For years lawyers for movie outfit Voltage Pictures have been writing to U.S. based Internet users demanding cash for alleged copyright infringements. Judging from its legal persistence the company has probably made some decent profits while doing so.

Earlier this year Voltage began filing lawsuits against alleged downloaders of its hit movie Dallas Buyers Club. In common with all similar actions the end game is not a full trial but cash settlements from worried Internet account holders.

But while there are millions of torrent users in the U.S., Voltage and its partners are now venturing overseas. According to Danish news site Berlingske, the Dallas Buyers Club piracy-into-profit model is now operating in Europe.

In a letter obtained by the publication after being sent to an alleged Dallas Buyers Club downloader, veteran anti-piracy lawfirm Maqs demands a cash payment of around $250 to make a supposed lawsuit disappear.

The lawfirm increases its chances of a ‘hit’ by writing to the ISP account holder but noting that payment should be made “if you, or someone in your household” acknowledges having downloaded or shared the movie.

“We know that in a particular household is a computer where this [piracy] has occurred from. That is why we have been asked to contact these people by the film company,” Clausen said.

In further comments the lawyer acknowledges that the Internet account holder may not be the infringer and that it could’ve been a child, neighbor, or other third-party, but whether targets will understand the implications of this remains to be seen.

These days chasing down individual file-sharers is almost unheard of in Denmark, so it’s unclear whether targets of Voltage and its Danish partners will be aware of when they’re liable and when they not. Unsurprisingly the early signs indicate that some people are simply paying up.

“Some [letter recipients] are happy to be made aware that they have done something illegal. They have recognized this, paid us, and learned their lesson. It is positive and also the response that we have hoped for,” Clausen says.

As is common in these cases, some letter recipients have told the lawfirm that they have open wifi that could’ve been used by anyone. Some claim they don’t even have a computer. Responses from others are more predictable.

“A few have responded aggressively and negatively to the letter, and several have not responded at all,” Clausen adds.

But for all groups, there is a deadline. Maqs informs its targets that if no payment is made in 15 days, it may “be necessary to institute legal proceedings”. Given past experience it seems unlikely that will transpire but Maqs says that all options remain open.

“It is a choice by the rights owner, whether one wants to go to court with this later,” Clausen concludes.

It comes as no surprise that Denmark has been introduced to so-called mass BitTorrent lawsuits and if predictions hold out, expect many more European countries to become similar targets in 2015.

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

This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

The Equalizer is the most downloaded movie for the second week in a row.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(1)	The Equalizer	7.4 / trailer
2	(3)	Horrible Bosses 2	6.9 / trailer
3	(5)	Gone Girl	8.4 / trailer
4	(…)	Outcast	5.0 / trailer
5	(2)	The Maze Runner	7.1 / trailer
6	(4)	Guardians of the Galaxy	8.5 / trailer
7	(…)	I Origins	7.3 / trailer
8	(8)	This Is Where I Leave You	6.7 / trailer
9	(…)	The Guest	6.9 / trailer
10	(…)	The Boxtrolls	7.0 / trailer

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

On December 9 The Pirate Bay was raided at the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof data center built into a mountain complex near Stockholm.

Despite the rise of various TPB clones and rumors of reincarnations, thepiratebay.se domain remained inaccessible, until today.

This morning the Pirate Bay’s nameservers were updated to ones controlled by their domain name registrar binero.se

A few minutes ago came another big change when The Pirate Bay’s main domain started pointing to a new IP-address (178.175.135.122) connected to a server hosted in Moldova.

Thus far there’s not much to see. The domain only displays a waving pirate flag, but the recent changes will give many estranged Pirate Bay users hope that the site will be restored to its former glory

The DNS changes haven’t propagated everywhere yet, but soon most people should see the following landing page.

Whether a full comeback is in the works remains a mystery for now. Interestingly, the source of the page shows that the pirate flag is hosted by Isohunt.to’s “Open Bay” site where it serves as a background.

TorrentFreak asked both the Pirate Bay and Isohunt.to crews for a comment, thus far without a response. It could be that TPB and Isohunt.to are collaborating on something, hopefully we’ll hear more on that soon.

A few days ago Isohunt.to launched “The Open Bay” initiative, which allows anyone to run a “copy” of The Pirate Bay. The TPB crew previously said that it would like to see as many clones as possible, so perhaps the domain will link to that for the time being.

“We’ve always lived by Kopimi. We love being cloned. It would be amazing if, like in the classic movie Spartacus, everyone could stand up and say “I am The Pirate Bay,” TPB’s Mr 10100100000 told us earlier.

Time will tell whether Pirate Bay’s “comeback” will be a full one, an encouragement for people to start their own clones, or something completely different.

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Update: Thepiratebay.se A records now appear to be empty.

Update: The page also includes and ad code, so people may see popups and other nasty stuff.

Update: Isohunt.to responded and says it has nothing to do with the ‘comeback.’

“They simply included the video from our domain. And right now we have no idea what the TPB crew want to say by this,” Isohunt.to tells us.

Update: TPB added a clock/timer to the site now (using Flipclock) counting the time that’s passed since the raid (approximately, as the counter is relative to the visitor’s time).

Update: The JyO7wNzc8xht47QKWohfDVj6Sc2qH+X5tBCT+uetocIJcjQnp/2f1ViEBR+ty0Cz AES string looks ‘promising’ http://thepiratebay.se/aes.png (yes someone may have created a BitTorrent Sync key with the same characters. This was almost certainly created after it appeared on TPB, so nothing official).

Update: And there’s a Hydra image now… “/pipe.png” class=”sneakyhint” A reference to TPB’s previous hydra mentions.

Breaking story, updates may follow.

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

In 2009, in the wake of the first Pirate Bay trial and the guilty verdict handed to its operators, other admins with file-sharing sites in Sweden began to reconsider their positions.

Piling on the pressure, Antipiratbyrån (now Rights Alliance) wrote to several sites warning them to end their copyright-infringing activities or face the consequences.

While most simply ignored the threats, some decided it was time to close down. One pair, SweDVDR and SoftMP3, did so alongside the release of their source code. This led to the creation of two new sites which eventually merged into one to become ‘eXcelleNT’, or XNT as it was known in public.

For two years the site grew in size and reputation but in 2011 things came crashing down. Just as promised 24 months earlier, Antipiratbyrån / Rights Alliance investigated the site and filed a complaint with the police. In May the authorities pounced, arresting a man in Borlänge, Sweden, and another in the Stockholm area a day later. The site’s server was seized in Germany.

“We believe that the men have been administering and managing the site together,” said prosecutor Frederick Ingblad at the time.

In April 2014, almost three years after the raids, prosecutor Ingblad announced that the men had been prosecuted and would be heading to court. This week they appeared before the Falu District Court to appear before a criminal copyright infringement trial.

“On this file-sharing site 1,050 different types of movies and TV shows were made available to the public illegally without rightholders’ approval,” Ingblad said this week.

The case, which received support from German authorities, centers around the unauthorized distribution of movies and TV shows between March and May 2011, including content owned by Warner Bros. and Disney.

The men, aged 23 and 24, stand accused of operating XNT in a case similar to the one involving The Pirate Bay in 2009. However, while the man from Borlänge admits to running the site, he feels no crime has been committed since he uploaded no content himself and only provided a sharing platform.

His lawyer, Sven-Erik Charles, goes even further. Charles believes that his client can not be convicted of infringement in Sweden since any crimes were committed overseas

“The issue in this lawsuit is where the crime were committed, abroad or in Sweden. This particular site’s server was located in Germany,” he said.

With most private BitTorrent trackers there’s an issue with site funding that’s usually overcome by users making donations. In this case XNT also received voluntary payments from its users – $6,500 to be precise. However, according to SR.se, the prosecutor has already determined that money was not the motivation behind the site and the men didn’t get rich as a result.

“It’s about the desire to compete with other sites, you want to be the quickest to upload some movies and become the greatest, pure and simple,” Ingblad said.

As noted following the Supreme Court decision earlier this week, 1000 movies and TV shows is way above the newly-established threshold for file-sharers to avoid custodial sentences. The men have other concerns too, however. As expected the entertainment companies represented by Rights Alliance have also lodged a multi-million claim for damages.

The men’s fate on both counts will be determined in the coming weeks.

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

The ExtraTorrent Release Group, or ETRG for short, is one of the best known sources for pirated movies.

The group releases dozens of popular films on various torrent sites each week and has a steady following of movie fans looking for fresh content.

Some of these followers track new releases through ETRG’s Twitter account. While the group doesn’t link to any copyrighted material, it does list the titles of new releases there.

One would think that ETRG isn’t violating Twitter’s policies by merely pasting a title. However, a few days ago two tweets mentioning “The Signal” got them in trouble.

The tweets were targeted with a DMCA takedown request which led to the immediate suspension of the group’s account.

“Twitter suspended ETRG’s account with no logical or valid reason. In fact they didn’t even give the reason. All I got was a DMCA notification and next day the account was suspended,” ETRG tells TF.

In its copyright and DMCA policy Twitter explains that it takes action against “tweets containing links to allegedly infringing materials,” but ETRG didn’t post any links, just text.

And there are more strange things happening. The takedown notice was sent on behalf of “Wild Side” and also targeted tweets from @PRoDJi and @TorrentBird. These tweets were removed as well, but interestingly enough the associated accounts haven’t been suspended.

ETRG is disappointed with Twitter’s actions and says the company is caving in to unreasonable demands from copyright holders.

“It shows how these sites are influenced by the powerful movie industry to do anything they want,” the group says.

A few years ago the group stopped posting links after it has its account suspended and at the time Twitter re-enabled it within a day. But even without links it couldn’t escape another suspension.

Hoping to get its account reinstated ETRG filed a counter-notice, but several days have passed since and they have yet to hear back from Twitter. Meanwhile, the account remains suspended.

—

_{Pirate Twitter credit}

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