Posts by Prophet

Now this does look good imo... looking forward to it :good news:

The Motion Picture Association has written to Brazil's Justice Minister seeking exceptions to the country's fledgling “Internet Constitution". In a submission to the government the MPA says that the Marco Civil's current wording on net neutrality deprives courts of the opportunity to order the blocking of 'pirate' sites.

The Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (Marco Civil da Internet) is legislation that governs the use of the Internet in Brazil. Under development since 2009, among other key issues the Marco Civil is aimed at protecting online privacy rights and net neutrality principles.

The law, which passed last April, was fast-tracked in the wake of revelations from Edward Snowden indicating that the U.S. had been spying on President Dilma Rousseff’s emails and phone calls, those of Brazil’s biggest oil company, and the communications of millions of citizens.

After being in place for a year, Brazil is now rolling out the Marco Civil’s secondary legislation, with the Ministry of Justice announcing a public consultation process allowing stakeholders to contribute to the development of the law.

One of the organizations getting involved is the Motion Picture Association, the international big brother to the United States’ MPAA. According to the MPA, which counts all the big movie studios among its members, the Marco Civil’s net neutrality provisions present an obstacle to rightsholders seeking to protect their content online.

In a submission to Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo, the Motion Picture Association expresses concern that the legislation’s current wording is too tight and that exceptions need to be introduced in order to deal with online piracy.

“[Our] position is that the regulation should contain cases of exception to the general rule of net neutrality, enabling the judiciary to determine that traffic to a given illegal repository can be blocked,” the MPA writes.

“The aforementioned suggestion is based on the premise that an adequate service must be in harmony with the possibility of allowing the judiciary to block access to content that, based on judicial scrutiny, is illegal for any reason, from a case of child pornography and trafficking of illegal substances, to the case of systematic disregard for the consumer and violation of intellectual property rights.”

The MPA notes that due to the borderless nature of the Internet anyone can access content from any location. This presents challenges on a national level when undesirable content is made available from other parts of the world, the group says.

“For content hosted within a national territory a judge may issue a removal order, or in the case of breaches in the copyright field, the rightsholder can send a takedown notice to the ISP, requesting that the content is rendered unavailable,” the MPA states.

“However, when the content is hosted in a foreign nation, the Brazilian court order may [not have jurisdiction] or produce the expected results for months, perhaps years, after the court order has been issued.”

According to the MPA there is only one way to remedy this kind of impotence but the way the law is currently worded, the solution remains elusive.

“In these cases the Brazilian courts only have only one option: to order service providers to implement technical measures to block Internet traffic when it has been established that services are illegal,” the MPA notes.

“Without a clear provision for these techniques, in the midst of regulations, the current wording of the Marco Civil deprives courts of this possibility, leaving them unable to address such threats.”

The net neutrality debate is a sensitive one and one that has the potential to seriously affect Hollywood’s interests. With that in mind the MPA and MPAA will be keen to ensure that any new legislation, whether overseas or on home turf, won’t hinder the pursuit and monitoring of online pirates.

BitTorrent Inc. released a new version the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent this week. The release aims to make it easier for users to avoid a highly criticized Bitcoin miner which was bundled with the previous 3.4.2 version. The company understands that the controversy "eroded" the trust of some users, but hopes to keep them on board.

Last month many uTorrent users were surprised to see that their favorite BitTorrent client came bundled with the “Epic Scale” Bitcoin miner.

What made things worse was that, according to some, the application was installed silently without asking for explicit permission. uTorrent’s parent company BitTorrent Inc. denied these allegations but took the complaints seriously.

The Bitcoin miner was quickly suspended until further notice. Based on the negative backlash from users it was recently announced that the “offer” would not be reinstated.

The uTorrent team offered a public apology and said it misjudged how users would respond.

“We acknowledge again that we misjudged how this offer would be received, and we apologize to users who have objected to it or who had trouble uninstalling that software. We understand this has already eroded some users’ trust in μTorrent,” BitTorrent Inc. Jory Berson said.

To further clarify the situation the uTorrent development team decided to release a new version this week. The bump from 3.4.2 to 3.4.3 should help to steer people away from the tainted version.

“This new release is in part to make it easy for our users to identify which version of μTorrent to pursue,” Berson notes.

While the official site no longer offers downloads that include the bundled Epic Scale Bitcoin miner, BitTorrent Inc. warns that third-party sites may still include it with the older release.

“It is important to note that if you are not downloading μTorrent software directly from us, that some third party distributors may have the older version with the Epic Scale offer, Berson says.

“This would only be a very small number, but to be sure you are installing the version you want, look for 3.4.3 or download directly from us,” he adds.

The BitTorrent mainline client, which included the same Bitcoin miner, has been updated from version 7.9.2 to version 7.9.3. The latest releases of both uTorrent and BitTorrent can be downloaded through the official sites.

Quote from dinje

I got another cline and put in to test, it worked, but it kept freezing, but it may have been from a bad source.

What source was that ?

Piracy is a hot topic around the world and in Australia the issue has made mainstream headlines over the past week. After the announcement of a new anti-piracy scheme and the news of copyright trolls coming Down Under this week, VPN usage has surged to unprecedented levels.

This week news broke that the makers of Dallas Buyers Club have the court’s approval to go after 4,726 alleged movie pirates in Australia, opening the door to many more copyright lawsuits.

Around the same time the country’s largest Internet providers submitted their online anti-piracy code, announcing that 200,000 piracy warnings will be sent out each year.

Facing increased monitoring and potential legal action many file-sharers have taken counter measures, hiding their IP-addresses so their sharing activities can no longer be linked to their ISP account.

Early March, the initial announcement of the warning letters already increased interest in VPNs and other anonymizing services, but this week’s surge broke new records.

Data from Google trends reveals that interest in anonymizing services has soared, with searches for “VPN” quadrupling in recent weeks. This effect, shown in the graph below, is limited to Australia and likely a direct result of the recent anti-piracy threats.

The effects are clearly noticeable at VPN providers as well, in both traffic and sales. TorGuard, a VPN and BitTorrent proxy provider, has seen the number of Australian visitors spike this week, for example.

“Over the past week TorGuard has seen a massive jump in Australian subscribers. Traffic from this region is currently up over 150% and recent trends indicate that the upsurge is here to stay,” TorGuard’s Ben Van der Pelt tells us.

“VPN router sales to Australia have also increased significantly with AU orders now representing 50% of all weekly shipments.”

The recent events are expected to drive tens of thousands of new users to anonymizing services. However, it appears that even before the surge they were already commonly used Down Under.

A survey among 1,008 Australians early March showed that 16% of the respondents already used VPNs or Tor to increase privacy. The Essential survey shows that anonymizing tools are most prevalent among people aged 18-34.

While copyright holders don’t like the increased interest in these evasion tools, it may not all be bad news.

In fact, to a certain degree it shows that pirates are spooked by the new initiatives. Where some decide to go underground, others may choose to pirate less. And for the “trolls” there are still plenty of unsecured file-sharers out there.

A two million member warez site that featured on the RIAA's latest "rogue site" list is to shut down after its owner was sentenced in absentia to a year in jail. Currently domiciled in Asia, the French national is now making preparations for his return to France where he faces a $30 million civil suit brought by some of the world's largest movie studios.

Every year the RIAA and MPAA submit their overviews of so-called “notorious markets” to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR). Sites detailed in these reports are branded “rogue”, a label reserved for the supposed worst-of-the-worst in the piracy landscape.

In the RIAA’s most recent submission all the usual suspects were present, including The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents and Goear, the site blocked in Spain this week. Also present was Wawa-Mania, a popular ‘warez’ forum specializing in a broad range of ‘pirate’ content.

Founded in 2006 by Dimitri Mader, Wawa-Mania became the biggest local site of its type with more than 2,000,000 registered members.

Unsurprisingly this success attracted the attention of rightsholders and in 2009 Mader was detained after the Association Against Audiovisual Piracy (ALPA) identified more than 3600 films being made available via the site without permission.

Mader, known online as Zac, received an unusual level of support from sympathizers, some of whom scaled Alpa’s headquarters and placed banners in support of the site operator.

This week more than five years later, it was announced that Mader had been handed a year in jail and fined 20,000 euros for his role on the site. According to a statement issued by the Civil Society of Phonogram Producers (SCPP), the 26-year-old was sentenced in absentia, having fled to the Philippines some time ago.

The court also ordered Wawa-Mania to be shut down but it currently remains fully operational using an Ecuadorian TLD and the same Moldovan host previously used by The Pirate Bay.

But for Mader the bad news doesn’t end here. Some of the world’s largest movie companies including Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount, Tristar, Universal, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. are now seeking huge damages amounting to around $30 million.

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for late May. According to unconfirmed reports Mader is considering a return to France to face proceedings. Meanwhile, supporters are discussing ways to keep Wawa-Mania alive after any shutdown.

These regional backup's you are creating are awesome mate, keep up the good work:good news:

JUDGE: IP-ADDRESS DOESN’T IDENTIFY A MOVIE PIRATE

The filmmakers behind the action movie "Manny" have filed hundreds of lawsuits against BitTorrent pirates this year, but not have been successful. In a prominent ruling Florida District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro refused to issue a subpoena, arguing that IP-address evidence is not enough to show who has downloaded a pirated movie.

While relatively underreported, many U.S. district courts are still swamped with lawsuits against alleged film pirates.

One of the newcomers this year are the makers of the action movie Manny. Over the past few months “Manny Film” has filed 215 lawsuits across several districts.

Like all copyright holders, the makers of the film rely on IP-addresses as evidence. They then ask the courts to grant a subpoena, forcing Internet providers to hand over the personal details of the associated account holders.

In most cases the courts sign off on these requests, but in Florida this isn’t as straightforward.

When District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro was assigned a Manny Film case she asked the company to explain how an IP-address can pinpoint the actual person who downloaded a pirated film. In addition, she asked them to show that geolocation tools are good enough to prove that the alleged pirate resides in the Court’s district.

In a detailed reply the filmmakers argued that IP-addresses can identify the defendant and that a refusal to grant a subpoena would set a “dangerous precedent.” Manny Film further stated that “all other courts” disagreed with the notion that an IP-address is not a person.

This last remark didn’t go down well with Judge Ungaro. In an order handed down this week she cites various cases where courts ruled that IP-addresses don’t always identify the alleged offenders.

“Due to the risk of ‘false positives,’ an allegation that an IP address is registered to an individual is not sufficient in and of itself to support a claim that the individual is guilty of infringement,” wrote the Judge citing a 2012 case, one of many examples.

The referenced cases clearly refute Manny Film’s claim that all other courts disagreed with the Judge Ungaro’s concerns, and the Judge is not convinced by any of the other arguments either.

“As in those cases, Plaintiff here fails to show how geolocation software can establish the identity of the Defendant. Specifically, there is nothing linking the IP address location to the identity of the person actually downloading and viewing the copy righted material and nothing establishing that the person actually lives in this district,” Judge Ungaro writes.

“Even if this IP address is located within a residence, geolocation software cannot identify who have access to that residence’s computer and who would actually be using it to infringe Plaintiff’s copyright,” she adds.

As a result, the Court refused to issue a subpoena and dismissed the case against IP-address 66.229.140.101 for improper venue.

While not all judges may come to the same conclusion, the order makes it harder for rightholders to play their “copyright troll” scheme in the Southern District of Florida. At the same time, it provides future defendants with a good overview to fight similar claims elsewhere.

STALLONE THANKS PIRACY POLICE FOR NEW EXPENDABLES 3 ARREST

Sylvester Stallone has given thanks to the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit following the arrest of a man in the UK yesterday. The unnamed 26-year-old is believed to be responsible for leaking several movies including Expendables 3. "It is important to protect the rights of creatives around the world from theft,” Stallone said.

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Last year the movie The Expendables 3 leaked in extremely high-quality several weeks before its theatrical debut, sparking huge Hollywood controversy.

The fully finished DVD Screener copy of the action movie featuring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared late July 2014 and was downloaded millions of times before its official release mid August 2014.

Three months later came the first news of arrests in connection with the case.

During November 2014 the Intellectual Property Crime Unit of City of London Police (PIPCU) announced that two men aged 33 and 36 had been taken into custody after being arrested in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and Upton, Wirral.

This morning the same police unit announced the arrest of a third man, again in the UK.

In what is being described as a joint investigation with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), City of London Police arrested the 26-year-old at his workplace in Leeds yesterday morning. He was taken to a local police station for questioning.

“The suspect is believed to be involved in obtaining high-quality films, which are either only available at the cinema or are unfinished movies which have yet to be released, and then leaking them on to the internet. It is estimated his actions are costing the industry millions of pounds,” PIPCU said in a statement.

“Officers from PIPCU and HSI searched the man’s home in Halifax where several computers and mobile devices were seized.”

News of the arrest was welcomed by Sylvester Stallone himself, who expressed gratitude to the authorities for their work in apprehending the man.

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“I’d like to thank the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at the City of London Police for working with US Homeland Security Investigations to apprehend the suspect in this case. It is important to protect the rights of creatives around the world from theft,” Stallone said.

Commenting in the arrest, City of London Police Detective Inspector, Mick Dodge, said that the operation was indicative of the international reach of the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU).

“PIPCU has a remit to protect the UK’s creative industries but we are also committed to ensuring the UK is not a safe haven for criminals seeking to attack international businesses from our shores,” Dodge said.

“Working with law enforcement partners across the world, PIPCU is coming down hard on criminals exploiting intellectual property for their own financial gain and today’s action should serve as a warning to online pirates.

“This joint investigation also demonstrates our close working relationship with the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) which was recently marked with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding.”

Matthew Etre, U.S. Embassy London’s Attaché for US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said that dealing with the issue of online piracy remains a top priority for law enforcement, despite the perception that infringement is a victimless crime.

“Too often these types of crimes are regarded as immaterial because they are seemingly without victims; however, when a business suffers a loss, it is felt at all levels, from the C-suite to the mailroom,” Etre said.

“In cases such as this, preventing piracy is akin to protecting people’s livelihoods. This arrest is yet another success story highlighting what strong, collaborative relationships between law enforcement agencies can accomplish. HSI London values its relationship with the PIPCU and continues to work closely with them to battle against intellectual property crime.”

According to PIPCU, yesterday’s arrest stems from a tipoff received by Homeland Security in July 2014 regarding movie piracy. To date, no arrests in the United States in connection with the case have been made public.

PIRATE BAY’S FREDRIK NEIJ APPEALS DENIAL TO PRINT IN PRISON

Former Pirate Bay operator Fredrik Neij, currently the last person serving a site-related sentence, was recently granted access to a tablet to read the details of an ongoing investigation. However, the prison reportedly backpedaled on granting him the right to make printouts, a decision Neij is now appealing before the administrative court.

Fredrik Neij, also known as Tiamo, was one of the key operators of The Pirate Bay.

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

After being on the run for several years he was eventually arrested by Thai immigration authorities late last year, and later transferred to a prison in Skänninge, Sweden.

While reportedly doing well, prison life has many limitations. Access to technology is limited, for example, but Fredrik recently managed to get a tablet so he could read the details of a preliminary investigation.

According to Fredrik, he was also given verbal approval to write text documents on the device and make printouts for personal use, but the prison administration now denies this.

In a response the former Pirate Bay operator has now filed an appeal at the Administrative Court.

“When I received the e-reader I specifically asked if I could use it to write letters and make notes in the tablet’s word processing programs. I was told that it would be okay,” Fredrik writes.

In addition to writing he was also promised that he could make several printouts.

“The answer I got was that there wouldn’t be a problem,” Neij notes.

Printing three files doesn’t seem to be a major issue, especially if the same documents are already available digitally. However, in prison things rarely come easy.

The good news for Fredrik is that his prison sentence is half done, and he’s scheduled to be released later this year.

Worryingly, however, there are more problems on the horizon. The former Pirate Bay operator is also facing hacking allegations as well as a criminal referral of his ISP, DCP Networks.

Major labels including Sony, Warner and Universal are suing a man after he allegedly obtained unreleased music created by some of their biggest stars. Following an FBI investigation the man was traced to Sweden, where he will stand trial next month for leaks related to artists including Nicki Minaj, Chris Brown and Mary J Blige.

nickiIf there is one issue guaranteed to incense recording labels and artists alike it’s the premature public availability of pre-release music.

Over the years leaks from popular artists have featured in countless online piracy cases, painted by the labels as some of the most damaging forms of unauthorized distribution.

While some believe that leaks are useful for creating buzz, labels often argue that availability amounts to unfair competition and the undermining of an artist’s decision as to when and where content should be heard.

Pre-release leaks can happen anywhere in the supply chain, usually towards the retail environment, but a case set to be heard next month is unusual in several respects, not least the point at which the music was obtained.

Between 2010 and 2013 it’s alleged that unreleased music began leaking from industry-affiliated email accounts based in the United States. Tracks from some of the world’s biggest stars was targeted, including those from Nicki Minaj, Chris Brown and Mary J Blige.

It’s claimed that the music began turning up in public after being sold to DJs worldwide, events which heralded the involvement of the FBI and a trail to Sweden.

“In the United States an investigation was launched into the stolen songs. The tracks led to Sweden through bank accounts and IP addresses. Therefore, we were contacted,” says prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad.

Further investigation led Swedish authorities to a 25-year-old local man who is said to have hacked the email accounts, obtained the music, and sold it on for a profit.

“He hacked into the email accounts and got hold of unreleased songs, and songs that might have never been released. That makes this case unusual,” Ingblad adds.

The prosecution claims that the man, who denies the charges, made around $12,000 from sales of the tracks. He will go on trial in Sweden next month and will face fines and up to two years in prison. Labels including Sony, Warner and Universal are suing the man and will be seeking damages.

With nearly three million active users FrostWire is one of the most popular Android apps but a few hours ago the BitTorrent client and media downloader disappeared from the Play store. Google cites a YouTube related violation of the Developer Distribution Agreement.

FrostWire has become a well-known file-sharing brand over the past decade.

The application was first released in 2004 as a LimeWire fork, but underwent several changes over the years. Today it’s mostly a BitTorrent client, but it also offers the option to access content from YouTube.

FrostWire is available on all major operating systems and does particularly well on Android where it has 2.9m active installs. Yesterday, however, the popular app was rendered unavailable.

FrostWire developer Angel Leon informs TF that Google pulled the application citing a violation of the Developer Distribution Agreement. Unlike the recent ban by Amazon, the removal has nothing to do with torrents but was triggered by FrostWire’s YouTube integration.

“After a regular review, we have determined that your app downloads, monetizes, or otherwise accesses YouTube videos in violation of the YouTube Terms of Service or YouTube API Terms of Service,” Google informed FrostWire while cautioning over the possibility of a permanent disconnection.

“All removals are tracked. Repeated removals will result in app suspension, at which point this app will count as a strike against the good standing of your developer account and no longer be available on Google Play.

After the first warning last Friday FrostWire submitted a YouTube-less app to get it re-listed. This worked, as the app was put back in the store by Saturday, but yesterday it was removed again citing the “YouTube” violation.

“We’re pretty pissed by how Google is acting all bully on app developers,” Leon tells us in response to the recent troubles. The app’s users are not happy either. Many were happy to have the YouTube integration and berated FrostWire for removing it.

To please these users the developers made a separate version with YouTube functionality that can be installed directly from the FrostWire site.

“Our solution to pissed off users after Google forced us to remove YouTube integration from FrostWire, was to simply build another version of the app which didn’t disable the feature, and tell users to get the installer directly from our website,” Leon says.

The YouTube situation was explained in the FrostWire client and more than a million people saw the notification over the weekend.

Interestingly, Google doesn’t allow developers to promote apps outside the market so this notification had to go too.

Facing these and other restrictions, the FrostWire team is growing increasingly frustrated but without solid competition there’s not much they can do.

“Google is acting too much like a bully lately, they need to be put on the spot, and they deserve some serious competition in the mobile space,” Leon says.

At the time of writing FrostWire is still unavailable in the Play store. If everything goes well, however, the app should be reinstated in the near future.

French media giant Vivendi is said to be considering a bid to acquire all of the Sky-branded European pay-TV broadcasters.

Reuters have reported ‘early stage discussions’ and analysts at investment bank Exane BNPO-Paribas state that the rumour has been bouncing around for a few weeks. Exane has run some numbers and – assuming a 25 per cent premium to market – says this would be a huge deal for Vivendi (or anyone else) with a bid of €37 billion.

The bank suggests that even it is assumed that Vivendi has a cash pile available of some €10-11 billion to hand, and perhaps even €15 billion if one includes certain disposals which are still working their way through the system, Vivendi would still be looking for finance of about €15 billion to conclude a Sky purchase.

“Synergies are far from obvious at this stage,” says an Exane note. “We see one BIG positive: being in a position to bid for content on a regional basis IF this is the way the content market moves – a real possibility, even if it is years away. Apart from that, Sky is well run and we don’t see massive synergies bar the usual [marginal elements].”

The bank warns that such a complex deal as this would suggest much larger structural risks to the pay-TV business. But it also says that the head of Vivendi, Vincent Bolloré is “very creative” in the way he strikes deals.

Sky share buying buzz

The news that Vivendi might be seeking to buy the trio of Sky Europe broadcasters has prompted considerable activity on the London stock market in Sky shares.

Sky’s share price rocketed from Tuesday’s closing price of £10.23 to an April 8th morning ‘high’ of £10.63 (and a new 12-month ‘high’) before slipping back after profit taking to £10.41, and a sales volume of 2.8 shares in the first 2 hours of trading. The 12-month ‘high’ for Sky was previously £10.32.

Joshua Raymond, chief market strategist at CityIndex says: “Considering the handsome sums Sky has paid recently for majority broadcast rights of the Premier League and its move to large scale production television exclusive to the channel, it’s no surprise that Sky simply has to get a grip on its costs. In this sense, a merger between the two firms could well make sense. However, I cannot foresee Rupert Murdoch selling out just yet and this could well be a ploy from Vivendi to sound out shareholder sentiment on the prospect of a deal with Sky or someone else.”

The country's biggest telecoms companies have submitted their final online anti-piracy code to the Australian Communications and Media Authority for approval by the regulator. Up to 200,000 warnings will be sent to subscribers each year but an appeal fee for the wrongly accused has been waived.

Just 24 hours ago Australia was abuzz with the news that U.S.-based Voltage Pictures will now be allowed to launch a so-called ‘speculative invoicing’ scheme Down Under.

The company will obtain the names of people behind ISP accounts linked to the unlawful sharing of their works online and pursue them for cash settlements. It’s a business model with a grubby reputation, one that mainstream rightsholders have largely steered away from in recent years.

Instead, the world’s largest entertainment companies are focusing their efforts on schemes designed to educate citizens, those in Australia included, in the hope that they will voluntarily change their online media consumption habits.

The local result is today’s publication of ‘Industry Code C653:2015, Copyright Notice Scheme’(pdf), the anti-piracy framework hammered out by telecoms companies and key entertainment industry companies including ARIA, Australia Screen Association, Foxtel, Music Rights Australia, News Corporation and Village Roadshow.

A draft was presented in February but today’s paper represents its final form following more than 370 public submissions.

While there have been some tweaks and clarifications, the majority of the core policies outlined in the earlier publication remain the same. ISPs providing fixed access services to 1,000 account holders or more will take part, which amounts to roughly 70 local service providers.

Vision

According to telecoms body the Communications Alliance, the scheme will have “a strong emphasis on public education” and does not contain “explicit sanctions against internet users”. While it does have ‘teeth’ (we’ll come to that shortly), informing subscribers comes first.

Notices

The three-step notice process remains, with account holders receiving ‘educational’, ‘warning’ and then ‘final’ notices each subsequent time their IP addresses are connected to infringing activity online. Only users of P2P systems such as BitTorrent are affected.

“Any Account Holder who receives three Notices within a 12 month period will have the option to seek a review conducted by an independent Adjudication Panel,” the paper reads.

Appeals against notices, consumer protection

One significant change is the elimination of a fee if a subscriber feels he or she has been wrongly issued with a notice. While subscribers can appeal against any notice, so-called ‘Challenge Notices’ can only be sent to the adjudication panel upon receipt of a ‘Final’ notice.

Rightsholders will pick up the tab on appeals for now but if any abuse of the appeal process is observed, fees could be reintroduced.

There will also be “stronger consumer representation” on the Copyright Information Panel, the body that will oversee the notice scheme and operate the website setup to educate the public.

The sting in the tail

There are no disconnections or suspensions for subscribers who don’t get the message after three warnings but the scheme does have a potentially tougher lesson up its sleeve.

By accommodating a ‘facilitated preliminary discovery’ process, ISPs will be expected to assist (not challenge) copyright holders who decide to take legal action against persistent infringers.

“Where an Account Holder has received three Notices within a 12 month period and a Rights Holder files an application for preliminary discovery in a prescribed court seeking access to the Account Holder’s details, ISPs will act reasonably in relation to the preliminary discovery application,” the paper reads.

“It remains a matter for the Court to decide whether preliminary discovery should be granted. An Account Holder’s details will not be provided by ISPs to Rights Holders in the absence of a court order.”

Notice volume and who will pay

Considering that the issue of costs has been derailing anti-piracy discussion between ISPs and rightsholders for many years, the speed at which this code has been agreed after government issued an ultimatum last year is somewhat surprising.

However, it appears that who will pay is not only still undecided, but could also remain a secret even when it is.

“There are still some commercial details, including elements of the scheme funding arrangements, to be finalized and the finished product must meet the approval of the ACMA,” says Communication Alliance CEO, John Stanton.

The current agreement allows for up to 200,000 notices to be processed and sent by all ISPs during each 12 months of the scheme’s operation. However, if rightsholders subsequently deem that number to be insufficient to achieve their objectives, further financial negotiations can take place with ISPs with a view to them sending more.

“Any funding arrangements must be designed to ensure that smaller ISPs are not unduly burdened by the requirements of the scheme,” the code adds.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority will now consider whether to register the code. Once put into place, the effectiveness of the scheme will independently evaluated 18 months after launch.

Following copyright threats from large media companies a Kiwi ISP has taken down its VPN service. Lightbox, MediaWorks, SKY, and TVNZ had threatened legal action against services that bypass geo-restrictions on sites such as Netflix and Hulu. Other ISPs offering similar products are currently standing firm.

While VPN services have always been associated with privacy, in recent years they have bloomed into tools providing much more than a simple way to stay cloaked online.

For a relatively small fee, users of the most popular VPN services can tunnel out of their country of origin and reappear in any one of dozens of countries around the world. This opens up a whole new world of media consumption opportunities.

Citizens of the United States, for example, can access BBC iPlayer just like any other Brit might, while those in the UK looking to sample the widest possible Netflix offering can easily tunnel right back into the U.S.

This cross-border content consumption is not popular with entertainment companies and distributors. It not only undermines their ability to set prices on a per-region basis, but also drives a truck through hard-negotiated licensing agreements.

Tired of dealing with ISPs including Slingshot who offer a dedicated ‘global mode‘ VPN service for customers, last week media companies in New Zealand ran out of patience.

“We pay considerable amounts of money for content rights, particularly exclusive content rights. These rights are being knowingly and illegally impinged, which is a significant issue that may ultimately need to be resolved in court in order to provide future clarity for all parties involved,” Lightbox, MediaWorks, SKY, and TVNZ said in a joint statement.

“This is not about taking action against consumers; this is a business-to-business issue and is about creating a fair playing field.”

Before being granted limited local access to Netflix just last month, Kiwis were required to level their own playing fields by paying for a VPN service and an account at an overseas supplier in order to legally obtain a decent range of premium content. However, the media companies now want to bring an end to that free choice via legal action. Today they claimed their first scalp.

This morning Unlimited Internet became the first ISP to respond to media company pressure by pulling its geo-unblocking service known as “TV VPN” after receiving a warning letter from a lawfirm.

The letter, which has been sent out to several local ISPs, informs Unlimited Internet that its VPN service infringes the Copyright Act of 1994.

Unlimited Internet director Ben Simpson says that while his company doesn’t necessarily agree with that assertion, it has taken down the service nonetheless.

“Geo-unblocking services are a direct result of consumer demand for access to content that is not made available to the New Zealand market,” Simpson says.

“To be on the safe side, we have taken legal advice on this matter and I have made a firm call that we will sit on the sideline until a legal precedent has been set.”

Currently there are no signs that other ISPs intend to cave in to the media companies’ demands but even if all Kiwi companies cease their VPN activities, the problem will persist. International VPN providers, such as those listed here, will be more than happy to provide services to New Zealanders enabling them to tunnel into any country they choose.

The other possibility is that consumers will shun paying for content and turn back to file-sharing networks instead. If they do those VPNs will still come in handy but for entirely different reasons, ones that will see entertainment companies missing out on the spoils altogether.

Sending $20 piracy fines to alleged copyright infringers has landed Warner Bros. in federal court. The Hollywood studio is accused of harassment and abuse of legal process, but denies any wrongdoing.

Two years ago Warner Bros. teamed up with Rightscorp to send small fines to U.S. Internet subscribers whose accounts were used to share copyrighted material.

At the time the Hollywood studio informed us that it was meant as a “discouragement of future unauthorized activity,” but the speculative invoicing strategy was met with great criticism.

Hoping to stop the practices, several Internet subscribers joined a class action lawsuit against Rightscorp and its clients. The complaint includes a long list of violations regarding Rightscorp’s debt collection practices, violating both the FDCPA and the Rosenthal Act.

“Among other wrongful conduct: Rightscorp has engaged in telephone harassment and abuse; made various false and misleading representations; engaged in unfair collections practices; failed to provide validation and required notices relating to the debts..,” the complaint reads.

In addition, the complaint raises the issue of Rightscorp’s controversial DMCA subpoenas which demand that smaller ISPs should hand over personal details of their subscribers. Thus far most ISPs have complied, but according to the complaint these requests are a “sham and abuse” of the legal process.

In a recent filing at a California District Court, Warner Bros. has now responded to the allegations for the first time. The movie studio submitted a motion asking the court to strike or dismiss the abuse of process claims (pdf).

According to Warner Bros and Rightscorp the settlement demand letters are protected under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. As a result, the claimed abuse would violate the company’s free speech and petitioning rights.

The DMCA subpoena was also obtained correctly, the defendants claim. Despite previous rulings to the contrary, Rightscorp and Warner believe that their ‘novel’ interpretation of the law may prove to be successful.

“…the subpoena complained of was used to identify a copyright infringer — which is the express purpose of DMCA subpoenas as interpreted by the courts of this Circuit — and therefore does not constitute an ‘abuse’ of process,” the motion reads.

Finally, Warner and Rightscorp argue that the alleged abuse of process should be protected under the litigation privilege, which immunizes them from liability.

” …even assuming, contrary to the law, that misuse of a subpoena could constitute an abuse of process, Plaintiff’s claim here is barred by the litigation privilege. California’s broad litigation privilege immunizes lawyers and parties from any liability arising from litigation-related communications,” the defendants write.

While the lawsuit is still in its early stages, it will be crucial for the future of the piracy settlement scheme in the United States. But even if this legal battle is won, there will be more trouble ahead.

A few weeks ago the company and its clients were also sued for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by placing intimidating robocalls and text messages.

Warner Bros. and Rightscorp’s current motion to strike and dismiss the abuse claims will be heard by the court early next month.

Spain's National Court has ordered ISPs to block Goear.com, a comprehensive unlicensed music streaming site popular with locals. The order, the first of its type against a dedicated music site, follows the instruction to block The Pirate Bay last month on copyright grounds.

After long maintaining a reputation for being one of the softest countries in Europe on piracy, in recent years Spain has really toughened up its approach to online infringement.

Last month the strength of new legislation became evident when a Madrid court gave local Internet service providers just 72 hours to block notorious torrent site The Pirate Bay (TPB).

The legal action against TPB was launched by the Association of Intellectual Rights Management (AGEDI) last year, but that wasn’t the only domain in the anti-piracy group’s sights. AGEDI and music group Promusicae had also been targeting Goear, an unlicensed music streaming service providing access to an estimated four million tracks.

Early efforts to bring down the site didn’t go to plan when a Madrid court refused to issue an order to block the site’s IP address back in March 2014. Undeterred, AGEDI responded with an appeal and complaint to the country’s Intellectual Property Commission.

Complaining that Goear provides access to copyrighted music without any permission from artists or rightsholders, AGEDI built a case highlighting commercial aspects of the site, particularly its advertising efforts which offered to put products in front of three million registered users via “millions of quality impressions.”

Goear had previously actioned some copyright takedowns, AGEDI said, but it was never enough to keep up with the rate that infringing content reappeared on the site.

After reviewing the case the National Court has now sided with AGEDI. Handing down an order similar to that issued last month in respect of The Pirate Bay, local ISPs have been given just 72 hours to block the site at the subscriber level. Currently the Goear website is hosted in the Netherlands.

“This new resolution adds to the one recently handed down in Spain against The Pirate Bay and confirms web blockades as the only effective measure to eliminate the websites that violate intellectual property rights,” said Promusicae and AGEDI president, Antonio Guisasola.

“The block against Goear means that the site will no longer be able to profit from the works of others. I always insist on the absolute need to act decisively to stop these kinds of sites that represent true unfair competition to other [authorized sites] that offer all the guarantees for consumers and producers of music.”

Whether local users will rush to unblock the site will remain to be seen. There are many dozens of similar portals offering access to the same level of content, none of which appear to be shutting down anytime soon.

Quote from tupac123123

hi i did get the red card paired to the sd box but it dont work in oscam

Now here is some real proof, tupac123123 is an experienced user, i would be more inclined to believe him than rumor's coming from dubious sources off site

File-sharers have been dealt a blow in Australia today after a Federal court ruled in favor of the company behind the movie Dallas Buyers Club in its highly anticipated case with local ISP iiNet. However, letters to the 4726 consumers involved must first pass judicial scrutiny.

Back in 2012, the Australian High Court ruled that ISP iiNet was not responsible for the copyright infringements of its customers. Stymied by that ruling, many Australian file-sharers breathed a sigh of relief, as Antipodean users are usually amongst the last to get content, forgotten in the long-tail of media distribution.

Conversely, it also meant that they were one of the last English-speaking (and English common-law) countries to see the appearance of so-called ‘Speculative Invoicing’, more commonly known as copyright trolling. However, “Down Under” couldn’t escape forever, and eventually the trolls washed up on the shore, in the shape of mega-troll “Dallas Buyers Club” (DBC).

The model should be familiar to most of our readers. A company (or its representative) joins a BitTorrent swarm, and “observes” a number of peers on the torrent. It then applies for a court order for the ISP to hand over the identities behind all those IP addresses so they can be pressured for cash settlement.

The big question was whether the Australian courts would allow for the discovery of subscriber details but in a decision released just minutes ago the courts said ‘yes’. Letters to be sent out to the 4,726 consumers involved will first have to be approved by the court, a move designed to reduce DBC’s ability to overstate the case and the potential penalties involved.

Following a similar ruling in Canada last February, this is the second time these kinds of restrictions have been placed on Dallas Buyers Club/Voltage Pictures. UK ‘trolls’ are also subjected to the same oversight in their initial letters to consumers but subsequent correspondence flies completely under the radar with no court involvement.

In today’s case the judge also ruled that the privacy of the 4726 accounts should be protected but placed no cap on damages. The precise restrictions and justifications will become clear when the verdict is published later today.

The case comes amid growing regulations, with the Australian Government pushing for a voluntary 3-strikes system as well as site-blocking legislation. These two things, combined with today’s ruling, means that VPN use is expected to skyrocket in Australia.

There are a couple of people on other sites claiming to have done it with success, however seeing is believing and without seeing proof i will withhold judgment