Every single day millions of takedown notices are sent by copyright holders to online services ranging from YouTube and Google to KickassTorrents. The aim is to have copyright-infringing content removed, quickly.

As Internet usage has grown, the volume of notices being sent has exploded and as a result the debate over DMCA takedown procedures has become a hot topic, to the point that U.S. authorities are involved once again.

Under pressure from rightsholders, on the final day of 2015 the U.S. Copyright Office launched a public consultation with the aim of assessing the costs and burdens of the notice-and-takedown process on copyright owners, online service providers, and the general public.

As a free and public repository of a wide range of media (26 petabytes overall), the Internet Archive has a keen interest in how U.S. copyright law is shaped. In its just-published submission to the Copyright Office the Archive is quite clear – without the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA its valuable work would become impossible.

The certainty of Safe Harbor

“As we move increasingly towards a world where human knowledge is stored digitally, we are likely to see more libraries playing the role of host and curator of content posted by users. As such, it is important to understand how library interests intersect with the DMCA safe harbors and to ensure that libraries continue to enjoy the protection of these safe harbors in the future,” the Archive writes.

With some reservations the Archive believes that the DMCA and its system of shared responsibility is “working well” and should not be significantly overhauled. It notes that as a curator of everything from feature length films, old radio programs and cylinder recordings, to pre-1964 architectural trade catalogs, house plan books, and technical building guides, the Archive deals with an almost unprecedented range of material. That is only possible due to the “important certainty” offered by the DMCA.

“Without the protection of the DMCA safe harbors, we might not be able to host collections like these — despite the fact that no one has complained about the vast majority of the materials,” the Archive warns.

‘Notice and Staydown’ will chill free speech and fair use

While acknowledging that burdens are felt on both sides, with copyright holders keen to have content taken down and third-party organizations expected to respond swiftly in doing so, the Archive expresses concern over proposals for a “notice and staydown” system in which content that has been taken down once must never reappear again.

“The DMCA’s express provision that service providers have no affirmative duty to monitor for infringing activity remains an extremely important safeguard both for free speech and for the continuation of traditional library activities in the digital age,” the Archive says.

In its submission the Archive goes to some lengths to highlight differences between those engaging in commercial piracy and those who seek to preserve and share cultural heritage. As a result the context in which a user posts content online should be considered before attempting to determine whether an infringement has taken place. This, the organization says, poses problems for the ‘staydown’ demands gaining momentum with copyright holders.

“This is why proposals for ‘notice and staydown,’ which would appear to require platforms to use automated processes to make sure certain materials are never again able to be posted to the internet — regardless of context — threaten to chill legitimate speech and fair uses of materials,” the organization warns.

Interestingly the Internet Archive cites the Library Bill of Rights, which encourages libraries to “challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.” A ‘notice and staydown’ regime would violate these fundamental principles, the Archive says.

Reducing erroneous, sloppy and cynical takedowns

While warning against changes to the law that could increase non-profit service providers’ liability for infringing content, the Archive has some suggestions as to how the DMCA could protect against improper takedown notices.

Noting that incomplete and/or erroneous notices are received by the organization every week, the Archive concludes that the major culprits are agents of major studios and publishers. Over the years their notices have demanded the takedown of public domain works such as Jane Eyre, Sense and Sensibility, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Moby Dick, while ‘dumb’ keyword matching continues to claim innocent victims.

“For example, we received a takedown notice regarding an old Salem cigarette commercial based on the term ‘Salem’ which is also the title of a major television series. Similar keyword misidentifications frequently show up as “matches” for music, concerts, home movies, and public domain books,” the Archive explains.

“We are deeply concerned that automated filtering could lead to taking down many materials that are being used in reasonable, legitimate and legally protected ways — especially when the underlying purpose of the complaint is not copyright related but rather an attempt to silence critical speech.”

To this end the Archive is calling for a tweak to the DMCA which would allow providers to leave content up as long as they have a genuine belief that the takedown notice they have received is erroneous.

“It might make sense to create a provision in the law that would grant the service provider the ability to refuse to take material down when they have a reasonable, good faith belief that the material identified in a DMCA notice is non-infringing,” the Archive writes.

“For example, if a work appears to be in the public domain, or if the use of the material appears to be a fair use, then the service provider could refuse to take the material down without risking the imposition of statutory damages.”

The Internet Archive’s submission (full text here) is an excellent example of what is at stake in respect of possible amendments to the DMCA. While the fight between copyright holders and hardcore pirates might be the key issue, the battle has the potential to wreak havoc elsewhere and the Internet Archive and similar groups are desperate to avoid the crossfire.

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

After becoming one of the top grossing movies of all time in theaters, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now gearing up for its home entertainment releases.

Many people are expected to buy the Blu-Ray and DVDs, which are scheduled to come out on April 5th, so they can relive the latest chapter in the convenience of their own home.

However, it appears that pirates are off to an early start. As is often the case with popular movies, the Blu-Ray versions of Star Wars: The Force Awakens has leaked online in advance of its retail debut.

There are currently dozens of copies posted on torrent, hosting and streaming sites, including The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents where it leads the lists of most shared files.

The first copy appeared online yesterday and within 12 hours an estimated 250,000 people had already grabbed a copy. This number is likely to increase to several millions during the weeks to come.

The Blu-Ray disc, posted below, originates from the REPLiCA release group and appears to be a regular retail copy.

Under the most recent rules, Scene release groups are required to supply a photo of the physical disc with their group tag as proof.

Leaked Star Wars Blu-Ray

The leaked Blu-Ray is by no means the first footage that has ended up on pirate sites. Several camcorded copies of the movie have been floating online for three months, but due to their low quality the interest in these releases has been limited.

Needless to say, this isn’t an issue with the Blu-Ray version.

Screenshot from the pirated Blu-Ray

In recent weeks Disney and Lucasfilm have tried to limit the exposure of pirated copies. The companies sent out tens of thousands of takedown requests to Google. However, on most pirate sites the film remains widely available.

In any case, it’s safe to say that the movie studios will be disappointed with the early pirate release, which is likely to eat away at some of the home entertainment revenues.

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

During the summer of 2014, City of London Police arrested the then 20-year-old Callum Haywood of Bakersfield for his involvement with several proxy sites and services.

Haywood was interrogated at a police station and later released on bail. He agreed to voluntarily hand over several domain names, but the police meanwhile continued working on the case.

One of the main services linked to the investigation was Immunicity, a censorship circumvention tool that allowed users to route their traffic through a proxy network.

In addition, Haywood was also connected to the Pirate Bay proxy list Piratereverse.info and KickassTorrents proxies Kickassunblock.info and Katunblock.com, movie2kproxy.com, h33tunblock.info and several other proxy sites.

These proxies all served as a copy of the original sites, which are blocked by several UK ISPs, allowing users to bypass restrictions imposed by the High Court. While Haywood wasn’t operating any of the original sites, police have decided to move the case ahead.

Today, after nearly two years, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) formally announced the charges, which amount to one count of converting and/or transferring criminal property and six counts of possession of an article for use in fraud.

The charges relate to the operation of a Pirate Bay proxy and two KickassTorrent proxies.

Piratereverse.info

Based on the charges the now 22-year old student potentially risks a long prison sentence.

Possession of articles for use in fraud is punishable by up to five years in prison under UK law, while supplying articles for use in a fraud carries a sentence of up to 10 years. Converting and/or transferring criminal property is money laundering, for which the maximum sentence is 14 years.

Speaking with TorrentFreak today, Haywood denies any wrongdoing.

The prosecution is the first of its kind, in that it targets a person who allegedly assisted Internet users to bypass High Court orders to block The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites.

Even though the blocking orders don’t apply to all UK ISPs, who continue to provide access to the very same sites, PIPCU alleges that Haywood’s sites were setup to circumvent the court orders.

Haywood is scheduled to appear on bail at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court on April 21 for a preliminary hearing.

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

British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke is credited with the penning of three laws, one of which declares that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

While not quite magic for those who understand how it works, Google Now can be both impressive and spooky.

On mobile devices (Android and iOS) Google Now and its ‘Card’ notifications often pop up at the most opportune times, offering advice about things that haven’t yet happened in a users life – but are about to.

It’s not unusual for Google Cards to let you know how long it will take you to get home – from a restaurant you haven’t quite arrived at yet. And it can also advise what the weather will be like tomorrow, in a place that more often that not you’ve planned to visit only in your head.

Google can’t read people’s minds but it does harvest data from Google accounts in order to provide its Now services. That includes your search and location history, sites you’ve visited and the content of Gmail messages. It can also access your phone contacts, calendar entries and even certain apps.

“To know when to display cards and reminders, Google Now uses information from your device and from other Google products,” the company explains.

But while Google Now does some predictable things, like offering news about a favorite sporting event or offering appropriate stock listings, it can also serve up the odd surprise. One of those landed on the phone of TorrentFreak reader Ryan Raab this past weekend.

While using his Nexus 6 (loaded with the latest Android N beta), Ryan received a serving of Google Cards. After Google noticed he’d “shown an interest” in Olivia Munn, he was advised of her upcoming role in the X-Men Apocalypse movie as documented by Engadget. Nice.

But it was his interest in the movie Deadpool that delivered the surprise. Sandwiched between a Guardian article about Barack Obama and a New York Post piece about Donald Trump, Google Now advised Ryan where he could watch the hit movie. (Hint: Not in a theater)

As can be seen from the screenshot, Ryan’s interest in Deadpool resulted in a Google Card being presented to him referencing one of the world’s largest torrent sites, 1337x. Indeed, clicking on the Card landed Ryan on the site in question, as shown below.

Obviously there isn’t a team at Google hand-crafting Google Cards designed to promote unauthorized torrents. However, this does appear to show that Google’s algorithms are smart enough to put together interesting advice based on multiple and diverse information sources.

TorrentFreak sent Ryan’s findings to Google for comment but at the time of publication we were yet to hear back. However, it does appear that in this instance simply having an interest in both torrents and a particular movie was enough to trigger a custom Card linking to a pirate site.

While a feature like this won’t annoy too many torrent fans, they may change their tune when more sensitive information is picked up by Google in future editions.

“You showed an interest in ‘having an affair’ – here’s a link to AdulteryX4u.com.”

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

Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has been very active recently, targeting various release groups that frequent popular torrent sites.

Yesterday the Hollywood-backed group announced another victory after obtaining ex-parte injunctions against three members of the torrent release group 2Lions-Team.

The three members were ordered to pay €2,000 in damages each. In addition, BREIN reached out of court settlements with an undisclosed number of 2Lions-Team members, bringing the total damages amount to €67,500.

2Lions-Team has uploaded thousands of files to popular torrent sites including The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents and ExtraTorrent. The group published a wide variety of titles including movies and TV-shows such as The Revenant, Making a Murderer, The Walking Dead, as well as several local titles.

According to BREIN the group is responsible for uploading thousands of torrents, some of which were downloaded over 470,000 times. As part of the settlements, most torrents have now been pulled offline.

Indeed, several “2lionsteam” related accounts and their torrents have now been deleted from The Pirate Bay, ExtraTorrent and other sites.

2Lions-Team on TPB before it was removed)

The release group’s own website is no longer functioning either, but points to a messages from BREIN instead.

“Making copyrighted works available through torrents is an unauthorized reproduction and publication which infringes on the copyrights and related rights of BREIN affiliated rightsholders,” the message reads.

Judging from recent BREIN pursuits, the anti-piracy group is not interested in bankrupting any of the uploaders. For the level of the settlements in this case, BREIN says it took the financial capabilities of the 2Lions-Team into account as well.

Over the past several months BREIN has been pursuing uploaders more aggressively and this trend is expected to continue.

Last week the anti-piracy group was granted permission to monitor IP-addresses of torrent users on a broad scale, suggesting that it will also target individual BitTorrent users who share pirated content on a regular basis.

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