Over the past few years the entertainment industries have repeatedly asked Google to step up its game when it comes to anti-piracy efforts.

These remarks haven’t fallen on deaf ears and in response Google has slowly implemented various new anti-piracy measures.

Last year Google made changes to its core algorithms aimed at lowering the visibility of “pirate” sites. Using the number of accurate DMCA requests as an indicator, these sites are now demoted in search results for certain key phrases.

This “Pirate Update” hit torrent sites hard, as early analysis previously showed. However, new research from streaming search engine JustWatch shows that the effect is limited.

Using search engine visibility data from SearchMetrics as well as SimilarWeb’s page statistics, the company evaluated how much search engine traffic the top torrent and streaming sites received before and after the algorithm change.

The findings confirm that torrent sites did indeed lose a lot of Google traffic. The graph below shows the search engine visibility ranking for the top 20 torrent sites including The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents and Torrentz.

Torrent site search engine visibility

However, while Google’s update had a dramatic effect on torrent sites, frequently visited streaming portals are seemingly unaffected by the change.

The graph below shows that on average the top streaming sites increased their search engine presence. This means that these streaming portals, including Solarmovie, Couchtuner and Movie4k, remain frequently featured in the top search results.

Streaming sites remain strong

While SearchMetrics data doesn’t directly measure traffic, the report estimates that the visibility of streaming sites is 15 times larger than that of torrent sites.

Translated to a traffic number, JustWatch estimates that roughly a third of all visits to the top streaming sites come from search engines, which number nearly three billion since Google’s “pirate” update.

Search engine traffic to illegal streaming sites

The critique is not new. In recent months several entertainment industry groups have urged Google to improve its downranking methods or completely remove pirate sites from search results.

Google, however, has stated that removing entire domain names goes too far and could possibly be counterproductive.

As a streaming search engine JustWatch of course has a significant interest in the results they report. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they also encourage Google to improve.

“Google should stand by their word to use the DMCA takedown requests per domain and factor it stronger into their ranking signals,” JustWatch CEO David Croyé tells TF.

According to JustWatch pirate streaming sites still dominate the top search results when people enter phrases such as “300 watch online”

Croyé understands that the algorithms want to rank pirate sites higher, because this is actually what people are looking for. However, that makes it harder for legal services to compete.

“We are a self funded startup that wants to connect fans with their favorite movie content worldwide and make it easier also for Google to show more legal offers. We’ve already aggregated them in a structured way for them”

“So it’s in our own interest as a startup to be able to compete with free, but illegal alternatives on Google,” Croyé adds.

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

This week is an extremely important one for Kim Dotcom and former Megaupload colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk.

They’re attending a crucial extradition hearing in the Auckland District Court that could determine whether the four are sent to the United States to face charges including conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to commit racketeering.

Much of the developments this week have centered on argument from Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield that the alleged offenses don’t meet the criteria for the men to be sent to the United States. While fraud is an extraditable offense, copyright infringement is not, and U.S. case law backs that up, he argued.

But while Mansfield argues the technicalities, including whether the defendants should have protection from liability due to their former position operating as service providers, the United States has other ideas about whether Dotcom should have his say.

Earlier today the U.S. government asked Judge Nevin Dawson to rule that the evidence of the defense is inadmissible, meaning that Dotcom would be left without a defense at all.

TorrentFreak approached Dotcom for comment on this bold move. Fortunately for him the Judge quickly dismissed the U.S. attempt at having a one-sided battle.

“The Judge just ruled that our evidence is admissible,” Dotcom told TF.

“The US Govt seriously asked the Judge to rule that all of our evidence is inadmissible because in their submission it was not relevant. The Judge has said that he wants a fair extradition hearing and has therefore rejected the US Govt position.”

The decision will come as a relief to Dotcom whose defense is set to wind up this week. While a final decision is not expected for some time, it’s unlikely that having come this far either side will accept a defeat. Both are expected to take their case to appeal in the event of a negative ruling.

In the meantime, Dotcom remains upbeat. After the entire court was cleared today after a false alarm, the Megaupload founder took the time to pose for photographs with fans – and take another shot at the U.S.

Fire Alarm at the Court House. Entire building evacuated. I guess the US case is blowing too much smoke ;-) pic.twitter.com/ZgyjSp6Med

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) November 4, 2015

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

After weeks of rumor and sealed lips, last evening it was made official. Movie torrent site YTS is dead, release group YIFY is no more, and the main Popcorn Time fork, PopcornTime.io, have all been shut down by the MPAA.

The operation involved legal action in two territories. In New Zealand the operator of YTS and related release group YIFY was hit by a multi-million dolalr lawsuit lodged at the High Court on October 12. Confidentiality agreements are in place so public details are scarce, but its believed that YTS has already settled with the MPAA.

In Canada, however, information is more readily available. On October 9, 2015, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios, Universal Network Television, Warner Bros. and Disney, filed a statement of claim in the Federal Court.

Their targets were people and companies associated with PopcornTime.io, including key developer David Lemarier and his company Wasabi Technologie plus VPN.ht Limited, the outfit behind Popcorn Time’s VPN.

The demands of the studios were broad but clear – stop infringing their rights, stop developing Popcorn Time, shut down its websites and shut down VPN.ht.

“Since April 2014, the individual Defendants David Lemarier, Robert English and Louie
Poole have been developing, operating, distributing and promoting the computer
application ‘Popcorn Time’,” the studios wrote.

“In December, 2014, a paid VPN service provided by the Defendant VPN.ht Limited was integrated in Popcorn Time (PT Add-On). The integration of the PT Add-On acts as an important enticement for users of Popcorn Time to engage in acts of copyright infringement, and is explicitly marketed as such on its website.”

The studios claim that Lemarier is the CEO of VPN.ht and Louie Poole has worked there as a software engineer “at least as early as September, 2015.” Owned by Lemarier, Wasabi Technologie is the company operating VPN.ht’s PayPal account.

“The sale of the PT Add-On service generates important monthly revenues which directly profit the Defendants David Lemarier and VPN.ht Limited, and the Defendant Louie Poole as an employee of VPN.ht Limited. All the individual Defendants as well as VPN.ht Limited derive financial benefits from their participation in Popcorn Time,” the studios add.

Just seven days later on October 16, 2015, Mr Justice Martineau in the Federal Court responded to the studios’ demands by handing down an interim injunction (pdf) against the defendants listed above.

In broad terms it restrains them from infringing the studios’ copyrights, including by continuing to develop, operate, distribute or promote Popcorn Time or “any similar software application” or website. However, it goes further – much, much further.

The injunction includes a huge list of domains and sub-domains which the studios say must be dealt with in order to “fully deactivate” Popcorn Time. PopcornTime.io. and a further 17 are said to relate to the service’s API while 39 relate to the website and four the blog. Dozens of others make up discussion forums, development platforms, mail servers, nameservers, content delivery and sundry others.

The injunction orders the defendants to hand over the login credentials “for the hosting providers and/or registrars accounts” for all of them. They are also required to do the same for the official Popcorn Time Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts. This is so that computer forensics experts “acting under the supervision” of the studios can gain access to them.

Also under the microscope is VPN.ht. The injunction orders the defendants, including VPN.ht’s operators, to hand over the login credentials for “hosting providers and/or registrars” hosting the VPN.ht domains and sub-domains. They are also required to authorize computer forensics experts under the eye of the MPAA to log into VPN.ht’s infrastructure and deactivate the service.

While this development will be of concern to VPN.ht’s customers, the service itself says that there is currently nothing to worry about.

“VPN.ht is not a Canadian company, nor has any of its operations located in Canada, this means Canadian laws are not relevant in out case what so ever,” VPN.ht said in a statement.

“We understand that some of you might be worried or intimidated by the idea of the film studios, but we want to remind you that VPN.ht never logs, never shares any information with anyone else and mostly, cares about our clients and their safety. After all this is why we started VPN.ht, to protect the vulnerable.”

The company says it operates a warrant canary to notify users in the event it has been compromised. Currently that alone raises no alarms but it’s highly likely that user confidence will be undermined by the forceful nature of the injunction and the international reach of the MPAA.

To be continued…

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

Despite concerns from BitTorrent elitists that the site was a cesspit of poor quality rips, YTS was one of the world’s most popular torrent indexes for a reason.

Simple to find, publicly accessible, nice to look at and bulging with movies, YTS carried thousands of the world’s most popular titles in an easily digestible, convenient format.

Previously the home of YIFY rips, YTS is no more. The site was shuttered by a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed in a New Zealand court by the MPAA and it won’t ever be coming back.

However, considering the number of tips received at TF this morning you’d think nothing was wrong. Email after email has declared that “YTS is back!!” and in fighting form too.

As can be seen from the screenshot below, it certainly looks like it.

But to the disappointment of all YTS and YIFY fans, the above site is a fake. It’s located at yts.ag and it’s being promoted by the same people who carried out a hostile takeover of EZTV earlier this year.

However, as pointed out by a TF reader, the site does indeed index some old YIFY rips. That may be, but in the same way that EZTV no longer carries genuine EZTV releases, YTS.ag won’t have new ‘genuine’ YIFY rips either, since YIFY is no longer in business.

It’s a blatant attempt to cash in on the void left by the demise of YTS and rest assured it won’t be the last. If they aren’t already appearing, torrent sites will soon be flooded with fake torrents claiming to be from YIFY. They won’t be, guaranteed.

Of course, there’s a certain irony in declaring a clone site as a bad player on the basis that it’s pirating another pirate site’s image. But, nevertheless, if a site can’t make it on its own merits and is prepared to mislead now, who’s to say what other tactics it will employ when it has a nice unsuspecting userbase on board.

Copying is the name of the game, no doubt, but being upfront about it is probably a better long-term strategy.

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

A few hours ago the MPAA took credit for shutting down one of the biggest piracy icons in recent history.

The YIFY release group and the YTS website shut down facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit, which the New Zealand-based operator couldn’t fight.

The downfall is a loss to many YIFY fans. However, the BitTorrent ecosystem at large will also be severely affected as it also signals the end for Demonii, the largest standalone BitTorrent tracker.

What only a few people know is that in recent years Demonii was run by YIFY’s operator. As a result of the legal troubles with the movie studios, Demonii will soon go offline as well, bringing down another key player.

With over 40 million people connected at any given time during the day, Demonii is currently the largest torrent tracker.

At the time of writing Demonii still serves torrents to 41,622,554 peers, which translates to well over a billion connections per day. Impressive numbers that will soon become history.

Demonii’s current stats

Even without Demonii most torrents will still work fine, thanks to DHT and PEX, but the initial connections will take more time. This can slow down download times for many people.

Trackers are also essential for those who use proxies, as they often have DHT and PEX disabled to prevent their real IP-addresses from leaking out.

With Demonii, YTS and YIFY gone there’s no doubt that the torrent ecosystem has lost several big players. However, history has also shown that these are never mourned for long.

It may be hard for other tracker to pick up Demonii’s load without increasing their capacity. But there are plenty of alternatives still around to fill the gap and more are expected to rise because of it.

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