Taking “infringing” apps out of popular app stores is one of Hollywood’s key anti-piracy priorities for the years to come.

Various entertainment industry groups frequently report “piracy-enabling” apps to Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon, alongside requests for the stores to take them offline.

The stores themselves also screen for potentially problematic software. Apple, for example, has notoriously banned all BitTorrent related apps.

Increasingly, Amazon is also policing its app marketplace for possibly infringing content. A few days ago, this led to the removal of the popular media center Kodi, previously known as XBMC.

“In reviewing your app, we determined that it can be used to facilitate the piracy or illegal download of content. Any facilitation of piracy or illegal downloads is not allowed in our program,” Amazon wrote to Kodi.

“Please do not resubmit this app or similar apps in the future,” Amazon’s support team added.

TF spoke with XBMC Foundation board member Nathan Betzen, who was surprised to hear Amazon’s decision. In recent months the project has worked hard to distance their brand from piracy, so Amazon’s accusation is a huge disappointment.

The Kodi software itself is an entirely legal media center that doesn’t come with any infringing features or content. However, there are many third-party addons that allow users to stream pirated movies and TV-shows.

The Kodi team is actively pursuing infringing addons and sellers who abuse the brand, and is also trying to obtain a trademark so they can go after these piracy promoters more effectively.

“Most importantly, we’re working to finalize our trademark filing. Once our trademark is registered, it becomes dramatically easier to issue takedown requests with the various organizations that provide voice for these groups advertising and selling pirate boxes,” Betzen tells TF.

“We always say we don’t care what our users do with the software, and we stand by that position. But we sure do hate it when companies destroy the name of our software in order to make a profit.”

For Amazon to ban the app is “absurd” according to the Kodi team, because the company is still allowing vendors to sell boxes that are giving the software this bad reputation.

“I assume I don’t have to tell you how absurd it is that Amazon won’t let us into their appstore, but they have no problem selling the boxes that are pushing the reason they won’t let us into their app store,” Betzen says.

Removing Kodi may also hurt Amazon in the long run, according to Betzen. The application allowed many other third-party services that are currently not on Amazon, available to Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Fire TV Stick users.

“This is a bad decision on Amazon’s part simply because Kodi is one giant reason people buy Amazon Fire TVs and Amazon Fire TV Sticks. Compatibility with our software makes for a really simple backdoor for entering the Amazon ecosystem.”

“I personally have sideloaded Kodi onto Amazon sticks for a number of my family members, who then found themselves also using Amazon Prime and many other Amazon services,” he adds.

Coincidentally, around the same time Amazon booted Kodi from their market, Google decided to include it in the Play Store. According to the Kodi team this is yet another reason for people to leave Amazon hardware behind.

“It’s going to be extraordinarily difficult for Kodi users to justify going down the Amazon hardware path and recommending the Amazon path to others,” Betzen concludes.

People who are interested in trying out Kodi’s media player, which is available on most operating systems, can head over to the official site.

Update: Several people have pointed out that many Kodi/XBMC related apps that have “pre-loaded” piracy addons (including the popular TVMC) are still available on Amazon.

It seems likely that Amazon doesn’t take apps down proactively but that they only investigate apps after rightsholder complaints.

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

Last year BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music sued Cox Communications, arguing that the ISP fails to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

The companies, which control the publishing rights to songs by Katy Perry, The Beatles and David Bowie among others, claim that Cox has given up its DMCA safe harbor protections due to this inaction.

The case revolves around the “repeat infringer” clause of the DMCA, which prescribes that Internet providers must terminate the accounts of persistent pirates.

As part of the discovery process the music outfits requested details on the accounts which they caught downloading their content. In total there are 150,000 alleged pirates, but the court limited the initial disclosure to the top 250 infringing IP-addresses in the six months before the lawsuit was filed.

Although the copyright holders provided time-stamps of the alleged infringements, Cox responded quite literally to the court order. This means that in addition to historical account information, they also handed over the personal details of current subscribers.

In a recent court filing Cox explains the disclosure is not a mistake (pdf), and the ISP says it informed the current account holders that their information will be handed over to the music companies.

In a letter informing the subscribers, Cox says that customer service is not allowed to assist them and that subscribers should contact a lawyer instead.

“We regret being placed in the position of sending this letter, but want you to have every opportunity to protect your interests. We are not permitted to give you legal advice and encourage you to consult an attorney immediately,” Cox writes.

Many of the current subscribers are surprised to be included and 32 have indicated that they object to having their personal data handed over.

One of the subscribers asked the court to limit the scope of the order to the time-frame when the actual infringements took place, noting that he or she wasn’t even a Cox customer when the files were shared.

“Cox intends to produce the personal account information of all customers assigned to the IP-addresses in question — even those who were not subscribers to Cox during the relevant time periods listed in the discovery request!”

“This broad reading of the Court’s Order could drag dozens of innocent parties into this litigation,” the subscriber notes.

Thus far Cox has not handed over any information related to subscriber who objected, awaiting further instructions from the court. However, the personal details of the other 216 account holders has already been disclosed.

In addition to the current subscribers Cox also matched 139 historical IP-addresses to the relevant personal details. Aside from 17 customers who objected, these details were handed over as well.

It’s unclear why Cox didn’t raise the issue of the current subscribers in court before disclosing their details. The information holds no value to the music companies who requested it, but is quite a burden to the account holders.

The music companies previously stated that they don’t intend to sue any individual subscribers, but several are unaware of this promise and fear getting caught up in an expensive legal battle.

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

The fifth season of Game of Thrones has been the most-viewed so far, both through official channels and among pirates.

With this in mind the season finale was expected to be a record breaker, and it didn’t disappoint.

With the Internet abuzz over the latest plot twist and turns, many people turned to torrent sites to grab a pirated copy of the show, which appeared online shortly after the broadcast ended.

Data gathered by TorrentFreak shows that during the first eight hours, the season finale has been downloaded an estimated 1.5 million times already.

Never before have we seen this many downloads in such a short period of time, and last year it took half a day to reach the same number. Based on this figure, the download count is expected to increase to more than 10 million during the days to come.

The lower quality 480p copies of the show remain by far the most popular among downloaders, followed by 720p and 1080p copies respectively.

A brief inspection of the download locations shows that Game of Thrones pirates come from all over the world, as we’ve seen previously. The show is particularly popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and India.

While HBO began warning individual downloaders earlier this year, the piracy demand appears to keep growing. In addition to the 1.5 million downloads the latest episode is also on track to beat the piracy swarm record.

At the time of writing the Demonii tracker reports that 224,367 people are sharing a single torrent at the same time. 150,003 are sharing a complete copy of that particular torrent while 74,364 are still downloading.

The current record stands at a quarter million active sharers, but this is usually reached later in the day. We will update this article in a few hours with an updated count.

Update: At 7:45 PM CET the swarm record was broken. At that time there were 258,131 people sharing a single torrent of the season finale. 181,075 are sharing a complete copy of that particular torrent while 77,056 are still downloading. More updates may follow.

Over the past three years Game of Thrones has been the most pirated TV-show. Based on the number of downloads this season, the same result will be achieved in 2015.

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

For the past several years the publication of a so-called ‘Transparency Report’ has become common on large technology focused sites. Reddit, Twitter and even Amazon produce such documents.

Perhaps the best known report is produced by Google. This giant database is updated on a daily basis and includes details of hundreds of millions of requests by third parties to have content removed from the search giant’s databases. Today, cloud-storage site Mega gets in on the act with the publication of its first transparency report since the company launched in 2012.

The report, which details activities up until March 2015, focuses on content removal requests and third-party requests for information related to Mega’s users.

Noting that the company is New Zealand-based and is governed by the laws of that country, Mega notes that it also aims to comply with regulatory requirements in other key areas in which it does business, notably the United States.

Copyright takedowns

“When Mega receives such notices it promptly removes or disables access to the offending file or files, depending on the type of request, consistent with the Terms of Service agreed to by every registered user,” Mega notes.

Interestingly, Mega offers three options when accepting takedown requests:

1. Disable one link per file – the file will remain in the user’s account
2. Disable multiple URLs per file – the file will remain in the user’s account
3. Remove all underlying files of the supplied URL(s) – there is no user permitted to store this under any circumstance worldwide.

These options allow for externally linked content to be taken down while respecting fair use, for example.

“Many copyrighted materials provide the user with a licence to make a backup copy. Recently enacted UK law confirms this right. Uploading it to a cloud storage service is not infringing,” Mega explains.

Overall, the numbers of files being taken down are small when compared to the total number of files stored on the service.

“The number of files which have been subject to such take down notices continues to be very small, indicative of a user base which appreciates the speed and flexibility of Mega’s system for fully legal business and personal use.”

Mega’s claims of a “very small” number of files being taken down is supported by the company’s data. Currently the company’s users upload an impressive 15 to 20 million files per day, or more than 200 files every second.

During 2013 Q1, Mega took down 30,078 files, representing just 0.019% of the total number of files present on Mega’s servers. By the first quarter of 2015, files taken down numbered 107,146 but due to a further boost in total files stored, that represented just 0.002% of the company’s storage.

Also noteworthy is the total number of requests Mega received for the removal of content. Starting in 2013 Q1, the company received 51,857 requests but 21,779 (42%) were either duplicate or invalid. By 2015 Q1 things had improved somewhat with ‘just’ 21% of requests rejected. However, 2014 Q4 was a particularly bad month, with more than a quarter of a million (63% of all notices sent) rejected due to being invalid or duplicate.

Despite the large numbers of complaints received (valid or otherwise), Mega says that it deals with them all in a timely manner.

“The DMCA requires links to be taken down expeditiously. Most cloud providers target takedown within 24 hours. Mega targets takedown within a maximum of 4 hours, with takedowns frequently being actioned much quicker than the 4 hour target,” the report reads.

This timing is impressive. In a 2014 announcement, Google reported an average takedown time of six hours when the company took down 222 million results from Google Search in 2013.

Repeat infringers

With entertainment companies continuously breathing down the company’s neck, the way Mega deals with so-called ‘repeat infringers’ is an important public barometer of the company’s attitude towards protecting copyright.

“Mega maintains market leading processes for dealing with users who upload and share copyright infringing material or breach any other legal requirements,” the company notes.

“Mega suspends the account of any user with 5 takedown actions. In some cases the account can be reinstated where it is proved to be the subject of invalid takedown notices but most suspended accounts are terminated. Up to 31 March 2015, Mega had suspended 29,213 users.”

Requests for personal information

Mega bills itself as ‘The Privacy Company’ so users are likely to expect that their personal information will be as safe, if not safer, in the hands of Mega than similarly placed service providers. Mega says it values user privacy but in some cases the company will hand over information to relevant authorities when required.

“Privacy is not an absolute right and is subject to limitations. We take all requests for the disclosure of user information seriously. In considering any request for user data, user information or action involving a Mega user, Mega starts from the position that user data and information is private,” the company writes.

“Mega will generally only provide user details when required to do so by New Zealand law or a New Zealand court or law enforcement authority with appropriate jurisdiction but Mega may consider requests made by non-New Zealand law enforcement authorities and civil claimants.”

However, considering how many people use Mega’s services, requests for personal information are extremely low.

In 2013 the company received just a single request but handed over no data. In 2014 a total of six requests were received (all from overseas) and just two resulted in information being disclosed. Of that total, four requests were made by government or the police, two from corporate entities and one from a private individual.

“Mega respects the need to openly disclose the level of non-compliant activity of the few users who breach its Terms of Service, even though many competitors don’t disclose such information,” Mega CEO Graham Gaylard informs TorrentFreak.

“Mega works very hard to ensure that the legitimate rights of content owners are respected.”

The full report can be found here.

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

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Get Hard is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(…)	Get Hard	6.1 / trailer
2	(1)	Run All Night	6.7 / trailer
3	(2)	Kingsman: The Secret Service	8.1 / trailer
4	(…)	Jurassic World	7.7 / trailer
5	(3)	Chappie	7.1 / trailer
6	(4)	San Andreas Quake	2.1 / trailer
7	(7)	Furious 7 (Subbed/cropped HDRip)	8.8 / trailer
8	(5)	Home	6.8 / trailer
9	(10)	Blackhat	5.4 / trailer
10	(6)	Unfinished Business	5.2 / trailer

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