With hundreds of million of active users, Instagram is often asked to remove copyrighted material being shared on its servers without permission.

If rightsholders submit a takedown request, Instagram swiftly takes the infringing content down. At least, that’s what it is supposed to do.

A new lawsuit filed in a California federal court suggests that Instagram’s takedown procedure is not always as effective as it should be.

This week Wisconsin-based photographer Jennifer Rondinelli Reilly filed a complaint (pdf) against Instagram in which she accuses the service of hosting or linking to one of her works without permission.

The work in question is an image of red lips and a microphone, which was registered at the U.S. Copyright Office in 2013. The image in question is used on several occasions, including in the profile below.

One of the alleged infringing uses

After discovering the unauthorized use of her work the photographer sent Instagram dozens of DMCA takedown requests. However, according to the complaint Instagram failed to take action in response.

“Reilly sent DMCA notices to Instagram regarding the Infringing Uses on January 26, 2016, January 27, 2016, January 28, 2016,” the complaint reads.

“Reilly never authorized the Infringing Uses,” the complaint states, adding that the images are still present on the site. “Instagram has not removed or disabled access to the Infringing Uses.”

At the time of writing several of the reported images have been removed. However, the profile picture shown above is still present and the same is true for other copies of the image on Instagram.

To resolve the matter, Reilly requests a permanent injunction against the service, as well as statutory damages for the alleged losses she has suffered.

This is not the first time the photographer has gone after a social network. A few months ago she filed a similar lawsuit against Twitter. This case was dismissed not much later, but it’s unclear if both parties reached a settlement out of court.

A few weeks ago Reilly also sued Buzzfeed for copyright infringement and the case is still ongoing.

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

With millions of unique visitors per day KickassTorrents (KAT) has become the most-used torrent site on the Internet, beating even The Pirate Bay.

The site also has a very active community of torrent aficionados from all over the world. On March 30, staff and members come together to celebrate their beloved pastime on ‘Happy Torrents Day‘.

“Five years ago we realized that what our users do on KickAssTorrents, what they believe in and enjoy, needed celebrating. A day to give back to them what they give to us,” KAT administrator Mr. Black tells TorrentFreak.

“Every torrent community is different and individual in its own way but we all believe in freedom of sharing and of course share one of the most important things in common. Torrents.”

Happy Torrents Day

The event was initially started by KAT administrator Mr. Pink in 2011. It began as a small celebration, but over the years it has turned into a recurring tradition with many thousands of people participating.

Last year more than 115,000 registered users checked in. The number of uploads also increased significantly on Happy Torrents Day, well above the 4,000 torrents that were added on an average day that year. This year, the KAT team hopes to break this record.

“Torrents Day in 2015 took us to just short of 6,000 torrents uploaded… 5,775 to be exact. But due to the users we have gained and the services provided we are expecting to well exceed these numbers,” Mr. Black says.

The KAT staff have put together an overview of the various challenges and events. For example, users can add their favorite song to the official soundtrack, or participate in the upload challenge.

If everything goes according to plan Torrents Day 2016 is expected to drive a lot of traffic to the site and perhaps set several new records. Judging from the discussion already going on, there’s definitely plenty of interest for this young tradition.

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

Late last year several pirated copies of 4K videos started to leak from both Netflix and Amazon. These leaks were unusual as online 4k streams were always well protected against pirates.

While it’s still not clear how these videos were copied, several sources suggested that one of LegendSky’s latest HDFury devices may have been involved.

These suspicions were corroborated a few weeks ago when Warner Bros. and Intel daughter company Digital Content Protection (DCP) sued the HDFury manufacturer over its ability to “strip” the latest HDCP encryption.

The Chinese hardware manufacturer refutes this claim and has pointed out that its tools merely allow users to convert HDCP encryption, which would be fair use and permitted by law.

While the case continues in court, a pirate group has stepped up to add some fuel to the fire. In an NFO file packaged with a recent release of the Netflix film “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday,” Scene group ‘Team QCF’ thanks HDFury while describing it as one of its sponsors.

“We like to give a shout out to our sponsors without them this is not possible :p,” the NFO file reads, linking to the controversial HDFury 4k splitter.

While the release in question is 1080p, the controversial hardware makes it possible to use a 4K source to get a better encode.

The nfo

In addition, Gatorade also gets a plug. “Drink Gatorade it will help your encodes,” the NFO file adds, linking to the Gatorade website.

Team QCF doesn’t normally list any sponsors, and it’s pretty unlikely that HDFury or Gatorade have intentionally contributed to the Scene group. However, the wink to HDFury suggests that the devices are indeed used to rip 4K content from Netflix.

At least, the group felt the urge to respond to the recent controversy over the HDFury devices.

It is doubtful that the “endorsement” will be featured in court though. As an anonymous source, Team QCF may just as well be putting up a smokescreen for fun, or perhaps to divert attention from another vulnerability.

That said, LegendSky is probably going to be unhappy with the fact that their HDFury devices are now openly being plugged by a well-known Scene group.

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

Underlying a multitude of strategies designed to limit traffic to pirate sites, there is a strong belief among copyright holders that operators only keep their sites online due to how profitable they are.

Since most portals don’t make their motivations public it’s unclear as to how many sites this applies. However, it can’t be denied that the largest sites are pulling in decent revenues via advertising so with this in mind there is an ongoing and concerted effort by authorities to “Follow the Money.”

Part of this strategy is ensuring that major brands and smaller companies refrain from placing their advertising on infringing sites. In addition to funding the sites in question, copyright holders insist that having “household name” branding appearing alongside pirate content suggests that sites are not only legitimate but somehow endorsed by their advertisers.

While the US has its own initiatives underway, the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) maintains the Infringing Website List (IWL), a database of sites that police and copyright holders have deemed to breach copyright law.

PIPCU earlier claimed to have placed warning ads on these domains to deter would-be downloaders and is now receiving help from the government to reach more advertisers.

In a new video published by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), the Internet is described as the most powerful communication tool ever invented, noting that by 2020 the total Internet advertising spend will outstrip that of TV. But while reaching billions of consumers has its benefits, the IPO says that advertisers need to be aware of the problems being caused by IP crime.

Starting with an image of a presumably unlicensed pharmaceutical site, the video quickly moves on to the world of torrents, with an image of a fake website called “Super Torrent”.

Somewhat ironically the screenshot from the video shown above is actually a copy of ExtraTorrent (the world’s 3rd largest torrent site) but with a name switch. In fact, those who look closely will see that on the left hand side of the image where ExtraTorrent displays its news feed, there’s even a link directing people to find more news on TorrentFreak.

“Illegal websites offering copyright infringing content, illegal websites facilitating fraud, organized crime, even terrorism,” the voiceover warns. “You wouldn’t want your brand, your client’s logo, your hard-earned reputation mixed up with that, would you?”

The video continues by stating that of the top 500 infringing websites, 294 carried advertising for recognized brands, 43 of which were businesses in the top 1000 for advertising spend. By placing ads on such websites, advertisers give them legitimacy while tarnishing their images by associating themselves with viruses and malware, the IPO adds.

Of course, knowing which sites are considered a risk isn’t always easy for advertisers and that’s where copyright holders and the police step in.

“The Infringing Website List lists all known websites determined by the police to be illegal on the basis of copyright infringement. It’s the first of its kind in the world,” the IPO says.

“Sites are identified by the creative industries, evidenced and verified by the police. The IWL then provides an up to date list of copyright-infringing websites to enable advertisers, agencies and brands to cease advert placement on illegal websites.”

The idea is that ad agencies can integrate the IWL into their ad placement systems in order to boycott pirate sites, something which can prevent direct advertising on designated platforms. However, the advertising world isn’t as straightforward as that and the use of various middle-men ensures that advertising often makes it onto pirate sites, even though they have been ‘blacklisted’ in Europe and the United States.

Nevertheless, the IPO and PIPCU say they are making progress and in August 2015 reported that top UK advertisers were placing 73% fewer ads on pirate sites. More current stats aren’t presented in the video but the message from the IPO remains the same.

“Stop funding criminals, sign up to the IWL,” the IPO concludes.

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

During the summer of 2014 LionsGate suffered a major setback when a high quality leak of the then unreleased Expendables 3 film appeared online.

Fearing a massive loss in revenue the movie studio sued the operators of several websites that allegedly failed to remove the infringing files.

Since most of the defendants failed to appear in court, LionsGate asked for a default judgment against the alleged operators of LimeTorrents and the defunct Dotsemper and Swankshare sites.

While the websites are not responsible for the original leak, they failed to respond to a slew of takedown requests sent by the movie studio in the days after the film first appeared online.

Last week United States District Judge Otis Wright granted the default judgment (pdf), ordering Muhammed Ashraf (LimeTorrents), Tom Messchendorp (Dotsemper), and Lucas Lim (Swankshare) to pay the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 each.

The maximum amount in statutory damages is appropriate, according to the Judge, because the movie studio likely suffered substantial losses as a result of the pre-release leak of The Expendables 3.

“In light of the fact that the film garnered over $575 million dollars in worldwide box office revenues, the ‘value of the copyright’ strongly favors a high award of statutory damages,” Judge Wright notes.

“Defendants hosted the anticipated film available online prior to its theatrical release for the purpose of enabling users to illegally download it, which more than likely diminished Plaintiff’s revenue substantially,” he adds.

Judge Otis Wright’s order

In addition, the maximum in damages may serve as a deterrent for the defendants and any other site operators that link to or host infringing content.

“Moreover, an award of the enhanced statutory damages will likely serve to deter Defendants and others from infringing Plaintiff’s rights in the future,” Judge Wright’s order reads.

The court also issued a permanent injunction on top of the damages, forbidding the men from operating their sites going forward, as well as any other websites through which The Expendables 3 is being made available.

Whether this injunction will be very effective is doubtful. TorrentFreak previously spoke with the LimeTorrents operator, who informed us that his site will remain online, no matter what the outcome is.

“We want to keep the site up and running, and we don’t care about default judgment because we don’t have any faith in the United States,” Ashraf told us.

The site operator, who also runs Torrentdownload.biz, said that the “Expendables 3” keyword was already banned from appearing in the search results, and that he doesn’t intent to pay any damages.

“We already took action and blocked their keyword, so we don’t have a penny to pay them for their own leak problem,” the operator said.

At the time of writing LimeTorrents and Torrentdownload indeed remain operational. LimeTorrent’s .com domain name was locked earlier, but the site is still accessible via a new .cc TLD.

Dotsemper and Swankshare previously shut down. The operators of these sites live outside of the United States and haven’t been responsive, so whether LionsGate will recoup much of the $450,000 is highly doubtful.

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