every cent designed to make gamers salivate with anticipation while moving their hands ever closer to their wallets. Any delay on stopping a pirate copy appearing quickly translates to more sales, Denuvo says.

But despite notable recent setbacks, Denuvo-protected titles still do not appear online on day one. Or week one. Or even month one. If people want these games, they’re going to have to pay for them. In fact, it is not unusual for games to remain unpirated for months, something that was unthinkable only a year or two ago when titles often appeared online before launch.

Denuvo CEO Reinhard Blaukovitsch told MCVUK that there are a number of strategies that can be employed by developers in order to recoup their development costs and Denuvo is just one piece of the puzzle.

“Some trust in DRM solutions, ones that are user-friendly. They also trust in our solution. There may be other solutions, where you go DRM free or do different price ranges in different territories. This is a marketing decision and strategy that the publishers may want to use. If they decide on some DRM technology or techniques, we can help them,” Blaukovitsch says.

Marketing man Thomas Goebl says that good games will always sell well but as soon as a working pirated version is available online, suddenly developers have to compete with free.

“Even if the service is good, if it has nice community features and so on, those people who don’t want to pay for it simply won’t pay because there is free competition,” he says.

Interestingly, Goebl notes something that many pirates will understand already. Multi-player games that require constant access to an online service are in many cases less vulnerable than variants that can also be played substantially offline. Just Cause 3 (released 11 months ago but yet to be cracked) might be considered one such example.

“Especially for single player games, or if there’s a big single player portion to the game, it makes perfect sense to use an anti-tamper solution like ours to prevent any cracks during the launch window time frame,” Goebl says.

Some pirates might be asking why it’s possible to quickly crack Inside, for example, but not other games that have been released since. The partial answer to that is while crackers like CPY burn the midnight oil circumventing Denuvo, the developers at Denuvo are doing the same with CPY’s work.

“The procedure [after a crack] is the same every time. We analyze how the crack was done and then we update our protection. It’s a game of cat and mouse that we play,” Blaukovitsch says.

“There are many techniques we use to prevent people from debugging, reverse engineering and otherwise tampering with our software. We are improving that technology or those techniques on a day-to-day basis, and coming up with new ideas that are almost entirely new inventions on a monthly basis on how we improve our service.”

The end result, no matter how unpopular with pirates, is that by the company’s own metrics, Denuvo is winning. In the majority of cases the technology does indeed stop games being pirated before, during and after launch, and indeed many months on in most cases.

Whether that will continue to be the case moving forward is unclear, but right now Denuvo is still the most-hated anti-piracy technology on the market. As long as it remains that way, it will be doing its job.

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

Have you ever wanted to learn how to properly fight with a lightsaber? Then the New York Jedi club classes are the ideal place.

Leveraging the renewed Star Wars hype, the classes held in midtown Manhattan have gained widespread attention from the public and even mainstream media publications.

However, the phenomenon hasn’t gone unnoticed by Lucasfilm either, one of the major Star Wars rightsholders. The movie company is not amused with the lightsaber classes and has taken the matter to federal court.

In a complaint filed at a California District Court, they sue Michael Brown and several of his companies, including the popular New York Jedi club and the associated Lightsaber Academy.

“Defendants are in the business of promoting, producing, offering for sale and selling unauthorized ‘Lightsaber’ classes, which purport to teach students how to use ‘Lightsabers’ and/or perform as ‘Jedi’,” the complaint (pdf) reads.

Lucasfilm owns the trademarks to both “Jedi” and “Lightsaber,” which Brown’s businesses use to market their classes and events.

In addition, the ‘Lightsaber Academy,’ which issues certificates to prospective lightsaber practitioners, is accused of using a logo that’s similar to Lucasfilm’s Jedi Order logo.

“Defendants regularly use the Lucasfilm Trademarks without authorization in connection with their businesses. Among other infringing activities, Defendants use a logo that is nearly identical, and confusingly similar, to Lucasfilm’s trademark Jedi Order logo,” the complaint reads.

Trademarked logo

Lucasfilm sums up a variety of allegedly infringing acts and notes that the merchandising and domain names such as LightsaberAcademy.com and NYJedi.com also use trademark-infringing elements.

To Brown, the lawsuit shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. He is aware of the potential issues as he has repeatedly sought to license the use of various Star Wars elements, or get some other form of permission from Lucasfilm.

However, time and again the movie outfit refused to give its blessing.

“Lucasfilm has consistently denied Defendants’ requests. Lucasfilm has never licensed or authorized Defendants to make any commercial use of the Lucasfilm
Trademarks or any other of Lucasfilm’s intellectual properties,” the complaint notes.

Earlier this year Lucasfilm sent Brown a cease and desist order to prevent further infringements. However, instead of halting the business, Lightsaber Academy filed their own trademark application to protect their logo.

Meanwhile, the classes continued, with the next one being scheduled for this coming Thursday at Ripley Grier Studios.

Jedi class

Lucasfilm hopes that the court can bring an end to this once and for all.

They charge Brown and his businesses with trademark infringement, cybersquatting, unfair competition and more, with potential damages running into the dozens of millions.

Time will tell whether it’s wise to pick a fight with a group of highly organized Jedi. It’s going to be an interesting battle for sure.

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.

Mechanic: Resurrection is the most downloaded movie for the second week in a row.

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.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(1)	Suicide Squad	6.7 / trailer
2	(…)	Don’t Breathe	7.5 / trailer
3	(9)	Lights Out	6.6 / trailer
4	(2)	Star Trek Beyond	7.4 / trailer
5	(…)	Captain Fantastic	8.0 / trailer
6	(3)	Mechanic: Resurrection	5.8 / trailer
7	(4)	Captain America: Civil War	8.1 / trailer
8	(4)	Independence Day: Resurgence	5.4 / trailer
9	(…)	Mr. Church	7.3 / trailer
10	(5)	The Infiltrator	7.2 / trailer

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

With more than half of its population living in “absolute poverty,” Nigeria is one of the world’s poorest countries.

The economy has been growing in recent years but unfortunately, not all people reap the rewards. This is also true for those in the film industry.

With close to a billion U.S. dollars in box office revenue, “Nollywood” appears to be doing well. Still, not all actors and filmmakers are rich, as some people falsely assume.

According to Nigerian Pastor Joshua Iginla, piracy is one of the main problems, and he urges the local government to tackle this menace.

“The level of piracy in this country is serious; I hope government will do something about it,” Iginla says.

The pastor has been preaching this anti-piracy message for quite some time. He believes that Nollywood’s actors and actresses are Nigeria’s ambassadors, showing the world a positive image of the country.

However, he warns that the threat of piracy is real, noting that it has already caused several early deaths.

“Many [people] have died prematurely because they are hardworking but piracy has crippled them. We enjoy watching their films but we watch them when they are helpless with none to help them,” he says.

The public at large believes that all actors and actresses are rich, but the pastor says that this is a misunderstanding. This is something he personally experienced when actor Ayo Emmanuel contacted him with a call for help.

“I wept when Ayo Emmanuel sent me a text a few weeks back that he was sick and needed financial assistance,” Iginla says.

The pastor, who is known for his philanthropy, decided not to sit idly by. During the Sunday service at Champions Royal Assembly at City of Wonders last week, he generously donated a brand new Peugeot 301 to the sick actor.

Emmanuel was floored by the generous surprise gift, as the picture below fittingly illustrates.

Emmanuel’s response

The actor reportedly suffers from “spiritual and depression” related problems. While a car might not help him to cope with these challenges, he no longer needs a bus to get to church.

A full photo-op of the giveaway ceremony was posted on the pastor’s Facebook page, including one in which Emmanuel, popularly known as “Nollywood Policeman”, poses with a handwritten sign in front of his new car.

Emmanuel’s new car

The pastor is often criticized for giving away expensive gifts while so many others don’t have enough food to feed their families. However, Iginla stresses that actors have it rough too and that it’s up to him to decide where his money is spent.

While he has helped a lot of poor people, Nollywood actors and actresses are among his favorites.

Over the past several years he has donated dozens of luxury cars to Nollywood celebrities, including a Hummer Jeep, Mercedes G-Wagon, and Mercedes CLS 550.

The fortunate pastor clearly has enough money in the bank. In addition, he’s also seen a prophet by some. In 2016 several of his “prophecies” came true, although one publication notes that he’s not always right.

How exactly he acquired his fortune remains a mystery though, just like his gift of predicting the future.

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