Over the past years a lot has been said about the effectiveness and accuracy of DMCA takedown practices.

Rightsholders often complain that it’s impossible to keep content offline, while critics warn about mistakes caused by automated takedown bots.

The latter has been illustrated anecdotally, but we recently stumbled upon a rather worrying development that illustrates just how far anti-piracy groups are prepared to go when it comes to fabricating “evidence”.

One of the companies involved is IP-Echelon, which sends takedown notices on behalf of HBO and Paramount Pictures, among others.

Looking through their recent submissions we see notices targeting sites that allegedly distribute popular content such as recent episodes of Game of Thrones, Ballers, and Silicon Valley.

Among the sites reported are The Pirate Bay, ExtraTorrent and various lesser known sites. However, our eye was drawn to Zoink.it and Torrage.com.

The latter two have been operating as so-called torrent caches for a long time. These don’t have a searchable index of torrents, but serve as a hosting platform for torrent sites, identifying torrents by their unique hash.

For example, a torrent for an episode of Ballers that aired a few weeks ago has the hash C87000EF73557A488D5C21BF8F9FA4CC24EC0513. This file would then be available at Zoink under the following url:

zoink.it/torrent/C87000EF73557A488D5C21BF8F9FA4CC24EC0513.torrent.

We say would be, because Zoink.it was shut down at the end of 2014. The same is true for the other torrent cache, Torrage, which has been offline for quite a while as well.

However, the takedown notices IP-Echelon sends on behalf of HBO and Paramount pictures still list these sites with hashes of new torrents, which never existed when the sites were still online.

How can this be? Well, it seems obvious that IP-Echelon is fabricating URLs based on torrent hashes without checking if they even exist. This isn’t an isolated mistake either, as the company is sending dozens of these fabricated notices per month.

In this case, no harm has been done. The sites in question are offline and can’t be punished by Google’s downranking algorithm. However, the fact that they keep fabricating links more than a year after sites have disappeared, shows that there is little oversight.

TorrentFreak spoke to the former hosting provider of Zoink and Torrage who confirms that both sites remain targeted, and not just by IP-Echelon.

Indian anti-piracy outfit MarkScan is also sending takedown notices to Zoink and Torrage’s former hosting provider on a regular basis, we were informed. In addition, the company is also sending takedown requests to Google for new torrents, as does Rico Management.

It’s safe to say that these anti-piracy outfits are quite sloppy, to say the least. Of course, copyright holders have the right to protect their content, but they have to play by the rules.

Making up evidence certainly doesn’t look good in this regard.

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

When peer-to-peer file-sharing networks started to gain traction more than a decade and a half ago, it soon became clear that if entertainment industries were to compete, they’d need to step up their game.

In the early 2000s, for example, users of Sharman Networks’ Kazaa software already had wide and free access to music and video titles. The introduction of BitTorrent shortly after only turned up the pressure.

Fifteen years down the line it’s now clearer than ever. The true enemy of illicit file-sharing is broad and convenient access to all content at a fair price. In the meantime, however, platforms such as torrent sites continue to pick up the slack. More than a decade ago, they were leading the charge.

Founded in 2003/4, torrent site UKNova took a somewhat unusual approach to its offering. Rather than the free-for-all witnessed on most platforms, UKNova aimed to responsibly service UK-based consumers and those overseas with select content that couldn’t easily be obtained by other means.

Initially, the site catered to a few ex-pats who were desperate for their fix of long-running TV soap, Eastenders. It had been made available in the States by BBC America, but in 2003 the iconic show was dropped.

“After initially sending VHS tapes across the Atlantic, a daring foray into the unknown world of trackers and torrents was made by brave visionaries and uknova.com was born,” a site operator told TorrentFreak.

“UKNova rapidly became known as the ‘go-to’ place for UK television and for a while was probably the leading private tracker catering to ex-pats and Anglophiles around the world.”

Most private torrent sites have strict rules, but UKNova went a step further than most by only allowing UK-produced TV content that was not available on DVD or premium channels. But despite the restrictions, UKNova was a success.

“Membership rapidly grew and was voluntarily limited to between 30,000 and 40,000 members. Forum activity could become so heavy that server problems arose, leading to an iconic ‘Mind The Gap‘ message.”

But UKNova was much more than just a torrent site. Like many niche trackers, UKNova had a thriving close-knit community centered around the theme and culture of UK TV. With assistance from the site’s radio station, those friendships thrived beyond the digital space.

“Events and activities grew from the forums: picnics and meet-ups, annual awards ceremonies with live radio, mugs and t-shirts, fantasy football leagues, and above all solidarity for members who were in need, ill or deceased,” the operator explains.

“There were at least four marriages resulting from friendships struck up on UKNova’s forums and IRC chat.”

Due to the nature of UK TV (free to view, for those who pay the standard license fee), UKNova offered a lot of BBC content. Back in the early days BBC iPlayer simply did not exist so once shows disappeared off air, that was that until the corporation decided to bring them back. UKNova not only filled that gap, but even received a request to help the BBC complete its archives.

“During this time relations with the BBC were cordial. In one case UKNova was even asked if they could find a missing recording of documentary series Horizon,” a site representative explains.

But by 2012, the atmosphere had begun to shift.

“UKNova is being forced to change,” an operator told TF at the time. “We have been issued with a ‘cease and desist’ order by FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft.”

FACT was clear in its demands. All copyrighted content needed to come down, no matter where that content had come from and despite the fact that UKNova had never had a complaint from any TV station since its inception. The site didn’t believe it could be successfully prosecuted but had no way of defending itself.

“UKNova has never had any source of revenue other than donations to help pay for the servers and bandwidth. In latter years the site survived uniquely on private donations from Staff,” TF was told.

Within weeks UKNova shut down, but the dream wasn’t quite over yet.

“In 2013 a group of independent users decided to re-ignite the flame with a new site which was kept as low profile as possible. This site kept the ethos of the original UKNova, with the same rules concerning commercially available material,” a site veteran explains.

This, it appears, was to be the site’s ultimate undoing. The environment in 2013 was massively different to that of 2003. Legitimate services were appearing left and right, meaning that the content pool available to UKNova users under the site’s own stringent rules was diminishing every day.

UKNova’s decision to maintain its position as “the ethical torrent site” was cutting off its own oxygen supply and over the next three years the site began to die.

“In 2016 it became clear that the advent of the BBC Store and Amazon Video, linked to the quasi-immediate availability of shows from other channels on DVD, meant that allowable content was shrinking daily,” a site operator explains.

With the main reason for people visiting the site diminishing all the time, members had less and less to talk about. The continued rise of external and mainstream social media only exacerbated the situation.

“The discussion forums were grinding to a halt and membership was gradually shrinking. Rather than flogging a dead horse it seemed appropriate to turn out the lights, lock the door and gracefully retire.”

On Saturday August 7, UKNova’s trackers were taken offline. A week later the site was shuttered completely. UKNova was dead, this time for real.

“It’s been a good long run, so much good has been done, and so much fun has been had, by so many people – a unique experience. But all good things..,” the site said in a closing statement.

While FACT’s intervention was certainly an unwelcome one, it seems fairly clear that its own strict rules and the availability of legitimate content was what ultimately led to UKNova’s demise. Sadly, however, UKNova’s initial goals of serving the ex-pat community are still proving a problem today.

Only last week, FACT and the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Unit shut down an IPTV service directly aimed at British citizens living abroad.

PIPCU said that the platform had many thousands of customers, showing that a potentially lucrative market still exists if only someone, somewhere, would service it. Someone will, but it won’t be UKNova.

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

The makers of Dallas Buyers Club have sued thousands of BitTorrent users over the past few years.

Many of these cases end up being settled for an undisclosed amount. This usually happens after the filmmakers obtain the identity of the Internet account holder believed to have pirated the movie.

The tactics used by Dallas Buyers Club (DBC) are often described as “copyright trolling,” and equated to the abusive practices of Prenda Law.

However, according to Dallas Buyers Club attorney James S. Davis this is certainly not the case. In a recent filing requesting the deposition of an alleged pirate, he distances his enforcement actions from Prenda’s previous practices.

“In these cases, Plaintiffs would offer settlements for a sum calculated to be just below the cost of defense, creating a situation in which a Defendant would reluctantly pay rather than have their names associated with illegally downloaded porn,” DBC’s lawyer writes (pdf).

“This was a pattern of clear abuse and is well recognized,” he adds.

It’s quite unusual for a lawyer to open his filing by scolding his former ‘colleagues,’ but in this case it serves a higher purpose.

The problem, according to Davis, is that Prenda’s actions gave rise to an “aggressive BitTorrent Defense Bar.” This group of individuals and organizations is actively protests all related copyright enforcement actions, including DBC’s cases.

This group of torrent defenders apparently uses TorrentFreak and other sites to spread their message to the public.

“[An] aggressive BitTorrent Defense Bar, whom is against any copyright enforcement, has attempted to have all copyright enforcement actions categorized as part of the ‘porn-trolling collective’ through the use of the internet with sites like, dietrolldie.com, torrentfreak.com, fightcopyrighttrolls.com, and related arguments presented to the courts,” Davis writes.

As if that wasn’t enough, the “defense bar,” which is apparently against all copyright enforcement, also organizes itself on a political level through the “copyleft” Pirate Party.

“In some countries this opposition is organized as a political party called the Pirate Party, but domestically often referred to as the Copyleft. This BitTorrent Defense Bar is critical of any copyright enforcement actions without regards to any specifics,” Davis writes.

Davis tells the court that copyright holders can’t do anything right in the eyes of these torrent defenders. If settlement amounts are too high it’s seen as extortion, and if they’re too low they exploit the costs of litigation and their nuisance value.

Dallas Buyers Club’s lawyer hopes that the court will see through these arguments and judge the cases on their merit.

“On scrutiny, the courts are finding that current enforcement practices used by counsel, are not to ‘plunder the citizenry,’ ‘exploit individuals,’ monetizing, or profiting from illegal downloading, but truly motivated by Plaintiff’s desire to protect its copyrights interests and fight piracy,” he writes.

At TorrentFreak we were surprised to see ourselves mentioned in relation to a mysterious copyleft BitTorrent defense bar that rallies against all copyright enforcement.

While we have our opinions, we do not recognize ourselves in the description given by DBC’s lawyer. In fact, without copyright enforcement we would have very little to write about.

We contacted Davis for a comment on the allegations but unfortunately he hasn’t replied to our request, perhaps worried that we would unleash our inner copyleftists.

Luckily for him, however, his arguments did convince the court. Judge Jacqueline Scott granted his request to interrogate various alleged BitTorrent pirates, which he can use to find out more about the actual copyright infringers.

Some would say that such depositions can be abused as another instrument to pressure defendants into settling, but those concerns are unwarranted according to Davis, of course.

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

Anthropoid is a new historical thriller which tells the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, and one of the main architects of the Holocaust.

The movie has been getting mixed reviews so for those worried that their investment may leave them underwhelmed, a pirate copy is often the solution.

In the early days following a release, file-sharers often have to put up with so-called ‘cam’ or camcorder copies. Nearly always of low quality, these are often avoided by those who don’t mind waiting for a better release. Nevertheless, studios feel that any copy is a threat and they often hire anti-piracy companies to purge them from the web.

That’s exactly what New York City-based film distribution company Bleecker Street did to protect the release of Anthropoid with their hiring of India-based anti-piracy outfit MarkScan. On August 12, on the day of the movie’s release in the US, MarkScan began sending takedowns to Google.

However, there was a ‘small’ problem. Anthropoid hadn’t even been leaked online yet.

In a notice to Google targeting 66 unique domains, MarkScan demanded the removal of dozens of allegedly infringing links. Of course, not a single one related to a leak of the full movie. As can be seen in the sample below, many links reference sites that appear to have the movie but in fact only carry the official trailer.

But while taking down the official trailer is enough to ensure that fewer people are aware of the movie’s existence, MarkScan weren’t finished yet, not by a long way.

The very first link in the notice targets a completely unrelated and entirely legal short film which just happens to use the word ‘Anthropoid’ in its description.

The third link – and this is a good one – attempts to stop anyone on Twitter finding the movie using the hashtag ‘Anthropoid’ by asking Google to remove ‘https://twitter.com/hashtag/anthropoid’ from its search indexes.

What follows is a car crash of sizeable proportions, with MarkScan attempting to take down promotional material and video clips from the Wall Street Journal, People.com, The Hollywood Reporter, and many other sites discussing the title.

As if that wasn’t enough, MarkScan then places the BBC in its sights, demanding that Google removes its world radio and TV homepage from the company’s search results, for no apparent reason.

Fortunately, Google spotted this disastrous notice before it did any real harm and refused to remove any links. That means that the many reviews the company tried to wipe out will stand, as will the BBC’s radio and TV page.

However, it boggles the mind to think that an anti-piracy outfit would send such a notice (and presumably charge the distributor for it) before taking the time to check that the movie had actually been leaked online. But by now, that’s not really a surprise, especially given MarkScan’s earlier efforts.

Update: Google has added a note to the DMCA notice to say that the submitter may be an imposter or someone abusing the takedown process.

Update 2: Comment from Markscan. “We have filed a police complaint re these fraudulent notices few months back, Google as well as compliant websites are also well aware of the situation, and we have been coordinating with them.”

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

H2O is a tool that allows professors and students to share learning material in a more affordable way.

This is very welcome in a time where textbook and other educational costs continue to rise year after year.

Developed by the Berkman Center and the Harvard Law School Library, the H2O platform is mainly geared towards law professors but anyone with an .edu email address is allowed to join.

“H2O allows users – faculty or students – to develop, remix, and share online textbooks and casebooks under a Creative Commons license,” Harvard Law School explains.

H2O is a welcome system that’s actively used by many renowned scholars. However, in recent weeks the platform was also discovered by scammers. As a result, it quickly filled up with many links to pirated content.

Instead of course instructions and other educational material, the H2O playlists of these scammers advertise pirated movies. Below is an example of one of these dubious entries, but there are thousands more.

The scammers in question are operating from various user accounts and operate much like traditional spam bots, offering pages with movie links and related keywords such as putlocker, megashare, viooz, torrent and YIFY.

A “pirate” H2O playlist

While most students won’t mind free access to the latest blockbusters, the links provided are not leading to regular pirate sites and services.

Instead they point to scammy portals, many of which require a credit card to signup, which undoubtedly leads to disappointment. These kinds of scams are nothing new, but seeing them listed on a Harvard website is a new development.

Access?

With links from the official Harvard domain name, the pages are an SEO goldmine and do very well in Google’s search results. This is something copyright holders have noticed too..

Over the past few weeks movie studios including Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, Columbia and Magnolia Pictures have sent dozens of DMCA notices trying to get the pages removed from the search engine.

Interestingly, Google has thus far chosen to take no action, which means that the pages remain indexed in search results. Whether the movie studios have sent DMCA notices to Harvard directly is unknown, but since the H2O playlists are still online this seems unlikely.

Although the movie link pages don’t meet the standards of a typical Harvard course, they do serve as a crash course on how to recognize piracy scams and avoid them in the future. That’s worth something too.

Update: Harvard Law School informed TorrentFreak that several of the spam pages were already removed, but that some remain cached. They are doing their best to address the issue and prevent similar spam in the future.

“We take these issues seriously. It’s not what H2O is intended for, but this is one of the challenges of trying to maintain an open system. We’ve taken action recently to restrict new accounts and to remove spam accounts and inappropriate content,” H2O’s Adam Ziegler says.

“We’re taking steps to clear [the cached pages] out, to dig for other material that should be removed and to further limit opportunities for abuse.”

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