Alongside site blocking and attacking the finances of pirate sites, so-called “strike” schemes are one of the preferred anti-piracy mechanisms of the mainstream entertainment companies.

The idea is simple. Rightsholders monitor their works being exchanged on file-sharing networks, capture IP addresses of alleged infringers, and send complaints to those individuals’ ISPs. These notices are then forwarded to inform customers of their errant behavior.

There can be little doubt that this option is preferable to suing users en masse, but is the approach effective? Thanks to MPAA documents sent to the studios and obtained by TorrentFreak, we now have a clearer idea of whether the movie business itself thinks that “strikes” programs work – and more besides.

One document, titled ‘Notice & Graduated Response Programs’ begins by stating the primary aim of the programs: “Reduce P2P piracy while educating consumers about, and directing them to, legal content.”

Also confirmed is the MPAA’s desire to implement graduated response schemes with mitigation measures and awareness campaigns attached, the U.S. “Copyright Alerts System” (CAS) for example.

CAS mitigation measures haven’t proven to be particularly aggressive thus far but plenty of users have received notices. Around 1.3 million notices were sent in the first 10 months of operations. By November last year, Comcast alone had sent one million warnings.

But does the Copyright Alerts System work?

While it’s clear that the studios believe these schemes are part of the answer, the MPAA is pragmatic about the CAS behind closed doors, largely since it believes efforts thus far are just the beginning.

The U.S. system is “not yet at scale” or operating with “enough education support” according to the MPAA. As a result the CAS has not made an “impact on the overall [piracy] landscape.”

That said, the MPAA does claim some successes among those receiving notices.

“US program – with escalating remedial measures – [is] reasonably effective in decreasing P2P piracy by those actually receiving notices/alerts,” one summary reads.

However, the claim that some notice recipients mend their ways after receiving a warning (the rate of re-offending is actually quite high) is somewhat contradicted by another statement later in the same document.

“No current information as to the behavior of users who appear to stop P2P infringement – do not know whether [they are] migrating to other pirate systems or to lawful services,” the statement reads.

Nevertheless, the MPAA appears keen to expand the program to a point where impact is more meaningful. This will require cooperation with ISPs, both on volumes and mitigation measures.

Expansion, tougher punishments

“Attainability as to existing programs boils down to whether ISPs will agree (a) to expand scale to levels that might impact overall P2P piracy, and (b) to enhance remedial measures so as to improve efficacy,” the MPAA writes.

Plans to double up on the number of warnings being sent have already been revealed but whether ISPs will be keen to further punish customers remains to be seen. Still, the MPAA’s graduated response “secondary objective” might help them decide.

“Build and leverage relationships with ISPs; acknowledgement by ISPs of some responsibility for infringement through their systems; gain and/or strengthen government and other influential support for ISP accountability,” the objective reads.

Strikes systems worked elsewhere, right?

Perhaps surprisingly the MPAA has pushed ahead with CAS in the United States despite knowing that similar schemes have produced lukewarm results elsewhere.

“Programs in France and South Korea (both mandated/managed by government) – and available in New Zealand and Ireland” have had a “limited impact” according to the MPAA.

And the notice-and-notice scheme just launched in Canada and the UK’s upcoming VCAP warning system probably won’t produce nice surprises either. The MPAA believes that both are “likely” to prove less effective than programs with mitigation measures, such as the United States’. CAS.

The future

For the coming year it seems likely that while the MPAA will try to expand its current notice programs by volume, it will not attempt to introduce similar schemes elsewhere.

Will users flood to legitimate services though? The MPAA doesn’t know today and won’t know anytime soon but in any event that desired effect will probably require much more investment.

“Should see reasonable economies of scale…but to scale to level that will impact overall P2P piracy will likely require substantial additional resources,” the movie group says.

“May not have reliable data about impact for 1-2 years.”

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

Ever since The Pirate Bay was raided early December millions of people have been anticipating a comeback. In the meantime, they have had had no other option than to look for alternatives.

Several websites inspired by The Pirate Bay quickly appeared online, hoping to fill this gap. These include the OldPirateBay site that was launched by the operators of Isohunt.to.

While the site’s operators have nothing to do with The Pirate Bay, they cleverly use the brand to gain traffic. It’s been a successful strategy with the site now pulling in millions of visitors per day.

Interestingly, many of these visitors are being referred by Google where the OldPirateBay site has gained the top search spot . This is odd, to say the least, because the official Pirate Bay domain is still up and running.

For some reason Google’s algorithms have decided that the “copy,” which also indexes torrents from other torrent sites, is of more interest than the official site, which appears several results down.

While we have to agree that most torrent users will find OldPirateBay more useful, it doesn’t feel entirely right that Google can just crown a new Pirate Bay. In this instance, we prefer Bing’s strategy.

Those who use Microsoft’s search engine will still see thepiratebay.se listed as the top result. And to avoid any confusion, Bing clearly labels it as the “official site,” which it still is.

It appears that thepiratebay.se can only regain the top spot in Google if they start serving torrents again. Whether that will happen should become clear during the coming days when The Pirate Bay crew is expected to make an official statement.

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

On an average day Google now processes more than a million takedown requests from copyright holders, and that’s for its search engine alone.

Thanks to Google’s transparency report the public is able to see where these notices come from and what content they’re targeting. In addition, Google partners with Chilling Effects to post redacted copies of all notices online.

The Chilling Effects DMCA clearing house is one of the few tools that helps to keep copyright holders accountable. Founded by Harvard’s Berkman Center, it offers an invaluable database for researchers and the public in general.

At TF we use the website on a weekly basis to spot inaccurate takedown notices and other wrongdoings. Since the native search engine doesn’t always return the best results, we mostly use Google to spot newsworthy notices on the site.

This week, however, we were no longer able to do so. The Chilling Effects team decided to remove its entire domain from all search engines, including its homepage and other informational and educational resources.

Ironically enough, complaints from copyright holders are at the base of this unprecedented display of self-censorship. Since Chilling Effects has partnered with Google to publish all takedown notices Google receives, its pages contain hundreds of millions of non-linked URLs to infringing material. Copyright holders are not happy with these pages. Previously, Copyright Alliance CEO Sandra Aistars described the activities of the Chilling Effects projects as “repugnant.”

As a result of the increased criticisms Chilling Effects has now decided to hide its content from search engines, making it harder to find.

“After much internal discussion the Chilling Effects project recently made the decision to remove the site’s notice pages from search engines,” Berkman Center project coordinator Adam Holland informs TF.

“Our recent relaunch of the site has brought it a lot more attention, and as a result, we’re currently thinking through ways to better balance making this information available for valuable study, research, and journalism, while still addressing the concerns of people whose information appears in the database.”

The self censorship may sound strange coming from an organization that was founded to offer more transparency, but the Chilling Effects team believes that it strikes the right balance, for now.

“As a project, we’ve always worked to strike that balance, for example by removing personally identifying information. Removing notice pages from search engine results is the latest step in that balancing process,” Holland tells us.

“It may or may not prove to be permanent, but for now it’s the step that makes the most sense as we continue to think things through,” he adds.

While we respect the decision it’s a real shame for researchers that the notices and other informational material are now hidden from search engines. The notices themselves remain online, but with just the site’s own search it’s harder to find cases of abuse.

The copyright holders on the other hand will be happy. But they probably don’t care much about the chilling effect it has.

^{Photo: CC}

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

Yesterday was the one month anniversary of the December 9, 2014 raid on The Pirate Bay. To this day the site remains down.

First week aside, most news has focused on the fate of the notorious site and whether it will rise like a phoenix from the ashes. There have been numerous teasers from people with access to The Pirate Bay’s main domain, thepiratebay.se, but no concrete signs either way.

But while millions of former users adjust to life without the site, authorities have remained fairly tight-lipped about when their investigation began and the position it’s at today. There are signs, however.

In 2012 it became evident that new action was being planned against the site when the Pirate Bay team revealed the existence of a new investigation. Just days later Swedish hosting company Binero confirmed that they had been approached by the police for information about the site’s domain.

Then, as predicted, in April 2013 prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad filed a motion at the District Court of Stockholm requesting the seizure of several Pirate Bay domains.

Shortly after, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm was questioned in prison, a visit which confirmed the existence of a new investigation involving Swedish anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån and led by Ingblad.

Outwardly things went quiet in the months that followed but in November 2014 there was a significant development. The Pirate Bay’s Fredrik Neij was arrested, ostensibly to serve the sentence handed down for his previous involvement in the site.

However, emails obtained by TorrentFreak revealed Hollywood insiders discussing new criminal charges against Neij for his alleged continued involvement in the site.

Also of interest but not revealed until today, TF understands that last year Thai police were briefed on a number of individuals said to be involved in The Pirate Bay’s operations.

One of those individuals was a man employed at a hosting company back in Sweden, but not the company that was raided in December. After obtaining his photograph from a police briefing document TorrentFreak approached the man himself and also Rights Alliance lawyer Henrik Ponten for more information. Neither responded to our requests for comment.

The task ahead for Swedish authorities is said to be substantial. In the December raid large amounts of equipment and other evidence was seized and that will have to be systematically processed as the days unfold. According to prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad, that will take a considerable time.

“[The Pirate Bay] was seized, everything needs to be reviewed and analyzed. It will take many months to do so,” Ingblad said this week.

The big question now is whether Ingblad’s team will be investigating a dead site or one that has already risen from the ashes. They are watching, he confirmed.

“We will keep track of what happens,” the prosecutor added.

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

Last month a leaked document from the MPAA exposed Hollywood’s global anti-piracy priorities for the coming years.

The leak revealed where the movie studios would focus their efforts, with file-hosting and streaming sites among the top targets.

The same data breach also included a more in-depth overview of the anti-piracy plans which were previously unreported. This new leak comes from an email the MPAA sent to the movie studio’s top executives October last year and provides additional background.

One of MPAA’s main anti-piracy priorities are file-hosting services, often referred to as cyberlockers. As part of the strategy to deal with this threat the movie studios plan to sue the site’s hosting providers.

The two items below reveal Dutch hosting provider LeaseWeb is named as one of the possible targets. The MPAA also leaves the option open to go after “recalcitrant” hosters in the United States, if these choose not to cooperate.

- Litigation against a significant hosting provider in the Netherlands (e.g., Leaseweb).
– Outreach to hosting providers in the US, where sufficient legal precedent exists (potentially to be followed by litigation against recalcitrant US hosting providers).

In a specific section describing its strategy towards hosting services the MPAA also notes that it will put a “political spotlight and pressure” on hosting providers who make a lot of revenue from pirate sites.

In addition the MPAA plans to make criminal referrals against hosting companies, accusing them of money laundering and conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.

Interestingly, it’s unclear whether the criminal route will be successful as the document mentions that the U.S. Government may be reluctant to take these on “given difficulty with Megaupload case.”

LeaseWeb is surprised to learn that they are referenced in these MPAA documents. According to the company’s Senior Regulatory Counsel Alex de Joode there is no reason why they should be considered a target.

“There is no basis or ground for the MPAA to target any LeaseWeb company as part of its anti-piracy strategy,” De Joode tells TF.

“LeaseWeb companies that provide services to third parties have stringent policies to which cloud storage providers and video streaming sites must adhere, and which ensure rights holders can enforce their rights effectively. All LeaseWeb companies also have efficient abuse notification procedures in place, and act quickly upon takedown requests,” he adds.

LeaseWeb operates various companies, also in the United States, but the MPAA’s plan suggests that a possible lawsuit would take place in the Netherlands.

Thus far, however, LeaseWeb hasn’t seen any signs of or reasons for a potential lawsuit. In fact, they maintain a good relationship with the local Hollywood-backed anti-piracy group BREIN with which they have regular meetings in the Netherlands.

“Neither BREIN nor the MPAA has informed any LeaseWeb company that the MPAA may consider any of the LeaseWeb companies a target as part of its anti-piracy strategy or why such may be the case. The only reason that we can think of for ‘LeaseWeb’ to be on the list is that we are a big brand and big player in the hosting business, and as a group of companies have a vast and fast network.”

LeaseWeb is indeed a major player in the hosting business. It previously provided hundreds of servers to the now defunct Megaupload, and still serves many streaming sites and file-hosting services.

TF asked MPAA for a comment on their plans, but we have yet to receive a response.

For now, no lawsuits against hosting providers have been filed by the MPAA. Whether or not this will happen depends in part on the level of funding the major movie studios are willing to contribute to the laid out anti-piracy proposals.

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