As highlighted in a TorrentFreak report earlier this month, anti-piracy outfits are running out of patience with the proliferation of software and devices that allow for movies, TV shows and sports to be pirated and streamed with ease.

Popcorn Time and Kodi/XBMC derivatives are the industry’s primary targets and their installation in hardware devices including cheap Android-style set-top boxes is clearly becoming a real thorn in its side. Earlier this month police carried out several raids in the UK and today comes news of yet more operations, complete with accompanying video.

After a joint investigation by the Metropolitan Police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) into the sales of set-top boxes programmed to provide access to movies, TV shows, live sports and subscription channels without permission, officers raided locations in the south and Midlands areas of the country.

In what appears to be the largest raid today, officers from the Metropolitan Police carried out raids in Feltham, Middlesex. A 48-year-old-man and a woman were arrested and more than 1,000 set-top boxes were seized.

Further north in the West Midlands town of Walsall, police seized “dozens” of pieces of electronics including set-top boxes, computers and sat nav systems. A 50-year-old man was voluntarily interviewed by police and FACT investigators.

While police and FACT involvement indicate that the authorities are taking these devices seriously, today raids were also assisted by officers from the West Midlands Regional Organized Crime Unit (ROCU) and the Government Agency Intelligence Network (GAIN). Completing what the Brits might call a “full house”, Trading Standards officers were also involved in the operation.

“The proliferation of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) and set-top boxes along with apps and add-ons that facilitate illegal streams have created new opportunities for piracy and the delivery of stolen content,” said FACT Director General Kieron Sharp.

“As today’s action demonstrates, we are working in close partnership with our colleagues in law enforcement on addressing these threats and are committed to bringing those responsible to account.”

GAIN Co-ordinator Jason Grove underlined the high level of agency cooperation evident in this morning’s raids.

“Today’s action is an excellent example of our multi-agency working across force boundaries to tackle serious and organized crime,” Grove said.

“These kinds of offenses cost the economy and in particular the film and television industry tens of thousands of pounds each year and today shows that we will take action against those involved.”

Finally, in a further indication that the authorities and FACT want these operations to be highly visible, a video of one of the raids.

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

Last summer the bimonthly computer magazine “Téléchargement,” French for “Download,” released an issue documenting the various ways people can pirate films, TV-shows, games and music on the Internet.

The cover featured a pirate skull and advertised “the best software and websites to download for free.”

The local music industry group SCPP was appalled by the controversial issue and decided to take legal action in response. According to the group’s CEO Marc Guez the magazine publishers had gone too far.

“A line had been crossed,” Guez told Next INpact. “This is a magazine which clearly and shamelessly incited piracy. That’s what prompted us to act.”

The music industry group highlighted what they believe were inciting passages. For example, it described torrent clients such as uTorrent and BitComet, noting that it’s easy to find infringing content through Google search.

“There’s no need to dive into the depths of the deep Web for pirate downloads, Google will make sure they’ll surface. With some clever keywords and in a handful of clicks you will fill your hard drives with joy and laughter,” it read.

“We offer an overview of the best torrent clients plus some tips and tricks to entertain you,” the magazine added.

Other passages of the magazine mentioned specific tips and websites where pirated content is available, mentioning how easy it is to download movies and music without paying for it.

SCPP took the magazine publisher to court claiming it had violated French copyright law. Specifically, they argued that the publisher willingly encouraged its readers to use software that’s predominantly used to share copyright infringing material.

Under French law it’s forbidden to “knowingly encourage” the use of software that’s clearly meant to infringe copyrights, with a maximum prison sentence of three years and a €300,000 fine.

The publisher contested the claims, noting that the magazine repeatedly emphasized that piracy is illegal. However, according to the court this was not enough.

Earlier this month the court of Nanterre handed down its verdict ruling that the publisher indeed went too far. The court issued a €10,000 fine, which is roughly the amount that was made through the sale of the magazine.

The music industry is happy with the outcome, noting that it’s the first time that a news outlet has been found guilty of inciting piracy under this section of copyright law. The ruling is final and can’t be appealed.

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

Last month the long running lawsuit between the RIAA and Grooveshark came to an end. However, within days a new site was launched aiming to take its place.

The RIAA wasn’t happy with this development and quickly obtained a restraining order, preventing domain registrars and hosting companies from offering their services to the site.

In a response Namecheap quickly suspended the site’s account. However, the “new” Grooveshark then relocated elsewhere and as of today the RIAA is still in the dark as to the identity of the owner.

Hoping to track this person down the music labels recently filed a motion to conduct expedited discovery. This would allow them to order third party services to hand over all personal information they have on the site’s operator.

“Defendants have continued to operate the counterfeit Service, concealing their identities and using multiple infringing domain names registered through at least three different domain name registrars,” the RIAA’s lawyers wrote in their motion.

According to the RIAA, help from other services is needed as they have “no alternative methods” to find out who is operating the “revived” Grooveshark site.

Late last week New York District Court Judge Alison Nathan agreed with the music labels, granting the motion against Namecheap and several other service providers (pdf).

In addition to Namecheap the court filing specifically mentions the “proxy” provider Cloudflare, domain name registrar Dynadot and hosting provider Nodisto.

The RIAA expects that these organizations will have crucial information including payment details and IP-addresses. Thus far none of the third-party service providers have objected to the order, and it’s unlikely that they will.

Coincidentally, Namecheap launched a campaign last week urging its users to protest a new proposal that would put an end to private domain name registrations for some site owners. However, the company does not object to court orders and has complied with similar ones previously.

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

Five years ago, discovering the physical location of almost any ‘pirate’ site was achievable in a matter of seconds using widely available online tools. All one needed was an IP address and a simple lookup.

As sites became more aware of the need for security, cloaking efforts became more commonplace. Smaller sites, private trackers in particular, began using tunnels and proxies to hide their true locations, hampering anti-piracy efforts in the process. Later these kinds of techniques were used on even the largest sites, The Pirate Bay for example.

In the meantime the services of a rising company called Cloudflare had begun to pique the interest of security-minded site owners. Designed to optimize the performance of sites while blocking various kinds of abuse, Cloudflare-enabled sites get to exchange their regular IP address for one operated by Cloudflare, a neat side-effect for a site wishing to remain in the shadows.

Today, Cloudflare ‘protects’ dozens – perhaps hundreds – of ‘pirate’ sites. Some use Cloudflare for its anti-DDoS capabilities but all get to hide their real IP addresses from copyright holders. This has the potential to reduce the amount of DMCA notices and other complaints filtering through to their real hosts.

Surprisingly, however, belief persists in some quarters that Cloudflare is an impenetrable shield that allows ‘pirate’ sites to operate completely unhindered. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

In recent days a perfect example appeared in the shape of Sparvar (Sparrows), a Swedish torrent site that has been regularly hounded by anti-piracy outfit Rights Alliance. Sometime after moving to Canada in 2014, Sparvar began using the services of Cloudflare, which effectively cloaked the site’s true location from the world. Well, that was the theory.

According to an announcement from the site, Rights Alliance lawyer Henrik Pontén recently approached Cloudflare in an effort to uncover Sparvar’s email address and the true location of its servers. The discussions between Rights Alliance and Cloudflare were seen by Sparvar, which set alarm bells ringing.

“After seeing the conversations between Rights Alliance and server providers / CloudFlare we urge staff of other Swedish trackers to consider whether the risk they’re taking is really worth it,” site staff said.

“All that is required is an email to CloudFlare and then [anti-piracy companies] will have your IP address.”

As a result of this reveal, Sparvar is now offline. No site or user data has been compromised but it appears that the site felt it best to close down, at least for now.

This obviously upset users of the site, some of whom emailed TorrentFreak to express disappointment at the way the situation was handled by Cloudflare. However, Cloudflare’s terms and conditions should leave no doubt as to how the company handles these kinds of complaints.

One clause in which Cloudflare reserves the right to investigate not only sites but also their operators, it’s made crystal clear what information may be given up to third parties.

“You acknowledge that CloudFlare may, at its own discretion, reveal the information about your web server to alleged copyright holders or other complainants who have filed complaints with us,” the company writes.

The situation is further underlined when Cloudflare receives DMCA notices from copyright holders and forwards an alert to a site using its services.

“We have provided the name of your hosting provider to the reporter. Additionally, we have forwarded this complaint to your hosting provider as well,” the site’s abuse team regular advises.

While Cloudflare itself tends not to take direct action against sites it receives complaints about, problems can mount if a copyright holder is persistent enough. Just recently Cloudflare was ordered by a U.S. court to discontinue services to a Grooveshark replacement. That site is yet to reappear.

Finally, Sparvar staff have some parting advice for other site operators hoping to use Cloudflare services without being uncovered.

“We hope that you do not have your servers directly behind CloudFlare which means a big security risk. We hope and believe that you are also running some kind of reverse proxy,” the site concludes.

At the time of publication, Henrik Pontén of Rights Alliance had not responded to our requests for comment.

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

Like most other popular software, Malwarebytes has many unauthorized users who use cracks or keygens to unlock the programs paid features.

Traditionally, Malwarebytes has taken a fairly lenient stance towards pirates. Two years ago the company started tracking down this group of users, asking them kindly not to steal the software.

Now, the San Jose company has a new surprise in store. A few days ago Malwarebytes began scanning for pirate and counterfeit keys, as part as an upgrade of its licensing system.

Those found to have used an “abused” key then get the “amnesty” option to upgrade their software for a year without any cost, replacing the pirate key with a legitimate one.

“Malwarebytes is offering a free replacement key for Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Premium customers who have been inconvenienced by piracy or abuse. This new key will be exclusive to you going forward,” the company explains on its website.

Malwarebytes free upgrade

While the offer is certainly generous, it’s also a necessity because legitimate and pirate keys are often duplicates. This means that pirates and paid users have the same keys.

Going forward, Malwarebytes will use a more advanced license key algorithm which prevents this from happening. This means that it will be harder for pirates to get a free copy after their one year subscription expires.

Interestingly, those who choose the second “I purchased my key” option get a lifetime subscription at no cost.

Malwarebytes’ Bruce Harrison previously told TorrentFreak that they don’t plan to crack down too hard on pirates.

“Piracy is not really a huge problem for us in my opinion. There are a lot of people who simply won’t pay for our software and being aggressive against them won’t change that,” Harrison said.

Offering amnesty to pirates is in line with this stance. It certainly isn’t an aggressive move and could even trigger some to pay up when the free offer runs out.

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