Posts by Prophet

Most of the top DJs are multi-millionaires, but that doesn't mean that they don't use pirated software to create their music. Video footage reveals that paying €139 for a legal copy of the popular synthesizer plugin Sylenth1 proved to be too much for Avicii and other popular DJs such as Martin Garrix.

aviciiTim Bergling, aka Avicii, has become one of the world’s best known DJs, scoring hit after hit in recent years.

With a net worth estimated at $60 million the Swede has plenty of cash to splash. Enough to buy an expensive Hollywood Hills mansion.

Interestingly, however, some of the tracks he made his millions with were produced with the help of pirated software.

In an interview with Future Music Magazine Avicii proudly shows his setup and the associated video reveals that he’s using a cracked version of Lennar Digital’s popular Sylenth1 plugin, which normally costs €139.

The plugin, which appears 42 minutes into the video, is registered to “Team VTX 2011,” referencing the name of a well-known cracking group.

The interview with Avicii was shot a while ago so there’s a chance that the DJ bought a legal copy in the meantime. However, the use of pirated Sylenth1 plugins among top DJs is not an isolated incident.

Just a few months ago DJ Deadmau5 called out Martin Garrix on Twitter for making the same mistake. Garrix, who’s also a multi-millionaire, was using a version cracked by “Team AIR.”

And then there’s Steve Aoki, good for an estimated $45 million, who was also previously accused of using a pirated copy of Sylenth1. Responding to the revelation, Aoki came up with proof showing that he did own a proper license, but that his road team forgot to use it.

“I had asked my road team to help me load in my production software and apparently they didn’t ask Jacob for the authorization code for Sylenth and installed a pirated version,” Aoki said.

The pirating DJ trend isn’t limited to Sylenth1 either. In yet another interview with Future Music Magazine, Norwegian DJ Aleksander Vinter, aka Savant, uses a pirated copy of Ohmicide.

On its website Ohmicide says it understands that “not everybody can afford to spend several hundred dollars for a piece of software while you have other bills to pay in times of crisis.” But while Savant’s income is nowhere near the millions of the others, he isn’t starving just yet.

Savant’s “Team Air” plugin

savant
Based on the above it’s clear that using pirated software is pretty common among DJs. Not just aspiring teens with no money to spend, but also those who are making millions of dollars per year.

Avicii in particular should know better. After all, he was “discovered” by Universal Music’s Per Sundin, who was one of the main witnesses against the Pirate Bay four during the 2009 trial.

Whether Lennar Digital will follow this piracy lead up has yet to be seen – the company has yet to respond to our request for comment.

After being chased down by a coalition of mainstream entertainment companies, a French court has just handed a former torrent site operator a six month suspended sentence. 'Boris P' must also pay two million euros in damages, an amount he predicts could be cleared in approximately 227 years.

cashAfter opening its doors in 2010, in 2014 a private tracker known as GKS announced it would be closing for good. As is so often the case, the site was suffering legal problems.

An investigation, carried out on behalf of U.S.-based mainstream entertainment companies via local outfits SACEM, SCPP and others, showed that between January 2012 and April 2014, three million unauthorized downloads were made from the site. They included 242,000 movies, 240 concerts and 2,240 music albums.

The case concluded in the Criminal Court of La Rochelle last week. The 28-year-old former admin of the site was handed a six month suspended jail sentence and ordered to pay two million euros in damages. Major Hollywood studios were awarded the lion’s share, as follows:

Warner Bros. (470K euros), Disney (242.7K euros), 20th Century Fox (228.7K euros), Paramount Pictures (221.5K euros), Universal Pictures (172.5K euros) Columbia Pictures (158K euros) and Tristar Pictures (11k euros).

Music groups through the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (SACEM) were awarded 564,762 euros in damages, with two smaller awards of 5,000 euros each going to a pair of film distribution groups.

Interestingly the case was heard in the absence of site operator ‘Boris P’. The site was hosted in Hungary and the Czech Republic but Boris P left France for Budapest in 2013 and never returned.

In an interview with French publication NextImpact, Boris P denies that he fled to Hungary.

“The city of Budapest is so good, I ended up staying. Also with my [low] income, I better live here where a pint usually costs 1 or 2 euros,” he explains.

There were early signs, however, that all was not well with the site. Boris P said he hoped to be considered a host and enjoy the legal protections that provides (he never hid his identity) but there were issues on the financial front.

While users were donating enough to keep the site running every month, PayPal blocked his accounts several times. He denies making much money from the site, however.

“Maybe 100 to 200 euros a month, sometimes I also paid out of my pocket,” he notes.

Then, in the summer of 2014 he got word that French police were looking for him.

“They wanted me to return to France to go into police custody,” he reveals. “I did not particularly have the means to return to see my family, let alone go to the police! I offered them a ***pe call but [the police] laughed at that. Then, I received no more news – not a single call, nothing?”

Boris P says the case has taken a toll on his health.

“I have not been able to sleep for a month, I’ve lost 10 kg. I have to live on 300 euros per month, which in Hungary is fine. In fact, I absolutely do not know what to do now and for the future,” he says.

“[The fine] is so huge that whether it’s 1 or 2 million [euros] it makes no difference to me. My gross income in 2014 was 8,800 euros and in 2013, 11,546 euros,” Boris notes.

“I did a little calculation: by giving them all the gross income of my business, I would need 227 years to pay off the fine.”

A new app for Android makes viewing torrents easier than ever before. After simply clicking on a magnet link, iFlix takes over, playing video and music in a clean interface. There's no need to wait for a torrent to complete and skipping can be achieved in just a few moments.

iflix-logoCreated by Romanian software engineer Vali (also known as 0x4139), iFlix is a torrent client designed to stream any magnet link in an instant.

Unlike other clients there are no complex settings to manage and the app only springs into life once a magnet link has been clicked. It is incredibly simple to use.

As can be seen from the image below, clicking a magnet link calls up the iFlix interface containing a list of files inside the torrent being accessed. Users simply pick a file and choose their preferred (and already installed) video player and in a matter of seconds the torrent begins to play.

iFlix not only works well, it also has interesting roots.

“We have this startup, which is an application for kindergartens (gradiapp.ro), and one of the features is that we connect mobile/web and all sort of apps to the cameras inside the kindergarten so that parents can watch their kids while there,” Vali tells TorrentFreak.

“We were having problems streaming the data to mobile devices (bandwidth issues) until I decided to make some kind of tracker that keeps the data in chunks of five seconds. That tracker is a peer as well, and after we saw that it worked, we wanted to use it with generic trackers as well.

“With a little tweaking it worked well, after that we spent like two months talking about legal concerns with all kind of lawyers, and we saw the potential that this can grow into a distributed computing grid based on its own keychain,” the dev explains.

In common with all tools that attempt torrent streaming, iFlix performs better with well-seeded torrents. That being said, skipping around files with plenty of peers works surprisingly well and only once or twice did we experience any significant delay. The software also allows users to listen to music torrents and as expected these cue up even more quickly than video.

As for the future, iFlix is likely to receive updates but is actually a stepping stone within another of Vali’s projects.

“iFlix is a product that’s based on a platform that I am trying to create. This platform is intended to be a P2P compute grid based on the Bitcoin protocol where instead of computing hashes to mine coins you compute different tasks, e.g ‘fetch the first two chunks from the magnet:x” which iFlix does at this moment,” Vali explains.

“At this moment the engine behind the platform is based on the Google SPDY protocol and the purpose of iFlix is to measure the scalability of the engine.

“In the near future you can expect to see more products based on the same P2P platform. For example, imagine that you are skiing and directly streaming 2k video from your GoPro via P2P,” Vali concludes.

A music group's anti-piracy system has just sent Google the most staggeringly ridiculous DMCA notices the planet has EVER seen. If you aren't sitting down, please do so now. Remove tight clothing, open a window and get a glass of water. This one is absolutely epic.

picarddmcaAt least once a month TorrentFreak reports on the often crazy world of DMCA takedown notices. Google is kind enough to publish thousands of them in its Transparency Report and we’re only too happy to spend hours trawling through them.

Every now and again a real gem comes to light, often featuring mistakes that show why making these notices public is not only a great idea but also in the public interest. The ones we found this week not only underline that assertion in bold, but are actually the worst examples of incompetence we’ve ever seen.

German-based Total Wipes Music Group have made these pages before after trying to censor entirely legal content published by Walmart, Ikea, Fair Trade USA and Dunkin Donuts. This week, however, their earlier efforts were eclipsed on a massive scale.

wipedFirst, in an effort to ‘protect’ their album “Truth or Dare” on Maze Records, the company tried to censor a TorrentFreak article from 2012 on how to download anonymously. The notice, found here, targets dozens of privacy-focused articles simply because they have the word “hide” in them.

But it gets worse – much worse. ‘Protecting’ an album called “Cigarettes” on Mona Records, Total Wipes sent Google a notice containing not a single infringing link. Unbelievably one of the URLs targeted an article on how to use PGP on the Mac. It was published by none other than the EFF.v

So that was the big punchline, right? Pfft, nowhere near.

Going after alleged pirates of the album “In To The Wild – Vol.7″ on Aborigeno Music, Total Wipes offer their pièce de résistance, the veritable jewel in their crown. The notice, which covers 95 URLs, targets no music whatsoever. Instead it tries to ruin the Internet by targeting the download pages of some of the most famous online companies around.

In no particular order, here is a larger selection of some of the download pages the notice attacks.

ICQ, RedHat, SQLite, Vuze, LinuxMint, WineHQ, Foxit, Calibre, Kodi/XBMC, ***pe, Java, OpenOffice, Gimp, Ubuntu, Python, TeamViewer, MySQL, VLC, Joomla, Z-Zip, RaspberryPI, Unity3D, Apache, MalwareBytes, Pidgin, LibreOffice, VMWare, uTorrent, WinSCP, WhatsApp, Evernote, AMD, AVG, Origin, TorProject, PHPMyAdmin, Nginx, FFmpeg, phpbb, Plex, GNU, WireShark, Dropbox and Opera.

If you can bear to read it the full notice can be found here. Worryingly Total Wipes Music are currently filing notices almost every day. Google rejects many of them but it’s only a matter of time before some sneak through.

We’ve said it before but it needs to be said again. Some people can’t be trusted to send takedown notices and must lose their right to do so when they demonstrate this level of abuse. The sooner Google kicks these people out the better.

The Spanish police has broken up a band of pay-TV pirates and arrested three people on charges of breaking the intellectual property by selling illegal set-top-boxes to watch pay-TV in the country.

The pirates were selling the STBs online for €150 and delivering them throughout the country. The devices had been manipulated and included illegal software that allowed access to pay-TV services without any subscription.

In Spain, football piracy is having a big impact on pay-TV operators, losing them half a million subscribers, according to the Football Association LFP.

****** Media has announced it is to invest £3bn in improving its fibre optic broadband network, increasing the network's reach from 13 million to 17 million homes.

It says it is the biggest investment in broadband infrastructure in the UK for more than a decade.

****** said the investment would also create 6,000 new jobs of which 1,000 would be apprenticeships.

****** Media currently has five million customers.

The company is already in the process of expanding its network to 110,000 homes across east London, Glasgow, Sunderland and Teesside.

****** Media said the additional £3bn in broadband investment would be worth £8bn in terms of stimulating UK economic activity.

However, the money will be spent on filling in gaps in its existing network rather than widening the network to rural areas, which critics say has long been neglected by communications companies such as ****** and BT.

Speaking to the BBC, ****** chief executive Tom Mockridge said it was BT's job to do more to bridge the so-called "digital divide".

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Analysis: Rory Cellan-Jones, technology correspondent
****** Media chief executive Tom Mockridge compares the expansion of its broadband network to the building of the railways by the Victorians or the rollout of the motorways in the 20th Century.

That sounds just a touch hyperbolic, but this is indeed one of the biggest investments we've seen in the UK's internet infrastructure, made possible by the deep pockets of ******'s owners, Liberty Global.

What the money will do is fill in the gaps left in the network when the old cable companies ran out of money in the 1990s. That will mean that streets in urban areas where BT's superfast broadband is the only game in town should now get a choice of supplier.

What it won't do is bring high-speed services to what's known as the final third - rural Britain, where it is hard to make the economics of laying fibre cables to every home add up.

That job is being left to BT - aided by public funds, mainly money set aside from the TV licence fee. BT, which is preparing to take over EE and become the dominant player in fixed and mobile broadband, may quietly welcome today's announcement.

A stronger ****** Media network may make regulators less inclined to worry about its dominance.

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He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think an investment of this size is unambiguously helping to close the digital divide. Everything can't happen at once so we are really focusing on the areas where we can bring ultra fast broadband as quickly as possible and as effectively as possible."

He also called on BT to do more to invest in improving existing infrastructure to help speed up internet services in the countryside.

The investment comes at ****** Media announced a 2.3% increase in total revenues to £4.214bn for the year to the end of December compared with a year earlier.

****** said the increase in revenue was largely the result of increased cable subscription revenue, which grew 3% last year.

A new web protocol that promises to speed up internet browsing has been approved.

The changeover to HTTP/2, when it happens, will be the first major update to the standard in 15 years.

The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) has accepted the protocol, one of its senior members wrote in a blogpost on Wednesday.

The standard will now go on to be edited before being applied, Mark Nottingham added.

Its developers believe the new standard will represent a big step forward because it will make pages load quicker and improve encryption.

Compatible
In another blogpost, written in January last year, Mr Nottingham - who chairs the Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF) HTTP working group - wrote about the proposed benefits of HTTP/2.

Instead of trying to reinvent the protocol, he said that the group was seeking to make the new one compatible with the old.

"Making HTTP/2 succeed means that it has to work with the existing web. So this effort is about getting the HTTP we know on the wire in a better way," he wrote then.

Hypertext transfer protocol - HTTP - is the means by which browsers communicate with servers to render pages.

The new version, Mr Nottingham wrote, would make it easier to use the web's encryption technologies, encouraging more websites to do so.

'Not pixie dust'
But he added that HTTP/2 was not "magic Web performance pixie dust".

Instead of improving webpage loading times by half, it was "more accurate to view the new protocol as removing some key impediments to performance", he wrote.

"Once browsers and servers learn how and when to take advantage of that, performance should start incrementally improving."

The protocol is based on a Google technology called SPDY, which has been used in recent years. Google will switch to HTTP/2 in its Chrome browser.

BT's Plusnet home broadband service has apologised after some of its customers incorrectly received emails telling them they were being billed extra for going over their traffic allowance.

The problem began on Tuesday, when subscribers' accounts started adding gigabytes of unused data.

Plusnet said that its engineers were "investigating the root cause".

It added that the issue had only affected "a small number" of its users, but did not say how many.

One customer contacted the BBC to report the problem.

"At 22 minutes past midnight this morning I received an email, and it said you are approaching your usage allowance, and once you've used your 40GB we'll charge you an extra £5 for every 5GB," Steve Rogers said.

"And then at 8.42am I got an email saying you've exceeded your usage, we've added some more.

"And then it happened again at 9.51am.

Plusnet email
Plusnet customers have received a series of emails telling them they face top-up fees
"I thought I haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary... I wonder if my wife has been downloading loads of stuff."

A check of Mr Rogers' account, using Plusnet's View My Usage tool, revealed that 28.2GB of data had been added to his tally yesterday and a further 14GB on Wednesday morning - far in excess of his actual usage.

Plusnet has put an answerphone message on its hotline and a note on its support page acknowledging the problem.

A spokeswoman also issued a statement to the BBC.

"Yesterday, a small number of Plusnet customers on 'limited' broadband packages received email notifications regarding their broadband usage," it said.

"The emails incorrectly stated that customers had gone over their usage limits. The issue has now been resolved.

"We are confident that no customers have been overcharged. However, if any customers have any concerns, please visit the Member Centre on our website or feel free to get in touch with us."

Plusnet's service page notes that maintenance work was carried out on its back-end ******* on Sunday evening, but the firm said that this was not linked to the fault.

Tumblr users say they are witnessing a tougher response to music piracy by the blogging platform. A wave of complaints suggest that increased anti-piracy activity by the music industry is resulting in Tumblr more readily banning users as part of a "three strikes" policy.

tumblrFounded February 2007, Tumblr now processes huge amounts of traffic. According to latest figures from the site it currently hosts more than 223 million blogs containing almost 104 billion posts.

In common with all sites of a similar size, keeping on top of what every user posts is a formidable and near impossible task, even with the 300+ employees Tumblr has at its disposal.

Nevertheless, effort does have to be made and when it comes to copyright issues the law demands it. The DMCA requires Tumblr to respond to copyright holder complaints by removing infringing content in a timely manner. According to the site’s users, however, a more aggressive response is now being pursued.

A large number of recent complaints suggest that music group IFPI is making a renewed effort to target Tumblr in order to weed out users who post copyright music to the site. Since several users have posted Tumblr copyright notices citing IFPI complaints, it seems like a reasonable assumption.

But what is really spooking users is Tumblr’s policy of terminating those who have three complaints lodged against their account. It’s been in place for some time but with enforcement against the site seemingly being ramped up, more people are falling into the trap.

“As outlined in previous emails, we implement a strict three-strike policy against repeat copyright infringement. Your blog has received three strikes in an 18 month period. Consequently, your account has been terminated. In addition, any new accounts you create will also be terminated,” Tumblr told one user.

Of course, anti-piracy bots don’t discriminate between content posted today or 18 months ago so any tracks they find can result in a notice to Tumblr and a subsequent “strike” against a user’s account. As a result, many users are now desperately trying to clear up their post history (using sites like trntbl.me) to avoid getting three strikes all at once.

To find out what changes may have contributed to the panic TorrentFreak contacted Tumblr for further details. We’re yet to hear back (we’ll update this article when we do) but in the meantime its worth noting that the company updated its copyright notice policy last month.

“After removing material pursuant to a valid DMCA notice, Tumblr will immediately notify the Subscriber responsible for the allegedly infringing material that it has removed or disabled access to the material,” it reads.

“Tumblr will terminate, under appropriate circumstances, the Accounts of Subscribers who are repeat copyright infringers, and reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate any Subscriber for actual or apparent copyright infringement.”

In order for users to be able to contest copyright complaints, Tumblr operates a counter-notification system. However, users including Stewardessme complain that on the third strike she was simply locked out. Her story also highlights the importance of contesting invalid claims early on.

“Since the IFPI sent takedowns for two songs, that was two strikes, and I had a previous strike months earlier due to being erroneously accused of a copyright violation by Harper-Collins (the photo in question was not theirs),” she writes.

“In my case, the time period between getting the two strikes for music and my account being terminated was zero time; I found out something was wrong when I tried to log into my account.”

Since Tumblr is yet to publicly respond to the concerns of its userbase, TorrentFreak asked the company to comment on any changes that could have triggered what is now being perceived as a piracy crackdown. We’ll update here in due course.

Internet users who downloaded the Jim Carrey movie Dumb and Dumber To are now facing the prospect of legal action. The company has filed several lawsuits in Oregon calling for Comcast to reveal subscriber identities so that defendants can be pursued for damages.

dumb-smallBitTorrent networks are online venues where anyone with an Internet connection can obtain almost limitless content for free. They’re also places closely monitored by copyright holders looking to protect their interests.

While some monitor for analysis reasons, others aim to boost profits. The most recent to venture down this latter path are the rights holders behind the Jim Carrey / Jeff Daniels movie Dumb and Dumber To.

In motions filed at the United States District Court in Oregon, DDTO Finance, LLC explains that it needs to obtain the identities of at least five individuals said to have downloaded and shared the comedy without permission.

“The Doe defendant is a BitTorrent user, or ‘peer,’ whose computer is interconnected with others and was used for illegally copying and distributing plaintiff’s motion picture to others,” one motion (pdf) reads.

“Plaintiff is suing the Doe defendant for using the Internet, specifically the BitTorrent file distribution network, to commit copyright infringement.”

While conceding that the subscriber may not necessarily be the actual infringer, DDTO Finance calls on the Court to force Comcast to reveal the subscriber details quickly so that ongoing infringement can be brought to an end.

“[It] is the experience of counsel that parties generally promptly terminate infringing activity and further distribution as soon as they have notice of an actual suit pending,” motion for discovery adds.

In one copyright infringement complaint DDTO notes that Dumb and Dumber To is currently one of the top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent networks “with over 1,000 confirmed infringing Internet Protocol (‘IP’) addresses in Oregon alone.”

Also of interest is how DDTO takes its IP-address evidence and uses it to build a wider picture of infringement against the subscriber.

“Defendant’s IP address has been observed as associated with the peer-to-peer exchange of a large number of copyrighted titles through the BitTorrent network,” the complaint reads.

“The volume and titles of the activity associated with defendant’s IP address indicates that the defendant is likely the primary subscriber of the IP address or someone who resides with the subscriber, as such activity indicates the defendant is an authorized user of the IP address with consistent and permissive access.”

Continuing with its assumptions, DDTO ventures that based on the quantity and type of content being transferred, the infringer is not a minor.

“The volume and titles of the activity associated with defendant’s IP address indicates that the defendant is not a young child, but an adult with mature tastes,” the company says.

The suit goes further still, suggesting that by downloading the movie the subscriber contributed to the illegal activities of torrent sites which generate “hundreds of millions” from “sales and advertising”. Not only that, he or she may even have been rewarded for doing so.

“Many parties, and possibly defendant, have been compensated with increased access to other content, faster download speeds, or other forms of compensation for their participation in expanding the availability of pirated content, including plaintiff’s movie,” the complaints adds.

In conclusion, DDTO seeks a permanent injunction against the defendants, costs and attorney fees, statutory damages of up to $150,000, and a trial by jury.

It is much more likely, however, that Comcast will hand over the subscribers’ details and a cash settlement will be reached in private.

UK police have arrested three men in London following a raid on what is being described as a popular movie and TV show piracy site. Following a FACT investigation the men, all in their 20s, were detained on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and copyright offenses.

cityoflondonpoliceAfter scaling considerable heights during much of 2013 and 2014, overt operations to reduce online copyright infringement tapered off in the UK at the end of last year.

The first six weeks of 2015 also remained quiet, with the now-famous Police Intellectual Property Unit (PIPCU) holding a lower profile. Today, however, there is news of fresh action by local authorities.

Following an investigation by the Hollywood-affiliated anti-piracy group Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), this morning detectives raided individuals said to be involved in the operations of a movie and TV show download site.

The men, aged 24, 25 and 26, all from the Southwark area of London, were arrested at 06:45 on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and copyright infringement offenses. Equipment and financial documents were also seized.

Speaking with TorrentFreak a few moments ago, FACT said that they weren’t able to name the site “for operational reasons.” Nevertheless, police say it was popular among users.

“The site was extremely popular. It was viewed about 70,000 times a day and, internationally, it ranked thousands of places higher than a well-known and legitimate film download site,” said investigating officer Detective Sergeant Neil Reynolds.

Similar raids in recent times have been carried out by PIPCU but today’s operation is being accredited to the London Regional Asset Recovery Team.

LRART is a Home Office-funded team comprised of officers and financial investigators from City of London Police and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, among others. The unit carries out financial investigations aimed at seizing criminal assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

“It can be difficult for people to care about copyright laws being broken but the money made from such sites is often spent on funding other crime,” said DS Reynolds. “We are looking at how much money was made from advertising on this website and where that money went to.”

FACT say that the site was registered to one of the suspects in the UK but was then re-registered to a second suspect at an address in Romania. Advertising revenue was paid into a London-based bank account.

Director General Kieron Sharp said that unauthorized sites undermine legitimate businesses and warned that people running such ventures face stiff penalties.

“Websites which set out to direct users to illegal copies of films and TV shows are engaged in criminal activity which not only reaps huge financial benefits for the individuals involved but also undermines the fundamental business model which allows for future investment in the creative industries,” Sharp said.

“As these latest arrests show, this type of criminal enterprise will not go without action, and those involved face severe penalties.”

The Pirate Bay has been back online for more than two weeks but thus far it's been rough sailing. The notorious torrent site has had to jump from hosting service to hosting service just to stay online and is still looking for a safe haven. At the same time, scammers keep hounding the site with fake files and malicious links.

pirate bayTwo weeks ago The Pirate Bay returned online and millions of users have been finding their way back to the popular torrent site since.

While the site is currently up and running, Pirate Bay’s comeback hasn’t been without trouble. On Friday the site went offline for roughly 12 hours after a hosting provider pulled the plug.

TF reached out to Pirate Bay admin Winston, who informed us that “getting stable hosting” is one of the main challenges the site faces at the moment.

TPB is currently using CloudFlare’s CDN services which means that the hosting location is well hidden. However, Cloudflare does forward takedown notices to hosting providers and most are not very eager to have TPB as a customer.

The site continues to look for a safe alternative but that is proving to be a troublesome process. When we discussed the topic with the site’s admin TPB went offline again, causing yet more downtime.

“Another ISP killed it,” Winston told us yesterday. “So yeah. It will take a long time until it’s stable.”

While the hosting issue has priority, there’s also a spam problem TPB has to deal with. Despite deploying “FakeSkan” robots there are still many scammy comments and malicious torrents on the site.

The Pirate Bay initially launched without moderators due to security concerns. This resulted in a mutiny among TPB staff, some of whom wanted to start their own version of the site.

While the locked-out staffers managed to revive a copy of the Suprbay forum a few days ago, launching a TPB alternative will prove to be much harder. Winston now says that TPB is open to welcoming some of the old staffers back in the near future.

“After hosting issues are resolved I’ll talk to some old mods,” Winston tells us. “If they want to continue then it’s okay, but I won’t look for new mods. Someone from the old team will have to be in charge of that.”

After the initial disappointment of being locked out, several admins are indeed showing willingness to return to their former home.

“The conditions do not need to change from our side,” long time TPB moderator Agricola told TF. “All we want to do is keep the site clean.”

In addition to dealing with the pollution problem, TPB registrations should also open up again in the future. At the moment new users are unable to sign-up and publish content.

“There are just some security issues that have to be resolved first,” Winston says. “Plus, the hosting has to be stable.”

Speaking of hosting, a few hours before this article was published The Pirate Bay was forced to leave another ISP. That brings the total to four thus far, and the end is not yet in sight.

Defending its decision to target Australians for piracy of its movie Dallas Buyers Club, Voltage Pictures has told a court it has limits on who it will sue. Autistic kids, the disabled, the poor and those with mental issues won't be 'fined' by the studio. "That kind of press would ruin us," Voltage say.

Movie company Voltage Pictures has built quite a reputation in the past couple of years for its approach to those said to have downloaded and shared The Hurt Locker and Dallas Buyers Club without permission.

Rather than take the soft approach, the company has sued thousands of individuals across the United States and has also tested the waters in Canada, Europe and Australia.

Litigation in the latter region is reaching a critical point, with Voltage affiliate Dallas Buyers Club LLC (DBCLLC) attempting to force several local ISPs (iiNet, Wideband Networks, Internode, Dodo Services, Amnet Broadband and Adam Internet) to hand over the identities of individuals said to have downloaded the movie of the same name.

The ISPs have been putting up a fight in Sydney’s Federal Court this week in order to protect their customers and thus far DBCLLC and their piracy tracking partners have been given a rocky ride.

Flown in from Germany especially for the hearing, Daniel Macek of BitTorrent monitoring outfit Maverick Eye was given a particularly hard time. On Monday under cross-examination by iiNet barrister Richard Lancaster, SC, the 30-year-old admitted that he did not prepare his own affidavit.

“It was provided [by Dallas Buyers Club],” Mr Macek said.

Since Macek was appearing as an expert witness, the revelation was pounced upon by Lancaster.

“You provide affidavits and statements in lots of litigations all around the world,” Mr Lancaster said. “Is it your practice just to sign what is put in front of you?”

“No,” Macek replied.

During yesterday’s hearing things only appeared to get worse for Macek, as both his expertise and Maverick Eye’s evidence was called into question. The company provided “.pcap” files to the Court which contained timestamps of alleged infringements but when questioned about their contents, Macek fell short.

“Are you familiar with the information in the .pcap files themselves?” Lancaster asked Macek.

“Not in detail,” Macek admitted.

Lancaster’s questioning was aimed at casting doubt on the timings of alleged infringements logged in the Maverick Eye system. Were the times logged in the .pcap files representative of when a file was uploaded by an infringer’s computer to Maverick Eye’s system, or of a later point when further processing had occurred?

“I don’t understand this .pcap [file] in this detail,” Macek said. “I know how the Maverick software works in general but I’m not aware of the .pcap [files],” he added.

The Judge agreed with Lancaster on the importance of his questioning.

“If the IP [address] switched midway through one of these transmissions it just occurs to me that change would have some impact on your cross-examination,” Justice Perram said.

Also appearing this week was Vice-president of royalties for Voltage Pictures, Michael Wickstrom. The Voltage executive said that piracy was eating away at his company’s profits and had become far too easy. Lawsuits helped raise awareness of the problem, he said.

Under cross-examination Wednesday, Wickstrom denied that the letters sent out to customers in the United States were “threatening”, noting instead that they are a statement of facts.

“There are facts stated [in the letter] that [the customer’s] IP address was identified [as having downloaded the film illicitly],” he said.

“Any settlement amount that is disclosed [in the letter]; that was the attorney’s decision and is done on a case by case basis.”

However, while the company has no real idea of the nature of the people they’re targeting, Wickstrom said his company had limits on who would be pursued for cash demands. According to SMH, the executive said that his company “would not pursue an autistic child, people who were handicapped, welfare cases, or people that have mental issues.”

Some compassion from Voltage perhaps? Not exactly – the company seems more interested in how that would look on the PR front.

“That kind of press would ruin us,” Wickstrom said, adding that “the majority” of piracy was in fact occurring at the hands of vulnerable groups.

If that’s truly the case and any “vulnerable” people inform the company of their circumstances, Voltage stands to make very little money from their Australian venture, despite all the expense incurred in legal action thus far. Strangely, they don’t seem to mind.

“This is truly not about the money here, it’s about stopping illegal piracy,” Wickstrom said.

The case continues next week.

A new report released by Tru Optik shows that there are hundreds of millions of active BitTorrent users who together shared 18 billion files last year. The data is being used to show media companies the scale of the "unmonetized" demand for their products while offering a tool to target pirates with the right offerings.

monetizebtWhen major movie and TV companies discuss piracy they often mention the massive losses incurred as a result of unauthorized downloads and streams.

However, this unofficial market also offers a valuable pool of publicly available data on the media consumption habits of a relatively young generation.

Many believe that piracy is in part a market signal showing rightsholders what consumers want. This makes piracy statistics key business intelligence, which many large companies already actively use.

Netflix Vice President of Content Acquisition Kelly Merryman, for example, previously said that their offering is partly based on what shows do well on BitTorrent networks and other pirate sites.

One of the companies very active on the business intelligence side is Tru Optik. Unlike other monitoring outfits the company does not collect info on torrent users for legal campaigns or other enforcement purposes.

“[Tracking users for lawsuits] is a worthless business model and we feel there is more value in helping content owners better understand consumers so they can monetize their attention than suing them,” Tru Optik CEO Andre Swanston tells TF.

After tracking BitTorrent downloads for several years, today the company released a partial summary of the 2014 piracy landscape. According to its statistics torrent users shared 18 billion files last year, with movies and TV-shows accounting for half of them.

The results offer insight into what’s popular on BitTorrent and where downloaders are based. Game of Thrones is listed as the most downloaded TV-show, for example, and Minecraft tops the gaming list. The United States harbors the most pirates according to the data, followed by Brazil and the UK.

billionbt
Tru Optik is using this pirate consumption data to help media companies make better business decisions. Piracy signals demand for a product and this data can be used to optimize legal offerings.

“P2P users are some of the most important and influential consumers in the world. P2P consumption is also the best leading indicator of demand for media. If no one torrents your content that means pretty much it’s irrelevant to consumers between age 18 and 40,” Swanston says.

“At the end of the day young P2P users trend more educated, more affluent, more likely to have a child and spend far more of their disposable income on media and entertainment than non P2P users,” he adds.

The gathered data also allows the company to direct tailored ads at P2P users based on their IP-addresses. Hypothetically, this means that a Game of Thrones downloader can be targeted with an ad for a discounted HBO subscription the week before a new season starts.

tru-monetize
This positive approach is working well, according to the company. Swanston says that several of the top studios are already on board with the program, and no client has ever asked about enforcement options.

“Several of the world’s top producers of original television and movie content have already started using our audience insight and measurement to drive strategic decisions on millennial facing content production, international licensing of content and evaluating new ways to distribute their content,” Swanston notes.

Tru Optik believes that their approach is much more effective than traditional cookie and social media-based methods. Data comes from real people and allows the company to analyze interest across various titles and content categories.

While not mentioned in the report, there are also downsides to the approach. An IP-address says very little about a person’s age, gender and other demographic variables, for example. On top of that, IP-addresses can be shared with multiple people, and single users can have multiple IPs.

In total there were 970 million unique IP-addresses identified in 2014. However, it is likely that the number of downloaders is lower. In Australia there were more than 30 million torrenting IP-addresses, which is more than the country’s entire population.

That said, the relative popularity of content in various countries and various intercorrelations can prove to be an important marketing tool for media companies. They can cater better to the “pirate” audience and convert people to paying customers. That could very well be a win-win for all involved.

According to Swanston, it’s a must.

“Any millennial focused media company, agency or brand that isn’t preparing for a massive shift to OTT and utilizing P2P audience insight in 2015 risks being left behind by their competitors by 2016,” he says.

There's no doubt that Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV-show in history, with copyright holders doing all they can to remove infringing copies from the web. However, these efforts can also go too far, something just witnessed by Australian pay TV company Foxtel.

youtubesadsmallLast year Australian pay TV company Foxtel signed a deal with HBO to become the exclusive provider for Game of Thrones.

This means that the popular TV-show will not be available online through other channels such as iTunes, a decision that may increase local piracy rates.

Foxtel, for their part, sees the move as an important strategy to gain more subscribers. Looking forward to the fifth season of Game of Thrones, which starts this April, the company put up a teaser last Friday.

“We hope you’re hanging onto the edge of your iron throne, because Game of Thrones is back…,” writes Foxtel in an airing schedule announcement.

The article on Foxtel’s official site also includes a copy of the trailer for the fifth season. However, those who try to play the embedded YouTube video are in for a disappointment.

“This video contains content from Home Box Office (Singapore) Pte Ltd, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds,” YouTube notes.

The Game of Thrones trailer Foxtel links to is claimed by HBO Singapore, which means that it can only be viewed in the Asian country and not in Australia, America, the UK or elsewhere.

The video in question was likely flagged by accident as it makes little sense to put geographical restrictions on global trailers, which have the sole purpose to promote the show.

HBO’s actions are not only a problem for Foxtel and the tvpromosdb channel they linked to, but also for the dozens of other YouTube users that had the trailers taken down.

While some appreciate the irony of a blocked trailer on Foxtel’s website, it’s mostly sad to see yet another example of the mess that copyright holders make in YouTube’s Content-ID system.

Internet provider AT&T has obtained a patent to speed up BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic, while reducing the impact of these transfers on its network. Whether the invention will ever be implemented is doubtful though, as net neutrality proponents generally don't like "fast lanes."

attDespite the growing availability of legal services, unauthorized file-sharing continues to generate thousands of petabytes of traffic each month.

This massive network use has caused concern among many Internet providers over the years, some of which decided to throttle BitTorrent transfers. Interestingly, AT&T believes the problem can also be dealt with in a more positive way.

A new patent awarded to the Intellectual Property division of the Texas-based ISP describes a ‘fast lane’ for BitTorrent and other P2P traffic.

Titled “System and Method to Guide Active Participation in Peer-to-Peer Systems with Passive Monitoring Environment,” one of the patent’s main goals is to speed up P2P transfers while reducing network costs.

While acknowledging the benefits of file-sharing networks, the ISP notes that they can take up a lot of resources.

“P2P networks can be useful for sharing content files containing audio, video, or other data in digital format. It is estimated that P2P file sharing, such as BitTorrent, represents greater than 20% of all broadband traffic on the Internet,” AT&T writes.

To limit the impact on its network resources, AT&T proposes several technologies to serve content locally. This can be done by prioritizing local traffic and caching files from its own servers.

“The local peer server may provide the content to peers within the same subnet more efficiently than can a peer in another subnet,” the patent reads.

“As such, providing the content on the local peer server can reduce network usage and decrease the time required for the peer to download the content.”

Patent drawing

attlane3
The ISP realizes that there may be legal concerns when it starts to serve downloads from its own servers, and notes that some “unlicensed” content may be excluded.

In addition to caching files, the patent also describes a system in which BitTorrent traffic is analyzed in order to connect subscribers to peers that cause less congestion.

“In an embodiment, pieces of the data file may be preferentially retrieved from peers closer in the network or peers having a lower network cost,” the patent reads.

In other words, AT&T’s proposal reduces network costs while speeding up the transfers of its subscribers. It seems like a win-win for everyone involved, except strict net neutrality proponents who expect every bit to be treated equally.

Given the big push for net neutrality it is unlikely that the ISP has intentions to test or implement the file-sharing “fast lane” in the real world.

It’s hard to miss the irony here.

The present net neutrality debate first started in 2007 when TF uncovered that Comcast was throttling BitTorrent traffic. Those same principles might now prevent a system that can speed up torrents.

While Oscar buzz is great for movie sales, not everyone prefers to pay for their content. According to stats just released by piracy tracking firm I*****, illegal downloads of nominated movies increased by 385% following the Academy announcements of January 15.

While Hollywood would’ve liked it to remain a secret, news that the majority of Oscar contenders were available online just a day after the Academy’s announcement traveled fast.

In anticipation of this eventuality, at the turn of the year piracy monitoring firm I***** began tracking dozens of top movies in order to compare the number of downloads before and after the Oscar nominations were made public. Some of the numbers just revealed by the company are eye-watering.

After monitoring from January 1 through February 14, I***** found that there was a 385% increase in piracy of nominated films following the Academy’s announcement on January 15.

“While Gone Girl was the early frontrunner after nominations, American Sniper took the lead and is currently the most pirated film in the world post-nomination,” I***** reveals.

As the chart below shows, the majority of nominees had download numbers boosted between 161% and 230%, but clearly out in front is Selma with a 1033% uplift.

post-nom
In terms of pure downloads, however, the Martin Luther King movie isn’t an Oscar high-flyer. Despite the huge boost in interest after nomination day, Selma sits in 10th place well behind piracy leaders American Sniper and Gone Girl.

oscar-downs
Of course, the big question now is whether popularity on BitTorrent networks will be mirrored in the final Oscars ceremony. Ranking movies based on downloads since January 15 in the categories they were nominated, I***** predicts the winners as follows:

Best Picture: American Sniper (1.39m)

Best Actor: Bradley Cooper, American Sniper (1.39m)

Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman (796.7K)

Best Actress: Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl (1.25m)

Hollywood’s own leaks contributed to the piracy problem

While the Oscar-nominated movies now available online come from a wide variety of sources including Blu-ray, DVD (34% combined) and Cams (11%), I*****’s study highlights the problems the Academy has with its own leaks. Handed out to voters, critics and others in the industry, screeners are the most prized source for online booty. And this year there were plenty of them.

“Hollywood screeners specifically accounted for a substantial 31% of the total illegal downloads tracked between January 15 and February 14,” I***** reveals.

“Six nominated movies currently unavailable for retail purchase on Blu-Ray, DVD, VOD or legal streaming/download sites saw the majority of piracy coming directly from these screeners: American Sniper, The Imitation Game, Wild, Selma, Whiplash and Still Alice.”

While noting that not every download is a lost sale, the anti-piracy company still believes that an estimated $40m could have been lost on these titles alone, simply because they weren’t made available legally to consumers.

Release windows

“Our data clearly shows that the rest of the world is paying attention to the Academy Awards and there is significant demand for new movies to be available earlier, in more geographies and over more platforms,” says Rory O’Connor, VP of Managed Services at I*****.

“In the world of internet re-distribution, the window between theatrical release and worldwide market availability may simply be too long, leaving room for pirates to take advantage and offer consumers alternative means of instant gratification. Today’s consumers simply refuse to wait to access these movies through legitimate services.”

The rest of the world

Finally, outside of the United States the top ten countries accounting for the most illegal downloads were Russia, Italy, UK, Brazil, Canada, India, Australia, Spain, South Korea and the Netherlands.

And in what is bound to be yet more ammunition for the copyright lobby Down Under, the Oscar for the country with the highest percentage of piracy per Internet user population goes to….

…….Australia.

Under pressure from the Australian government, local ISPs have now published proposals on how to deal with the issue of online piracy. Drafted together with entertainment companies, the draft sees subscribers warned three times before further action is taken.

After developing a reputation for being some of the most prolific online pirates around, last year Australian citizens were told by the government that enough is enough.

Since years of negotiations between ISPs and entertainment companies had gone nowhere, service providers were told to propose voluntary measures to deter and educate pirating subscribers or have one forced upon them by law.

With a deadline looming, telecoms body the Communications Alliance has now published its draft proposal on behalf of its ISP members. Titled “Copyright Notice Scheme Industry Code”, the 34-page document hopes to pacify rightsholders and their allies in government by outlining a graduated response mechanism to deal with file-sharers.

“The Copyright Notice Scheme Code is designed to facilitate a cooperative industry-led copyright notice scheme through which
Internet Service Providers and the owners of copyright works will work to deter the practice of online copyright infringement and inform consumers about available and lawful content alternatives,” the draft begins.

“The Code provides for the creation of a copyright notice scheme under which ISPs will accept reports (in a prescribed format) from Rights Holders. The reports will identify Internet Protocol addresses that a Rights Holder alleges have been used to infringe copyright in online work of the Rights Holder. The reports will request that the relevant ISP notify the relevant Account Holders of the alleged infringements.”

According to the draft there will be three types of notice.

Step 1: Educational Notice

Warnings received by subscribers for their first alleged offense are designed to be educational. The notice will advise that a rightsholder has observed an infringement while detailing the content involved plus a time and date.

The notice will acknowledge that the account holder is not necessarily the infringer and will contain assurances that no information about the subscriber has been shared with a third party. Recipients will be warned, however, that they are now at a greater risk of being exposed to rightsholder legal action.

Any questions about the notice can be sent to the Copyright Information Panel, an adjudication body comprised of ISP and rightsholder representatives.

Step 2: Warning Notice

Second notices sent to errant subscribers are framed as a warning. Like educational notices they will detail the alleged infringement but will also underline the fact that the subscriber has already received an Educational Notice.

At this stage no information about the subscriber will be passed to rightsholders but will contain a stern warning.

“Receipt of a further notice may result in a Rights Holder instituting court proceedings against the Account Holder, including a preliminary discovery application to obtain the Account Holder’s details,” the draft reads.

Any questions about the notice can again be directed towards the Copyright Information Panel.

Step 3: Final Notice

In addition to detailing the alleged infringement, subscribers will be reminded that they have already received Educational and Warning notices.

The subscriber will be required to acknowledge receipt of a Final Notice (via registered letter or popups) and will be advised that rightholders may go to court to obtain their identity.

ISPs will make a record that a Final Notice has been sent to the subscriber but will not be required to send any further notices to an account holder who receives a Final Notice within 12 months of receiving an Educational Notice.

Challenge Notices

Subscribers who feel they have been wrongly accused can file a Challenge Notice with the adjudication panel. An appeal will cost the subscriber AUS$25 but will be refunded if the appeal is upheld. Fees may also be waived if the panel believes that would be appropriate.

Punishments and costs

The document makes no mention of punishments such as throttling, suspensions or disconnections, so they are now clearly off the table. Who pays for the system – a big sticking point throughout several years of negotiations – also appears to be unresolved.

“Rights Holders and ISPs are cooperatively undertaking further work to quantify the costs of meeting the specific operational responsibilities and processes required by the Scheme and determine how these costs should be fairly apportioned between ISPs and Right Holders,” the draft reads.

If the proposals (pdf) in the draft are accepted the scheme could be in place as early as September but the big question remains.

Will entertainment companies also help Aussies to break the piracy habit by providing better and cost-friendly legal alternatives?

Rightscorp, a piracy monetization company that works with Warner Bros. and other prominent copyright holders, has been sued for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Two victims filed a complaint at a Georgia federal court accusing the company of placing intimidating robocalls and text messages.

textrcPiracy monetization firm Rightscorp has made headlines over the past year, often because of its aggressive attempts to obtain settlements from allegedly pirating Internet users.

Among other tactics the company sent DMCA subpoenas to smaller local ISPs in the United States, urging them to reveal the personal details of subscribers.

While the legitimacy of these requests is in doubt, most Internet providers complied. This is also true for the City of Monroe, Georgia, which offers cable Internet to its residents.

Rightscorp used the personal information of the Monroe residents to offer the alleged copyright infringers a settlement. The offers start with a snail mail letter, but if these are ignored things get worse.

In a complaint (pdf) filed at a federal court in Georgia, Melissa Brown and Ben Jenkins accuse Rightcorp and its clients of using intimidating robocalls and text messages to solicit settlements.

“Once Rightscorp obtains a consumer’s contact information, it commences autocalls and text messages in an attempt to intimidate the consumer into settlement,” the complaint reads.

The victims, who deny having downloaded any infringing material, note that they never gave Rightcorp permission to contact them. On the contrary, after requesting that the letters, calls and texts stop, Rightscorp continued to press for settlements.

“Jenkins sent Rightscorp numerous emails instructing Rightscorp to cease their calls, text messages, emails and letter solicitations to him and Brown. Regardless, Rightscorp continued to place calls and text messages to Plaintiffs’ cellular and home phones.”

The complaint accuses Rightscorp of willfully violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which forbids companies from contacting people through robocalls and text messages without their consent.

Brown and Ben Jenkins demand damages for each violation, which may run into the thousands of dollars, and hope that this will also stop the intimidating settlement requests.

This is not the first legal battle Rightscorp has been involved in recently. A few weeks ago the company and its clients were sued for fraud, harassment and abuse for their controversial settlement scheme.

If the piracy monetization firm loses, it’s not unlikely that other accused file-sharers will follow the example.

The Pirate Bay has welcomed several moderators back on board. After initial security issues were resolved site staff have now regained access to the backend. The moderators got to work right away and have already removed hundreds of fake torrents in an effort to restore the site to its former glory.

pirate bayThe Pirate Bay has been back online for three weeks now and most of the site’s former users have found their way back.

While the notorious torrent site appeared to function normally, things were pretty hectic behind the scenes.

TPB had to switch hosting providers on several occasions after being kicked out following copyright complaints. At the same time, scammers were populating the site with fake torrents and scammy comments.

Since TPB decided to restart without a moderator crew for security reasons, most fake torrents remained online for days, driving downloaders to malware and other malicious content.

Locking out the moderators initially led to mutiny among the staff and concerns among users, but this week several long-time moderators came back on board.

Close to a dozen moderators now have access to the site again and they started cleaning up the place right away. Spammer accounts were banned and hundreds of fake files have already been deleted.

“I don’t know how many torrents have been removed so far, but it is in the hundreds. Some fakers had eight or nine pages under their account,” TPB moderator Agricola tells TF.

The moderators describe the site as a “crap heap” and there’s still plenty of work to be done. However, for security reasons, no new “helpers” will be allowed to join.

“No new staff will be recruited, so the helper status will be gone. The staff will only consist of moderators,” Agricola says.

For the time being no new accounts can be registered, which makes the clean up a little easier. Spammers will have to use old existing accounts and these will become harder to find.

Earlier this week TPB operator Winston told us that registrations will eventually be opened as well, but not before everything else is running smoothly.

With the moderators back on board the site will slowly and steadily return to what it was before the raid, marking the end of some of the most challenging weeks in the site’s history.