In recent years copyright holders have overloaded Google with DMCA takedown requests targeted at the company’s search results.

The number of requests issued has increased dramatically. In 2011, the search engine received only a few hundred takedown notices per day, but in the same period it now processes more than a million “pirate” links.

A few days ago Google received its 100 millionth takedown request of 2015. The counter is currently at 103,218,572, which means yet another record. Last year it took a month longer to reach the same milestone.

If the numbers go up at the same rate throughout the year, Google will process half a billion allegedly infringing links during 2015.

Most of the reported links are legitimate and the associated links are often swiftly removed from Google’s search results. However, with the massive volume of reports coming in, mistakes are also made.

In recent weeks we have received several reports from site owners who have had their homepages removed from Google, even though they don’t link to any infringing material.

File-hosting service Rapidgator.net had its homepage removed for the third time, for example. And the Dutch subtitle site Ondertitel.com suffered the same fate. In neither case a counter-notice proved to be successful. However, the pages were quickly restored after TF asked Google about the errors.

In Google’s defense, the company must be overloaded with DMCA counter notices. But if the numbers increase this type of collateral damage will only get worse, so there has to be a reliable system in place to quickly restore falsely removed content.

Another problem for Google are the increased levels of general complaints from copyright holders, who increasingly expect Google to do more to tackle online piracy.

Responding to this commentary Google implemented a significant change to its search algorithm aimed at downranking sites that often link to copyright-infringing material.

At the same time, however, Google also reminded copyright holders that they too can do more to prevent piracy.

“Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply. As services ranging from Netflix to Spotify to iTunes have demonstrated, the best way to combat piracy is with better and more convenient legitimate services,” the company noted.

“The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.”

Faced with complaints from both rightsholders and site owners, it’s impossible for Google to please both sides. For now, they are stuck in the middle, hoping to keep the boat afloat in a storm of takedown notices, without changing course too drastically.

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

Last month we published an article on Strike, a new torrent site with a fresh approach.

In addition to a less-is-more philosophy when displaying results, Strike obtains torrent data not only from all public trackers but also BitTorrent’s Distributed Hash Table (DHT), a first in the torrent world as far as we’re aware.

But since that piece a couple of weeks ago, Strike has been under attack from multiple directions.

“The first major one was a DDOS attack, I’m still not sure who or why did it, but at 300gb/s they took half of my servers offline; some are still off and will probably never come back on because of my hosting provider not wanting to deal with it,” site operator Andrew Sampson informs TF.

But that was just the beginning. Rightsholders quickly began contacting not only Sampson, but also Cloudflare and the site’s host, complaining that Strike was infringing their copyrights. Additionally, “tons of morons” threatened to sue Strike if it didn’t stop “hosting their content”, the bemused dev explains.

Eventually German host Hetzner said it didn’t want to deal with any more DMCA notices. Sampson said the provider null-routed the non-commercial Strike which took down another of Sampson’s projects, NetflixRoulette, at the same time.

“I can’t begin to tell you how badly that hurt my revenue stream. A company in Germany adhering to a US law and not even taking the time to investigate. Note to public: Avoid Hetzner,” Sampson says.

The developer says that the majority of complaints against his site were filed by anti-piracy company Entura International. Sampson says he tried to explain that his site carries no content and no torrents but simply extracts these from DHT upon user request but the company wasn’t particularly interested.

“I have a technical background and implement many of Strike’s technologies within the toolset of my organization, so I believe that I have a good understanding of how Strike operates,” an Entura contact told Sampson.

“Our copyright infringement notifications are not requesting the removal of a hash from the BitTorrent/DHT network, we know this is not possible. We are simply requesting the de-indexing or de-listing of results from your site that allow for the downloading of copyrighted content via the magnet link that you provide or .torrent files via your API/RSS.”

In response to the DMCA issues, Sampson says he has now taken things a step further. During the past few days the dev took the decision to stop storing any data whatsoever on Strike’s servers “except for search phrases for learning purposes.”

This presents an intriguing situation. Aside from some disk caching, Sampson says that Strike now operates purely on demand. When a user types in a search the site pulls the results from its usual sources and presents them in the browser window. When that browser is closed the data effectively disappears, meaning that there is nothing for anti-piracy companies to take down because it’s already gone.

Whether that will be enough for Entura remains to be seen. An email shared with TF suggests that the company feels that Sampson’s responsibilities go beyond compliance with the law.

“I understand that the listing pages might not be served via local storage on your infrastructure, that does not detract from the matter that you are providing the platform or portal for which these remote browser requests are made,” Entura told the dev.

“Your compliance in this matter should not be reliant on me creating a compelling case, it should instead be reliant on your good will, desire to support creative industries and comply with the law.”

Nevertheless, the following message now appears on the front page on Strike.

“If you are visiting this site for anti piracy means, just know a few things. Any content you see is because you requested it. We do not provide or offer any files. You cannot download from us. We do not store any data, all content is dynamic and on demand requested via YOUR browser. So leave us alone,” the notice reads.

After moving to yet another new host, Sampson thought that things might improve but during our email exchange he received more bad news. His hosting had been terminated once again.

“Dumb media companies, bad hosting, lack of funding, lots of development. Take your pick, Strike has been a big undertaking, one I’m not sure I really want to continue, but I know I have to for the greater good,” Sampson concludes.

At the time of publication Entura had not responded to TF’s requests for comment.

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

Earlier this year EZTV ran into trouble with the Italian domain name registry NIC.it over some paperwork.

Facing a looming confiscation of the EZTV.it domain name, they swiftly moved to a new home using the Swiss based EZTV.ch.

Soon after the EZTV.it domain was suspended, but in a surprise move it became available again after a few weeks. Unfortunately for the EZTV crew it was quickly scooped up by domain squatters.

The domain was allegedly listed for sale at an auction where the company EZCLOUD LIMITED (Ezcloud is the same name the real EZTV used in the Whois previously) bought it for a five digit number. They then relaunched the domain using it as a reverse proxy to serve content from the original domain, with their own ads.

Instead of making clear that the site was a proxy, the owners removed all references to the real EZTV.ch domain, probably in an effort to keep the traffic on board.

TF reached out to EZCLOUD director Hernandez Dominguez Emmanuel, hoping to find out more about their motivation, and we were informed that they initially planned to make a deal with the real EZTV.

Emmanuel sent a business proposal to EZTV offering them a percentage of the profit they made from advertisements. The other option was to buy the domain back for a larger amount, but a partnership was preferred.

“The business proposal to Novaking was straightforward: he pays us a slightly bigger amount than we have paid at the auction or we somehow partnership by uniting both entities: eztv.it and eztv.ch and we will earn in the course of the next months by percentage of the ads revenues,” Emmanuel tells TF.

EZTV’s Novaking was not interested in making a deal and made that very clear in a short reply.

“Have no idea why you are trying to sound like business oriented people. I have no interest in making some crappy deals with you simply being a reverse proxy. Have fun with the domain,” Novaking wrote in a quick response.

In addition, EZTV banned IP-address of the impostor site so it could no longer act as a reverse proxy. However, this ban was circumvented and ETZV.it still displays recent torrents via a workaround.

According to Novaking it’s obvious that the impostors have bad intentions. They want people to believe that they’re the real site so they can make a profit.

“They basically want us to do all the work and they make money from it,” Novaking informs TF.

To warn people he posted a note on the official site urging users to avoid the old domain.

“The scammers who own eztv.it appear to be trying to fool users to think they are the main website,” the warning reads.

“Take caution, and stop using their website, the correct domain is eztv.ch. Please inform your family and friends who may still be using the old domain,” it adds.

In response, EZCLOUD posted a message on the site inaccurately claiming that they are the real deal.

“The correct domain address is eztv.it as always! Please inform your family and friends who may be using other cloned domains.”

Considering the rift between both sides it seems unlikely that EZTV.it will be returned to its original owner anytime soon. For now it remains in possession of the impostors, something people should bear in mind.

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

Throughout Grooveshark’s history the company has come to rely on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As a site that largely relies on users to upload content, the protections provided by the DMCA allow the company to operate without being held liable for the infringements of others.

While that’s certainly the theory, those protections are only available if strict patterns of behavior are adhered to and many conditions are met. It’s an area that has seen Grooveshark and parent company Escape Media face a string of lawsuits in recent years.

In response to a case involving Capitol Records and the company’s responsibilities in dealing with repeat infringers, Grooveshark has just published some interesting amendments to its anti-piracy policy.

“The requirements for hosting digital music evolve with every new court ruling and we regularly update our policies to remain compliant. Therefore, we are implementing the following changes until the final outcome of this case, including our expected appeal,” the company explains.

Dealing with infringers

Interestingly the first change sees Grooveshark shifting from a “one strike” policy to a now familiar “three strikes” arrangement. This will see Grooveshark terminating user accounts on the third offense “in order to make sure no repeat infringers can ‘slip through the cracks’.”

In the Capitol case the Court noted that while Grooveshark keeps records of all processed DMCA takedown complaints and associated users, it does not keep an “independent record” of repeat infringers.

“Escape does not try to identify repeat infringers and fails to keep
records that would allow it to do so,” the judge said.

Grooveshark says it is now dealing with that criticism.

“In an era of simple database queries this new requirement may be redundant, but we will now create an additional independent record of repeat infringers from our existing databases, until our appeal clarifies this issue for Grooveshark and other hosting services committed to complying with the DMCA,” the company writes.

Taking down infringing content

While Grooveshark does takedown content quickly when asked (TorrentFreak was informed just this week that an independent artist had no issues having his music removed from the service), the company says it will now go even further.

“We will provide a pre-screening tool for rights-holders that provides immediate access to compare uploaded files on our servers that aren’t even yet available for end-user streaming with content owned by the rights-holder,” Grooveshark explains.

While no further details have been provided at this stage, on the surface this appears to be a step towards a YouTube-like Content ID system. Just how automated the system will be remains to be seen, but in some respects it appears that Grooveshark is actually prepared to go a step further.

In addition to removing content that matches rightsholder content (possibly by comparing fingerprint data), Grooveshark will proactively suggest additional content that it believes may also be prime for deletion.

“When a rights-holder provides a single file URL to the tool, they will receive a list of other files on our servers that have been found to be digitally different, but contain similar metadata,” the company explains.

In conclusion Grooveshark says that it hopes that its anti-piracy policies now go “well beyond” the standard required by the court, something which will allow the company to expand.

“Our goal remains to license every bit of audio content ever created, with ongoing commitment to operate a service that complies with the DMCA and all legal requirements as standards for hosting providers continue to evolve,” Grooveshark concludes.

But even as the company looks forward it still has massive legal issues to deal with. As reported by Billboard, Judge Alison Nathan of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York has just granted EMI Music’s motion for summary judgment in its copyright infringement case against Grooveshark parent Escape Media.

The case, which concerns more than 2,800 copyrighted tracks, exposes Escape Media to potential damages of $420 million. A conference on damages will now take place early May and Grooveshark will be able to appeal any judgment.

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

Well over three years have passed since Megaupload was shutdown, but aside from Andrus Nomm’s plea deal there has been little progress in the criminal proceedings.

Dotcom and his fellow Megaupload defendants are still waiting to hear whether they will be sent to the U.S. to stand trial.

The extradition hearing is currently scheduled to start early June after a request from Dotcom’s lawyers to postpone was turned down last month.

But there’s more legal trouble for the defunct file-hosting service. In addition to the criminal case, Megaupload and Kim Dotcom were sued last year by the major record labels and Hollywood’s top movie studios.

Fearing that they might influence criminal proceedings, Megaupload’s legal team previously managed to put these civil actions on hold.

After being delayed for a year the proceedings were expected to continue this month. However, since the extradition hearing has yet to take place, Megaupload asked the court to freeze the MPAA and RIAA cases until October.

This week District Court Judge Liam O’Grady granted the request under the same conditions as the previous order.

The ruling means that both the MPAA and RIAA cases will now be delayed for another six months. The movie and music studios consented to the freezing request, which made it a relatively straightforward decision.

A stay has not yet been granted in a third civil suit filed by the music group Microhits. In this separate case Megaupload’s legal team was ordered to present an oral argument in support of its motion, which will take place later this month.

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