This week has descended into an incredible mess for Popcorn Time, and the end is still not in sight.

It began on Monday when news broke that several of the core developers had decided to leave the PopcornTime.io project, fearing a possible lawsuit.

Soon after, the application’s .io domain name stopped working, a domain that was controlled by one of the departed team members. Yesterday these issues seemed to be resolved but the comeback didn’t last long.

The Popcorn Time team has just informed TorrentFreak that they have lost control again. They put in a request to transfer the domain to a new owner but their service provider Gandi.net just retracted the changes.

“In the last few days someone has been tempering with our infrastructure, mainly our DNS service, and we can’t convince our provider Gandi.net that we are us and want to stay online,” the Popcorn Time teams says.

The domain was supposed to be transferred to one of the remaining developers, who’s also a business associate of the current domain owner, but Gandi is refusing to cooperate.

As a result the infrastructure of the main Popcorn Time fork is no longer working, nor are people able to download new copies of the popular application.

It’s unclear how long the problem will persist but the developers are not throwing in the towel just yet.

“We’re doing our best to maintain the service but today we can’t give any timeline of things getting better. Please hang on, we’re working day and night to get this sorted out,” they say.

Meanwhile, various other Popcorn Time developments are only complicating the situation.

Popular torrent site and release group YTS, also known as YIFY, has been down for days as well. Since YTS is used as the main torrent resource by many Popcorn Time applications, these are also unable to stream movies.

Finally, there’s the Browser Popcorn website, which gained mainstream attention over the past week. While this site has nothing to do with any of the applications, it does add to the chaos, resulting in inaccurate news reports all around.

It will probably take a few more days before the dust settles, or for everything to fall apart. Considering the turbulent events of the past few days, it could go either way.

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

Founded in 2006 by Rick Falkvinge, the Pirate party movement has scored some significant victories over the years.

The greatest success is the continuing presence in the European Parliament, but in Iceland the local Pirate Party is writing history as well.

The Pirates have a great track record in Iceland already, with three members in the national Parliament. However, many more may join in the future as the Pirates have become the largest political party in the polls.

Earlier this year we already reported on this remarkable achievement. At the time the Pirate Party had 23.9% of the polled votes, a number that has now grown to 34.2% in the last MMR survey.

According to the most recent polls the Pirate Party now has more support than the local coalition Government, which consists of the Independence Party (21.7%) and Progressive Party (10.4%).

Pirates leading the polls

The continued rise is quite a success for a party that was founded just three years ago, and for now the upward trend continues.

TF spoke with Ásta Helgadóttir, Member of Parliament for the Icelandic Pirate Party, who believes that many people are fed up with the current state of politics.

“I believe people are tired of the old fashioned politics the old parties are practicing,” she says.

“We have been focusing on making decisions based on evidence, being honest when we make mistakes and ready to change our minds if that is needed. We have also been working on changing the system from within and demanding that the people in position of power are responsible for their actions.”

Unlike some outsiders believe, the Pirates are not a one issue party. The party is known to fight against increased censorship and protect freedom of speech, but also encourages transparency and involvement of citizens in political issues.

“We are working on taking our democratic system into the 21st century,” Ásta says. “The division between the executive and legislative should be much clearer than it is today, as ministers can and most often are also members of parliament now.”

This is just one of the many ideas the party is working on. While the current poll results are promising, it has to hold these for a while as the next elections are scheduled in 2017.

While the Pirate Party may be more popular than the current government at the moment, it doesn’t mean that governing is a main goal. The Pirates just want to make sure that the status quo changes.

“We don’t really want to govern, but rather have the system working as a whole where everyone in it has responsibility for their actions.”

“I don’t know how realistic it is that we’ll form a government, only time will tell,” she concludes.

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

Last November, Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film and the Swedish Film Industry teamed up against Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget (Broadband Company).

In a lawsuit filed at the Stockholm District Court, the entertainment industry plaintiffs argued that Bredbandsbolaget is liable for the Internet piracy carried out by its own subscribers. They say that if the ISP wants to free itself from blame, it should stop its customers accessing The Pirate Bay and streaming portal Swefilmer.

Bredbandsbolaget took just over a month to reject the demands of the entertainment industry groups, announcing that its only role is to provide customers with Internet access while facilitating the free-flow of information.

After a February 20, 2014 district court meeting between the parties concluded without consensus or formal agreement, a full trial was inevitable. That began yesterday in Stockholm, with Bredbandsbolaget facing off against a who’s who of movie and TV companies, local distributors, and the musical might of IFPI.

The plaintiffs’ position is clear. By failing to block its subscribers from accessing the sites, Bredbandsbolaget itself is facilitating copyright infringement and therefore liable to pay damages to the entertainment companies. Previously this aspect of the law has only been tested against file-sharing services such as The Pirate Bay.

Needless to say, the ISP is concerned not only by the copyright implications, but also the thin end of the wedge in respect of other crimes.

“It is dangerous if we are sentenced as accomplices or participants to crimes committed online. In this case it is about copyright infringement, but it is difficult to logically explain why it would stop at that,” company spokesperson Aron Samuelsson explains.

“If one takes the example of WikiLeaks one can easily argue that there is a spread of classified material taking place. Another parallel is on social media where there are threats, defamation and even copyright infringement. Do we have to act, even in those cases?”

Speaking on behalf of the plaintiffs, Per Strömbäck acknowledges the gravity of the case but dismisses fears that any ruling against the ISP will have wider implications.

“It is a question that must be taken seriously but in 13 other EU countries where rightsholders have won similar cases escalation hasn’t occurred,” Strömbäck says.

“This case applies specifically to copyright and it cannot be a surprise to anyone that there is an exceptionally large problem with copyright infringement online. We think it is reasonable for Swedish creators to have the same protection enjoyed by those neighboring countries.”

But while Strömbäck’s comments appear to limit the effect of the ruling in respect of other crimes, the scope in copyright remains enormous.

Should the court decide that Bredbandsbolaget is liable for infringements carried out by subscribers using The Pirate Bay, then by extension all local ISPs can be held liable in the same manner. Furthermore, if ISPs are liable for infringing Pirate Bay users, they can also be held liable for subscribers using every other unauthorized service.

This, of course, is where the floodgates open. If the plaintiffs prevail, all entertainment companies will be able to go to court in Sweden and demand that ISPs A to Z block file-sharing services 1 to 200 – and beyond. It’s a never-ending game that has seen hundreds of URLs blocked at the ISP level in the UK, mostly without any public scrutiny or oversight.

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

The leaking of first-run movies onto the Internet continues to be a thorn in the side of Hollywood and its distribution partners around the world.

The studios themselves refuse to make their own content widely available on the day of release, which means that people who prefer their own homes over a cinema have only one (illegal) choice if they wish to view the latest movies quickly.

This unwelcome competition is something Hollywood is desperate to stamp out and increasingly it’s turning to workers in the movie chain to help it to do so. One of those efforts includes rewarding cinema staff for remaining vigilant during screenings in order to shut down so-called ‘cammers’.

In the UK cinema staff are motivated by cash rewards handed out by the Film Distributors’ Association and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). Together the groups have paid out thousands of pounds to pirate-catchers and now they’re about to up the rewards considerably.

During a ceremony at Universal Pictures yesterday, the FDA and FACT announced the launch of an “enhanced rewards period” which will see cash payments to cinema workers doubled from £500 to £1000 for each thwarted attempt at unauthorized recording.

The period will run between 23rd October and 1st January 2016 and is set to coincide with a batch of new releases hitting UK cinema screens.

“From next week through to Christmas, the exceptional run of new releases is highly attractive both to mass-market cinemagoers and, regrettably also, to the networks of copyright pirates who persist in trying to rip off the creative industries and consumers,” says Mark Batey, Chief Executive of the Film Distributors’ Association.

During yesterday’s event at Universal Pictures, more than a dozen UK cinema workers received awards for their vigilance earlier in the year. In all, 13 employees received a cash prize and a certificate after intervening against unauthorized cammings of Fast and Furious 7, Pitch Perfect 2 and Minions.

According to figures released by FACT, in total there were 11 incidents of which 10 were attended by police. Four of those incidents led to a formal caution and one incident led to two arrests.

“Detecting and disrupting illegal recording in cinemas is a key area of FACT’s work to protect the creative content that we all love,” says FACT Director General Kieron Sharp.

“Illegal camming is still the source of more than 90% of all pirated films and so our film protection programme is essential to protecting new releases and preventing criminal activity.”

Today’s rewards announcement coincides perfectly with the impending launch of upcoming James Bond blockbuster ‘Spectre’. The movie will enjoy its world premiere at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Monday and will be immediately released nationwide. FACT has already indicated that security of the movie will be intense, with night vision goggles deployed to catch would-be cammers.

The anti-piracy group will be hoping that £1,000 will prove an exciting prospect for cinema workers around the country and enough to stop any leak of Spectre before its November 6 launch in the United States.

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

For several years politicians have debated on how Europe should approach net neutrality.

The results of these negotiations are included in the Telecoms Single Market (TSM) regulation, which will be voted on early next week.

If the European Parliament adopts the new rules they will become law, replacing existing network neutrality laws in member states of the EU.

This is a positive development for net neutrality supporters in countries where legislation is lacking, but not necessarily in the Netherlands, Slovenia and Norway, which already have strong rules in place.

Various activist groups and experts warn that there won’t be any real network neutrality if some crucial amendments fail to pass. These amendments will ensure that specific types of traffic aren’t throttled around the clock, for example.

The current language would allow ISPs to throttle BitTorrent traffic permanently if that would optimize overall “transmission quality.” This is not a far-fetched argument, since torrent traffic can be quite demanding on a network.

Barbara van Schewick, Professor of Law and Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, tells us that in its current form the net neutrality regulations pose a significant threat to file-sharing protocols and services.

“This is a real problem for P2P applications. ISPs regularly throttle or otherwise interfere with peer-to-peer file-sharing applications to manage congestion if they are not prevented from doing so by network neutrality rules,” van Schewick says.

“The provisions would allow ISPs to throttle or de-prioritize P2P file-sharing around the clock based on the ‘objective technical requirement’ that P2P file-sharing is not sensitive to delay,” she adds.

This would lead to lower download speeds for average downloaders, for example. In addition, it would be troubling for P2P and BitTorrent-based real-time streaming services which are particularly sensitive to delays.

Besides file-sharing traffic the proposed legislation also allows Internet providers to interfere with encrypted traffic, including VPN connections.

Since encrypted traffic can’t be classified though deep packet inspection, ISPs may choose to de-prioritize it altogether.

“Encryption makes it impossible to identify the type of application, so ISPs who implement that kind of traffic management have generally put encrypted traffic in the slow lane,” van Schewick explains.

“Even if an ISP wasn’t specifically targeting P2P file-sharing applications, this would hurt all P2P applications that encrypt their traffic,” she adds.

The concerns outlined above are shared by several Members of Parliament who have introduced amendments to fix the issues. However. in order to get them accepted they require support from the majority of Parliament.

To push them in the right direction, a coalition of digital rights groups have created the SaveTheInternet website where European citizens can share their concerns, encouraging their representatives to vote in favor of the amendments.

More information and comments on the European net neutrality rules are available on Medium. Next week we’ll know if the campaign helped, or if BitTorrent and VPN traffic are still at risk.

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