The BitTorrent piracy ecosystem lost several key players in recent weeks.

The main Popcorn Time fork operating from the PopcornTime.io domain name closed its doors on October 23, citing internal issues.

Part of the trouble was started by rumors of legal pressure, which the MPAA confirmed today.

The major movie studios have sued three Popcorn Time developers in Canada, the group announced in an official statement. The MPAA obtained an injunction on October 16 ordering the shutdown of the Popcorntime.io site.

The complaint accuses the developers of various copyright infringing acts and also lists the VPN provider VPN.ht, which was operated by two of the Popcorn Time developers.

The complaint

The legal action in Canada was not an isolated incident, however. Around the same time, movie industry representatives targeted the operator of YTS/YIFY who’s a New Zealand resident.

The movie industry representatives had a warrant and threatened a multi-million dollar lawsuit, urging the operator to cooperate.

YTS went dark two weeks ago as a result of the legal trouble and is not coming back.

The status of the lawsuits in Canada and New Zealand is currently unclear, but sources told us last week that several of the accused are working on an agreement to minimize their harm, possibly in exchange for information.

The MPAA, meanwhile, is ready to declare the outcome as a clear victory.

“This coordinated legal action is part of a larger comprehensive approach being taken by the MPAA and its international affiliates to combat content theft,” MPAA boss Chris Dodd says.

“Popcorn Time and YTS are illegal platforms that exist for one clear reason: to distribute stolen copies of the latest motion picture and television shows without compensating the people who worked so hard to make them,” he adds.

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Update: The article was updated to remove some unrelated info, and add other bits and pieces that came in.

Update: The Popcorn Time injunction and claim.

Breaking story, more info may follow later.

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

The makers of Dallas Buyers Club have sued thousands of BitTorrent users over the past two years.

Many of these cases end up being settled for an undisclosed amount. This usually happens after the filmmakers obtain the identity of the Internet account holder believed to have pirated the movie.

Not all alleged downloaders are eager to pay up though. In fact, many don’t respond to the settlement letters they receive or claim that someone else must have downloaded the film using their connection.

This presents a problem for the filmmakers, who need to gather additional evidence to prove guilt. In several recent cases they even went through social media profiles of defendants and Google map images of their neighborhoods, for example.

In addition to this info Dallas Buyers Club want to speak to the accused directly so have asked the court to grant dozens of depositions. This would help to determine who the true pirates are, they argue.

The request covers five active cases with 61 IP-addresses which have yet to respond or settle.

The court carefully reviewed the request and in an order late last week U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones denied the depositions.

In his order (pdf) the Judge writes that depositions are meant to “discover relevant information” but he doubts that Dallas Buyers Club intends to take any of these cases to trial.

When the filmmakers were allowed to depose people in a previous case it didn’t result in the naming of any defendants.

“All this implies that Plaintiff is not actually interested in bringing these cases to conclusion on their merits and is instead trying to use these proceedings to leverage settlements out of unidentified Doe defendants through the threat of Court order.”

Instead, the depositions may be used as a pressure tool, which would be a clear sign of abuse.

“Numerous other courts have considered the possibility of abusive litigation tactics in addressing similar motions. And this Court is increasingly tired of the slow progress of these cases and increasingly apprehensive of the possibility of abuse,” Judge Jones adds.

The Judge admits that depositions may often be helpful, but notes that Dallas Buyers Club wouldn’t be in any better position if the defendant denies being the primary infringer during the deposition.

The filmmakers already have the name and address of the account holders, and should make their case based on this information, the order concludes.

While there’s no direct accusation the mention of possible abuse and the growing impatience with the many Doe lawsuits is a clear blow for the movie studio.

For their part the accused pirates can chalk up a win as they have been saved from having to go through an ‘interrogation’, a potentially threatening and intimidating process.

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

Following an investigation carried out by the BPI and IFPI, with assistance from the US Department of Homeland Security, in 2011 file-sharing links forum Dancing Jesus was taken offline.

Two men, one the owner of the site and the other one of the forum’s top uploaders, were arrested by City of London Police. Homeland Security seized a Dancing Jesus server hosted in the United States.

After years of quiet, last October it became evident that the BPI was pursuing a private prosecution against the pair. In January 2014, site owner Kane Robinson of South Shields pleaded guilty to illegally distributing music. Key uploader Richard Graham of Leicestershire entered a guilty plea at a later date.

On November 10, 2014, Robinson and Graham were sentenced and received the harshest punishments ever handed down to UK-based file-sharers. For his part in offering a reported 22,500 links to 250,000 titles, Robinson was sentenced to 32 months. Graham received 21 months.

At the time the sentences were criticized as being both harsh and disproportionate but within months positive signs began to emerge.

In August a posting to a Facebook campaign page titled ‘Justice for Kane Robinson’ carried an optimistic message.

“We saw Kane at the weekend he is doing well and it is hopeful he could be out soon..thanks for all your continued support guys!” it read.

Then last Thursday, after receiving the toughest sentence of its kind and serving time in three separate prisons, Robinson was freed ‘just’ 11 months into his sentence.

His Facebook campaign carried two simple hashtags: #‎Justice4Kane‬ ‪and #‎Missioncomplete‬

It’s unclear why Robinson has been released so early. Chronicle Live said it had approached the Ministry of Justice but the office declined to comment on individual cases. Robinson himself has also remained silent.

TorrentFreak caught up with David Cook, a specialist cyber crime solicitor who was previously instructed to provide expert opinion to the defense in the case. He told TF that he no longer represents Robinson or Graham but confirmed both had previously filed appeals.

“However, this probably has a more simple explanation,” Cook explained.

“A 34 month sentence would equate to 17 months in custody and 17 months ‘on license’ in the community. If a person behaves and is deemed suitable then they may be released earlier.”

Both men will now be looking to rebuild their lives, probably far away from the file-sharing arena.

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

The extradition hearing of Kim Dotcom and former colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk, continued in the Auckland District Court today.

The quartet is fighting deportation to the United States on serious charges including conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering, and engaging in a racketeering conspiracy.

However, the court heard from the defense that the offenses don’t meet the criteria for the men to be sent to the United States.

Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield said the Crown, arguing on behalf of the United States, has been attempting to characterize the charges against the men as fraud, an extraditable offense.

However, he pointed out that the US Supreme Court previously ruled that copyright infringement can not be considered fraud. A key case, Dowling v. United States, is referenced in a white paper published by Kim Dotcom (pdf).

It’s important for Dotcom to make a clear distinction between copyright infringement and fraud. Mansfield says that all of the 13 charges against the Megaupload founder are underpinned by copyright infringement allegations.

Also muddying the waters is the fact under United States law one of the criminal copyright infringement charges brought against Dotcom has already exceeded its time limitations. The others, Mansfield said, are not aimed at his client and are dependent on other charges being proven.

“Categorically there is no case to answer under US law,” he said.

“Unless the United States can show an offense of criminal secondary copyright infringement in the United States as a matter of law, this court must reject this application for surrender.”

But locally there are issues too. Mansfield told the court that New Zealand legislation does not recognize copyright infringement as fraud either and the extradition treaty between the two countries does not hold copyright infringement as being an extraditable offense.

“That’s the end of the story, really,” he told Judge Nevin Dawson.

Further boosting Dotcom’s position, Mansfield argued yesterday that even charges of (non-extraditable) copyright infringement are excessive.

As the operator of a service provider company, Dotcom and his colleagues should’ve enjoyed ‘safe harbor’ and not been held liable for the infringing acts of their users.

Dotcom’s defense is expected to conclude this week but no matter what the outcome, it’s unlikely to be the end of the extradition legal process. Whichever side loses, both are expected to take their case to appeal.

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

With a net income of more than $1 billion Elsevier is one of the largest academic publishers in the world.

Through its ScienceDirect portal the company offers access to millions of scientific articles spread out over 2,200 journals, most of which are behind a paywall.

Websites such as Sci-Hub and The Library Genesis Project, or Libgen for short, have systematically breached this barrier by hosting pirated copies of scientific publications as well as mainstream books.

Earlier this year one of the largest publishers went into action to stop this threat. Elsevier filed a complaint at a New York District Court, accusing the sites’ operators of systematic copyright infringement.

The publisher requested damages and asked for a preliminary injunction to prevent the sites from distributing their articles while the case is ongoing.

Late last week District Court Judge Robert Sweet approved the request (pdf), ordering the operators of Sci-Hub.org, Bookfi.org, Elibgen.org and several sister sites to cease their activities.

In addition, the responsible domain name registries are ordered to suspend the associated domain names until further notice.

Previously the Public Interest Registry (.ORG) refused to do so when Elsevier put in a request, noting that it would require a valid court order to suspend a domain name.

According to the order Elsevier showed that it’s likely to succeed based on its copyright infringement claims. In addition, there’s enough evidence to suggest that the defendants violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

“The balance of hardships clearly tips in favor of the Plaintiffs. Elsevier has shown that it is likely to succeed on the merits, and that it continues to suffer irreparable harm due to the Defendants’ making its copyrighted material available for free,” Judge Sweet writes.

The site’s operators have few grounds on which to fight the injunction, as they don’t have the right to distribute most of the articles in the first place.

“The Defendants cannot be legally harmed by the fact that they cannot continue to steal the Plaintiff’s content, even if they tried to do so for public-spirited reasons,” the order reads.

Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of Sci-Hub, is the only person who responded to Elsevier’s complaint. In a letter she sent to the court before the injunction hearing, she argued that the publisher is exploiting researchers and blocking access to knowledge.

Judge Sweet agrees that there is a public interest to safeguard broad access to scientific research. However, simply putting all research online without permission is not the answer.

“Elbakyan’s solution to the problems she identifies, simply making copyrighted content available for free via a foreign website, disserves the public interest,” Judge Sweet writes.

The Judge notes that under current law researchers and the public are allowed to publicly share “ideas and insights” from the articles without restrictions. People can also freely use the copyrighted articles for research or educational purposes under the fair use doctrine.

“Under this doctrine, Elsevier’s articles themselves may be taken and used, but only for legitimate purposes, and not for wholesale infringement,” the order reads.

At the time of writing several of the websites, including Sci-hub.org and Bookfi.org, are still online. It is expected that they will be suspended by the registry in a matter of days.

Time will tell whether the site operators will also stop offering copyrighted articles, or if they will simply move to a new domain name and continue business as usual.

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