Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has been a thorn in the side of Internet pirates for many years, largely targeting sites and services to reduce content availability.

BREIN claims to have taken down more than 340 sites in 2015, including 96 streaming platforms and 63 torrent indexes. However, for 2016 the anti-piracy outfit has committed to a strategy that makes things a little more personal for downloaders.

In recent months BREIN has made several announcements relating to its pursuit of individual file-sharers, particularly those at the more serious end of the scale. Think those that upload a lot of content to torrent sites, rather than more casual downloaders (although BREIN isn’t ruling that out).

Today BREIN announced its latest target, a prolific uploader to KickassTorrents (KAT), the world’s largest torrent site. Instead of tackling the individual head on, BREIN headed to court to obtain an order that would forbid him from continuing his sharing activities.

Known online by the alias “Reinrox“, the individual allegedly uploaded around 105 torrents to KAT, half of which were popular music videos from the likes of Adele, Robin Schulz and Meghan Trainor. The remainder included songs from the Top 40, several films (including Rocky 1 to 5) and complete TV series such as CSI:Miami.

In court papers BREIN identified Reinrox by his real name and explained that overall he had been responsible for infringing the copyrights of “many hundreds” of titles, many of which belong to BREIN’s clients.

Stressing the damage being caused by the Kickass user’s activities, BREIN asked the court for action to bring the infringement to an end.

“Given the scale of infringement….BREIN has well-founded fear that the respondent will continue his conduct, whether or not through another website or under another alias,” the anti-piracy group said.

BREIN indicated that an order issued by the court for Reinrox to cease and desist under threat of a large fine would hopefully bring an end to the matter. Interestingly, BREIN said that in its experience an ex parte order yields better compliance than issuing a summons to an alleged infringer.

“An ex parte court order reinforced with a penalty gives those whose rights have been violated the greatest possible assurance that this will not happen again,” BREIN told the court, adding that an early decision would put an end to Reinrox’s activities which “continue unabated every day without the rights holders being compensated in any way.”

BREIN said that as long as the uploaded torrents remained live on KickassTorrents its clients would continue to suffer “substantial and irreparable damage”. This, alongside the threat of Reinrox uploading more content, justified a swift solution.

“The nature, severity and repetitive nature of the infringements committed by the respondent justify this order being granted immediately given without the respondent being heard,” BREIN said.

The court agreed, granting BREIN the order it required and ordering Reinrox to cease and desist within 24 hours of being notified of the decision. As can be seen from the image below, that had an immediate effect on his KickassTorrents account which was deleted two weeks ago.

While it appears Reinrox intends to comply with the ruling from the court (BREIN says that an agreement has been signed), the Dutchman faces significant penalties should he change his mind. Court documents (pdf) indicate a fine of 2,000 euros per day for any breach, up to a maximum of 50,000 euros.

The ruling is almost identical to one handed down last November against another KickassTorrents user said so have uploaded around 750 torrents and the signs suggest it won’t be the last.

BREIN previously indicated that this kind of legal action would become a feature of its activities in 2016 after deploying special software to help with the task.

“The system is registered with the Dutch data protection authority (CBP) which has issued a certified statement after examination the legality for the processing of personal data in this system by BREIN,” the group said.

Those caught by BREIN will be required to sign a cease and desist agreement and pay a contribution towards costs and damages, which currently amount to around 12,500 euros.

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

Late last year the main Popcorn Time fork, operating from the PopcornTime.io domain name, shut down its website unexpectedly.

The MPAA took credit for the fall announcing that it had filed a lawsuit against several of the developers in Canada. In response to these legal threats several key developers backed out.

Since the initial announcement there hasn’t been much news about the project. However, that changed a few hours ago.

It began when the outdated versions of the PopcornTime.io fork received a surprise update, noting that “Hail Hydra” was installed. Following this update the application became fully operational again without any significant issues.

The main changes in the new version appear to be that it’s based on the code from Popcorn Time’s ‘legal’ spin-off Butter and that it no longer promotes the VPN service VPN.ht.

Soon after the update there was additional confirmation of a ‘comeback.’ The official GitHub repository was updated with a new working version and now points to PopcornTime.sh as the new home, as does the official Twitter account.

PopcornTime.io’s former Twitter account

The MPAA is not going to be happy with the surprise return, but indirectly they did take part in it. The code used to update the old application used the Its.pt domain name (mirror).

This domain uses four nameservers (ptn.sh, ptn.re. ptn.wf and ptm.pm) which are all controlled and owned by the MPAA. The MPAA obtained these domains as a result of the legal action in Canada and could have updated them.

The MPAA probably isn’t behind the comeback, but who is? TorrentFreak spoke with most key members of the old Popcorntime.io team, some of who were sued by the MPAA, and all deny being behind it.

Popcorn Time developer Wally, who also founded the VPN.ht service, previously told us that he was working on a comeback. He is one of the members of the core team that wasn’t sued by the MPAA, although his name was mentioned in the complaint.

However, when asked about the current comeback Wally denied all involvement.

What’s clear is that the new PopcornTime version is signed with the same private keys as the previous .io fork, keys that belong to the PopcornTime.io project.

After going around in circles it appears that no one is willing to take credit for the return. Perhaps wise, as the MPAA will be watching the developments closely. At the same time, however, this mystery may also be a bit uneasy for the software’s users.

While some may see it as a victory the comeback also adds to an increasingly complex Popcorn Time web. With several forks and new domain names popping up, shutting down and targeting each other in recent months, it has been hard to keep up.

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

After hearing songs from the hit show Frozen on a continuous loop since its release in 2013, millions of parents must long for the day when their kids find something else to take its place.

But while adults wish that their offspring would just let it go, it’s still preferable to hearing kids crying and/or complaining during this week’s half term break in the UK. But that’s exactly what a couple of thousand adults have to look forward to thanks to a licensing screw up and the inflexible folks at Disney.

Tomorrow night at the Heywood Civic Centre in Manchester, the Frozen tribute show ‘Freezing – An Icy Adventure’ was set to entertain kids from all over the region but a dispute over copyright means that the show has been completely canceled.

Disney’s lawyers contacted the venue to inform the production that they hadn’t obtained the correct licensing, something which came as a shock.

Promoter Carl Tebbutt told the MEN that the production believed it was covered under the licensing agreement they have with the PRS (Performing Rights Society) under whose control creators get paid for public performances.

It’s a reasonable assumption as PRS cover the vast majority of licensing in the UK. However, Disney bosses told the production that their content is not handled by PRS.

It took TF a while to find the relevant paperwork (pdf) but sure enough, Disney is one of a handful of notable exclusions.

So considering the combination of a genuine mix up, the huge resources that have gone into the production and thousands of disappointed kids, Disney were prepared to grant the production a temporary license, right? Not a chance.

Freezing – An Icy Adventure

CANCELLED DUE TO LEGAL COMPLICATIONS

If you have tickets please contact box office immediately
0300 303 8633

— Heywood Civic Centre (@HeywoodCivic) February 15, 2016

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">

“It’s all one big misunderstanding,” Tebbutt told MEN.

“We thought that we were covered for use of the songs by the usual PRS payment but after being approached by the Disney legal representatives this appears to be not the case.

“Rather than risk legal action we regrettably have had to cancel the shows.”

Although directed more at the United States, Disney has a website dedicated to providing information on how to obtain a performance license for its content and the company has the entire thing on lockdown. Anyone intending to perform even a small element of a show needs to have a license for the whole thing, even if they don’t intend to charge admission.

And those thinking of adding a little artistic re-interpretation can think again. Any deviance from Disney’s provided script, music and lyrics is banned and those that ignore the rules can have their licenses withdrawn.

“In the event that changes are made, your license may be revoked and you will lose the rights to perform the show at all. Please remember that when you acquire a license, you are agreeing to use your artistic vision to bring the show to life as the authors originally conceived it,” the site reads.

Parents wanting to record their kids’ performances must pay up front too.

“A school or organization must obtain a video license from [Disney licensing] before any individual records the production. Otherwise, video recording under all circumstances is prohibited,” Disney explains.

In fact, Disney is so precious over every piece of its content that even ‘right-click’ and ‘copy’ is disabled on its website. That’s easily circumvented by choosing ‘copy’ from the browser menu instead but there will be no such short-cuts for the children of Manchester tomorrow night. And they Were So Close too.

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

Blocking websites with the assistance of Internet service providers has emerged as one of the preferred methods of rightsholders seeking to reduce online infringement.

The practice is endorsed by both the music industry and Hollywood, with MPAA chief Chris Dodd giving the practice his personal blessing.

In the summer of 2014, Singapore passed amendments to its Copyright Act and later that year they became law, allowing the country to join the growing list of countries prepared to block sites at the ISP level.

It was expected that sites would be blocked fairly quickly but progress has been slow, with no sites blocked in 2015. However, according to a report in local media, that will soon change.

Last Thursday, Singapore’s High Court ordered local ISPs including Singtel, StarHub and M1 to disable access to SolarMovie.ph, a website offering links to mainly pirate movies. According to Alexa, SolarMovie has a world traffic rank of 1,500.

The move was welcomed by Mike Ellis, the MPA’s Asia-Pacific president and managing director.

“It is important that the creative industries are able to work via Singapore’s High Court to take a reasonable step forward to limit content theft,” Ellis said.

“Piracy websites not only stifle the growth of legal online platforms for movies and television shows, they may also pose a risk of malware infection.”

It was originally believed that The Pirate Bay would be the first site to be blocked by Singapore but that site may be in a batch of domains being dealt with separately by IFPI.

In January 2015 the music group suggested it would collect evidence against The Pirate Bay with a view to getting it blocked, but at the time the site was still down following the December 2014 raid that took the site offline for two months.

IFPI previously said it would initially target three to five sites in Singapore, so expect developments on that front in the weeks and months to come.

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

Kanye West has been dominating the news this week with a combination of absurd statements and the release of his new album The Life of Pablo.

In a surprise move West released his album exclusively on Tidal and his personal website. This limited availability angered many fans who refuse to sign up for an expensive monthly subscription.

And even those who signed up for Tidal had issues getting their hands on the album. Tidal’s support desk has been flooded with complains from people who failed to receive a copy due to issues with the service’s payment system.

Then, a few hours ago, Kanye West fueled the controversy by claiming that his latest album will never be for sale.

“My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal,” he wrote.

Not for sale

Kanye’s statement received a lot of pushback from fans, several of whom had already noticed the various unauthorized copies of The Life of Pablo that have been floating around on the Internet.

Soon after the album was released pirated copies started to populate many torrent and direct download sites, something many people on social media were quick to point out.

Arrr

TorrentFreak has been keeping a close eye on the popularity of the album on BitTorrent and after the first day an estimated 500,000 people have already grabbed a copy.

The album is currently leading The Pirate Bay’s list of most shared music torrents by a landslide. At the time of writing close to 10,000 people were sharing a copy of the most popular torrent simultaneously, something we haven’t seen with a music release before.

Aside from torrent sites, the album is also being widely distributed on various direct download services and hosting sites, increasing the overall piracy numbers even further.

The Life of Pablo

The Life of Pablo was a highly anticipated album which would have resulted in a lot of piracy anyway, but it’s safe to say that the limited release boosted these numbers significantly.

On the flip side, Tidal most likely received tends of thousands of new subscribers, so it’s hard to draw any strong conclusions in terms of revenue. But perhaps Mark Zuckerberg can jump in if the results are disappointing.

Thus far Kanye hasn’t commented on the piracy issue, but the RIAA is working hard to take links to pirated content down. Many of the torrents that were uploaded yesterday have been removed, but these are soon replaced by new ones.

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