In this episode Natan Edelsburg and Minda Smiley, executive editor and reporter at media and advertising platform The Drum respectively, reflect on the future of Over The Top TV.

We discuss how streaming services could ignite a new piracy war, Hulu’s use of pirate data to decide what content to acquire, and how new moves from the FCC could land Popcorn Time on set top boxes in the US.

Finally we eye a potentially unruly future for Over The Top, with the appearance of generic android-based hardware and easy-to-use, renegade services like Kodi and Viper Media. How will content producers and advertisers adapt?

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Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing copyright and file-sharing news. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary and analysis.

The guests for our news discussions will vary and we’ll aim to introduce voices from different backgrounds and persuasions. In addition to news, STS will also produce features interviewing some of the great innovators and minds.

Host: Jamie King

Guest: Natan Edelsburg and Minda Smiley.

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Eric Bouthiller
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Siraje Amarniss

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

There are hundreds of ‘pirate’ sites on the Internet today, most of them run by groups who choose to remain in the shadows. Identities are prized pieces of information in the torrent and streaming worlds and they’re extremely tightly guarded.

There are exceptions of course. The original people behind The Pirate Bay are well known public figures and the same can be said of Gary Fung of isoHunt, for example. In general, however, people tend to distance themselves from piracy in case groups like the MPAA and RIAA decide to pounce.

That being said, apparently there are those who really couldn’t give a damn.

Established in 2005, Connect Communications is one of the largest Internet service providers in Karachi, Pakistan, and they are proud of it.

“Connect Communications offer state of the art broadband connection to your home on ethernet with trunk network on Optical Fiber. Now you can take full advantage of Gigabit Network for your various network utilities,” the company says.

“Our Residential Broadband access gives you the ultimate high speed Internet experience with download speeds up to 100Mbps. Download a full length movie in under 10 minutes or take advantage of our DoDear services such as playing online games at Connect’s game arena or downloading movies and music.”

Of course, many ISPs offer downloads but Connect’s DoDear service really goes the extra mile. It’s advertised on the company’s main page, as shown in the screenshot below (bottom right).

After accessing the DoDear portal one can immediately see this is no ordinary ISP service. On the main page lists of TV shows and movies appear alongside torrent-site like categories such as software, games, movies, videos and music. Clicking the movie tab removes all lingering thoughts that this might be a legitimate service.

With released and unreleased movies on the left and links to the uTorrent and BitTorrent clients plus VLC media player on the right, it soon becomes clear that Connect Communications are running a fully-fledged pirate site. And to make things easier for pirates, DoDear even allows users to filter movies by cam, telesync (TS), screener and master (DVDrip).

Software pirates are well catered for too. DoDear has several hundred applications for download, all neatly arranged with cover art for each title. The site also has plenty of games which are conveniently split into genres such as racing, action, adventure, shooting and sports.

Another factor which will be quite alien to torrent site users is the fact that DoDear is publicly recruiting for people to help run their portal.

“At dodear we are always seeking talented, creative and innovative professionals. If you’re the one with a passion for learning and exploring yourself and having the enthusiasm for proving youself then we can provide a fair value to you,” the service notes in its ‘careers‘ section.

This somewhat bizarre situation probably gives a flavor of why the United States Trade Representative considers Pakistan to be a piracy problem. Interestingly, however, the United States downgraded the threat last month, apparently because progress is being made.

“USTR is moving Pakistan from the Priority Watch List to the Watch List in 2016 with an [out of cycle review] due to the Government of Pakistan’s significant efforts to implement key provisions of the Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan Act of 2012 and the newfound determination with which Pakistan has approached IPR over the past 12 months,” the USTR said in its latest Special 301 Report (pdf).

For the curious, the DoDear pirate portal can be found here although people looking to download will be disappointed. Torrent links are blocked for non-Connect Communications customers.

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

In recent years Internet provider Bahnhof has fought hard to protect the privacy of its subscribers.

The company has been a major opponent of extensive data retention requirements, launched a free VPN to its users, and recently vowed to protect subscribers from a looming copyright troll invasion.

This week Bahnhof reiterated its pro-privacy stance by stressing that it doesn’t hand over personal details of alleged pirates, not even to the police.

For the first time in history the company published details on the nature of police data requests. Interestingly, this reveals that file-sharing ‘crime’ is the largest category by far.

Of all requests received by the ISP well over a quarter, 27.5%, were for cases related to online file-sharing. This trumps other crimes such as grooming minors, forgery and fraud.

“We want to publish these figures to show that police are violating people’s privacy and putting resources into meaningless trifles,” Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung says, commenting on the release.

While the total number of 40 requests is relatively modest the data shows that file-sharing is high on the agenda for the Swedish police. However, from Bahnhof they shouldn’t expect any cooperation.

Citing European privacy regulations the Internet provider says that it will only hand over data to the police if the complaint applies to a serious crime, which doesn’t apply to piracy according to the company.

The ISP’s decision goes against the recommendation of the Swedish Telecoms Authority as well as the police, and a future court ruling is expected to provide more clarity on the issue.

Until then, Bahnhof will continue to shield alleged file-sharers from police requests for their personal data.

“The IP address is your fingerprint on the web,” Karlung says, noting that it’s tied to people’s browsing habits and all sorts of private data. “It shall not be disclosed without strong reasons.”

The recent comments fall in line with the ISP’s critique on the ongoing push to criminalize file-sharing in Sweden. Just a few weeks ago Karlung dismissed calls for harsher punishments for online piracy, noting that rightsholders should concentrate on developing better legal options instead.

For their part, the police note that the high number of file-sharing related requests are the result of increased enforcement efforts from copyright holders. When these report criminal activity, police are obliged to investigate the matter.

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Credit: Translated chart by Rick Falkvinge

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

When The Pirate Bay first came online during the summer of 2003, its main point of access was thepiratebay.org.

Since then the site has burnt through more than a dozen domains, trying to evade seizures or other legal threats.

Over the past few months The Pirate Bay has been active from the .SE domain, but after the registry was ordered to forfeit the domain to the Swedish state last week the notorious torrent site quickly switched.

The domain dispute is not officially over yet, as the Supreme Court still has to make a decision, but The Pirate Bay wasted no time and immediately started redirecting the .SE TLD to the good old .ORG just in case.

Ironically, the torrent site moved away from the thepiratebay.org four years ago because it feared a domain name seizure from the United States. However, instead of providing more stability it triggered a rather impressive domain shuffle as the overview below shows.

– In 2012 TPB switches from .ORG to .SE, fearing a domain seizure.

– In 2013 TPB trades .SE for .GL over a pending lawsuit.

– TPB is not welcome in Greenland, switches to .IS.

– Swedish authorities go after the .IS domain, TPB moves to .SX.

– Sint Maarten’s registry suspends .SX domain, TPB relocates to .AC.

– AC isn’t safe, so TPB sails to Peru.

– PE domain is suspended, next stop Gyuana.

– GY domain lasts only a few days, so TPB decides to move back to the SE domain.

In 2015 TPB leaves the .SE domain again as the domain lawsuit is about to come to its conclusion. Instead of moving to one alternative, the site decided to enable six domains at once.

In the months that followed this “hydra” was carefully destroyed as registrars and registries suspended the domain names in question. This most likely happened in response to copyright holder complaints.

– First, South Georgia’s registry took away the .GS domain

– A few weeks later the Armenian .AM domain was suspended.

– At the end of 2015 the LA, .GD, .MN and .VG were lost as well, leaving the hydra headless.

With the hydra gone, The Pirate Bay once again went back to the .SE domain. Earlier this year the site briefly added an additional .MS TLD, but this was suspended after a few days.

Last week The Pirate Bay decided to ‘leave’ the .SE domain once again after a court ruling put it at risk, making the .ORG the default again. This means that after nearly half a decade, the domain shuffle has come full circle.

However, for some reason we have a feeling that this wont be the last domain switch we’ll see.

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

Just when you think you’ve seen every ridiculous example of a bogus DMCA-style takedown, another steps up to take the crown. This week’s abomination comes courtesy of Fox and it’s an absolute disaster.

In last Sunday’s episode of Family Guy titled “Run, Chris, Run“, Peter and Cleveland play the 1980s classic Nintendo video game Double Dribble. Peter doesn’t play fair though and exploits a glitch in the game that allows his player to shoot a three-point goal every time. The clip is available on YouTube.

Perhaps surprisingly the game glitch is absolutely genuine and was documented in a video that was uploaded to YouTube by a user called ‘sw1tched’ back in February 2009.

“This is an automatic shot my brothers and I found on the NES Double Dribble back in the 80’s when it was released. I know others know this also, but as long as you release at the right point it is automatic. The half court shot I took at the end goes in 80% of the time, but i didn’t want to keep recording….HAHA,” sw1tched wrote.

Interestingly the clip that was uploaded by sw1tched was the exact same clip that appeared in the Family Guy episode on Sunday. So, unless Fox managed to duplicate the gameplay precisely, Fox must’ve taken the clip from YouTube.

Whether Fox can do that and legally show the clip in an episode is a matter for the experts to argue but what followed next was patently absurd. Shortly after the Family Guy episode aired, Fox filed a complaint with YouTube and took down the Double Dribble video game clip on copyright grounds. (mirror Daily Motion)

Faced with yet another example of a blatantly wrongful takedown, TorrentFreak spoke with Fight for the Future CTO Jeff Lyon. Coincidentally he’d just watched the episode in question.

“It’s most likely that this is just another example of YouTube’s Content ID system automatically taking down a video without regard to actual copyright ownership and fair use. As soon as FOX broadcast that Family Guy episode, their robots started taking down any footage that appeared to be reposted from the show — and in this case they took down the footage they stole from an independent creator,” Lyon says.

“The problem with an automated DMCA takedown system is that robots can never know the difference between fair use and copyright infringement. It is not hyperbolic to call this mass censorship,” he continues.

“Instead of copyright holders having to prove a video is infringing, their scanning software can take it down automatically, and then it falls on the creator to prove they had a right to post it. Creators are discouraged from filing counter-notices to stand up for their work, facing lost revenue and permanent bans from online platforms. This erodes fair use and free speech on the Internet.”

The entire situation is indeed bewildering and utterly ridiculous. The original Double Dribble game came out in 1987, some 12 years before the very first episode of Family Guy aired in 1999. The clip of the glitch was uploaded by sw1tched more than seven years ago. Then somehow Fox came along, copied it, put it into their TV show, claimed copyright on it, and then nuked the original clip from the Internet.

You couldn’t make it up. Nor would you want to.

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