While VPN services have always been associated with privacy, in recent years they have bloomed into tools providing much more than a simple way to stay cloaked online.

For a relatively small fee, users of the most popular VPN services can tunnel out of their country of origin and reappear in any one of dozens of countries around the world. This opens up a whole new world of media consumption opportunities.

Citizens of the United States, for example, can access BBC iPlayer just like any other Brit might, while those in the UK looking to sample the widest possible Netflix offering can easily tunnel right back into the U.S.

This cross-border content consumption is not popular with entertainment companies and distributors. It not only undermines their ability to set prices on a per-region basis, but also drives a truck through hard-negotiated licensing agreements.

Tired of dealing with ISPs including Slingshot who offer a dedicated ‘global mode‘ VPN service for customers, last week media companies in New Zealand ran out of patience.

“We pay considerable amounts of money for content rights, particularly exclusive content rights. These rights are being knowingly and illegally impinged, which is a significant issue that may ultimately need to be resolved in court in order to provide future clarity for all parties involved,” Lightbox, MediaWorks, SKY, and TVNZ said in a joint statement.

“This is not about taking action against consumers; this is a business-to-business issue and is about creating a fair playing field.”

Before being granted limited local access to Netflix just last month, Kiwis were required to level their own playing fields by paying for a VPN service and an account at an overseas supplier in order to legally obtain a decent range of premium content. However, the media companies now want to bring an end to that free choice via legal action. Today they claimed their first scalp.

This morning Unlimited Internet became the first ISP to respond to media company pressure by pulling its geo-unblocking service known as “TV VPN” after receiving a warning letter from a lawfirm.

The letter, which has been sent out to several local ISPs, informs Unlimited Internet that its VPN service infringes the Copyright Act of 1994.

Unlimited Internet director Ben Simpson says that while his company doesn’t necessarily agree with that assertion, it has taken down the service nonetheless.

“Geo-unblocking services are a direct result of consumer demand for access to content that is not made available to the New Zealand market,” Simpson says.

“To be on the safe side, we have taken legal advice on this matter and I have made a firm call that we will sit on the sideline until a legal precedent has been set.”

Currently there are no signs that other ISPs intend to cave in to the media companies’ demands but even if all Kiwi companies cease their VPN activities, the problem will persist. International VPN providers, such as those listed here, will be more than happy to provide services to New Zealanders enabling them to tunnel into any country they choose.

The other possibility is that consumers will shun paying for content and turn back to file-sharing networks instead. If they do those VPNs will still come in handy but for entirely different reasons, ones that will see entertainment companies missing out on the spoils altogether.

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

In just a year the Popcorn Time brand has managed to establish itself as one of Hollywood’s main threats, and even Netflix fears the open source project.

One of the big appeals, aside from the easy-to-use interface, is the fact that it’s available on many platforms and devices. Now, there’s a brand new release that will extend this list.

On its one year anniversary tomorrow the Popcorn-Time.se fork will release an installer for non-jailbroken iOS devices. This means that anyone with an iPhone or iPad can install the popular app.

“We intentionally postponed our one year celebration since we wanted to celebrate it with this groundbreaking release the world has been waiting for,” the Popcorn-Time.se team tells TF.

The Popcorn Time fork already had an iOS app, which they released a few months ago. However, the new one is special as it can be installed on any device.

The developers say they use a new custom installer that can add apps to iOS devices without requiring a jailbreak. Popcorn Time’s dedicated iOS page will link to the new installer starting tomorrow

“The beauty is in the simplicity of this installer,” the team says.

“All a user will need to do to get Popcorn Time on a non jailbroken iOS device is to download the ‘iOS installer’ to his desktop computer, connect his iOS device to the computer with a USB cable, and then just follow simple instructions that will download the app on the iOS device.”

Popcorn Time on iOS

In addition to watching films and TV-series on mobile devices, the iOS app also supports playback on Chromecast and Apple TV, similar to the desktop application.

According to the developers, however, having the option to easily add apps to iOS devices without a jailbreak is the main ‘revolution’ of this new release. And Popcorn Time is just the start.

“The team we worked with on this solution has already launched this website with one clear intention in mind: To fight the closed ecosystem Apple has created, screening and choosing for us what we can or cannot install on the devices we purchased and paid top dollar for,” the team tells TF.

This means that many more non-Apple-approved apps may come to iOS devices in the future. Needless to say, Apple is not going to like this, but the team says that the developers are prepared for battle.

“The installer guys have no doubt that this will be a long journey, playing ‘cat and mouse’ with Apple that probably won’t like them breaking their closed eco-system. But seeing their work now and future updates for the installer they’re already working on, we’re sure they’re ready for any obstacle Apple will throw their way,” they note.

TF tried a closed alpha release of the new installer and it works as advertised. The Popcorn Time app does indeed install without any hassle. The only limitation is that the installer requires a Windows machine, but the Mac version is expected to be ready later this month.

It will be interesting to see how Apple responds to the new revelations. In any case, it’s clear that the list of Popcorn Time enemies just got longer.

Stay tuned…

Breaking Apple’s ecosystem

deviant

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

After long maintaining a reputation for being one of the softest countries in Europe on piracy, in recent years Spain has really toughened up its approach to online infringement.

Last month the strength of new legislation became evident when a Madrid court gave local Internet service providers just 72 hours to block notorious torrent site The Pirate Bay (TPB).

The legal action against TPB was launched by the Association of Intellectual Rights Management (AGEDI) last year, but that wasn’t the only domain in the anti-piracy group’s sights. AGEDI and music group Promusicae had also been targeting Goear, an unlicensed music streaming service providing access to an estimated four million tracks.

Early efforts to bring down the site didn’t go to plan when a Madrid court refused to issue an order to block the site’s IP address back in March 2014. Undeterred, AGEDI responded with an appeal and complaint to the country’s Intellectual Property Commission.

Complaining that Goear provides access to copyrighted music without any permission from artists or rightsholders, AGEDI built a case highlighting commercial aspects of the site, particularly its advertising efforts which offered to put products in front of three million registered users via “millions of quality impressions.”

Goear had previously actioned some copyright takedowns, AGEDI said, but it was never enough to keep up with the rate that infringing content reappeared on the site.

After reviewing the case the National Court has now sided with AGEDI. Handing down an order similar to that issued last month in respect of The Pirate Bay, local ISPs have been given just 72 hours to block the site at the subscriber level. Currently the Goear website is hosted in the Netherlands.

“This new resolution adds to the one recently handed down in Spain against The Pirate Bay and confirms web blockades as the only effective measure to eliminate the websites that violate intellectual property rights,” said Promusicae and AGEDI president, Antonio Guisasola.

“The block against Goear means that the site will no longer be able to profit from the works of others. I always insist on the absolute need to act decisively to stop these kinds of sites that represent true unfair competition to other [authorized sites] that offer all the guarantees for consumers and producers of music.”

Whether local users will rush to unblock the site will remain to be seen. There are many dozens of similar portals offering access to the same level of content, none of which appear to be shutting down anytime soon.

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

Back in 2012, the Australian High Court ruled that ISP iiNet was not responsible for the copyright infringements of its customers. Stymied by that ruling, many Australian file-sharers breathed a sigh of relief, as Antipodean users are usually amongst the last to get content, forgotten in the long-tail of media distribution.

Conversely, it also meant that they were one of the last English-speaking (and English common-law) countries to see the appearance of so-called ‘Speculative Invoicing’, more commonly known as copyright trolling. However, “Down Under” couldn’t escape forever, and eventually the trolls washed up on the shore, in the shape of mega-troll “Dallas Buyers Club” (DBC).

The model should be familiar to most of our readers. A company (or its representative) joins a BitTorrent swarm, and “observes” a number of peers on the torrent. It then applies for a court order for the ISP to hand over the identities behind all those IP addresses so they can be pressured for cash settlement.

The big question was whether the Australian courts would allow for the discovery of subscriber details but in a decision released just minutes ago the courts said ‘yes’. Letters to be sent out to the 4,726 consumers involved will first have to be approved by the court, a move designed to reduce DBC’s ability to overstate the case and the potential penalties involved.

Following a similar ruling in Canada last February, this is the second time these kinds of restrictions have been placed on Dallas Buyers Club/Voltage Pictures. UK ‘trolls’ are also subjected to the same oversight in their initial letters to consumers but subsequent correspondence flies completely under the radar with no court involvement.

In today’s case the judge also ruled that the privacy of the 4726 accounts should be protected but placed no cap on damages. The precise restrictions and justifications will become clear when the verdict is published later today.

The case comes amid growing regulations, with the Australian Government pushing for a 3-strikes system as well as site-blocking legislation. These two things, combined with today’s ruling, means that VPN use is expected to skyrocket in Australia.

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

In recent years Coppersurfer.tk has quickly become one of the most used BitTorrent trackers.

Running on the beerware-licensed Opentracker software, the standalone tracker offers a non-commercial service which doesn’t host or link to torrent files themselves.

The free service coordinates the downloads of 10 million people at any given point in time, processing roughly billions of connections per month.

However, since last weekend Coppersurfer.tk has been offline. Responding to a complaint from Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, hosting provider LeaseWeb suddenly pulled the plug.

According to a LeaseWeb rep “torrents are illegal” and the company had no other option than to shut down the tracker.

This came as quite a surprise to the operator, since his service doesn’t link to or host torrent files. In fact, Coppersurfer doesn’t know what titles are tracked or where all the corresponding torrents are stored.

Hoping to resolve the matter the tracker operator reached out to BREIN, pointing out that he provided a content neutral service. However, the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group disagreed.

One of the problems for BREIN is that The Pirate Bay uses Coppersurfer as a default tracker. This means that all torrents shared through the site are automatically tracked by the service.

“Your claim that a tracker can be compared to a neutral internet service provider is not correct. The Coppersurfer tracker is far from neutral. You are aware that your tracker is used for torrents of illegal websites like ThePiratebay,” BREIN’s Pieter Haringsma replied.

“There is no question about the fact that ThePirateBay is an illegal website, which is being blocked in numerous countries and, whose founders have been sentenced to jail. You know that your tracker is added automatically to all the torrents that are uploaded to that website,” he added.

Interestingly, BREIN is willing to make a deal with the tracker owner if he agrees to blocklist infringing hashes. In addition, BREIN demands that the owner identifies himself claiming that all commercial services are required to so under the European e-commerce directive.

“That is why you have the obligation to check [The Pirate Bay] and blacklist all illegal titles of that site, because you know that your tracker is added automatically to all the torrents that are uploaded to that website,” Haringsma wrote.

“Once you have stepped out of anonymity and have implemented measures to avoid illegal use of your tracker by blacklisting illegal torrents from ThePiratebay, BREIN is prepared to discuss the terms of a proper [takedown] procedure that Coppersurfer should put in place, including e.g. enforceable penalties,” he added.

The Coppersurfer operator is surprised by the broad demands and has chosen not to comply.

If a standalone tracker should ban hashes, should browsers and torrent clients do the same? He also fails to see how a non-profit service that doesn’t even require a website, can be seen as online commerce.

While LeaseWeb is no longer an option, the tracker operator hopes to put the service back online at another hosting company. Another option would be to donate it to an organization that’s dedicated to protecting free speech digital rights.

“My plans now are to seek a new home. I’m searching for a cheap server with 100Mbps/unmetered connection,” he informs TF.

“I could also give the tracker for free to any organization related to free speech and human progress,” he adds.

TF contacted LeaseWeb for a clarification on the “torrents are illegal” but at the time of publication we hadn’t heard back. The above example suggests, however, that hosting torrent related services in the Netherlands is getting more difficult.

Update: Leaseweb sent us the following comment.

Through our services companies, LeaseWeb provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service around the world. LeaseWeb Netherlands adheres to the Dutch Notice-and-Take-Down (NTD) procedure. When LeaseWeb Netherlands receives a complaint as part of this procedure, our Abuse Prevention department notifies the customer mentioned in the complaint, asking him to respond within a certain timeframe. If we receive no response, we will continue with the rest of the NTD procedure, which may result in the suspension of services.

On Friday 27 March, Brein sent a notification to LeaseWeb Netherland’s Abuse Prevention department, thereby initiating the Dutch Notice-and-Takedown (NTD) procedure. LeaseWeb notified the customer in question, asking him to respond within 24 hours. As the notification was sent to the customer on a Friday afternoon, we decided to extend the reaction time until Monday 30 March. On that date, we had received no response. As a result, our services provided to that customer were suspended, at which point the domain http://tracker.coppersurfer.tk/ became unreachable.

Afterwards, the customer responded. With the customer’s consent, we brought him in direct contact with Brein to resolve their differences. We now await the outcome of their discussion before proceeding further.

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