This week news broke that the makers of Dallas Buyers Club have the court’s approval to go after 4,726 alleged movie pirates in Australia, opening the door to many more copyright lawsuits.

Around the same time the country’s largest Internet providers submitted their online anti-piracy code, announcing that 200,000 piracy warnings will be sent out each year.

Facing increased monitoring and potential legal action many file-sharers have taken counter measures, hiding their IP-addresses so their sharing activities can no longer be linked to their ISP account.

Early March, the initial announcement of the warning letters already increased interest in VPNs and other anonymizing services, but this week’s surge broke new records.

Data from Google trends reveals that interest in anonymizing services has soared, with searches for “VPN” quadrupling in recent weeks. This effect, shown in the graph below, is limited to Australia and likely a direct result of the recent anti-piracy threats.

The effects are clearly noticeable at VPN providers as well, in both traffic and sales. TorGuard, a VPN and BitTorrent proxy provider, has seen the number of Australian visitors spike this week, for example.

“Over the past week TorGuard has seen a massive jump in Australian subscribers. Traffic from this region is currently up over 150% and recent trends indicate that the upsurge is here to stay,” TorGuard’s Ben Van der Pelt tells us.

“VPN router sales to Australia have also increased significantly with AU orders now representing 50% of all weekly shipments.”

TorGuard traffic from Australia

The recent events are expected to drive tens of thousands of new users to anonymizing services. However, it appears that even before the surge they were already commonly used Down Under.

A survey among 1,008 Australians early March showed that 16% of the respondents already used VPNs or Tor to increase privacy. The Essential survey shows that anonymizing tools are most prevalent among people aged 18-34.

While copyright holders don’t like the increased interest in these evasion tools, it may not all be bad news.

In fact, to a certain degree it shows that pirates are spooked by the new initiatives. Where some decide to go underground, others may choose to pirate less. And for the “trolls” there are still plenty of unsecured file-sharers out there.

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

Every year the RIAA and MPAA submit their overviews of so-called “notorious markets” to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR). Sites detailed in these reports are branded “rogue”, a label reserved for the supposed worst-of-the-worst in the piracy landscape.

In the RIAA’s most recent submission all the usual suspects were present, including The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents and Goear, the site blocked in Spain this week. Also present was Wawa-Mania, a popular ‘warez’ forum specializing in a broad range of ‘pirate’ content.

Founded in 2006 by Dimitri Mader, Wawa-Mania became the biggest local site of its type with more than 2,000,000 registered members.

Unsurprisingly this success attracted the attention of rightsholders and in 2009 Mader was detained after the Association Against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA) identified more than 3600 films being made available via the site without permission.

Mader, known online as Zac, received an unusual level of support from sympathizers, some of whom scaled Alpa’s headquarters and placed banners in support of the site operator.

This week more than five years later, it was announced that Mader had been handed a year in jail and fined 20,000 euros for his role on the site. According to a statement issued by the Civil Society of Phonogram Producers (SCPP), the 26-year-old was sentenced in absentia, having fled to the Philippines some time ago.

The court also ordered Wawa-Mania to be shut down but it currently remains fully operational using an Ecuadorian TLD and the same Moldovan host previously used by The Pirate Bay.

But for Mader the bad news doesn’t end here. Some of the world’s largest movie companies including Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount, Tristar, Universal, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. are now seeking huge damages amounting to around $30 million.

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for late May. According to unconfirmed reports Mader is considering a return to France to face proceedings. Meanwhile, supporters are discussing ways to keep Wawa-Mania alive after any shutdown.

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

While relatively underreported, many U.S. district courts are still swamped with lawsuits against alleged film pirates.

One of the newcomers this year are the makers of the action movie Manny. Over the past few months “Manny Film” has filed 215 lawsuits across several districts.

Like all copyright holders, the makers of the film rely on IP-addresses as evidence. They then ask the courts to grant a subpoena, forcing Internet providers to hand over the personal details of the associated account holders.

In most cases the courts sign off on these requests, but in Florida this isn’t as straightforward.

When District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro was assigned a Manny Film case she asked the company to explain how an IP-address can pinpoint the actual person who downloaded a pirated film. In addition, she asked them to show that geolocation tools are good enough to prove that the alleged pirate resides in the Court’s district.

In a detailed reply the filmmakers argued that IP-addresses can identify the defendant and that a refusal to grant a subpoena would set a “dangerous precedent.” Manny Film further stated that “all other courts” disagreed with the notion that an IP-address is not a person.

This last remark didn’t go down well with Judge Ungaro. In an order handed down this week she cites various cases where courts ruled that IP-addresses don’t always identify the alleged offenders.

“Due to the risk of ‘false positives,’ an allegation that an IP address is registered to an individual is not sufficient in and of itself to support a claim that the individual is guilty of infringement,” wrote the Judge citing a 2012 case, one of many examples.

The referenced cases clearly refute Manny Film’s claim that all other courts disagreed with the Judge Ungaro’s concerns, and the Judge is not convinced by any of the other arguments either.

“As in those cases, Plaintiff here fails to show how geolocation software can establish the identity of the Defendant. Specifically, there is nothing linking the IP address location to the identity of the person actually downloading and viewing the copy righted material and nothing establishing that the person actually lives in this district,” Judge Ungaro writes.

“Even if this IP address is located within a residence, geolocation software cannot identify who have access to that residence’s computer and who would actually be using it to infringe Plaintiff’s copyright,” she adds.

As a result, the Court refused to issue a subpoena and dismissed the case against IP-address 66.229.140.101 for improper venue.

While not all judges may come to the same conclusion, the order makes it harder for rightholders to play their “copyright troll” scheme in the Southern District of Florida. At the same time, it provides future defendants with a good overview to fight similar claims elsewhere.

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

Last year the movie The Expendables 3 leaked in extremely high-quality several weeks before its theatrical debut, sparking huge Hollywood controversy.

The fully finished DVD Screener copy of the action movie featuring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared late July 2014 and was downloaded millions of times before its official release mid August 2014.

Three months later came the first news of arrests in connection with the case.

During November 2014 the Intellectual Property Crime Unit of City of London Police (PIPCU) announced that two men aged 33 and 36 had been taken into custody after being arrested in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and Upton, Wirral.

This morning the same police unit announced the arrest of a third man, again in the UK.

In what is being described as a joint investigation with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), City of London Police arrested the 26-year-old at his workplace in Leeds yesterday morning. He was taken to a local police station for questioning.

“The suspect is believed to be involved in obtaining high-quality films, which are either only available at the cinema or are unfinished movies which have yet to be released, and then leaking them on to the internet. It is estimated his actions are costing the industry millions of pounds,” PIPCU said in a statement.

“Officers from PIPCU and HSI searched the man’s home in Halifax where several computers and mobile devices were seized.”

News of the arrest was welcomed by Sylvester Stallone himself, who expressed gratitude to the authorities for their work in apprehending the man.

“I’d like to thank the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at the City of London Police for working with US Homeland Security Investigations to apprehend the suspect in this case. It is important to protect the rights of creatives around the world from theft,” Stallone said.

Commenting in the arrest, City of London Police Detective Inspector, Mick Dodge, said that the operation was indicative of the international reach of the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU).

“PIPCU has a remit to protect the UK’s creative industries but we are also committed to ensuring the UK is not a safe haven for criminals seeking to attack international businesses from our shores,” Dodge said.

“Working with law enforcement partners across the world, PIPCU is coming down hard on criminals exploiting intellectual property for their own financial gain and today’s action should serve as a warning to online pirates.

“This joint investigation also demonstrates our close working relationship with the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) which was recently marked with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding.”

Matthew Etre, U.S. Embassy London’s Attaché for US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said that dealing with the issue of online piracy remains a top priority for law enforcement, despite the perception that infringement is a victimless crime.

“Too often these types of crimes are regarded as immaterial because they are seemingly without victims; however, when a business suffers a loss, it is felt at all levels, from the C-suite to the mailroom,” Etre said.

“In cases such as this, preventing piracy is akin to protecting people’s livelihoods. This arrest is yet another success story highlighting what strong, collaborative relationships between law enforcement agencies can accomplish. HSI London values its relationship with the PIPCU and continues to work closely with them to battle against intellectual property crime.”

According to PIPCU, yesterday’s arrest stems from a tipoff received by Homeland Security in July 2014 regarding movie piracy. To date, no arrests in the United States in connection with the case have been made public.

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

While video gaming used to be a strictly offline affair, in the current market many titles require continued access to custom online resources in order to function.

Updates, patches and multi-player support aside, some titles simply cease to function when their developers or publishers decide that the game has outlived its usefulness.

While this is convenient for companies looking to promote the latest titles to their customer bases, those who have invested in software are regularly abandoned along with their now-useless games.

In attempt to remedy this situation the Electronic Frontier Federation (EFF) has teamed up with law student Kendra Albert to seek legal protections from the Copyright Office for those who modify gaming code in order to keep titles playable.

The problem lies in the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Section 1201) which create legal uncertainty for those digging into code for such purposes. To create clarity, provide protection and allow for the functional preservation of videogame art, the EFF is seeking an exemption to the Act.

“Section 1201 is often used by the entertainment industries not to prevent copyright infringement but to control markets and lock out competition. So it’s not surprising that ESA (the trade association for the largest game producers), along with MPAA and RIAA, have written to the Copyright Office to oppose this exemption,” EFF attorney Mitch Stoltz explains.

“They say that modifying games to connect to a new server (or to avoid contacting a server at all) after publisher support ends—letting people continue to play the games they paid for—will destroy the video game industry. They say it would ‘undermine the fundamental copyright principles on which our copyright laws are based’.”

Indeed, the testimony of ESA Senior Vice-President and General Counsel Christian Genetski before the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet last year (pdf), outlines the software group’s position clearly.

“[W]hile addressing copyright infringement is one important objective of Section 1201, it is not its only objective,” Genetski said.

“[A] prohibition on the hacking of technological protection measures controlling access to protected works (even if the hacking does not result in any copyright infringement) [is] necessary in order to encourage innovation in the online distribution of copyrighted works.”

While the ESA appears to have at least drawn a distinction between piracy and non copyright-infringing activity in its 2014 submission, the EFF says that the software group is now using language that closes the gap somewhat.

Any exception to Section 1201’s blanket ban on circumvention would send a message that “hacking — an activity closely associated with piracy in the minds of the marketplace — is lawful”, the ESA says, adding that the same would “undermine the fundamental copyright principles on which our copyright laws are based.”

It’s fair to say that the EFF remains unimpressed by this interpretation.

“Imagine the havoc that could result if people believed that ‘hacking’ was ever legal! Of course, ‘hacking’ is legal in most circumstances,” Stoltz says.

“Most of the programmers that create games for Sony, Microsoft, EA, Nintendo, and other ESA members undoubtedly learned their craft by tinkering with existing software. If ‘hacking,’ broadly defined, were actually illegal, there likely would have been no video game industry.”

In its submission to the U.S. Copyright Office (pdf), the EFF lists dozens of server shutdowns in 2014 alone, affecting titles such as Age of Empires Online, various Battlefield, Command and Conquer and Crysis titles, several FIFA, Madden and Mario games, plus more than a dozen Pokemon editions.

While these titles have been committed to the graveyard for now, the EFF hopes that an exemption to the DMCA will allow them to enjoy new life. They are supported by T.L. Taylor, Associate Professor of Comparative Media Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“The preservation of computer games includes not only making sure we can see their graphics or hear their sounds, but understand the complexity of their mechanics. Given the market life-cycle of most games, protection is needed to ensure research can continue on these artifacts even after developers have moved onto other ventures,” Taylor writes.

“I believe the exemption proposed here offers a critical path to supporting a range of work that, far from harming any stakeholders, fosters the lively use, development, and scholarship of digital gaming.”

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