While Spain has built a reputation over the years for being easy on copyright infringement, there are now signs that the country intends to take a tougher line.

The latest action involves two of the region’s largest streaming sites, peliculaspepito.com seriespepito.com. The portals had a combined audience of 2.5 million visits per month, with Seriespepito.com taking the larger share as Spain’s 69th most popular site.

A court injunction served on ISPs including Telefónica, Ono, Jazztel. Orange and Vodafone and R Cable blocked access to the sites yesterday. Two men were arrested by police and taken away for questioning.

The investigation into the sites began in May after a complaint was filed at Court No.3 of Elche by anti-piracy group FAP and major film producers including 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, Disney, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures.

The movie companies complained that the sites provided links to other sites where it was possible to stream or download thousands of movies and TV shows without permission, generating thousands of euros in advertising revenue along the way.

An investigation found that the sites were both owned by Zeniox Media SL, a company founded in 2007 and headquartered in the coastal city of Elche. Police uncovered several bank and PayPal accounts which revealed that over the past three years the company generated revenues of 1,085,000 euros.

The individuals targeted yesterday were the company’s operators. Detained following raids in the cities of Madrid and Alicante, the men aged 20 and 30 were questioned and subsequently charged with intellectual property crime offenses.

“Through these popular websites an act of public communication is made, being the means by which a number of people can access protected audiovisual content. The large amount of unauthorized content brings immense losses to the film industry,” police said in a statement.

But while the police seem confident that crimes have been committed, the men’s lawyer sees things rather differently.

Citing an October 2014 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, Carlos Sánchez Almeida says that judges have “ruled repeatedly” that offering links to content does not amount to communicating a work to the public.

Almeida also describes police claims of more than a million euros generated from advertising and premium accounts as “bloated” since not all of the men’s business activities were Internet related. The raids on his clients came as no surprise, however.

“This is typical of the complaints these websites have been suffering since 2003,” Almeida says. “We don’t find this strange at all. Every December there is always a spectacular operation.”

Police say that both men face penalties of hundreds of thousands of euros or even prison sentences.

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

When it comes to online piracy most attention usually goes out to music, TV-shows and movies. However, photos are arguably the most-infringed works online.

While most photographers spend little time battling piracy, Seattle-based artist Christopher Boffoli has taken some of the largest web services to court for aiding infringement.

Boffoli has filed lawsuits against Twitter, Google and others, which were settled out of court under undisclosed terms. Last week the photographer filed a new lawsuit, this time targeting the popular image collection platform Pinterest.

According to the complaint Pinterest is hosting 56 photos from Boffoli’s well-known “Big Appetites” series. These photos are hosted without permission and Pinterest allegedly failed to take them down when the photographer sent a takedown notice.

Boffoli’s photos on Pinterest

“Upon discovering the Infringing Content, on August 19, 2014 Boffoli sent Pinterest’s designated agent an email notifying Pinterest of the Infringing Content,” the complaint (pdf) reads, adding that the notices complied with all DMCA requirements.

Despite being alerted to the infringing material, Pinterest took no action. The only reply Boffoli received was an automated message asking him rate Pinterest’s customer support.

“To date, Pinterest has not removed or disabled access to the Infringing Content. In other words, the Infringing Content is still accessible to the public on Pinterest’s server,” Boffoli’s lawyers write.

The photographer is asking the court to order an injunction preventing Pinterest from making his work available. In addition, the complaint asks for actual and statutory damages for willful copyright infringement.

With at least 56 photos in the lawsuit, Pinterest theoretically faces more than $8 million in damages. Thus far the company hasn’t responded to the complaint but at the time of writing the URLs are no longer linking to infringing content.

Two months ago Boffoli launched a similar case against popular image sharing site Imgur. This case was dismissed on Monday, meaning that the image hosting site is off the hook.

It’s unclear whether a deal was made behind closed doors, but considering previous court actions this doesn’t seem unlikely.

The Imgur case resulted in some negative backlash for the photographer as 20,754 of his photos were uploaded to The Pirate Bay in response. Given the history of the deviant torrent site, these copies won’t be removed anytime soon.

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

Following a series of High Court orders, six UK ISPs are required to block subscriber access to so-called “pirate” sites, including The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents.

The latest orders were announced last week and require that ISPs block an additional 23 sites. This brings the total number of blocked sites to 93 and the end is not yet in sight.

In a response to the blocking bonanza BT decided to follow in the footsteps of Sky by listing a complete overview of all sites censored following requests from the movie and music industries.

BT subscribers who now try to access one of the blocked domains are redirected to ukispcourtorders.co.uk which offers a full rundown of the court orders. In addition, BT informs its subscribers that the High Court decisions can be challenged.

“You have the right to apply to the High Court to vary or discharge the Orders below if you are affected by the blocks which have been imposed,” BT writes, adding that potential appellants should direct their requests to the UK High Court.

While it’s unlikely that individual subscribers will be successful in getting a blockade lifted, the affected sites may have more success.

Earlier this week FilesTube transformed its site from a file-host search engine into a licensed movie portal. As a result it can no longer be seen as a “pirate” site, but the UK block remains in place.

TF contacted the FilesTube team who told us that they will take up BT’s advice and file a request for their site to be whitelisted.

“We are currently preparing to challenge the blockade at the High Court. Hopefully FilesTube will be available again to all UK Internet subscribers in the near future,” a FilesTube spokesperson says.

BT, meanwhile, is unlikely to appeal any of the blockades itself. The Internet provider previously fought and lost a similar case against the MPA in 2011, and stopped protesting subsequent blocking requests made on copyright grounds.

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

Last week’s massive hack of Sony Pictures could hardly have been more high-profile and if reports thus far are to be believed, damage to the company could be significant.

Rather than dropping away, this week momentum is building. In addition to the early leaks, available on BitTorrent networks right now is a 25.87GB data dump featuring the personal details of Sony staff including their names, addresses, salaries and social security numbers.

Not only is this file damaging (it reveals rather healthy executive remuneration packages) it’s also adding to the already considerable mystery surrounding the case. Early in the torrent’s life, dozens of Sony-linked Amazon IP addresses were observed on the torrent provoking theories ranging from honey-pots to hijacked servers.

Another mysterious element emerging now involves the torrent’s unique hash. Search for 957DC0A8 04EB8C28 2F33988E B9096974 FC3761C9 using Google or Bing and there are zero results (at least before publication of this article) which is extremely unusual indeed. Whichever way this torrent made its way online, it almost certainly wasn’t via any conventional route.

As the drama continues, finding someone to blame for the whole debacle is at the forefront. Speculation is rife, with accusatory fingers being pointed as far away as North Korea and as close to home as current Sony employees. It comes as no surprise, however, that picking on easier targets has already slipped onto the agenda.

As first reported here on TF, following the hacks last week several unreleased Sony movies leaked online. Fury, featuring Brad Pitt, was by far the highest profile and today we can confirm that the title has been downloaded by BitTorrent users more than a million times.

Fury – Now downloaded more than a million times

But with Kim Jong Un beyond Western justice and millions of torrent users too much of a headache to round up, the middle men are yet again being drawn into the fight.

Mike Weatherley MP, the recent IP advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron, has published several piracy reports including one earlier in the year examining the advertising revenue on pirate sites. He believes that companies with no direct connection to the hack or subsequent leaks should shoulder some blame.

“Piracy is a huge international problem. The recent cyber-attack on Sony and subsequent release of films to illegal websites is just one high-profile example of how criminals exploit others’ Intellectual Property,” Weatherley writes in an email to TF.

“Unfortunately, the theft of these films – and their subsequent downloads – has been facilitated by web-hosting companies and, ultimately, ISPs who do have to step-up and take some responsibility.”

Weatherley doesn’t provide detail on precisely why web-hosts and ISPs should take responsibility for the work of malicious hackers (possibly state-sponsored) and all subsequent fall out from attacks. The theory is that “something” should be done, but precisely what remains elusive.

In the UK, on Weatherley’s home turf, almost every major torrent site is already blocked by ISPs. The latest wave arrived in the past few days but with proxy sites appearing even more quickly, progress is limited.

Overall, it’s clear that forcing technology companies into shouldering blame for the actions of others is a difficult game and one that has yet to make any noticeable dent in piracy volumes. Still, that won’t stop rightsholders pursuing claims against them and influential characters like Weatherley pushing for reform.

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

As one of the oldest torrent communities online the Demonoid tracker has had its fair share of troubles over the years.

Earlier in 2014 the site returned after nearly two years of downtime, which began following a DDoS attack and legal troubles in Ukraine.

Since then Demonoid has been rebuilding its community up to a point where it now has millions of visitors per month, making it one of the largest torrent sites online once again.

In an effort to obstruct the site’s growth Demonoid is now plagued by blocking requests from copyright holders. Last month the site was blocked by Italian ISPs and a few days ago major ISPs in the UK were told to do the same.

In addition, the site’s visibility on Google has significantly diminished. Those who Google for “demonoid” will see a Wikipedia entry as the top result because the Demonoid.ph domain was removed following a takedown notice.

In what appears to be a response to these censorship efforts, Demonoid switched domain names today. Out of the blue the site began redirecting its .ph domain to demonoid.pw which uses Palau ‘s TLD .pw.

The new domain was registered this weekend just days after reports of a fresh UK High Court injunction ordering ISPs to block the site.

The true motives for the recent domain changes remain unconfirmed at this point. TorrentFreak reached out to the Demonoid team for more details but we have yet to hear back.

If it’s indeed an effort to beat the various censorship attempts, the effects will be limited. While Italian ISP blockades are relatively easy to circumvent with a new domain, UK ISPs are generally quick to update their blocklists.

For now Demonoid.pw is still accessible in the UK via most ISPs, although it has to be noted that some still have to implement the most recent block.

ISP blockades aside, the torrent site will definitely start with a clean sheet on Google. This means that it’s only a matter of days before Demonoid will have its own domain as the top result again, for as long as it lasts.

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