Following its debut in the United States in January, TV show Empire certainly made its mark on its home audience. Pulling in close to a season average of 13 million viewers, the hip-hop focused drama exceeded expectations.

Indeed, by the time the first season finished on Fox mid March, 23 million were tuning in, with the New York Times describing the show as both “sizzling” and “pretty perfect.”

Of course, like the vast majority of U.S. productions, home audiences were always going to get the opportunity to enjoy Empire first. However, thanks to the Internet and a network of unofficial online distributors, Empire was soon being exposed to a much wider audience.

Within hours of its premiere January 7, 2015, Empire S01E01 was circulating on torrent and streaming sites, an attractive proposition for potential viewers elsewhere who had heard about the show’s popularity in the United States yet had no legitimate way to get in on the action.

According to stats gathered by TorrentFreak, on average the show was being downloaded more than 250,000 times per episode via BitTorrent, a number that doesn’t include many thousands of additional views on various streaming sites worldwide.

But while distributor 20th Century Fox wasn’t particularly keen on Empire being seen outside the United States (the company sent dozens of complaints to Google for the show to be delisted from search results), Empire star Taraji P Henson sees things quite differently.

“The only way that it [Empire] got over to the UK is because people were streaming it [illegally]. They [UK television companies] wouldn’t have known the show was that important, or that people wanted to see it, if they weren’t streaming it,” Henson told the BBC.

The actress, who plays the role of ‘Cookie’ in the show, echoes the position of Netflix, which notes the popularity of content with pirates and uses that as an indicator of whether it should invest in shows.

“You guys were streaming, and I know it’s a bad thing, but when the material is good people will find it. Thank you. Thank you everybody. People didn’t think it would do well over here,” Henson added.

After its success in the U.S., Empire was picked up by UK TV channel E4. Nick Lee, a buyer for the channel, didn’t reveal whether the show’s piracy ‘successes’ were a factor in snapping up the drama but did note that there was plenty of interest.

“We just think it fits so well on the channel,” he said. “There was huge competition. I think most channels in the UK wanted it.

And after Empire enjoyed its premiere in the UK last night, it became clear why. The show was well received by critics and fans alike.

Downloads of Empire are now at much more modest levels than they were in January but that situation should change when the show’s second season premieres in the United States during the fall. A US-UK simultaneous release will almost certainly be too much to ask.

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

OpenBitTorrent, PublicBT and Istole.it have long been the three largest BitTorrent trackers on the Internet, coordinating the downloads of 30 million people at any given point in time.

This means that these non-commercial services, powered by the open source Opentracker software, handled a staggering three billion connections per day – each.

We say handled, because the trackers have been offline since mid-January. The trio mysteriously disappeared, but the German music industry group BVMI now takes credit for the shutdowns.

According to BVMI’s lawfirm Rasch, the hosting company took the tracker offline after they were ordered identify the operators. However, the host initially refused to disclose the personal details.

In an injunction released this week a Hamburg court ordered that the hosting company now has to hand over the personal details of the tracker operators.

The ruling follows a complaint from BVMI and is the first against so-called standalone BitTorrent trackers. These trackers do not host or process any infringing material themselves and are a content neutral part of the BitTorrent ecosystem.

According to BVMI CEO Florian Drücke the music industry has recently expanded its focus beyond traditional torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, to include these standalone trackers.

“Without the Tracker, it will be much more difficult for those who offer and seek illegal content to make the first connection,” Drücke says.

The downside, however, is that legal torrents also use these trackers to coordinate connections.

According to Christian Solmecke, a German IT lawyer who has experience with file-sharing cases, the verdict comes a a surprise.

“The court ruling amazes me. Apparently the court assumes that BitTorrent trackers are by definition something illegal. This is not the case,” he says.

The lawyer doesn’t deny that the trackers play a role in both legal and illegal transfers, but they are content neutral and merely passing on metadata, similar to a DNS provider.

“By the same argument these BitTorrent trackers are switched off you might ultimately forbid an ISP to continue to provide Internet access to end users, if copyright violations are committed,” Solmecke adds.

While the three targeted trackers have been offline for months already, the ruling means that these type of services had better avoid Germany as their home base in future.

“Apparently, the music industry sees the entire BitTorrent network as ‘evil’,” Solmecke concludes.

Update: The article was updated to state that the court order only requires the host to identify the operators.

Rasch lawyer Mirko Brüß further notes that this case should not be compared with and ISP who provides Internet access to consumers.

“It appears Mr. Solmecke is not familiar with the BitTorrent technology. He is obviously not aware of the fact that the “opentracker” software comes with a blacklist. The tracker operators were asked to add certain info-hashes to this blacklist but failed to do so within a reasonable period of time,” Brüß says.

“After their ISP was made aware of this situation, he shut the servers down in order to prevent his own liability. This is basically the same as the established notice-and-takedown proceedings under the DMCA and cannot be compared to an ISP providing internet access to end users.”

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

Following a series of blocking orders issued by the High Court, UK Internet providers Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin, BT and EE are currently required to restrict access to many of the world’s largest torrent sites and streaming portals.

More than 100 websites have been blocked in recent years and today the court issued the first injunction against domains that offer no direct links, but only software.

The order, obtained today by Hollywood’s Motion Picture Association, targets five popular Popcorn Time forks: popcorntime.io, flixtor.me, popcorn-time.se, and isoplex.isohunt.to.

In his order Judge Birss notes that the Popcorm Time software has little to no legal use. Instead, he mentions that it’s mostly used to download and stream pirated movies and TV-shows.

“It is manifest that the Popcorn Time application is used in order to watch pirated content on the internet and indeed it is also manifest that that is its purpose. No-one really uses Popcorn Time in order to watch lawfully available content,” Judge Birss writes.

“The point of Popcorn Time is to infringe copyright. The Popcorn Time application has no legitimate purpose,” he adds.

Over the past year Popcorn Time has become a major threat to Hollywood so it doesn’t come as a complete surprise that the applications are now being targeted. Previously the movie studios took down code repositories on Github, for example.

In addition to the five Popcorn Time domains the order also lists the torrent and streaming sites watchonlineseries.eu, axxomovies.org, afdah.com and g2g.fm. All sites will be blocked under Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

After the ISPs gave up on defending their position in court, it is now a mere formality for copyright holders to have a pirate site banned. However, the blocking efforts are not without cost.

Leaked information previously revealed that even an unopposed application for a blocking order costs copyright holders around £14,000 per website. This brings the total costs of the blocking efforts to well over a million pounds.

All of the sites listed in today’s order are still accessible at the time of writing. It’s expected that the Internet providers will add them to their respective blocklists during the coming weeks.

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The full list of sites to be blocked in the UK is now as follows:

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New: popcorntime.io, flixtor.me, popcorn-time.se, and isoplex.isohunt.to, watchonlineseries.eu, axxomovies.org, afdah.com and g2g.fm.

Previously blocked: Bursalagu, Fullsongs, Mega-Search, Mp3 Monkey, Mp3.li, Mp3Bear, MP3Boo, Mp3Clan, Mp3Olimp, MP3s.pl, Mp3soup, Mp3Truck, Musicaddict, My Free MP3, Plixid, RnBXclusive, STAFA Band, watchseries.lt, Stream TV, Watchseries-online, Cucirca, Movie25, watchseries.to, Iwannawatch, Warez BB, Ice Films, Tehparadox, Heroturko, Scene Source,, Rapid Moviez, Iwatchonline, Los Movies, Isohunt, Torrentz.pro, Torrentbutler, IP Torrents, Sumotorrent, Torrent Day, Torrenting, BitSoup, TorrentBytes, Seventorrents, Torrents.fm, Yourbittorrent, Tor Movies , Demonoid, torrent.cd, Vertor, Rar BG, bittorrent.am, btdigg.org, btloft.com, bts.to, limetorrents.com, nowtorrents.com, picktorrent.com, seedpeer.me, torlock.com, torrentbit.net, torrentdb.li, torrentdownload.ws, torrentexpress.net, torrentfunk.com, torrentproject.com, torrentroom.com, torrents.net, torrentus.eu, torrentz.cd, torrentzap.com, vitorrent.org.Megashare, Viooz, Watch32, Zmovie, Solarmovie, Tubeplus, Primewire, Vodly, Watchfreemovies, Project-Free TV, Yify-Torrents, 1337x, Bitsnoop, Extratorrent, Monova, Torrentcrazy, Torrentdownloads, Torrentreactor, Torrentz, Ambp3, Beemp3, Bomb-mp3, Eemp3world, Filecrop, Filestube, Mp3juices, Mp3lemon, Mp3raid, Mp3skull, Newalbumreleases, Rapidlibrary, EZTV, FirstRowSports, Download4all, Movie2K, KickAssTorrents, Fenopy, H33T and The Pirate Bay.

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

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or the so the saying goes. Nevertheless, every day millions of people use online services such as Google without paying a penny. It’s a situation the Internet generation has become very accustomed to.

For millions of BitTorrent users, things move to the next level. After using any of the thousands of available torrent sites for free, content such as music, movies, TV shows, software and games flood into homes around the world, without cash directly forming part of any transaction.

Of course, none of these mechanisms are truly free and for most public torrent sites it is advertising that provides the fuel to keep things running smoothly. While torrent site users don’t usually pay for access directly, by being a viewer of torrent site advertising and therefore a potential consumer, a convenient business arrangement allows ‘free’ access to ‘free’ content.

Unless you’re a user of the semi-private tracker Demonoid, that is.

In recent days Demonoid, once one of the most popular sites on the Internet, implemented new terms of access. If users don’t wish to contribute to revenue streams by viewing embedded advertising, they are now completely barred from the site.

Disabling the popular Ad-Block browser plug-in does re-enable access to Demonoid but of course with that comes the reappearance of sometimes intrusive advertising, something which users of Ad-Block wish to avoid.

Aside from familiar ‘fake’ buttons emblazoned with the words “Play” and “Download”, a strip of gaming focused ads adorn the site’s main page. While these aren’t too bad, annoying and rotating full-screen pop-under ads also make an appearance.

For Demonoid and the majority of other similar sites, having users view ads is a vital part of site operations. Even if there is no intention to turn a profit, servers and other infrastructure still has to paid for and advertising is the number one way to make that happen. Just lately, however, even that hasn’t been as easy as it once was.

There is a concerted effort around the world to stop major brands from advertising on so-called ‘pirate’ sites, so the pool of agencies willing to place ads on sites like Demonoid is dwindling. Solutions are still being found (Demonoid ads include well-known gaming outfits and large betting companies) but with site blocking around Europe and measures by Google to downrank sites, overall traffic is dwindling.

With reduced traffic comes reduced revenue, a situation that may have prompted Demonoid to introduce its “No Ad-Block” policy in order to maximize returns, but even that has its unintended side effects.

One of the pages that doesn’t carry ads is the “upload page” where Demonoid users can upload content to the site – content that arguably keeps the site going more than the ads do. Whether that’s intentional is unknown, but at least one user with 500 plus torrents to his name tells TF that he won’t be using the site or seeding while the Ad-Block policy is in place.

“Some of us support the site by uploading content. Now I haven’t uploaded in a while, but I still support some 535 of my past Demonoid lossless torrents with a fast connection. Torrents I uploaded some three to six years ago,” the user says.

“For now I think I will boycott the site. The few lossless people that post only on Demonoid aren’t posting right now. So I can get content from KickAss.”

Of course, there is another large can of worms to be opened. By blocking non-contributing users because they aren’t ‘paying’ for content, some might argue that Demonoid is submitting to similar methods currently employed by the studios and labels when they apply for ISP site blocking injunctions.

In both cases perceived content free-loaders are being barred from the system. Granted, both can overcome blocks relatively easily, but it’s nevertheless interesting how torrent sites and their arch enemies feel compelled to take similar steps to protect revenues when the going gets tough.

Update: Demonoid informs TF that ad revenue has decreased a lot plus the site has had difficulty collecting money from affiliates. The site can accept donations via Bitcoin but Demonoid says that users are reluctant to use it.

“We need to implement some measures, or we face closure,” the site concludes.

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

The highly anticipated Mayweather / Pacquiao fight later this week is destined to become the most pirated live sports event in history.

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of fans, will tune into various pirated streams to avoid paying for the “fight of the century.”

This prospect has many rightsholders worried. Sports streaming sites can expect an avalanche of takedown notices as soon as the broadcast starts, but TV outfit ABS-CBN is also taking a more proactive stance.

The company filed a complaint with the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG) which led to the arrest of Jonathan Dela Cruz, an IT professor at a local university.

The professor, described as one of the most wanted movie and TV pirates, is the alleged operator of pinoy-tv-replay.com.

In addition to triggering the local investigation, ABS-CBN filed a lawsuit at a federal court in the United States (pdf). In the complaint the company mentions various trademark and copyright infringements as well as Dela Cruz’s plan to stream the Mayweather / Pacquiao fight.

“Defendant Dela Cruz’s pinoy-tv-replay.com website also promises to offer a live stream channel of the upcoming Floyd Mayweather v. Manny Pacquiao boxing match, which will be offered by ABS-CBN and other legitimate entertainment companies through various platforms,” ABS-CBN writes.

The TV company added a screencap of the advertisement for the unofficial broadcast which Dela Cruz allegedly used to lure in visitors.

To stop any further infringements ABS-CBN asked the Florida court for a temporary restraining order, which was granted a few days ago.

Dela Cruz is now forbidden from operating any site that infringes ABS-CBN’s rights and the TV-company also gets control over his domain name. In addition, the professor faces millions of dollars in damages.

At the time of writing pinoy-tv-replay.com is not responding, although a cached version is still available through CloudFlare’s “Always Online” service.

ABS-CBN’s Elisha Lawrence is happy that the “pirate” has been taken off the streets and encourages the public to avoid sketchy websites that offer free streams.

“We are enforcing against these sites to protect our viewers. But in the meantime as we go after each and every one of these sites, protect yourself and your family and stay away from free sites and free streaming sites. Don’t pay the high price for free,” Lawrence said.

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