Deterring online piracy has become one of the main goals of City of London Police in recent years.

In September 2013 the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit was founded, marking the start of a broad enforcement campaign to decrease online piracy rates.

PIPCU initially began by sending out warning letters to pirate site owners, asking them to go legit or shut down. This was soon followed by a campaign targeted at domain registrars, asking them to suspend the domain names of several “illegal” sites.

The domain suspension requests haven’t been particularly effective. Information obtained by TorrentFreak following a Freedom of Information request filed last year revealed that only 5 out of 70 domain registrars complied with police requests.

This year we asked PIPCU for an update to see if any progress was being made, but months passed by without a response. Normally, police must respond within 20 working days but this request proved to be more difficult.

After several delays and passed deadlines we finally received a response this week. However, it was not the number of rejected domain suspensions we asked for. Instead, PIPCU sent a statement explaining that domain suspensions are no longer a top priority.

“Whilst PIPCU continues to make domain suspension requests as a component of Op Creative, more emphasis is now placed onto other disruption activities,” they note.

“This decision was taken following an adverse response by ICANN to a challenge to our domain suspension requests.”

This response suggests that the police changed their strategy after a successful challenge by domain registrar EasyDNS, who they accused of facilitating criminal activity by its refusal to suspend several websites.

In response EasyDNS took the matter to the overseeing body ICANN which ruled that registrars are not required to suspend a domain name without a valid court order.

ICANN’s decision was a blow to the police who therefore decided to place less emphasis on domain suspension efforts.

However, even though PIPCU has changed its enforcement priorities we previously learned that it still sent shutdown requests for 317 ‘pirate’ domain names, which is much more than the year before.

Again, we asked PIPCU how many of these were rejected.

Just before publishing we received what appears to be the final answer. Despite earlier indications that the numbers are available, PIPCU now says they are no longer recorded.

One thing’s obvious though, the efforts weren’t very effective.

“Whilst information is recorded on the number of suspension requests sent out, information is no longer recorded on registrar responses to individual domain suspension requests, however as a guide these requests have predominantly refused,” PIPCU concludes.

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

In July, Portugal’s Ministry of Culture announced the signing of a memorandum between its own General Inspection of Cultural Activities (IGAC), ISP group APRITEL, rightsholders, the body responsible for administering Portugal’s .PT domain and representatives from the advertising industry.

The memorandum laid out the framework for a voluntary site-blocking mechanism which would see sites with more than 500 infringing links and those whose indexes contain more than 66% infringing content quickly subjected to a nationwide ISP blockade.

After The Pirate Bay was blocked back in March via court order, the new process paved the way for rapid site blocking and it didn’t take long for the first batch to be processed.

Last month the country blocked more than 50 sites including KickassTorrents (Kat.cr), ExtraTorrent, Isohunt, YTS and RARBG, no court order required. And, just as predicted, the country is now preparing its second wave of blockades.

Almost 40 sites are included and unsurprisingly torrent sites feature prominently. BitSnoop, YourBitorrent, SeedPeer, Torlock, Torrentfunk, TopTorrent and Torrents.net head up the list, with ‘release blog’ favorites RLSlog and Sceper making an appearance.

Streaming sites will also be blocked as part of the current action, including ProjectFreeTv and TubePlus on the video front and MP3Skull in audio. The full list, courtesy of Tek, can be found below.

While blocking sites is hardly a new activity, the way it’s being carried out in Portugal is raising concern.

Since the process is voluntary there’s no unwieldy court process to navigate, which is certainly a plus for local anti-piracy outfit MAPINET. However, there are those who feel that the system is too streamlined and that judicial oversight is an absolute must if there is to be no abuse. Questions are also being raised over the legality of the scheme itself.

The other issue of concern is the sheer number of sites that could end up on Portugal’s blocklist. Currently, rightsholders can only file two complaints with the government each month but each complaint can carry up to fifty domains.

That means that if all sites are accepted as infringing and MAPINET works to capacity, more than 1200 allegedly infringing sites could be blocked by this time next year.

That would make Portugal the world leader in ‘pirate’ site blocking and a shining example of what entertainment companies could aim for if bypassing the courts became an option elsewhere.

The full list for November 2015

tugahd.com
serieshared.blogspot.pt
tudodownloadpt- pt2.blogspot.pt
amofilmes.net
avxhome. is
bitsnoop.com
dramatize.com
ilovefilmesonline.com
megafilmeshd.tv
megafilmesonline.net
projectfreetv.so
rapidmoviez.com
sanet.me
sceper.ws
series-cravings.me
topdezfilmes.org
toptorrent.org
watch-series-tv.to
armagedomfilmes.biz
baixartorrent.net
clubedodownload.info
cucirca.
ddlvalley.rocks
filmesdetv.com
megafilmesonlinehd.com
onlinemovies-pro.com
rlslog.net
seedpeer.eu
supercineonline.com
telona.org
torlock.com
torrentfunk.com
torrents.net
tubeplus.is
tuga-filmes.com
yourbittorrent.com
mp3skull
gigatuga.io
megapirata.net

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

Within days of its October 10 launch, music discovery tool Aurous was in big legal trouble. Aurous Group and developer Andrew Sampson are now being sued by the RIAA and pretty this definitely ain’t.

Last month, plaintiffs Atlantic Records, Warner Bros, UMG, Sony and Capital Records obtained a temporary restraining order (TRO) from a Florida district court, forbidding Sampson and everyone else associated with the project from infringing their copyrights.

Shortly after, Sampson published the ‘back-end’ Aurous source code to Github, enraging the RIAA who accused him of breaching the TRO. Aurous’ legal team had previously offered to settle and throw in the towel, but the alleged breach appeared to scupper those plans.

Instead, the RIAA asked for Sampson and Aurous Group to be held in contempt of court and punished via monetary sanctions, all while plowing ahead in pursuit of a preliminary injunction. Aurous made two attempts at convincing the court that a preliminary injunction should not be issued and earlier this week the RIAA issued its response. It makes for train-wreck reading.

“Defendants continue to ignore critical evidence of their liability for copyright infringement and the irreparable harm they are causing, while misciting the law and misstating the facts,” the RIAA begins.

“Defendants make a fundamental error in asserting that ‘[t]he motion for a preliminary
injunction is an attempt to hold Aurous responsible for the actions of its users.’ To the contrary, this motion is about Defendants’ conduct in creating a service through
which Defendants cause and facilitate copyright infringement..”

There’s a good reason why legal advice often begins with “say nothing” and in this respect the RIAA is making hay while the sun shines.

“It is too late for Defendants to pretend that they ‘had no knowledge of the infringement of either the consumers, or the websites in which the consumers were directed towards’,” the RIAA states.

“Defendants’ belated profession of innocence rings with hypocrisy, particularly in light of Defendant Sampson’s own earlier statements (some of which he has tried to delete) reflecting his own sophisticated knowledge of copyright infringement and his commitment to aiding infringers while thwarting copyright owners.”

Noting that Sampson marked as ‘favorite’ a Twitter message declaring “dead [A]pple [M]usic, dead Spotify, as soon as Aurous launches its [sic] all over”, the RIAA references comments made by Sampson in a Billboard article which detailed his attitude towards takedown efforts.

“If you were to receive a cease-and-desist, what would your reaction be?” the publication asked.

“Ignore it,” Sampson responded.

Things only get worse when the RIAA recalls what happened when one of their representatives sent Sampson a DMCA notice asking for content to be removed from his ‘Strike‘ search engine.

“Sampson responded by telling the representative to ‘f*ck off’,” the RIAA explains.

The RIAA continues by picking apart almost every defense put forward by Aurous, including that pulling music from YouTube and SoundCloud without a license is permissible under law.

“Plaintiffs have not authorized the streaming or downloading (copying) of their recorded music from websites except pursuant to agreements that control the terms on which such works are made available,” the RIAA notes.

“Defendants can only cause such downloads to occur by circumventing the protections such sites have against such downloading and violating the sites’ terms of service that expressly prohibit such conduct.”

Even efforts by Aurous to claim a “safe harbor” defense under the DMCA appear to have fallen on stony ground, with the RIAA noting that the music service failed at the first hurdle.

“Defendants cannot satisfy the basic threshold requirements for eligibility because they do not have a designated agent for receipt of infringement notifications registered with the U.S. Copyright Office,” the labels explain, adding that the service also failed to display an agent’s details on its website.

Pressing on, the RIAA says that safe harbor protection also requires that a service adopts and reasonably implements “a policy to terminate repeat infringers”. Aurous has no such policy but the RIAA suggests that point is moot since DMCA safe harbor immunity is “granted only to ‘innocent’ service providers.”

To support the latter point the RIAA digs out case history from isoHunt versus the MPAA, which noted that no safe harbor is available when “the record is replete with instances of [the defendants] actively encouraging infringement.”

Wrapping up, the RIAA criticizes the earlier release of the Aurous source code while demanding a preliminary injunction.

“It is particularly telling that Defendants no longer deny that Defendant Sampson violated the TRO by making the current Aurous source code available to the public for more than five hours on Sunday, October 25. Instead, they now shamelessly suggest that ‘[i]f this is the case, then the cat is out of the bag’,” the RIAA writes.

“It is precisely this type of blatant disregard for Plaintiffs’ rights and this Court’s Orders that requires entry of a preliminary injunction.”

But despite the aggression from the RIAA, there are now signs of peace on the horizon. At the start of an evidentiary hearing yesterday, both sides requested time for a discussion. Out of that discussion came an agreement to put the preliminary injunction hearing on hold and work towards “a global resolution of the case within the next ten days.”

Considering the background to the case, this apparent offer to enter into settlement negotiations is excellent news for Andrew Sampson and Aurous Group. On the downside, any conclusion is also guaranteed to involve the total closure of the Aurous service and anything similar Sampson may have up his sleeve.

Considering what the RIAA could’ve inflicted upon him, that is probably a very small price to pay.

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

Nearly four years have passed since Megaupload’s servers were raided by U.S. authorities. Since then very little progress has been made in the criminal case.

Kim Dotcom and his Megaupload colleagues are currently awaiting the result of their extradition hearing in New Zealand and have yet to formally appear in a U.S. court.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Megaupload servers from Carpathia Hosting remain in storage in Virginia, some of which contain crucial evidence as well as valuable files uploaded by users. The question is, for how long.

In August QTS, the company that now owns the servers after acquiring Carpathia, asked the court if it can get rid of the data which is costing them thousands of dollars per month in storage fees.

This prompted a response from a former user who wants to preserve his data, as well as Megaupload, who don’t want any of the evidence to be destroyed.

For its part the U.S. Government denied any responsibility for the servers stating that they already copied all the crucial evidence.

Faced with these different positions, U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady now has to decide how to move forward. A few days ago he sent off a set of questions to the relevant stakeholders, including Megaupload, the U.S. Government and the MPAA.

The questions deal with the logistics and financial implications of a possible return of the data, as well as the concerns and problems that may arise.

For example, the hosting company was asked if the data stored on the servers is recoverable at all. Several years have passed, which may mean that some hard drives have degraded significantly.

Also, the Judge wants to know how much Megaupload is willing to pay for the servers and how it would preserve these while protecting any confidential data.

Previously Megaupload offered to buy back the servers for $1 million, but in their latest submission Dotcom’s legal team suggested that the U.S. Government should bear the costs.

Judge O’Grady’s questions (pdf)

The Judge also asked the MPAA about its concerns regarding the copyrighted material stored on the servers, which may become an issue if users are granted access to their data.

Finally, Judge O’Grady asks all parties to estimate the costs of returning the files to innocent users, and how they would go about contacting them.

The questions suggest that the servers could indeed be opened up in the near future. This is good news for users who still hope to retrieve their files, and also for Kim Dotcom and the other Megaupload defendants who say they contain crucial evidence.

The responses to the full set of questions are due before the end of next week and the court is likely to issue an order soon after.

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

This week the MPAA ended the mystery surrounding the unexpected shutdown of the torrent site YTS.to and its associated release group YIFY.

While the announcement answered a lot of questions it also raises a few more.

The alleged mastermind behind the operation, a New Zealand citizen, was facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit. However, the dispute was already settled before the case got properly underway.

Sources have informed TorrentFreak that the operator and the movie studios reached a private agreement. It’s unclear what the terms are but judging from previous deals it’s likely to involve a damages payment as well as some type of information sharing

The news of a quick resolution is corroborated by local MPAA representatives who informed the NZ Herald that the case against the YTS/YIFY operator was settled out of court.

To many this deal comes as a surprise, as the MPAA previously preferred to send a strong and deterring message. In this case, however, other factors may have weighed stronger.

It could be that the operator has very valuable information to trade. It’s also possible that the MPAA wanted to avoid another piracy case besides Megaupload in New Zealand. Or they might simply want to settle the case without incurring large legal fees.

Whatever the case, the settlement is unprecedented when compared to other MPAA cases that dragged on for years, including the ones against isoHunt, Hotfile and TorrentSpy.

It also stands in sharp contrast to the criminal referrals the MPAA made against Megaupload, NinjaVideo and the IMAGiNE release group.

Since YTS/YIFY was both a release group and a major torrent site, it was certainly just as big of a target as the aforementioned, if not bigger.

TF contacted the MPAA for information on the decision to settle as well as further details on the agreement. The movie group said it couldn’t comment.

Thus far the YTS operator has remained silent. Perhaps we’ll hear the true story from him one day a few years from now…

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