Posts by Prophet

A group of major record labels including Sony Music, Warner Bros. Records and Universal Music Group have filed a lawsuit against the operators of the popular MP3 download site MP3Skull. The labels accuse the site's owners of copyright infringement and demand millions in damages.

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Unauthorized MP3 download sites have been a thorn in the side of the music industry for many years, and a group of well-known labels are now targeting one of the biggest players in the market.

The coalition of record labels including Capitol Records, Sony Music, Warner Bros. Records and Universal Music Group have filed a lawsuit against MP3Skull, currently operating from the Tonga based .to domain name.

In the complaint filed at a Florida District Court (pdf) the studios describe MP3Skull as a business that’s designed and operated to promote copyright infringement on a commercial scale.

“MP3Skull is a website that is devoted to the infringement of copyrighted sound recordings on a massive scale, from which Defendants derive substantial revenue every year,” the complaint reads.

“At the core of MP3Skull is a database that, according to Defendants, contains millions of links to MP3 music files from around the Internet,” it adds.

MP3Skull has been around for several years and lists links to popular music tracks scattered around the web, free of charge. The operators of the site are not publicly known but the labels note that the Russian Monica Vasilenko was previously listed in the site’s Whois information.

Besides offering a comprehensive database of links to music tracks, the labels also accuse the site’s operators of actively promoting piracy through social media. Among other things, MP3Skull helped users to find pirated tracks after a takedown notice purge.

“MP3Skull’s official Twitter and Facebook pages contain several communications from Defendants openly encouraging users to download obviously infringing files, links to which were removed following takedown requests from copyright owners,” the labels write.

“On several occasions, Defendants outlined various workarounds that users could employ to download MP3 files because the site was ‘forced’ to ‘remove a huge amount of our searches’ following takedown requests from copyright organizations,” the add.

As a result of its allegedly infringing activities the site has gathered a broad audience of millions of users, resulting in significant losses from the record labels.

“As a direct result of Defendants’ widespread and brazen infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, MP3Skull has become one of the most popular illicit music download sites on the Internet, attracting millions of users from the United States and generating significant revenue for Defendants.”

The complaint list more than 100 popular tracks that are freely available on MP3Skull. This means that the site’s operators face over $15 million in statutory damages.

Perhaps more importantly, given the anonymous nature of the site’s operators, is the broad preliminary injunction the record labels request.

Among other things, the proposed measures would prevent domain registrars, domain registries, hosting companies, advertisers and other third-party outfits from doing business with the site. If granted, the MP3Skull operators will have a hard time keeping the site afloat in its current form.

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HBO has started to crack down on paying customers who access the HBO Now service from outside the United States. Subscribers from countries including Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia who use VPNs and other unblocking tools are now being threatened with account terminations.

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In an effort to gain more subscribers HBO launched its standalone “HBO Now” service earlier this year.

The subscription allows Americans to access HBO’s content, including Game of Thrones, without the need to have a television subscription.

With the offer HBO hopes to drive people away from pirate sites, but it also created a new form of unauthorized use. As with Netflix and Hulu, many people outside the U.S. signed up for the service through VPNs and other geo-unblocking tools.

Although they are paying customers, using HBO Now from outside the U.S. is not permitted under the company’s terms of use.

While Netflix is still fairly lax about geo-unblocking, HBO is now cracking down on the practice. A few days ago thousands of VPN and proxy “pirates” started to receive worrying email warnings.

“It has come to our attention that you may have signed up for and viewed video content on the HBO NOW streaming service from outside of the authorized service area (the United States, including D.C. and certain US territories),” HBO writes.

“We would like to take this opportunity to remind you that the HBO NOW streaming service is only available to residents of the United States, for use within the United States. Any other access is prohibited by our Terms of Use.”

HBO Now warning

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The emails in question target users all over the world, including Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia. Unless they were flagged by mistake, HBO will terminate the accounts of affected subscribers within days and without the option of a refund.

HBO is cracking down on VPN and proxy pirates to protect the value of their licensing deals. If millions of foreigners use the U.S. version, local partners in these countries are going to complain.

However, since legal options are often lacking there’s little doubt that many ‘unauthorized’ viewers will find less official ways to access the shows they love to watch. This time, however, HBO will not get a dime.

In a submission to the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network has addressed site blocking and potential threats to VPN use. While the former could descend into an expensive consumer-funded game of whac-a-mole, clarification is required to remove potential threats to VPNs.

After Attorney-General George Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull asked the Australian Cabinet to approve the development of a new legal mechanism allowing rightsholders to obtain site-blocking injunctions, legislation was introduced to parliament last month.

What followed is a still-current six-week consultation period for additional submissions, with various groups invited to voice their opinions and concerns.

While the site-blocking elements of the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 are likely to please rightsholders, concerns remain that not only will the legislation fail to achieve its aims, but may also have unintended consequences that could stifle consumer choice.

In its submission the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), the body that represents the interests of consumers on communications issues including broadband and emerging Internet services, three key issues are raised – VPN use, efficacy and cost of blocking, plus consumer interests.

The VPN problem

ACCAN is concerned over some of the wording employed in the amendments. Instead of referencing “website blocking”, the legislation speaks about “online locations”. While this appears to be an effort to future-proof the Bill, it also has the potential for additional consequences should rightsholders decide to exploit the ambiguity.

“Our first concern relates to the scope of activities that may be picked up by an interpretation of an ‘online location’ which ‘facilitates an infringement’ of copyright,” ACCAN writes.

“Without clear legal precedent, there is ambiguity under the Copyright Act about what constitutes infringement in relation to the use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to gain access to geo-blocked products and services. If this ambiguity is not cleared up, this amendment may have the unintended consequence of blocking these services and in turn harm competition and consumer choice.”

And confusion does exist. On his website Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull says that the Copyright Act does not make it illegal to use a VPN to access overseas content. On the other hand, the Australian Copyright Council believes that using a VPN to download content licensed overseas is “likely to be an infringement of copyright in Australia.”

While it was previously reported that the Bill had been delayed due to modifications aimed at protecting VPN-like services, ACCAN says that it would prefer clarity on the matter.

“While this ambiguity exists there is a risk that rights holders will attempt to use this injunctive power to block VPN websites and limit consumer access to paid content overseas,” the group writes.

And the threat is real. As reported last week, New Zealand based media companies report that they are on the verge of suing local ISPs who provide VPN services designed to unlock overseas content. Avoiding the same thing Down Under is a priority for ACCAN.

Protecting the public interest

In most countries where rightsholders have demanded site blocking on copyright grounds, ISPs have refused to block voluntarily and have insisted on a court order. This has resulted in processes where movie and recording industry companies become the plaintiffs and ISPs the defendants. The sites themselves aren’t involved in the process, and neither are their users.

“[We] remain concerned that a judge in an ex parte hearing will not have the requisite evidence at hand to weigh the public interest against those of rights holders,” ACCAN writes.

“The amendment creates no right for legitimate users of a site to present evidence on any adverse consequences of an injunction. There should be a presumption in the Bill in favor of allowing parties to become interveners or amicus curiae in the context of these injunction applications.”

Efficacy and costs of blocking

Like many other similarly focused groups, ACCAN is concerned that not only will site / online location blocking prove ineffective when it comes to stopping infringement, but the bill for the exercise will ultimately fall at the feet of the consumer.

Citing Dutch studies which found that blocking The Pirate Bay enjoyed only short-lived success, ACCAN voices concerns that once one site is blocked, users will simply migrate elsewhere.

“This research confirmed the findings in other studies which found that legal action against file sharing often has an immediate effect, but this typically fades out after a period of six months as new sources for pirated content emerge. ACCAN’s concern is that this website blocking bill may devolve into an expensive game of ‘whack-a-mole’, which consumers will end up paying for through higher internet bills,” the group writes.

Similar fears over consumers picking up costs for online infringement enforcement have been voiced across Europe and in the United States, but in no cases has that caused a court to deny rightsholders the opportunity to protect their copyrights. It is guaranteed that one way or another – via their Internet bill or through the cost of media – Aussies will eventually pay for the proposed enforcement measures

The Bill is currently under review by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, with a report due in a little under a month.

BEATING INTERNET CENSORS WITH BITTORRENT’S MAELSTROM BROWSER

BitTorrent Inc, the company behind the popular file-sharing client uTorrent, hopes to start a new revolution with its people-powered browser Maelstrom. Now that the first Beta has been released to the public ,developers can come up with interesting use cases, such as censorship free websites.

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San Francisco-based BitTorrent Inc. already has a few popular applications in its catalog, including uTorrent and Sync. However, with its new “people-powered” browser it hopes to spark another revolution.

Project Maelstrom, as it’s called, is still in the early stages of development but the company has decided to push a Beta out to the public so developers can start building tools and services around it.

In short, Maelstrom takes Google’s Chromium framework and stuffs a powerful BitTorrent engine under the hood, meaning that torrents can be played directly from the browser. More excitingly, however, Maelstrom also supports torrent-powered websites that no longer have to rely on central servers.

By simply publishing a website in a torrent format the website will be accessible if others are sharing it. This can be assisted by web-seeds but also completely peer-to-peer.

For example, earlier this week Wikileaks published a controversial archive of documents and emails that leaked after the Sony hack. If the hosting provider was forced to take the files down they would disappear but with Maelstrom-supported sites, users would be able to keep it online.

The same is true for torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, which suffered weeks of downtime recently after the site’s servers were raided.

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At the moment there are very few websites that support Maelstrom. There is an early WordPress plugin and others are experimenting with it as well, but wider adoption will need some time.

That said, traditional magnet links work too, so people can play video and audio from regular torrent sites directly in the browser.

BitTorrent Inc. informs TF that the main goal is to provide a new and open publishing platform. It’s now up to developers to use it to their advantage.

“We believe in providing an alternative means for publishing that is neutral and that gives ownership back to those publishers. But one of our biggest goals with this release is just to get it out and into the hands of developers and see what emerges,” Maelstrom’s project lead Rob Velasquez says.

And in that respect momentum is building. BitTorrent Inc. says that a community of more than 10,000 developers and 3,500 publishers has already been established, with tools to bring more on board now available via Github.

While Maelstrom can bypass Internet censors, it’s good to keep in mind that all shared files are visible to the public. Maelstrom is caching accessed content to keep it seeded, so using a VPN might not be a bad idea. After all, users leave a trail of their browsing history behind.

On the upside, Maelstrom can be more private for publishers as they don’t have to share any personal details with hosting companies or domain registrars.

“The BitTorrent protocol remains the same, but it does mean that you no longer have to hand over personal, private data to domain registrars or hosting companies to put up a simple website,” Velasquez notes.

The idea for a BitTorrent-powered browser is not new. The Pirate Bay started work on a related project last year with the aim of keeping the site online even if its servers were raided.

It will be interesting to see if Maelstrom can get some traction. There’s still a long way to go, but the idea of an open and censorship-free web does sound appealing.

For the first time since the raid late last year, The Pirate Bay is allowing users to open new accounts again. Registrations have been closed for months due to security issues and to avoid the site from being flooded with fakes and spam.

Slowly but surely things are returning back to normal at the beleaguered Pirate Bay.

After weeks of downtime the site came back online late January, recovering from a raid that hit the site hard. The notorious torrent site has burned through several hosting companies since its return but the site is now relatively stable.

With many of the old moderators back on board the spam problems are under control as well. All this time, however, there was still one major feature missing from the site. Users were not able to register an account so they can publish content.

This last barrier was removed a few hours ago when TPB formally reopened user registrations.

“The registrations remained closed as a security precaution. But now that the mods are back and stable, new accounts won’t flood the site with fakes,” Pirate Bay’s Winston tells TF

Over the past couple of months the moderator team undertook a thorough cleanup of all suspicious user accounts. Pretty much all fakers and scammers were removed, a number that ran into the thousands.

“A lot of the dormant accounts have been used up now,” long time TPB moderator Agricola tells TF, noting that fakers and scammers are more prevalent than most people believe.

“In my time on The Pirate Bay I have 30,000+ kills on my name, which is how we refer to deleted accounts. You are talking hundreds of accounts a day.”

So while the reopened registration feature is good news for users who want to join the six million strong army of Pirate Bay users, it means all hands on deck for the moderator team.

According to Agricola this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, that’s what they have been doing all along.

“We’re pretty much going back to the way it was before the raid,” Agricola says.

Looking back at the past few months we can conclude that things have pretty much returned to normal at TPB. The site took a hit in terms of traffic and is no longer the most used torrent site, but the ship is still afloat.

This trailer haas already made Disney £1.3 billion quid...

The trailer for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has got nerds and investors so excited that it added around $2 billion (£1.3 billion) on Disney's stock value.
It's that good.

When the new trailer dropped, Disney shares rose by 1%, which was enough to boost the stock by billions, to hit $108.30.

Although the stock closed 20 cents lower, Disney shares are hovering around 0.17% in after trading at $108.28.

The new teaser trailer for the first Star Wars film to be created under Disney's wing gives fans a glimpse of a landspeeder heading for a crashed Star Destroyer and a robotic hand touching R2-D2.

An unidentified voice also says, "the force is strong in my family," while we see the melted and bashed-up helmet of Darth Vader. The voice, which people are guessing is potentially Luke Skywalker, says, "my father has it."

The pay off, though, is the return of Han Solo and Chewbacca. "Chewie," Han says, "we're home."

A pair of Internet providers who defied TV company demands to switch off their VPN services will be sued in the coming days. CallPlus and Bypass Network Services face legal action from media giants including Sky and TVNZ for allowing their customers to use a VPN to buy geo-restricted content.

As Internet users demand more freedom online alongside an ability to consume media in a manner of their choosing, tools allowing them to do so are gaining in popularity.

Notable has been the rise of VPN services, which not only provide an increased level of privacy but also allow users to appear in any country they choose. This opens up a whole new world of content availability – such as better service from Netflix – often at better prices than those offered on home turf.

While popular with consumers, this behavior is frowned upon by distribution companies that spend huge sums of money on content licensing deals specific to their regions of coverage. Losing customers to overseas providers isn’t part of their plan and now some are doing something about it.

Earlier this month media companies SKY, TVNZ, Lightbox and MediaWorks told several Kiwi ISPs that if they don’t stop providing VPN services to their subscribers, legal trouble would be on the horizon.

Within days one of their targets, Unlimited Internet, pulled its VPN service after receiving a letter from a lawfirm claiming breaches of the Copyright Act. However, CallPlus and Bypass Network Services have no intention of caving in to the media giants’ demands.

“To receive without warning a grossly threatening legal letter like that from four of the largest companies in New Zealand is not something we are used to,” wrote Bypass CEO Patrick Jordan-Smith in a letter to the media companies.

“It smacks of bullying to be honest, especially since your letter doesn’t actually say why you think we are breaching copyright.”

Pulling no punches and describing his adversaries as a “gang”, Jordan-Smith likens the threats to those employed by copyright trolls in the United States.

“Your letter gets pretty close to the speculative invoicing type letters that lawyers for copyright owners sometimes send in the US ‘pay up or shutdown or else were are going to sue you’! Not fair,” he writes.

“We have been providing the Global Mode facility for 2 years. In all that time, none of your Big Media Gang have ever written to us. We assumed they were OK with Global Mode and we continued to spend money innovating the facility and providing innovative NZ ISPs with a service that their customers were telling them they wanted – a service that lets people pay for content rather than pirate it.”

The response from Bypass hasn’t been well received by the media companies who now say they will carry through with their threats to sue over breaches of copyright.

“Our position has not changed and unless they remove the unlawful service we will begin court action in the next few days,” says TVNZ chief executive, Kevin Kenrick.

“Each of our businesses invests significant sums of money into the rights to screen content sourced legitimately from the creators and owners of that copyrighted material. This is being undermined by the companies who profit from promoting illegitimate ways to access that content.”

Claiming that the action is aimed at defending the value of content rights in the digital world, Kenrick says that the legal action is not consumer focused.

“This is not about taking action against individual consumers or restricting choice, indeed each of our businesses are investing heavily in more choice so New Zealanders can have legitimate access to the latest TV shows and movies,” the CEO concludes.

While the commercial position of the TVNZ chief is understandable, his claim that this legal action isn’t aimed at reducing choice simply doesn’t stack up. Kiwis using Netflix locally get access to around 220 TV series and 900 movies, while those using a VPN to tunnel into the United States enjoy around 940 TV series and 6,170 movies, something which Bypass Networks believes is completely legal.

“[We provide our service] on our understanding that geo-unblocking to allow people to digitally import content purchased overseas is perfectly legal. If you say it is not, then we are going to need a lot more detail from you to understand why,” Jordan-Smith informs his adversaries.

“Simply sending us a threatening letter, as frightening as that may be, does not get us there and is not a fair reason for us to shut down our whole business.”

Former Pirate Bay operator Fredrik Neij can't play games on his Nintendo 8-bit console in prison. The prison denied the request because there's no way to open the box to check it for concealed items, a decision the Pirate Bay operator is now appealing before the administrative court.

Fredrik Neij, also known as Tiamo, was one of the key operators of The Pirate Bay and often referred to as one of the site’s co-founders.

In 2010 Fredrik received a prison sentence for his involvement with the notorious site, which he initially avoided.

Last November he was eventually arrested by Thai immigration authorities and later transferred to a prison in Skänninge, Sweden.

Under the circumstances, Fredrik has been doing relatively well. However, prison life lacks distraction and entertainment, not to mention a digital connection to the outside world.

To kill time The Pirate Bay’s former operator put in a request to play games on an old Nintendo 8-bit console. Not the most advanced gaming experience, but a real treat for someone with virtually no access to entertainment.

Unfortunately, however, Fredrik’s request was outright denied by the prison administration. While gaming isn’t against the rules, they state that there’s no way to open the box to check it for concealed items.

“The console is sealed in such a way that it can not be opened without the machine being destroyed,” the prison wrote in a reply.

In light of this, the institution can’t implement the necessary control of the game console and it is therefore impossible to ensure that it does not contain prohibited items.”

Fredrik doesn’t agree with the decision decided to appeal the case before the administrative court.

Pirate Bay’s former operator doesn’t believe that a game console from the 80s without any network connectivity poses a threat, and points out that the prison only has to buy a simply screwdriver to check the box.

“That the institution lacks a screwdriver which costs 100 kroner can not be considered reasonable,” Fredrik writes.

“One has to wonder how many other victims there are when all video-game units of the brand Nintendo have the same screwdriver,” he adds.

This isn’t the first time that Fredrik has appealed a decision from the prison. Earlier this month he filed an appeal after the institution denied a request to print three documents.

This looks utterly awesome, i really cannot wait for this, what do you folks think ?

Netflix says that the company is pushing down piracy in countries where illegal sharing is prevalent. Part of its strategy is to determine the price of its service based on local piracy rates, so it can better compete in places where piracy is rampant.

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With nearly 60 million subscribers globally, Netflix is a giant in the world of online video entertainment.

In terms of providing access to popular TV-shows and movies the company’s biggest competitor is piracy. Just a few weeks ago Netflix described the BitTorrent-powered Popcorn Time as a major threat.

Interestingly, piracy also offers critical business intelligence to the company. For example, it uses local piracy statistics to determine what content it should offer in various regions.

That’s not all though. During this week’s earnings interview Nexflix’s Chief Financial Officer David Wells said that a country’s piracy rate is a main factor in determining the service’s local price.

“Piracy is a governor in terms of our price in high piracy markets outside the US,” Wells explained.

“We wouldn’t want to come out with a high price because there’s a lot of piracy, so we have to compete with that,” Wells added.

Another recurring issue is Netflix policies against VPN usage. While the terms of use have prohibited this for a long time already, the big crackdown on VPN users has yet to begin.

According to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, VPNs are used by paying customers, which isn’t such a big problem as piracy.

“It’s certainly less bad than piracy,” Hastings said, quickly adding that it’s not something the company encourages.

Ted Sarandos, head of content at Netflix, noted that the company continues to work with the studios to address the VPN issue but that it’s “kind of a whack a mole.”

Instead, Sarandos prefers to focus on the positive battle against piracy, which he believes Netflix is winning.

“The real great news is that in the piracy capitals of the world Netflix is winning. We’re pushing down piracy in those markets by getting access.” Sarandos noted.

With the right pricing Netflix has indeed converted many pirates. The next step is to make VPNs obsolete, by offering content globally without any geographical restrictions.

“The best way to make the VPN issue a complete non issue is through global licensing that we’re continuing to pursue with our partners,” Sarandos said.

Quote from stevejo

Are you sleepysleep like ????

Was thinking EXACTLY the same thing

DOTCOM SPEEDING OFFENSE COULD LEAD TO DEPORTATION “IN WEEKS”

Even as Kim Dotcom spends millions fighting extradition to the U.S., a relatively minor issue could see him kicked out of New Zealand in a matter of weeks. When applying for residency in 2010, Dotcom failed to declare a dangerous driving speeding conviction, a matter that could now escalate into deportation from the country.

He’s one of the most famous people in the online space and the founder of the site at the heart of the world’s largest ever copyright infringement lawsuit, yet a relatively minor indiscretion has the potential to derail Kim Dotcom in a matter of weeks.

It all stems back to September 10, 2009 when a police radar gun logged speed-loving Dotcom doing 149km/h (92mph) in a 50km/h (30mph) zone. According to the authorities police gave chase, eventually catching up with Dotcom’s 3.6-liter AMG Mercedes 1.7km (1 mile) later close to his Coatesville mansion.

Explaining his three times over-the-limit endeavor as a “stupid mistake”, Dotcom later pleaded guilty by letter four days later. During the hearing the court heard that the entrepreneur had been “testing” a new car.

“When spoken to by police the defendant stated he had seen an 80km/h sign. He further stated that he stepped on the gas for 3-4 seconds and then braked and reduced his speed to the speed limit. He also stated he wanted to test the acceleration of the vehicle,” the records state.

Despite Dotcom expressing regret for his actions, the judge fined him $500 plus $130 costs and banned him from driving for six months. Now, almost five years later, the case is coming back to haunt Dotcom after he failed to declare the motoring conviction on his New Zealand residency application eight months after the offense.

In the (blurred) image below released under the Official Information Act, item three shows a ‘No’ response to the question “Have you or any of your family members included in your application, ever been: Convicted of an offense including traffic offenses committed within the last five years, involving dangerous driving [or] driving having consumed excessive alcohol.

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The same immigration records reveal that Dotcom disclosed both his 1994 hacking conviction and a 2001 suspended sentence for insider trading, but both were disregarded having been dealt with under Germany’s “clean slate” legislation.

Nevertheless, it now appears that Dotcom’s position as a New Zealand resident is under threat due to his dangerous driving conviction and subsequent non-disclosure. According to NZHerald, Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse could decide within the month whether Dotcom will be allowed to remain in New Zealand or be kicked out of the country.

Dotcom insists that the omission was the result of a misunderstanding with his advisors but the discovery was considered serious enough to prompt a high-level deportation inquiry.

“In the interests of fairness and natural justice, Mr Dotcom and his advisers have been asked to make submissions on the matter by 4 May,” Immigration NZ said in a statement.

“Once that process is complete a decision will then be made by the Minister of Immigration on whether Mr Dotcom is liable for deportation.”

The potential for deportation (albeit to either Finland or Germany, not the United States) only adds to Dotcom’s woes.

Last month the United States seized dozens of millions of dollars worth of the Megaupload founder’s assets and in June he’ll face an extradition hearing having had a request for postponement denied.

Whether Dotcom will be able to deflect ejection from New Zealand on either or both counts remains to be seen, but the tycoon certainly sees himself being backed into a corner.

“Dear Mr. Dotcom,” he wrote this morning on Twitter.

“Here are your options: Extradition or Deportation. Regards, The New Zealand Government.”

The popular TV-torrent distribution group EZTV is going on a hiatus to perform a thorough security audit of its servers. The EZTV team informs TF that new shows won't appear online for a few days, until the team is assured that everything is functioning optimally.

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EZTV, the go-to place for many torrenting TV fans, has suffered its fair share of troubles in recent months.

It started early December when the group’s site was knocked offline as collateral damage in the Pirate Bay raid. A month later the group lost its .it domain name, which was then taken over by impostors in March.

To get back online and stay there, EZTV has had to move things around quite a bit.

In response to these recent issues the EZTV team has decided to go on a small hiatus, so the current setup can be carefully inspected. This means that in the short term no new releases will go up on the site.

“We are not releasing any new content at the moment due to a security audit of all our servers,” EZTV’s Novaking informs TF.

“We just want to put things on hold to see where everything is at and make sure everything is running optimally,” he adds.

The latest torrents were released on Monday and there is no ETA yet for when new ones will appear. The group is taking its time to carry out a proper audit and will do some code cleanup at the same time.

As part of the security audit registered users have also received a request for a password reset. Initially this resulted in some issues where users were unable to login but Novaking notes that people who experienced this problem can get in touch via IRC.

If all goes well EZTV may also reopen registrations again, which is something people have requested for a long time.

Fueled by the lack of new content and the recent domain troubles, some users were suspicious when they saw a link to the Bitx video player in the torrent list. However, this is a new streaming player the group is testing and nothing to worry about.

In a few days EZTV hopes to start releasing new content again. Until then, the group advises TV fans to turn to the ‘competition’ for their daily fix.

“There are several other distribution groups people can use while we’re doing the audit,” Novaking says.

Quote from biggest1d

Sounds good, hope they have twin outputs

There are 3 versions....

Single
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Twin
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Quad
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Both payloads for Arianespace’s next Ariane 5 flight are mated to the launch vehicle

April 8, 2015 – Ariane Flight VA222

The heavy-lift Ariane 5 for Arianespace’s April 15 mission is now complete following integration of its dual-satellite payload – consisting of THOR 7 and Sicral 2 – at the Spaceport in French Guiana.

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Ariane 5’s upper payload section – composed of THOR 7 and its payload fairing – is raised inside the Spaceport’s Final Assembly Building for installation atop the launcher.

Encapsulated in an ogive-shaped protective payload fairing, THOR 7 was lowered into place yesterday over its Sicral 2 co-passenger – which had been installed atop Ariane 5’s core section during preceding activity.

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This integration milestone – achieved at the Spaceport’s Final Assembly Building for Ariane 5 – clears the way for a new phase that includes the launch readiness review on April 13, which is to be followed by Ariane 5’s rollout to the ELA-3 launch zone the next day.

Designated Flight VA222, liftoff is scheduled during a 1-hr., 54-min. launch window opening on April 15 at 4:43 p.m. local time in French Guiana, with the two spacecraft to be deployed on a mission lasting approximately 34 minutes.

As the upper payload in Ariane 5’s arrangement, THOR 7 – which was built by SSL (Space Systems/Loral) for operation by Telenor Satellite Broadcasting – will be released first in the flight sequence.

This relay platform is equipped with Telenor’s initial high-performance Ka-band payload, designed to serve the maritime sector – offering cost-effective solutions and high-powered coverage over the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the Red Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean. THOR 7 also has a Ku-band payload for broadcast and television services in Central and Eastern Europe.

Sicral 2 – a military telecommunications satellite designed to provide strategic and tactical telecommunications links for French and Italian military forces, as well as reserve capacity for other NATO nations – is to be deployed from the launcher’s lower passenger position, with its separation to follow that of THOR 7.

The spacecraft will be lofted in the framework of a turnkey contract that the Italian Defense Ministry and the French DGA armament agency (Direction Générale de l’Armement) have with Thales Alenia Space Italy. Telespazio, among other things, is responsible for the launch service.
http://www.arianespace.com/news-mission-update/2015/1277.asp

Test feed on Eutelsat 7A @ 7 east
11108 H 4937 HD S2
feed id= CSG Kourou

This feed was active for over an hour no signal now but it will come back just before the launch when the 2 launch feeds on 0.8 west will also become active:-

Thor-5 11357 H 24500 7/8 DVB-S/MPEG-4/HD
Thor-6 11919 V 28000 7/8 DVB-S/MPEG-4 HD

- - - Updated - - -

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Interesting...

During the preparations for the roll-out of the launcher for flight VA222, an anomaly occurred on a fluid connector between the cryogenic upper stage and the launch table.
As a result, Arianespace has decided to postpone the launch initially scheduled for April 15, 2015, in order to replace this part and perform the subsequent verifications.

The launch vehicle and its THOR 7 and SICRAL 2 satellite payloads are maintained in fully safe conditions and in stand-by mode.

The new launch date targeted will be announced very soon.

When Megaupload was raided in 2012, more than 1,100 servers were seized in the United States. However, an additional 32 were also locked down in Canada, the contents of which still remain a mystery. More than three years on and the U.S. government is again trying to get its hands on this hardware.

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The dramatic events of January 2012 in which the gigantic Mega empire of Kim Dotcom was brought to its knees are now more than three years old. Legal argument has dogged the case from day one, with each passing month presenting yet more points of contention.

One of the oldest issues surrounds the hardware seized as part of the global operation to close down what was once the world’s largest centralized file-sharing operation.

The U.S. Government seized 1,103 servers at Carpathia’s hosting facility in the United States, equipment that is currently gathering dust in a Virginia storage facility. Also at issue is a lesser-discussed batch of servers seized in Canada.

On January 18, 2012, a judge in Ontario issued a warrant to seize the 32 servers located in an Equinix datacenter. As the case continued to build against Megaupload, Kim Dotcom and his associates, the U.S. government asked Canadian authorities to hand the hardware over, claiming that an internal Megaupload email revealed them to be “database / number crunching machines.”

A year later in January 2013, Megaupload protested the handing over of the hardware to U.S. authorities claiming that the servers contained a lot of information irrelevant to the case. Megaupload said an independent forensic examiner could examine the servers and determine their contents before any handover.

An Ontario court sided with Megaupload and refused to send the servers’ data to the United States. Instead, both sides were ordered to find a way to filter out irrelevant content.

Now, more than two years later, the issue of just how much of this seized content can be sent to the United States remains an issue. The matter reappeared before a Toronto court Monday, with fresh ideas on how progression can be made.

Crown attorney Moiz Rahman, acting on behalf of the U.S. government, suggested the appointment of an independent group of forensic examiners to inspect the data and determine which data is relevant to the case, CBC reports.

However, Megaupload lawyer Scott Hutchison raised concerns that once back in the United States, the so-called “clean team” might disclose non-relevant information they’d discovered on the servers. Any ruling in Canada to seal their lips would not be enforceable in the U.S., Hutchinson said.

“Once they return to the United States, that’s nothing more than a promise,” the lawyer said.

While conceding that the “vast majority” of the data was likely to be media uploaded by Megaupload’s users, Hutchinson suggested that it would be preferable to hire an independent Canada-based investigator to carry out the work.

But speaking for the Crown on behalf of the U.S., Rahman said that a U.S. team could present the results of its investigation to a Canadian court, which could then decide what information would be allowed back to the United States under current treaty protocol.

“That’s a little bit of cold comfort to me,” said Justice Michael Quigley.

After Rahman claimed that an independent Canadian investigator would prove too expensive, the Judge ordered the parties to present their respective costings to the court before any decision on the fate of the data is made.

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Quote from sandra

I am really looking forward to seeing that in 3D when it comes out as the 3D effects should be amongst the best there have been so far and there have been some great 3D ones out in the last few years. :)

You are quite right Sandra, this will be a feast for our senses, i love a good 3D movie and this could be up there with the best yet

Not long to wait now

After a careful investigation, the Ohio inspector general has concluded that more than a dozen prison staffers shared pirated music on a local network. No concrete evidence was found regarding a separate claim that employees also showed pirated film to inmates.

Last year we received a well documented report from the former operator of USAWarez.com and USATorrents.com, who accused prison staff of showing pirated films to inmates.

The pirate screenings allegedly took place in Lorain Correctional Institution in Ohio and soon after the news broke the case was referred to the Ohio inspector general.

The inspector general launched an investigation and a back-up of the entire file server was made to search for traces of pirated films. In a report released last week the inspector general concludes that no pirated files were present on the server, although there were some movie traces present.

“The one movie file previously identified was no longer present on the server back-up. However, the analysis identified an additional 23 forensic artifacts of movie files, portions of movie files, or movie trailers that once existed within two other LorCI employee user profiles,” the report reads.

“…it was not possible to determine what the original files within the user profiles were, based on the artifacts found. As such, this information is being referred back to ODRC for any administrative action deemed appropriate.”

The analysis further notes that there’s no evidence that the two correction officers who allegedly showed the pirated movies had unauthorized movie copies (digital or physical) in their possession at the time of the investigation. As a result, no further action will be taken by the inspector general.

In addition to the pirated movies claim, the Ohio inspector general investigated a separate case after a complaint suggested that dozens of staffers of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) shared pirated music files on a work server.

In this case, a technical analysis found that there were indeed hundreds of files made available through the local network. In total, the report names 16 employees who shared between 33 and 463 audio files.

The files in question were stored on the prison’s “JPay” system and were available to anyone with access to the network. According to the inspector general’s report, most staffers didn’t realize that they were breaking the law by doing so.

“The majority of the 16 employees interviewed believed the folder containing the JPay audio files was visible to everyone who had access to the system, and it was permissible to play the audio files it contained,” the report reads.

“Many did not feel this was or might be a violation of copyright laws and noted that had they been aware it was a violation, they would not have accessed the folder and played or copied the files.”

CO Jayme Weber acknowledged copying several audio files after he overheard others talking about a shared folder on the system, but didn’t realize he was doing anything wrong.

“. .. I mean if somebody would have told me it was an issue, I would have deleted all the music and I would have never went into the folder. I mean, I just thought by word of mouth, that it was okay to do,” he said.

The Office of the Ohio Inspector General took the matter very seriously and contacted Homeland Security’s ICE unit to ask if they would pursue the matter.

Since there was no indication that any of the employees shared the copyrighted files to make a profit, ICE decided to let it slide.

“After being briefed of the allegations, investigators were told by the ICE duty officer that based on the allegations, barring any significant changes or evidence of sale-for-profit of the copied audio files, ICE would not pursue charges through the United States Attorney’s Office,” the report reads.

In both cases, the inspector general decided not to take any further steps against the accused employees. Instead, the report ends with a set of recommendations for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, to ensure that the same mistakes aren’t made in the future.