In an effort to combat piracy, copyright holders report millions of infringing links to Google on a daily basis.

Due to the high number of often automated notices and the fact that copyright holders don’t always check the validity of all requests, mistakes are a common occurrence.

An occasional mishap is understandable, of course, but this week we stumbled upon one of the worst series of takedown notices we have ever seen.

Over the course of a few days reporting organization Copyright UNIVERSAL asked Google to remove thousands of links from its search engine. In their listing we do indeed see some infringing URLs, but it’s the legal content that really stands out.

In fact, it is safe to say that no website is safe for the overzealous anti-piracy group.

Over the past week Copyright UNIVERSAL has asked Google to remove 4,224 URLs including various high profile sites. While we don’t have room to highlight all ‘mistakes,’ we’ve made a selection of some of the most outrageous errors.

Let’s start off with the MPAA, a fellow anti-piracy group which has called on Google to make sure that reported URLs remain offline. According to a recent notice from Copyright UNIVERSAL, their ratings page is clearly infringing.

The same is true for legal offerings from movie stores and streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon and Apple’s iTunes.

According to the notices, Google’s very own Play store is also copyright infringing.

In fact, even Hulu’s original series are not safe from the overactive anti-piracy group’s recent takedown spree.

But that’s just the beginning. Various Internet providers including Comcast, Verizon and Cox also offer entertainment online. This is not permitted according to Copyright UNIVERSAL which is targeting the respective sites in various takedown notices.

Then there are offline film broadcasting outlets, commonly known as movie theaters. These generally have a good relationship with copyright holders, but that doesn’t mean they can stay online.

The Copyright UNIVERSAL notices target several cinemas including the homepages of AMC Theaters and Vox Cinemas, as shown below.

The same is true for film rating sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, which are both targeted in several requests.

Turning it up a notch, the anti-piracy group is also cracking down on sports leagues, as both the NBA and NFL sites are targeted.

And what about the official movie homepage for The Huntsman: Winter’s War, tucked in between several news articles and other legitimate sites such as the Verge, The Age, The Australian and The Sun.

The list goes on and on and on….

After keeping a close eye on DMCA takedown mistakes over the past several years, these are by far the worst. Keep in mind that the above is just a small selection of all the inaccuracies, which can be found in full here.

Unfortunately it is not clear on whose authority Universal COPYRIGHT is acting. The sloppy anti-piracy outfit reportedly operates from India but that’s pretty much all we know at this point.

TorrentFreak reached out to Google, who said they would look into the matter, but we haven’t heard back since.

The good news is that thanks to Google’s sharp eye none of the inaccurately reported links have been removed. So even if Copyright UNIVERSAL continues its crusade against pretty much the entire Internet, it’s unlikely that it will succeed.

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

Wherever there’s a controversy over unauthorized file-sharing it’s almost guaranteed that the copyright trolls at Guardaley won’t be far behind. For many years the company has been central to cases against alleged file-sharers around the world, from the United States through to the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Guardaley is at the heart of what many describe as a “settlement factory”, an industrialized system to track infringements on file-sharing networks, identify Internet subscribers, and leverage cash payments from them, whether they’re guilty or not.

The list of films ‘protected’ by Guardaley is extensive but includes well-known troll fodder such as The Hurt Locker, The Expendables and The Company You Keep.

Chief Operating Officer Patrick Achache largely operates in the background but in recent times has been nurturing his public image. From public declarations of his charitable work to parading in the UK to warn of impending file-sharing doom, Achache paints himself as man on a mission of goodness. His targets, however, feel little but misery.

In a new interview conducted at the Cannes Film Festival and published on FilmFestivals.com (article since disappeared), Achache describes his life and frustrations as one of the world’s most visible copyright trolls.

“The technology to identify IP addresses is very easy – it’s participating in file-sharing networks, the difficult part is the data management and analysis, as well as the traffic. We record 200 million IP addresses per day and that is a lot to process, analyze and store,” he explains.

But while tracking might be the easy part, Achache sees pushing the boundaries of the legal system as a valuable tool to elicit payments from alleged infringers.

“Our lawyers are constantly looking into setting up new precedence cases (e.g. third party liability). In the US we have always worked with the statutory damages, which can be up to $150,000 USD for willful copyright infringement. Let us be serious – there is nothing like clicking on the wrong link and [getting] caught up in our software,” Achache says.

While it’s not difficult to take much of what Achache says with a healthy side portion of salt, he’s certainly not wrong there. Over the years tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of alleged file-sharers have fallen into Guardaley’s global clutches and most regret having done so.

“Our clients have sued infringers in Singapore. There are criminal proceedings in Poland, where people get arrested and their computers get taken away. We have provided data for at least 1,000 lawsuits in Germany. In the US our clients are thriving to take someone to court,” he reveals.

But while Achache and his clients regularly speak of their desire to go to court, their real aim is cash settlements. Achache won’t give the details but he says his lawyers have reached financial agreements with some amazing people – the German equivalent of the FBI, for example.

“We caught their IP address several times. They admitted, but I can’t provide further details as per confidentiality of the settlement. Our lawyers have all type of businesses – gas stations, embassies, army bases, banks, law firms – the list is really long. Some have thousands of illegal files on their hard drives.”

It can’t be denied that plenty fall into the Guardaley trap but it isn’t always plain sailing. According to Achache, ISPs opposing efforts to unmask file-sharers can be quite a challenge.

“In various jurisdictions they fight back hard, as they earn money from the pirating consumers which are signing on high volume bandwidth contracts,” he says.

But there are bigger challenges, ones that involve convincing industry groups and the authorities that the best way to deal with file-sharers is to threaten them with court action until they cough up hard cash.

“What is [an even bigger challenge] is to convince industry bodies and local government that the way we police piracy is the only effective way,” Achache says.

“Let us take the UK as an example: We have sent letters to all the industry bodies, tried to work with the House of Lords, sent a letter to David Cameron. No one ever responded. That’s why we call out the UK government as cowards like Avi Lerner did.”

For those familiar with the work of copyright trolls, the idea that Achache is surprised that no one responded to his overtures is somewhat surprising in itself, not to mention amusing.

While most industry bodies have a huge interest in protecting their copyrights, there is absolutely zero chance that a group like the BPI, for example, would team up with Guardaley to demand money from grandmothers, as the company recently did in the UK.

Furthermore, expecting a response from the Prime Minister is so optimistic as to be laughable and wanting to work with the House of Lords shows a disregard for history.

In 2010 the UK’s Lord Lucas described copyright trolling as “a scam” and “legal blackmail“, Lord Young likened trolls to “rogue wheel-clampers”, and several other members of the House joined them in criticism. This is not a business that lawmakers want to get involved in.

But for Achache and his numerous rightsholder partners, such setbacks are just another day at the office. Guardaley are planning on expansion, including a new case in Australia where the Dallas Buyers Club case just crashed and burned, plus other English speaking territories.

In the meantime, downloaders of the movies ‘London Has Fallen’ and ‘Criminal’ need to take care since Achache has revealed that those titles are being monitored by his company. Expect the threats and cash demands to follow in the not too distant future.

Essential further reading on Guardaley here for those hungry for the details.

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

Among the broader public BitTorrent Inc. is mostly know as the parent company of the popular BitTorrent and uTorrent software applications.

The two file-sharing clients, which have a base of roughly 170 million monthly users, are also the main sources of revenue for the venture capital-backed company.

Over the years BitTorrent has tried to launch many other applications and services to diversify its revenue stream, but these efforts haven’t been very successful.

One of the best received projects is perhaps “Sync,” a Dropbox competitor that allows users to securely sync folders across multiple devices using the BitTorrent protocol. Within a few months the new tool had over a million users sharing dozens of petabytes of data.

Despite this success, BitTorrent Inc. is now saying farewell to the Sync application which it will spinoff into a new company.

Name Resilio, the new company will rebrand Sync as “Connect” and continue its development under the wings of BitTorrent’s former CEO Eric Klinker, Variety reports.

BitTorrent Inc., meanwhile, will increase its focus on media. This is something Klinker was hesitant about, as not all rightsholders are happy with BitTorrent’s role in the piracy ecosystem.

However, with two new CEO’s steering the ship the company has set sail for Los Angeles, where it will soon open a new office.

As part of the new strategy the company will focus on offering a wide range of ‘legitimate’ entertainment through several new applications.

This includes the recently announced BitTorrent Live service, which will launch with a wide variety of programming. Live streaming has been one of the main focuses of BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen for a long time, but the technology has yet to see its breakthrough.

In addition to streaming, the company will continue to promote artist “bundles” though their BitTorrent and uTorrent clients.

In recent years BitTorrent Inc. has had trouble building new revenue streams. Just last year it had to lay off one third of its workforce, so the company hopes that this new direction will pay off in the long run.

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

Taking recording equipment into a cinema with the intention of grabbing a copy of the latest movie is a very risky occupation in the United States. Thanks to the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act 2005, doing so is a criminal offense.

“Any person who, without the authorization of the copyright owner, knowingly uses or attempts to use an audiovisual recording device to transmit or make a copy of a motion picture…from a performance of such work in a motion picture exhibition facility, shall..be imprisoned for not more than 3 years, fined under this title, or both,” the Act reads.

Over the years this legislation has been applied to everyone from the world’s most prolific pirates to absolute innocents. Nevertheless, the existence of this law has undoubtedly contributed to a significant drop in camcording offenses in the United States. Some people, however, don’t see the danger

Yesterday the unlikely-named romantic comedy “A Aa” enjoyed its worldwide premiere. One of the theaters showing the movie was the Muvico Rosemont in Chicago.

According to the movie distribution company behind “A Aa” there was some unexpected action Thursday at the 18 screen complex. Bluesky Cinemas reports that a student from Valparaiso University, Indiana, took a mobile phone into the premiere and began recording the movie and live streaming it on Facebook.

While it’s relatively common at this point for people to get caught by theater staff, the infringement was reportedly monitored by an anti-piracy team 8,200 miles away in Hyderabad, the capital city of the southern Indian state of Telangana.

After taking action to remove the links on Facebook, Bluesky Cinemas’ anti-piracy team say they contacted management at the Muvico Rosemont in Illinois. In turn, staff there called the police.

“[The] student was caught red-handed with [the] content,” Bluesky said in a statement.

But while these kinds of cases often get seriously out of hand (and an arrest is of course somewhat serious), Bluesky reports that the content recorded on the students’ device – all few minutes of it – was subsequently deleted. That hints at a no-further-action scenario.

Nevertheless, the police clearly thought this offense was worth dealing with based on instructions issued from half way around the world, even if the recording was probably not professional in nature.

“Recording and sharing unauthorized video in social media is also a part of cybercrime,” Bluesky warns.

“We request especially students in USA not to [get involved in] these kind of issues and get into trouble yourself. [Our] anti-piracy team is actively working on tracing any kind of illegal activities.”

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

After a film premiers in theaters, movie fans usually have to wait a few months before they can get their hands on a DVD or Blu-Ray copy, depending on the local release strategy.

This delay tactic helps movie theaters to maximize their revenues. However, it might not be the best option for aftermarket sales, which typically account for the largest chunk of a movie’s revenues.

One factor that comes into play here is piracy. Due to artificial delays which vary across different parts of the world, pirates can often get their hands on a high quality rip of a movie before the DVD is officially released in their country.

A new study published by Carnegie Mellon University researchers has looked into this piracy “window of opportunity,” and found that release delays are actually hurting DVD and Blu-Ray sales.

Using real-world data the researchers investigated to what degree the availability of pirated movies during international release delays impact subsequent sales and found a clear positive relation.

“Our results suggest that an additional 10-day delay between the availability of digital piracy and the legitimate DVD release date in a particular country is correlated with a 2-3% reduction in DVD sales in that country,” the researchers write.

The results are robust and the researchers controlled for a variety of alternative explanations.

For example, a longer delay itself doesn’t have a significant effect on sales. Revenue is only impacted if this also results in a longer “piracy window.”

More proof that the effect is driven by piracy is that the sales drops are proportional to piracy levels in a country.

Data shared by various movie studios reveals that movie piracy in Spain is about six times larger than in other countries, an effect that’s also visible in the researchers’ analysis.

“When we run our regressions on Spain and Italy alone, we observe a 10% drop in sales for every 10-day delay in legal availability, as compared to a 2% drop in sales for every 10-day delay in the entire sample,” the paper reads.

Faced with these results, the paper suggests that besides going after pirates, Hollywood can also tweak its own business strategies to target the problem.

The researchers note that thanks to the interconnected nature of the Internet, a pirated film is shared all over the world within seconds of its release. This means that, as opposed to 15 years ago, delayed international movie releases may do more harm than good.

“Our results suggest that studios and exhibitors should reconsider delayed international movie releases in the presence of global piracy,” the paper reads, adding that shorter delays “may have positive spillover effects in the form of reduced piracy in the DVD window.”

The research was carried out as part of Carnegie Mellon University’s Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics, which receives significant funding from the MPAA. However, the researchers state that their work is carried out independently.

Whether the MPAA will take up the advixe has yet to be seen, but it’s good to see that the study confirms that movie studios themselves can also do more to address the piracy issue.

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