Advertising and marketing efforts are all around us. Every waking hour of every day, someone somewhere tries to get us interested in their latest product or service.

While TV and radio have dominated over the years, increasingly the Internet is the go-to platform for companies determined to portray their product as the next big thing.

The Internet has many great qualities and for those looking to do something a bit different or wild, its unregulated nature means you can do whatever the hell you want. Or at the least shoot first, worry about the consequences later.

That appears to be the philosophy of the company behind the Z Stream Box, the next ‘big’ thing in audio-visual consumption. Promoted via a glossy website and numerous online videos, the set-top Z Stream Box aims to fulfil the dreams of every movie, TV show, sports and music junkie.

“Get the Biggest Shows, the Latest Movies, Stream the biggest blockbusters here first. Watch every episode of your favorite shows, past and present, Live and on demand. Enjoy the latest series and specials as they premiere without waiting,” the advertising reads.

“Break free of annual contracts, surprise fees and TV that ties you down. With Z Stream Box® get the TV you love over 100 of your favorite channels, Hit movies, Documentaries, Sports and more! NO contracts and NO monthly payments ever.”

While these kinds of claims are usually the sole preserve of pirate devices, there are various indicators on the Z Stream site suggesting that this must be a legitimate offer. Firstly, it has celebrity endorsements. Here’s a nice image of singer, songwriter and actress Christina Millian enjoying the device.

And to make sure that the cord-cutting phenomenon resonates with the younger generation, here’s YouTube star Jordyn Jones holding a Z Stream Box and looking surprised at how much it can do.

For those who haven’t already guessed, the basic premise of the Z Stream Box is that people can stop paying their expensive cable bills and get all their content online. It’s an Internet sensation!

Actually, let’s cut the nonsense. Z Stream Box is nothing more than a Kodi-enabled Android box with all the best pirate addons such as Genesis and Icefilms fully installed.

While that probably isn’t much of a shock by now, the way this device is being marketed is nothing short of remarkable.

Claimed celebrity endorsements aside, the people at Z Stream have commissioned a full-blown 18-minute infomercial for their device which must have cost a small fortune and would be at home on any shopping channel.

Seriously, this gig has absolutely everything – several glossy presenters, many actors, a perfect family, potential and existing ‘customers’ who can’t quite believe how good the device is, and much much more.

Of course, you’re probably wondering how much all this costs. Well, it’s the equivalent of just a few months cable, apparently. Admittedly that’s quite a lot of cash, but it’s the savings that are important, Z Stream say.

In the end it’s revealed the unit costs ‘just’ $295.95. That’s almost $300 for a box that would cost less than $100 if people looked around for something similar on eBay or Amazon. But do those products come with a free five-day cruise for two around the Bahamas, including all onboard meals and entertainment? Thought not. (18 minutes into the video below)

The full and quite unbelievable infomercial is embedded below and for those interested in just how far pirate advertising can go, the Z Stream Box website can be found here. Facebook here, YouTube account here.

Update: The Z Stream Box website has been taken down, Google Cache to the rescue, with Archive.is backup

Video mirror here

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

While ‘pirates’ don’t always come across as well-coordinated, the groups that make up the top of the piracy pyramid abide by strict rules and traditions.

This is particularly true for the more traditional release groups that belong to The Scene. These groups are highly organized and only share content among themselves through topsites. At least, that’s what they are supposed to.

Scene groups “race” against each other and their ultimate goal is to be the first to release a certain title. The more races they win, the more credit they earn, simple as that.

For most release groups it’s their reputation that counts. Money doesn’t play a major role in this game. Of course, some cash is needed to buy equipment and other gear, but the topic is generally not discussed, neither are calls for donations.

Breaking with what may be described as a taboo, one Scene group has decided to cross the bridge.

Starting recently, TV Scene group “spamTV” is including a call for support in their release notes, as the screenshot below clearly shows.

spamTV NFO calling for donations

“SUPPORT OUR CAUSE! BTC = 13mSLHHhmK5MUdtdcVVkmuJW9997EZpfM4,” a note in their NFO file reads.

This is the first time we’ve seen a Scene group publicly asking for Bitcoin donations through one of their releases. Given that Scene releases are supposed to stay private, we also wonder who the call is for.

While it may be unique for a Scene group, donations are more common among other pirate sources. P2P groups, distribution groups, and torrent site owners generally cater to a much wider audience, and many ask their users to chip in.

Unfortunately for them, pirates are not known as the most generous bunch, so the income from donations is usually minimal, to say the least.

This isn’t very different for spamTV. After listing their request for Bitcoin donations in several releases, they have yet to earn their first penny.

spamTV donations so far

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

There are plenty of options for copyright holders seeking to hinder the progress of pirate sites but one of the most effective is attacking domains.

The strategy has been employed most famously against The Pirate Bay and over the past couple of years the site has lost most of the domains it deployed to stay online.

At the very top of the domain name ‘tree’ is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This non-profit body is responsible for the smooth-running of the Internet’s Doman Name System. However, if copyright holders had their way, ICANN would also act as the Internet’s piracy police by forcing registrars to prevent illegal use of domain names.

Last year, ICANN told TorrentFreak that it had no role to play in “policing content” but of course, copyright holders continue to pile on the pressure.

The latest efforts come from the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) and the Coalition for Online Accountability (COA), which count the major studios and record labels among their members.

Both have concerns over the “Public Interest Commitments” (PICs) present in new gTLD registry agreements. Specification 11 states that registry operators must include a clause in their registry/registrar agreements which prohibits domain name holders from engaging in various kinds of abuse, from malware and phishing through to copyright and trademark abuse.

This contractual wording allows registries to lay down acceptable use rules with registrars, who in turn do the same with domain owners. However, IPC believes that it is the job of the registries, registrars and ultimately ICANN to enforce these terms and conditions and suspend pirate domains.

In April, IPC chief Greg Shatan wrote to ICANN chair Dr. Stephen Crocker (pdf). He expressed concern at earlier ICANN comments which indicated that the group considers copyright infringement, counterfeiting, and other fraudulent practices to be “outside its mandate”.

That was followed by a June 17, 2016 follow-up letter to ICANN from COA (pdf) expressing similar concerns.

This week, ICANN’s Dr. Crocker responded (pdf) to the April letter from IPC, confirming that his group will “bring enforcement actions” against registries and registrars that fail to include abuse warnings in their end-user agreements.

However, ICANN also made it crystal clear that it won’t be getting directly involved in disputes involving allegedly infringing domains.

“This does not mean, however, that ICANN is required or qualified to make factual and legal determinations as to whether a Registered Name Holder or a website operator is violating applicable laws and governmental regulations, and to assess what would constitute an appropriate remedy for such activities in any particular situation,” Dr. Croker told IPC.

Noting that both registries and registrars have expressed difficulty in assessing alleged violations of the law, ICANN invites those with a grievance against allegedly infringing sites to deal with matters themselves. One possibility might be through voluntary agreements such as those the MPAA struck with Donuts and Radix.

“While these initiatives are outside of ICANN’s limited remit, we are hopeful that these voluntary efforts will produce usable tools and mechanisms for use by Registries and Registrars,” Dr. Croker said.

Finally, ICANN notes that there is nothing stopping “harmed parties” from taking action against registries, registrars or domain owners “through administrative, regulatory or judicial bodies to seek fines, damages, injunctive relief or other remedies available at law.”

In other words, if copyright holders want something done about their disputes, there are several options available already. Just don’t expect ICANN to become judge, jury, and executioner.

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

“My new app, BitTorrent, is now in working order, check it out here,” Bram Cohen wrote on a Yahoo! message board on July 2, 2001.

It was the first time a working copy of the BitTorrent code had been made available to the public, but the initial response wasn’t exactly overwhelming.

“What’s BitTorrent, Bram?” was the sole reply he received on the board.

Fast forward 15 years and BitTorrent has become one of the most prominent technologies of the current millennium. One that transformed the web and which is still hugely relevant today.

When Cohen first announced his invention to the world, he could have never imagined that the technology would be used by hundreds of millions of people in the years that followed.

He was simply trying to improve file transfers, by using people’s upload and download capacity simultaneously.

“Fundamentally, I was trying to figure out how people on the Internet could utilize all the unused upstream bandwidth to make it faster to send huge files,” Bram Cohen told TorrentFreak, commenting on these early days.

BitTorrent FAQ Cohen wrote in 2001

While the technology itself was the main focus for Cohen, the public quickly realized that BitTorrent opened the door to sharing huge files, which was very rare at the time.

Since BitTorrent users download and upload at the same time, popular files are distributed more quickly. With other file-sharing technologies, distribution slows down.

This idea was a major breakthrough at the time. Before then, it was virtually impossible for a regular Internet user to share a video with dozens of people, but torrents made it possible. As a result, BitTorrent soon became responsible for a quarter of all Internet traffic.

As with many innovations on the web, porn fans were among the first to embrace the new technology in its full glory. Several of the early torrent sites were exclusively centered around adult content, and a torrent site without a porn category was rare.

After a few months, torrent sites started popping up left and right, listing a wide range of content. This included perfectly legal Linux distros, but also pirated copies of The Matrix, Photoshop and the Spice Girls’ latest album.

With the rise of sites such as The Pirate Bay, Mininova, isoHunt and KickassTorrents, torrents became a synonym for piracy among the broader public. However, the technology itself is “neutral” and used more broadly than most people realize.

Twitter and Facebook also discovered the power of BitTorrent. Behind the scenes, it’s helping these tech giants distribute files across their servers faster and more efficiently than any other alternatives. And the opportunities don’t end there.

BitTorrent Inc, the company Bram Cohen co-founded in 2004 has released various applications for the BitTorrent protocol over the past years. A “sync” tool that lets people run their private backup solution, for example, or a browser that serves webpages without the need for a central server.

Cohen himself also worked hard on a live streaming implementation of BitTorrent. Although this hasn’t been adopted widely just yet, BitTorrent Inc. believes that it could power the future of online live news and entertainment.

Whatever the future may look like, it is safe to say that with BitTorrent, Bram Cohen changed the lives of dozens of millions of people.

Directly, by allowing people around the world to easily share large files without the need for a central server. But also indirectly, by being one of the great motivators for the entertainment industries to compete with piracy and offer their content online.

If Bram hadn’t taken his invention public 15 years ago, the Internet may have looked very different today.

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

As the largest torrent site on the Internet, KickassTorrents (KAT) has become the go-to spot for millions of filesharers.

Like many other torrent sites, KAT is often used to share pirated files, much to the frustration of copyright holders.

However, unlike other sites such as The Pirate Bay, KAT accepts DMCA takedown notices. This means that rightsholders have the option to remove infringing content from the site.

This option hasn’t gone unnoticed by the site’s users, who sometimes see their uploads disappearing in real-time. In other cases, it can make it quite hard to find the latest episode of one’s favorite TV-show.

To find out how many DMCA requests the site processes, we asked the KAT team for an overview.

According to KAT’s official figures, 15,794 torrent files were deleted over the past week, and 55,238 for the most recent month. This means that at the current rate, the site removes more than half a million torrents per year.

Since the site started to keep track of the number of deleted torrents, which is a few years ago, well over a million torrents have been purged from the site. 1,200,313 to be precise.

Torrent removed…

While the removals are a source for frustration among users, it also encourages some to come up with creative solutions to ‘revive‘ removed torrents.

Torrent revived?

The KAT forums are littered with dedicated threads where people discuss alternative means to access removed content. For example, by generating a magnet link from the torrent’s hash.

In addition to reviving torrents, users also regularly re-upload files that have disappeared, starting a perpetual cat-and-mouse game.

Despite pushback from both users and copyright holders, the KAT team isn’t getting actively involved in the takedown discussion.

Like most other user-generated content platforms, they offer users the freedom to upload content as long as they stick to the rules, and rightsholders the tools to protect their work.

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