Posts by Prophet

People operating open WiFi networks in Germany have long risked being held liable for the actions of those using them. However, to the relief of thousands of citizens that position will change later this year after the country's coalition government decided to abolish the legislation which holds operators responsible for the file-sharing activities of others.

In many countries it’s accepted that whoever commits a crime or a civil tort in the file-sharing space is the person that should be held directly responsible for it.

For example, if someone shares the latest movie online without permission, that is the only person copyright holders should have an interest in for that particular offense. Certainly, innocent third parties should not be held liable.

In Germany, however, the position is more complex. Due to a concept known as Störerhaftung, a third party who played no intentional part in someone else’s infringements can be held liable for them. This type of liability has raised its head in many file-sharing cases where open WiFi owners have been considered liable for other people’s infringements.

Now, however, this stifling situation is probably in its dying days. According to a Spiegel report, Germany’s ruling coalition have agreed to abolish the so-called ‘interferer liability’.

This means that both private and small scale WiFi operators (such as café owners) will soon enjoy the same freedom from liability enjoyed by commercial operators.
No splash-pages or password locks will be required meaning that open WiFi hotspots will at last become as freely available in Germany as they are already in countries such as France and the UK.

Pressure had been mounting on the German government following a European Court of Justice opinion published in March which held that entities operating unsecured wireless networks should not be held liable for the copyright infringements of third parties.

The case involves Pirate Party member Tobias McFadden who received a claim from music company Sony who alleged that his open WiFi was used to offer an album without permission. Sony demanded that McFadden prevent future infringement by password protecting his network, blocking file-sharing ports, and logging/blocking users sharing copyrighted content. The Pirate objected to Sony’s claims of liability and the case went to the European Court of Justice.

The final judgment from the ECJ is not expected for a few months but in most cases early recommendations from experts are upheld by the ruling judge.

Should all go smoothly, the removal of the liability from German law has the potential to shake up the massive file-sharing settlement letter business. While those accused of infringement already have some means to fight back, the absence of third-party liability for connection owners could remove much of the pressure placed on them to settle, whether they were directly involved in an infringement or not.

According to reports the legislative amendments are set to be passed by Parliament next week and could be in place as early as this fall.

A letter signed by nearly 45,000 people calls upon Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to reverse the company's broad VPN ban. To enforce geographical restrictions Netflix started blocking VPN users more aggressively this year, but according to OpenMedia there are better alternatives that respect the privacy of users.

b3ac32372.png

Earlier this year Netflix announced that it would increase its efforts to block customers who circumvent geo-blockades.

As a result it has become harder to use VPN services and proxies to access Netflix content from other countries, something various movie studios have repeatedly called for.

With the application of commercial blacklist data, Netflix blocks IP-addresses that are linked to such services, something which also affects well-intentioned customers who merely use a VPN to protect their privacy.

This broad blocking policy has sparked wide protests and 44,446 Internet users have signed a petition launched by digital rights group OpenMedia, which asks Netflix to stop the VPN crackdown.

Today, OpenMedia sent a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, delivering this message. The letter starts off by saying that the petition signers all love Netflix, but that they don’t like how the company handles their privacy.

“Watching quality content, and knowing that creators are being compensated in the process is great. But we also love our privacy. And lately, as your subscribers, you just haven’t been treating us well,” the letter reads.

“[Blocking VPN connections] is a huge problem for our privacy *conscious supporters, who use VPNs as an essential, user* friendly tool to protect their privacy in a post *Snowden world.”

The letter acknowledges that Netflix has to cooperate with rightsholders, but according to OpenMedia there are better ways to make sure that geographic restrictions are enforced.

“We are not unreasonable. We do understand that you have contractual obligations to the rights*holders whose content you distribute. But we believe that there are better ways for you to respect creators, and enforce your geographic restrictions and contractual obligations than by outright blocking your privacy conscious customers from using your service.”

The group invites Netflix’s CEO for a meeting to discuss these alternatives. Talking to TorrentFreak, OpenMedia spokesperson David Christopher previously said that Netflix could link content libraries to credit card addresses, for example.

“We hope that you will consider the needs and privacy of the millions of Internet users around the world who value your service, by demonstrating that you are open to new and innovative solutions – the very root of what Netflix was founded on,” the letter adds.

Thus far Netflix hasn’t shown any willingness to address the concerns. During an investor call last month Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that the recent crackdown on VPN users hasn’t hurt the company’s results, and that the complaints came from a “small but vocal minority.”

Bienvenido al sitio estamos felices de que usted está aquí

8cc61b92646f79459.jpg

Samsung Electronics and Canal+ group are partnering to offer the MyCanal TV experience directly embedded on Samsung smart TVs.

No additional STB is required, nor additional cable, with the hybrid DTT/OTT offering designed to make MyCanal live and replay HDTV experience and content, which comprises both Canal+ and Canalsat bouquets, available in a simpler way.

Now accessible on the Samsung 2015 series 5,6 and 7, and the 2016 TV sets, this new offer is described as “a world premiere”. Featuring adaptative streaming technology, it is clearly targeting potential subscribers who want to eliminate the STB and access all their content from just one remote control. Attracting new subscribers has become a top priority for Canal+ which has been suffering from haemorrhage in recent years.

Subscribing to the service just entails connecting the Samsung Smart TV to the web, and clicking on MyCanal window from the TV Smart Hub.

Existing subscribers owning a DTH STB will have to migrate to get their Canal+ subscription on their smart TV.

“The ambition of such a partnership is based on three values: which are customer satisfaction, innovation and the desire to reach the greatest number of people as possible,” commented Stéphane Cotte, MD of Samsung France.

“This ready-to-use solution makes simplicity a priority,” added Franck Cadoret, distribution director at Canal+ Group.

The new service is set to enhance with UHD content shortly as well as with new functions such as HDR, DTS and sound Dolby Atmos, said the partners.

Cadoret suggested that the MyCanal app, which is available on TV and mobile devices, now has two million active clients and expects to pass the mark of one million downloads at the end of May 2016.

Samsung and Canal+ Group said the initiative was the first step in their collaboration.

Source : http://advanced-television.com…ng-canal-hybrid-smart-tv/

DVDFab has failed to cease its operations in the U.S. and should be sanctioned, AACS says. The decryption licensing outfit founded by Warner Bros, Disney, Microsoft, Intel and others, informs a New York federal court that DVDFab's parent company has blatantly ignored a permanent injunction that was issued last year.

3b1ab64bade714.jpg

In 2014 decryption licensing outfit AACS LA initiated a renewed crackdown on DRM-circumvention software.

The company, founded by a group of movie studios and technology partners, sued the makers of popular DVD and Blu-Ray ripping software DVDFab in a New York federal court.

After a brief legal battle the court ruled in favor of AACS, issuing an injunction based on the argument that the “DVDFab Group” violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention clause, since their software can bypass DVD and Bluray encryption.

Among other things the injunction barred DVDFab from distributing its software in public and allowed AACS to seize a wide range of domain names and block the company’s social media accounts.

The crippling injunction seemed to work, but not for long. In a new court filing (pdf) AACS notes that the software vendor briefly blocked U.S. purchases but went back to business as usual soon after.

“Defendants are again offering DVDFab software that circumvents AACS Technology for purchase and download from the United States via their enjoined website at DVDFab.cn,” they write.

“Plaintiff has been able to purchase and download DVDFab Passkey for Bluray from the United States without issue, and without using a VPN or other means of masking a United States IP address,” AACS adds.

In addition, the software maker also launched an XBMC box called VidOn which also allows users to rip DVDs and Blurays.

According to AACS, the VidOn box uses the same DVDFab technology to rip Blu-Ray disks (via a PC).

“Plaintiff has tested the products and found that the VidOn software works in conjunction with DVDFab Passkey to circumvent AACS access and copy control technology and then extract or ‘rip’ the audiovisual content of Blu-ray discs for playback using the VidOn hardware.”

fc26e2ecbfe1.png

Similar to the DVDFab software, the VidOn box is widely available to the U.S. public and promoted there using various social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

According to AACS these clear violations of the permanent injunction should not go unpunished. The company therefore asks the court to award damages and to issue coercive contempt sanctions of $10,000 per day.

“Plaintiff requests the Court impose a coercive sanction of $10,000 per day on Defendants, continuing until Defendants come into compliance with the Amended PI Order,” AACS writes.

“This figure is reasonable and in line with amounts awarded in previous cases involving similar behavior, namely repeated, brazen violations of court orders and intellectual property protections,” they add.

In addition, the rightsholders want the permanent injunction to be updated so DVDFab is also barred from selling the new VidOn products and operating other related websites through which its ripping tools are offered.

It is not up to the court to decide whether sanctions and an amended injunction are appropriate. However, recent history has shown that it’s hard to permanently ban “ripping” software from the market.

In addition to DVDFab’s continued operation, AACS also failed to completely shut down its competitor AnyDVD. While the parent company SlySoft did shut down, the development was quickly taken over by RedFox, without any significant changes.

I removed the screen shot from the OP aas it directed to another site

The UK government has published its strategy for tackling IP infringement over the next four years. The document reveals some interesting times ahead, including a review of the effectiveness of notice and takedown regimes and the possibility of rightsholders tracking down infringers within them.

bcf00e88.jpg

In various publications and reports in recent months, the UK has been described as a world leader in intellectual property enforcement. Indeed, news of various operations and dozens of arrests carried out by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) have regularly appeared in the media.

This morning the UK Government has announced that it intends to build on this reputation with the publication of a new strategy titled Protecting Creativity, Supporting Innovation: IP Enforcement 2020.

The document outlines a four-year strategy which aims to provide an environment in which UK rightsholders have access to “proportionate and effective mechanisms to resolve disputes and tackle IP infringement” both at home and overseas.

The strategy has six key points, with reducing the level of illegal online content placed at the top of the list and strengthening the law closely after. The government also wants to increase its educational programs with the aim of building respect for intellectual property.

A significant emphasis on dealing with online infringement sees the government focus on a number of key areas, from those sharing files online to the sites facilitating infringement. Search engines also come under the spotlight.

Interestingly, the main points are all framed at helping the consumer to both recognize and then avoid copyright infringing websites.

Notice and takedown, notice and trackdown

Given the Copyright Office DMCA review currently underway in the United States, it’s no surprise to find a review of notice and takedown procedures heading the list in the UK. The government says that it wants to “improve and streamline the process” while considering the scope for introducing a Code of Practice for intermediaries.

More controversially, the four-year strategy also includes the possibility of introducing a system of “notice and trackdown” which would enable rightsholders to not only send notices but also take action directly against identified infringers.

Safe harbor (or platform liability as its referred to in the report) will come under the spotlight as well, with the government seeking clarification from the EU on current rules.

Dealing with pirating Internet users

On top of the “notice and trackdown” elements detailed above (presumably for the minority who post infringing links on websites etc), the report envisions effort being placed on encouraging consumers to buy from legitimate sources. Mainly, this will be achieved through the long-delayed warning notice system under development at ISPs.

“This government will also build on progress made under our voluntary anti-piracy projects to warn internet users when they are breaching copyright and work to ensure that search engines do not link to the worst-offending sites. This is in recognition of the fact that the clear majority of consumers want to do the right thing, to abide by the law and support our creative industries,” says Minister for Intellectual Property Baroness Neville-Rolfe.

“Helping those consumers to understand what is, and is not, allowed online, and helping guide them to legal content when they search, will help ensure that the vast appetite that exists for new and creative content benefits the legitimate creators, and not those criminals who cynically exploit the hard work of others.”

To help users make the right choice, the government is promising to give more support to industry initiatives such as FindanyFilm.com and the GetitRight campaign while encouraging education campaigns focused on children and students.

“We will work with intermediaries, rights holders and trade bodies to highlight all the UK’s legal sources of content,” the government says.

Targeting pirate sites, services, and their operators

In addition to honing the existing Infringing Website List (IWL), emphasis will be placed on depriving sites of their income via the “Follow the Money” approach and reducing the numbers of visitors they currently enjoy.

“We will continue to work with brand advertisers, advertising intermediaries and
law enforcement partners to highlight the value of the IWL and will support groups
such as the Digital Trading Standards group (DTSG) in promoting their UK good
practice principles,” the report notes.

Existing efforts to deprive sites of the ability to process funds will be maintained, with the government promising to seek commitments from payment processors such as PayPal, MasterCard and VISA to make it more easy for service to be declined following complaints from law enforcement.

Of course, no “pirate site” strategy would be complete without the inclusion of a blocking regime and as expected the UK government leaves no stone unturned.

“This government has also pledged to protect intellectual property by continuing to require internet service providers to block sites that carry large amounts of illegal content, including their proxies,” Baroness Neville-Rolfe explains.

“The UK has a good track record in the development of injunctive relief for online infringement, but this is something that must be preserved, and even enhanced to cope with the sheer numbers of infringing websites that spring up every month, and the new business models they employ.”

The government further sees an opportunity to make the blocking process easier to access for smaller businesses.

“We will continue our work to support businesses of any size to navigate and utilize the civil court system by improving the guidance that is currently available, including guidance on the minimum levels of evidence required for website blocking orders, and by ensuring that court judgments and cases are published on a regular and consistent basis,” the report reads.

The UK also sees potential for cooperation with the EU on injunctions, more on that in a moment.

Interestingly, it appears that ‘pirate’ set-top streaming boxes have rightsholders and by extension the government pretty rattled. They get a special mention in the report with the government noting that a greater understanding of the challenges they present is required. Furthermore, the report says that the government will consider what kind of new legislation might be needed to tackle them.

Search engines and social media

According to the report, the government will work with search engines and social media platforms to reduce the availability of infringing content. This will include a review of their current “notice and takedown” procedures and see the government considering the options for rightsholders to challenge infringers under “notice and trackdown” as detailed above.

The review process will also determine whether Codes of Practice are required for platforms including Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Overseas cooperation

While there are issues locally, the government sees the piracy problem as one to be solved cooperatively on an international basis. To this end there will be requests to partners overseas to carry out “domain and hosting enforcement action” when UK interests are at stake.

“This will include exploring with European colleagues the options for mutual recognition of the evidence required for injunctions and court orders in various member states,” the report reads.

This item is of particular interest since around 1,000 ‘pirate’ sites are already blocked by injunction in the UK. Streamlining the process EU-wide would be a major bonus for rightsholders.

Whilst you make a reasonable point for yourself, there are many many members that do indeed visit the site for this very content, many members request specific editions that get filled for them, so for those users if these contributions were hidden as you suggest then they would also be going without

Just to clarify, it is not simply magazines, also Android applications, bouquet set's, torrent news and other content

HBO is going all out to limit Game of Thrones piracy. The company is sending out thousands copyright infringement warnings to alleged pirates, encouraging them to get an HBO subscription. In addition, the company is requesting torrent sites to remove Game of Thrones torrents, at a rate rarely seen before.

e9e80ceed0b40ab3715a.jpg

Tomorrow night the third episode of the latest Game of Thrones season will appear online, both through official and unauthorized channels.

With millions of people all around the world eager to see how Jon Snow is doing, the interest on various pirate sites will be massive once again.

While HBO generally seems quite cavalier when the piracy topic comes up, the company is actively trying to contain the fallout behind the scenes.

Since the start of the new season the company’s anti-piracy partner IP Echelon has sent thousands of warnings to ISPs, urging them to take action against alleged pirates.

The warning mails in question include the IP-addresses of BitTorrent users who were caught sharing recent episodes of Game of Thrones, and the notifications HBO asks the ISPs to alert the associated subscribers to prevent further infringements.

“As the owner of the IP address, HBO requests that [ISP] immediately contact the subscriber who was assigned the IP address at the date and time below with the details of this notice, and take the proper steps to prevent further downloading or sharing of unauthorized content and additional infringement notices.”

187975e.jpg

While these notices are pretty common, HBO now also encourages ISPs to point subscribers toward legal options, something we haven’t seen in the past.

“We also encourage you to inform the subscriber that HBO programming can easily be watched and streamed on many devices legally by adding HBO to the subscriber’s television package,” the notification adds.

Legally, ISPs are not obligated to forward these emails, which are sent as a DMCA notification, but many do. In any case, HBO doesn’t know the identity of the alleged pirates, so there are no legal strings attached for the subscribers in question.

Aside from targeting alleged pirates, HBO has another strategy to deter people from pirating Game of Thrones.

Since the start of the sixth season the company has aggressively targeted torrent sites with takedown requests. While some sites simply ignore these, popular indexes and search engines such as KickassTorrents and Torrentz have removed links to hundreds of torrents.

eddbdad0f81740ec.jpg

In some cases, the most popular torrents are removed a few minutes after they appear online. This is much quicker than average, suggesting that HBO’s anti-piracy partners are monitoring the situation in real time and on a broad scale.

A search on KickassTorrents shows that the most popular torrent releases for the first two episodes have been removed. Similarly, a search for Game of Thrones on Torrentz notes that links to the 100 torrents with the most peers are all gone.

It’s clear that HBO is doing all it can to limit the distribution of pirated Game of Thrones episodes. However, the question remains as to whether it will be enough to really deter a significant number of downloaders from finding copies on other sites, where they are still readily available.

HBO is not only taking action against people who download pirated copies of Game of Thrones, the company is also targeting those who predict what's going to happen in future episodes. YouTube user Frikidoctor has had several videos taken down due to copyright complaints, including one where no infringing video or sound was used.

a1a58.jpg

As one of its hottest properties, HBO has become very protective of Game of Thrones.

In recent weeks thousands of pirates have received warnings in their mailboxes, and the company is also fervently trying to take down links to pirated copies of the show, with some success.

Besides from actual copies of episodes, HBO also appears to have an eye on those who talk about what may happen during the rest of the season. The Internet is littered with spoilers which HBO doesn’t like, including those posted in Spanish by YouTube user Frikidoctor.

Unlike many others, Frikidoctor is remarkably accurate with his predictions, and claims to have a source close to the fire who feeds him information. HBO doesn’t like this and has pulled several of his videos, arguing that they are infringing their copyrights.

This also happened to the video featuring several episode three spoilers which was uploaded a few days ago.

“I uploaded the video and two hours later HBO decided to take it down on YouTube [claiming] copyright infringement,” Frikidoctor says, responding to the surprise takedown.

8aaa0f63d3b2ad4653c011d6.jpg

Frikidoctor admits that he used snippets of trailers and other promotional material in earlier videos that were removed, but says that the video with the episode three “predictions” didn’t include any HBO audio or video.

“In the last two videos they took down I had some frames from teasers and trailers they decided to share with everyone for promotional purposes. This time the video did not have a single frame or sound that belongs to HBO,” he says.

Instead, the video was just him dressed up in a Mexican wrestler costume, discussing what would happen in the upcoming episode.

“So, they think that me dressed as a Mexican wrestler talking about predictions for episode three of Game of Thrones is their property. That it’s copyrighted material that belongs to them,” Frikidoctor notes.

“Isn’t that misuse of the DMCA?” he adds.

Frikidoctor has appealed the takedown with YouTube and also contacted a lawyer to discuss what steps to take next. While he sees it as a violation of his right to free speech, he’s not sure whether he’s willing to take the issue to court just yet.

For now, however, he will refrain from posting any predictions, to keep the pressure off.

If Frikidoctor did indeed pursue a claim against HBO he would have a good chance of winning. Merely talking about newsworthy information obtained from a source is generally something that would fall under fair use.

It certainly isn’t something to be struck down easily with a copyright complaint.

‘Bogus’ YouTube takedown have become a hot topic in recent months. Earlier this year close to 100,000 people voiced their concerns about potential abuse of copyright takedowns.

The campaign, spearheaded by Fight for the Future and popular YouTube channel ChannelAwesome, stressed that copyright holders are too often censoring free speech with dubious or false takedown claims.

f6eae.jpg
Entertainment industry groups often equate illegal downloading to theft, an act that many people would feel guilty about carrying out. However, millions of downloaders simply do not feel any guilt when they transfer infringing content to their machines, so why is that? Scientists in Australia think they've found the answer.

Every month millions of people download and share movies, TV shows, music, software and ebooks without obtaining permission from copyright holders.

In most countries that activity is illegal, meaning that huge numbers of Internet users are breaking the law on a daily basis.

While there are plenty of criminals around, most illegal downloaders don’t equate their hobby to being tantamount to theft, despite huge efforts by copyright holders to paint it so. To most it just doesn’t ‘feel’ the same and now scientists in Australia think they may have discovered why.

A three-stage study published by Robert Eres, a PhD student within the Social Neuroscience lab led by Dr Pascal Molenberghs at the Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences, investigated why normally law-abiding people don’t have a problem with breaking laws which cover intangible items.

To that end the researchers investigated what happens inside the brains of people when they pirate intangible digital content versus stealing a physical item such as a handbag.

To begin, the researchers issued a questionnaire to discover whether people are more likely to “steal” non-tangible items (such as movie or music files) than their physical counterparts (DVDs and CDs). They found that their test subjects were indeed more likely to “steal” items that have no physical embodiment, no matter what their cost or associated risk of getting caught.

Next up the researchers carried out two sets of brain scans to try and understand why people are more happy to “steal” items that have no physical presence.

“The first brain imaging experiment revealed that people’s brains were much more active when trying to imagine intangible compared to tangible objects, which suggests people have more difficulty with representing intangible items,” the researchers write.

6d22a52f4.png

During the second set of scans, test subjects were asked to imagine themselves illegally or legally obtaining physical and digital versions of items such as movies, music, TV shows and software.

What the researchers found was that when imagining stealing an item, participants showed much more activation in the lateral orbital frontal cortex of their brains. Among other things, this part of the brain is associated with feelings of moral sensitivity and it was much more active when test subjects were thinking about stealing physical items than it was for intangible items such as digital files.

d968c8b267a41.png

“The findings from the two brain imaging experiments suggest that people are processing the intangible and tangible objects very differently within their brains,” Mr Eres says.

Social Neuroscience lab head Dr Pascal Molenberghs says that this suggests that people have less problem breaking laws covering intangible items since they experience more difficulties imagining them so their brains feel less guilty when they “steal” them.

“Evolutionarily, we have interacted more with physical goods – particularly in respect to ownership so that is why we are hardwired to respect these more compared to intangible items such as ideas or software,” Dr Molenberghs says.

Finally, the researchers believe that the results of study have wider implications to other areas of online life, beyond Internet piracy.

“Overall, the data presented here suggests that the differences we see in moral behaviors (particularly concerning contexts of non-physical interactions; piracy, online surveillance and espionage) may be due to the differences in their neural representation and the discerning level of guilt felt for tangible items compared with intangible,” they conclude.

The boss of a prominent ISP in Sweden has criticized moves by the government which could criminalize hundreds of thousands of Internet users. Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung says the country is stuck in the past when it calls for harsher punishments for file-sharing and should instead concentrate on developing better legal options.

There are very few Internet service providers around the world who could be described as file-sharer friendly. Most will steadfastly do their bare minimum when aggressive copyright holders come calling, with the majority happy to throw their customers to the wolves, guilty or not.

The same cannot be said about Swedish ISP Bahnhof. CEO Jon Karlung has been at the forefront of several arguments over file-sharers for many years, particularly when their activities intersect with a right to privacy.

In 2009, Karlung threw a wrench in the works of the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) by refusing to log the IP addresses of his customers. This meant that if a court came calling for the data, none would be available.

In 2011, Karlung was pleasing the masses again, this time by hosting Wikileaks and promising to route all customer traffic through an encrypted VPN service. And in April this year the Bahnhof CEO vowed to protect his customers from copyright trolls.

Now Karlung has turned his attentions to the Swedish government following an open hearing at the end of last month on the subject of piracy in the digital marketplace.

The published purpose of the hearing was to “share knowledge and gain a greater insight into how piracy and other infringements of intellectual property affects both businesses and consumers and society in general” but it appears Karlung was not impressed.

3e0b922a8374f164685d2.jpg

Writing in Sweden’s SVT, Karlung said that the meeting was attended by representatives from the film and music industries who sat alongside police and politicians. He says that the atmosphere was good, with everyone in agreement.

“For several hours they repeated, with rising fighting spirit, the same message again and again: ‘We need to block illegal sites! We must strengthen penalties!’,” the Bahnhof CEO reports.

Eventually Sweden’s Minister for Justice took the floor and told those assembled that “theft is theft!” while championing tougher penalties for infringers. He also noted that his first meetings after he took over as attorney general had been with the film industry. This appears to have riled Karlung.

“It is symptomatic that no Internet service provider was invited to the meeting – or anyone else with a broader understanding of digital conditions,” he explains.

The Bahnhof CEO says the exchange reminded him of 2008 when he attended a meeting in Sweden’s Parliament on the topic of file-sharing. Back then too, a politician stood up, declared that “theft is theft”, and left without discussing the issue with the ISP. For Karlung, history is repeating itself.

“In 2016, Sweden wants to criminalize hundreds of thousands of citizens for file-sharing. Now?! When large parts of the film and music industry have already adapted to the digital landscape with services such as Spotify and Netflix?” he questions.

“Consumers are apparently willing to pay. How about adding resources to develop the right services instead of taking a large sledgehammer to the free Internet?”

Karlung says that Sweden used to be at the forefront in that respect, but things have changed.

“Now we are internationally renowned as a place where courts prohibit public art from being shared online,” he explains.

Whether Karlung’s words will have any effect on government policy will remain to be seen but in any event it is extremely rare for the CEO of an ISP to make his voice heard in the way Karlung has for the past several years. Certainly, privacy conscious customers could do worse than check out this ISP.

Quote from Honcho

Very Interesting indeed :)

Nice to see something positive for once, in this type of area

Chrome, Firefox and Safari are actively blocking direct access to The Pirate Bay. According to the browsers, Thepiratebay.se is a "deceptive site" or "web forgery," that may steal user information. The TPB crew has been alerted to the issue, and hope it will be resolved soon.

b525e2d0662e4b7.jpg

There’s a slight panic breaking out among Pirate Bay users, who are having a hard time accessing the site.

Over the past few hours Chrome and Firefox and Safari have started to block access to Thepiratebay.se due to reported security issues.

Instead of a page displaying the iconic pirate ship, visitors are presented with an ominous red warning banner.

“Deceptive site ahead: Attackers on Thepiratebay.se may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information,” the Chrome warning reads.

778560d1.png

Firefox users may encounter a similar banner, branding The Pirate Bay as a “web forgery” which may trick users into sharing personal information. This may lead to identity theft or other fraud.

“Web forgeries are designed to trick you into revealing personal or financial information by imitating sources you may trust. Entering any information on this web page may result in identity theft or other fraud,” the browser warns.

e4dcd2742129f46f42.png

Google’s safebrowsing page for TPB currently lists the site as dangerous. It is likely that the current problems are related to issues caused by third-party advertisers. Just last week Malwarebytes reported that some ads were dropping ransomware through the site.

The issue appears to be limited to the desktop versions of most browsers, and not everyone is seeing the error pages yet.

This is not the first time browsers have flagged The Pirate Bay. The same issue has come up before supposedly due to malicious advertisers.

The Pirate Bay team is aware of the issues and will probably resolve it sooner than later. Impatient or adventurous users who want to bypass the warning can do so by disabling their browser’s security warnings altogether in the settings, at their own risk of course.

LegendSky, a hardware manufacturer that creates devices enabling consumers to bypass 4K copy protection, has survived a crucial lawsuit. LegendSky was sued by Warner Bros. and Intel daughter company Digital Content Protection (DCP), who said the company was breaking the law, but a surprising settlement suggests otherwise.

Late last year the first pirated copies of 4K videos leaked from both Netflix and Amazon. These leaks were unusual as online 4k streams were always well protected against pirates.

Initially it was unclear how the HDCP content protection had been circumvented, but several sources suggested that one of LegendSky’s latest HDFury devices may have been involved.

This suspicion was later corroborated by a well-known Scene group, which openly thanked HDFury in their release notes.

However, not everyone was pleased with the new “pirate tool.” In fact, Warner Bros. and Intel daughter company Digital Content Protection (DCP) sued the HDFury manufacturer over its ability to “strip” the latest HDCP encryption.

The Chinese hardware manufacturer fiercely rejected these piracy claims and countersued Warner and Intel subsidiary for defamation.

In its reply, LegendSky explained that their devices do not “strip” any HDCP copy protection. Instead, the contested HDFury device merely downgrades the higher HDCP protection to a lower version, which is permitted as an exception under the DMCA.

The company further added that several HDCP licensees including Netflix, Disney, NBC and CBS have bought their devices for legitimate purposes.

It’s possible that DCP also appreciated the strength of this argument as this week the company dropped its copyright infringement claims against LegendSky. This means that the 4K integral remains for sale, despite the earlier piracy claims.

Court documents reveal nothing other than a statement signed by both parties, stating that the claims and counterclaims have been dismissed. However, LegendSky did inform its customers a few days ago referring to a settlement being reached.

“We just have been informed by our legal counsel that we must pull all of the below products immediately due to a pending confidential settlement we are reaching,” the email in question reads.

a982f6fa.png

Interestingly, the products that were pulled have nothing to do with the 4K splitter that started the lawsuit. Instead, they are digital to analog converters.

In the U.S. these type of products have previously been classed as “infringing” and DCP informed the court about several of these so-called “analog hole” verdicts in an earlier filing. It therefore makes sense that puling these older products is part of the settlement.

This allows Warner Bros. and the Intel daughter company to save face, but it’s only a minor conciliation. With the 4K integral still up for sale, the Chinese hardware manufacturer has without doubt booked a moral victory in this lawsuit.

Thank you as always to Rat for these

Rat's Bouquets E2 SD FTA HD 3.5.2016

Few updates
Main one being Channel 5 HD now FTA and in main Entertainment Bouquet

The leaders of two major Android app piracy groups have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges. The men, aged 22 and 29, ran the Applanet and SnappzMarket groups before they were shut down by the FBI in 2012.

3a03ff52.jpg

Assisted by police in France and the Netherlands, in the summer of 2012 the FBI took down three unauthorized Android app stores.

Appbucket, Applanet and SnappzMarket all had their domains seized in a first of its kind operation. Several men were arrested and over the past four years have been slowly pleading guilty to various copyright infringement charges.

According to the Department of Justice, two more can now be added to the list.

Before his 16th birthday Aaron Blake Buckley launched Applanet, a service dedicated to the sharing of Android software. After being raided in 2012, Buckley attempted to crowdfund a defense against the U.S. government in 2014.

Now a 22-year-old, Buckley has just pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and to one count of criminal copyright infringement before U.S. District Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. of the Northern District of Georgia.

Co-conspirator Gary Edwin Sharp II, 29, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement in January.

53bfcad141.jpg

“According to statements made in court, the conspirators identified themselves as members of the Applanet Group,” the DoJ said in a statement.

“From May 2010 through August 2012, they conspired to reproduce and distribute more than four million copies of copyrighted Android apps through the Applanet alternative online market without permission from the victim copyright owners, who would otherwise sell copies of the apps on legitimate online markets for a fee.”

In addition to his role within Applanet, Sharp also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement as the leader of SnappzMarket. Sharp admitted that along with two other members the group conspired to distribute more than a million pirate Android apps worth $1.7m.

Overall, the groups are said to have distributed Android apps with a retail value in excess of $17 million.

The guilty pleas come on the heels of several others (1,2) since the raids in 2012. Buckley and Sharp will be sentenced in August.

I am pretty sure that the CCcam team stopped creating builds before x64 was properly a thing, I could well be wrong though (I often am)

Have you considered Oscam as an alternative ?

Thank you as always to Rat for these

Rat's Bouquets E2 SD FTA HD 21.4.2016

The UK government has published its conclusions following a consultation into punishments for online copyright infringement offenses. At the earliest opportunity Parliament will be asked to increase custodial sentences up to a maximum of 10 years while ensuring that unwitting pirates are protected.

In early 2015 a study commissioned by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) concluded that criminal sanctions for copyright infringement under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) should be amended to bring them into line with offenses such as counterfeiting.

The report triggered a proposal from the UK government that the maximum prison sentence for online copyright infringement should be increased to ten years. The current maximum of two years is not enough of a deterrent, it was argued.

In July 2015 the government launched a consultation aiming to gauge opinion on boosting penalties to ensure that online piracy is considered as “no less serious” than offline infringements.

This morning the government released its conclusions while confirming it will indeed be asking Parliament for a ten year maximum sentence.

In a published statement, Minister for Intellectual Property Baroness Neville-Rolfe says that more than a thousand responses (pdf) helped to shape the government’s decision to stand by its earlier calls for increased penalties. Demands for additional clarity will also be addressed.

“As a result we are now proposing changes that include increasing the maximum sentence, but at the same time addressing concerns about the scope of the offense,” Neville-Rolfe says.

“The revised provisions will help protect rights holders, while making the boundaries of the offense clearer, so that everyone can understand how the rules should be applied.”

The minister says that a number of safeguards are already in place to “limit the risk” that a “very low level” infringer could be subjected to a high penalty, including that infringement must be proven to the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

Addressing concerns raised by the consultation that unwitting infringers might find themselves subjected to draconian sentences when they had no intent to cause any harm, the government references a system that has been in place for some time at the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU).

Without mentioning them by name, the report notes that “enforcement agencies and private prosecutors have a staged response system, encompassing education, ‘cease and desist’ notices, and domain suspension.”

In other words, those likely to be targeted by the ten year sentence are given advance warning by the likes of PIPCU, FACT and the BPI, that they’re treading on thin ice.

The government also addresses concerns that the term “affect prejudicially” is too vague when used to describe the extent to which a copyright holder needs to be affected before an offense is committed.

“It was argued that a single infringing file could fulfil this requirement in some circumstances (if widely shared subsequent to the infringement for example) therefore setting an unacceptably low threshold for committing the offense,” the government explains.

The government’s position is that minor infringement does not lead to a criminal prosecution but it does concede that the term “affect prejudicially” has the potential to “give rise to an element of ambiguity.”

Perhaps predictably the consultation raised concerns that a maximum sentence of ten years would place infringement alongside serious offenses such as rape, firearms offenses and child cruelty.

Nevertheless, the government feels the sentence is warranted and uses the case brought against several release group members last year as an indicator that while ten years is a maximum, it would only be utilized in the rarest of cases.

“The Government believes that a maximum sentence of 10 years allows the courts to apply an appropriate sentence to reflect the scale of the offending. An example where copyright infringement was deemed to warrant longer than a 2 year sentence is where five defendants received sentences totaling 17 years for releasing more than 2,500 of the latest films onto the internet,” the government writes.

“They were prosecuted under the Fraud Act, where the highest sentence was four and a half years. Capping the maximum available sentence at a lower level would unnecessarily limit the ability of the courts to apply appropriate sentences in the more serious cases of copyright infringement.”

The government says it will now introduce its re-drafted offense provisions to Parliament at the “earliest available legislative opportunity.”