Posts by Prophet

In its ongoing crusade against sites said to infringe its copyrights, TV outfit ABS-CBN has just netted a couple of big wins. A pair of cases filed in a Florida district court have gone in the TV company's favor resulting in damages awards of $7m and the forfeiture of several domains.

During 2014, ABS-CBN, the largest media and entertainment company in the Philippines, began a wave of legal action in the United States.

Seeking millions in damages, ABS-CBN’s California-based division targeted a wide range of sites said to have offered its programming without permission. The company’s latest suit, filed in November last year, listed dozens of allegedly infringing domains.

In a motion for default judgment filed in a Florida district court February 6, ABS-CBN outlined the alleged damages caused by the defendants in the case.

“Defendants were the active, conscious, and dominant force infringing the ABS-CBN Marks and facilitating access to illegal copies of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works,” the company wrote.

“When a user clicked on a link, the Defendants’ websites directed the user to a third-party server on which the content resided, and began to instantly stream a full-length video of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted content within a frame on the Defendants’ respective website for viewing.”

This activity was designed to generate revenue, ABS-CBN said.

“The large inventory of popular entertainment content available on Defendants’ websites, including full-length copies of daily programming and archived shows, was designed to attract users to the infringing content and, thus, increased Defendants’ profits from the advertisers who paid the Defendants based on the number of views that the advertising received,” the company added.

While the defendants operating the sites had the opportunity to defend themselves, for whatever reason they chose not to. This placed them at the mercy of the Court and the result could hardly have been worse.

On February 9, District Judge Ursula Ungaro ruled in ABS-CBN’s favor, handing down a default judgment including a permanent injunction forbidding any further “advertising, promoting, performing, copying, broadcasting, performing, and/or distributing of Plaintiffs’ content or copyrighted works.”

In order to give the injunction “teeth”, Judge Ungaro ordered the defendants to hand over their domains to ABS-CBN within five days of the judgment. Failing that, registries currently in control of the domains were given 30 days to render them useless.

“Upon Plaintiffs’ request, the top level domain (TLD ) Registry for [each of the domains], within thirty (30) days of receipt of this Order, shall place [the domains] on Registry Hold status for the life of the current registration, thus removing them from the TLD zone files maintained by the Registry which link the [domains] to the IP addresses where the associated websites are hosted,” Judge Ungaro wrote.

The real pain, however, sits in the financial implications of the judgment. The Judge awarded ABS-CBN a total of $3,960,000 in damages and ordered interest to accrue until the amount had been paid in full.

But the wins for ABS-CBN weren’t over yet. Two days later in the same Court, Judge Beth Bloom handed down another default judgment against the operators of PINOY-AKO.INFO and PINOY-TAYO.NET.

In addition to a similar injunction, the TV company was awarded another $3,120,000 in damages, with both domains ordered to be handed over or disabled by their registries.

Whether ABS-CBN will see a penny of this money remains to be seen, but the big penalties handed down are likely to serve as a warning to those running similar unauthorized sites.

For some, such as the defendant in an earlier ABS-CBN case, the news comes too late. After being hounded by the TV company, in October 2014 the operator of Pinoymoviefan.com and Watchfilipinotv.com eventually signed a $10m consent judgment.

Popular blogging platform Tumblr is hiding "torrent" related posts from public view. The term "torrent" has been added to the site's adult filter, to prevent people from stumbling upon "offensive" content.

tumblrnopostsIt appears that piracy is becoming a growing concern for micro-blogging platform Tumblr.

Earlier this week users panicked following an increase in takedown notices, which resulted in the termination of several blogs.

While this uproar was rather public, there are also better concealed changes that seem to target pirated content. Tumblr’s decision to hide posts mentioning the word “torrent” for example.

Those who search the site for “torrent” related queries will notice that there are no results displayed, even though there are plenty of posts mentioning the word. The same is true for posts tagged with “torrent.”

Tumblr is hiding the results in question from both public and logged in users but the latter can make the posts show up if they switch off the “safe mode” lock on the right hand side of the screen.

Below is what the search results for “Ubuntu Torrent” currently look like.

No torrents allowed

tumblr-torrent
Tumblr’s “safe mode” was turned on by default over a year ago to hide offensive “adult oriented” content from the public view. The same filter also blocks words such as “penis” for the same reason.

Needless to say, not all “torrent” posts are offensive or damaging to children’s eyes. A Vuze developer who highlighted the issue notes that other uses of the dictionary word are less threatening.

“Amusingly, the first result for us is pictures of water flowing over rocks.. so, non-adults feel safe, Tumblr will protect you against pictures of the outdoors,” the developer writes on Tumblr.

“Although, it is true that a torrent is a VIOLENT stream of liquid. And we should all be protecting our children against violence,” he adds.

It’s not clear whether the word “torrent” has been banned over piracy concerns or whether its frequent association with porn is the reason for the ban.

In any case, Tumblr’s filter is also hiding plenty of legitimate content, showing once again that Internet censorship is a slippery slope.

In an attempt to battle a constant stream of fake torrents The Pirate Bay has borrowed an army of screening bots. To compensate for the lack of moderators, Pirate Bay is using the "FakeSkan" service of fellow torrent index Bitsnoop to warn users about malicious files.

pirate bayThe Pirate Bay has been back online for a week and millions of users have been finding their way back to the popular torrent site.

On the surface there’s not much new, aside from a few 404 errors here and there. Behind the scenes, however, the site has undergone some drastic changes.

Instead of using a crew of dedicated moderators, some of whom have been with the site for a decade, The Pirate Bay chose to restart as a solo operation. This created an influx of fake torrents driving downloaders to malware and other malicious content.

The Pirate Bay noted that the changes were needed for security reasons. As a temporary solution, it added a report button to the site so users could flag fake torrents themselves.

But that’s not all. In addition to user reports TPB also borrowed an army of “bots” from competitor BitSnoop. These bots identify good and bad torrents and serve as an extra check to verify whether or not a torrent is safe to download, as shown below.

The owner of BitSnoop told us that he was not aware of the fact that TPB is borrowing the work of his bots, but he doesn’t mind them doing so.

BitSnoop has used the FakeSkan system for several years already. While it’s far from 100% accurate, it helps users to cut through the weeds.

“Both good and bad votes are initially cast by robots, based on a bunch of heuristics,” BitSnoop’s owner tells TF. “For example, was it found on trusted site? Does it contain fake-torrent patterns (i.e. archives with ‘password at…’ links)? Does it contain content irrelevant to the type of torrent such as .exe files in video torrents?”

“After the torrent is indexed robots monitor its seeding patterns. Are there any known signs of seeder-spam on trackers? Was it tracked on known spam trackers? And so forth,” he adds.

In addition to the bot votes, BitSnoop also adds user votes to the total score, to improve overall reliability.

Unfortunately for TPB, fake torrents are not the only problem. The lack of moderation also caused an increase in spam links in comments where users advertise dubious streaming portals that charge for access, or malicious software concealed as “codecs.”

While most seasoned Pirate Bay users won’t fall for these tricks, it’s not helping the site’s image.

It will be interesting to see how TPB handles the pollution problems during the weeks to come. Whether it’s with help from mods or bots, there’s definitely room for improvement.

One of Sweden's top movie streaming sites has made a deal with the country's police. In exchange for remaining free men the administrators of Dreamfilm say they negotiated with authorities to close down the site. Meanwhile, an almost identical site has reappeared under a new domain name, run by former admins.

dreamfilm-polisWhile BitTorrent is considered the king when it comes to obtaining video online, there are other ways to obtain content that eclipse it in ease of use.

So-called ‘streaming’ sites have grown massively in popularity in recent years, largely due to the way they’re presented. Rather than the text-heavy indexes associated with large volume torrent sites, streaming portals present the latest movies and TV shows in a user-friendly interface with plenty of graphics.

What’s more, for the novice ‘pirate’ these sites are simplicity itself. Find a movie, click it, deal with the pop-ups, and in a few moments the latest blockbuster plays in a browser-based YouTube-style window. Even the Swedes, largely proud supporters of The Pirate Bay, have embraced the concept. Sadly for them, however, they’re now one sizable portal down.

In the wake of The Pirate Bay raid in December, Swedish police intensified their focus on one of the country’s top streaming portals, Dreamfilm.se. The site had been growing in popularity for some time but it appears that in recent weeks police had been homing in.

Early January everything seemed fairly normal when the site ran a promotion offering 100 movie tickets to fans who shared the picture below on Facebook. Plenty of people participated.

On January 14 the site published the Facebook links of 100 winners and requested that they send in their names and addresses to claim their prizes. But just a few weeks later and it’s now all over for Dreamfilm.

“After an administrator was detained and interrogated, it has been mutually agreed that dreamfilm.se will be shut down for good,” the site reveals in a statement.

“The police gave us an ultimatum, to shut down the site and be free, or to keep it online and be detained again.”

It seems that after an extended period trying to close the site, the authorities finally had the upper hand.

“Following controversial interrogation methods it was decided that the site and everything to do with it will be shut down for good. With this, all other administrators decided to resign altogether from the site’s operations with immediate effect,” the site’s operators add.

Thanking users for their dedication over the years, the admins bid farewell to the site and its members. Well, sort of…..

It appears that while some of the site’s admins agreed to close down the site, others did not give the police the same undertakings. They have now broken ranks and created a brand new venture. Today, DreamFilm.se is dead but DreamFilmHD.com lives on in its predecessor’s form.

“By the way, if you are film-goers, then that part of the crew who chose not to resign cloned [DreamFilm.se] to continue on their own,” the former admins say. “The administrators of DreamFilm.se do not in any way endorse this move, but the site is available at: DreamfilmHD.com.”

Sure enough, the replacement site at that address is more or less identical to the site now closed down following an agreement with the police. How this will be viewed by the authorities remains to be seen, but it’s a safe bet that this outcome wasn’t the one they’d hoped for.

Quote from bigdes

That's EE F****D. As BT are useless and I have only went to EE from BT. I know one thing I'll not be renewing the mobiles or the landline with them once the contract is up.

I only joined EE a few months back, if what you say is right it could be a bleak 2 years

An Amsterdam court has rejected a demand from a German porn company to hand over names and addresses of illegal downloaders on the UPC Nederland network.

UPC refused to hand over customer data to the German company Belirex, who claims to have the rights to the adult movies. The court ruled that UPC does not need to release the names of customers who have illegally downloaded porn.

The case before the Amsterdam court was the first instance in which a rights holder has tried to obtain data after the introduction of a law against illegal downloads in the Netherlands.

The verdict of the Amsterdam court has mainly to do with uncertainty about the actual broadcast rights. Belirex owns the brand Inflagranti, which owns the copyrights of the movies.

However, the court questions whether the broadcast rights indeed belong to this company. There is also uncertainty about the list of IP addresses that Belirex handed over to UPC. The company did not convince the court that these are actually the illegal downloaders.

The court also dismissed UPC’s defense that the data required by Belirex are sensitive data and that it has to protect the customer.

05 February 2015

UK broadcast regulator Ofcom has thrown out an action by cableco ****** Media which attempted to halt the next bidding process for the TV rights to the English Premier League (EPL).

******'s complaint prompted Ofcom to initiate an investigation under section 25 of the UK Competition Act, and the regulator opened a consultation as part of its review of the UK's pay-TV 'wholesale must-offer' services pertaining to the joint selling arrangements by the Premier League for live, UK audiovisual media rights for Premier League football matches.

Further to this, on 28 January 2015 ****** made an application requesting that Ofcom issue an 'interim measures direction', pursuant to section 35 of the Act, to require the Premier League to suspend the forthcoming auction of audiovisual rights to broadcast live Premier League matches until Ofcom had reached the next stage of its process in March 2015. Ofcom received submissions from the Premier League on ****** Media's request.

Yet having considered the application, and submissions from ****** Media and the Premier League, Ofcom has decided to reject the application as it does not consider that there is an urgent need to intervene to delay the auction. It noted that there would be a 'significant' gap, of around 17 months, between the auction and the start of the 2016/2017 seasons when broadcasting of the relevant matches will commence.

In the event that its investigation concludes that there is an infringement, Ofcom offered the assurance that it has the necessary powers to require the Premier League and Premier League clubs to make changes to arrangements for the broadcasting of matches within the time available before the start of the relevant season.

*** plans to further develop its Boxed Sets offering after revealing an increase of nearly 50% on the number of downloads and streams in 2013. There will also be a refreshen of the NOW TV brand, while the Restart concept recently introduced in Italy will be extended to the UK later this year.

At Wednesday’s quarterly results *** said that its connected TV platform has broken its own previous record, in the UK and Ireland, with almost 2 billion download and streaming requests made by its customers during 2014 – 60 requests per second.

There are now 6.5 million customers connected to *** On Demand, and 5.8 million registered users for mobile TV service *** Go in the UK and Ireland.
A relative latecomer to Boxed Sets, *** now offers over 130 box sets of the latest shows.

“It’s driving take up of both *** Go and HD and is going very well so far. Customers tell us they want quality as well as quantity, so we’ll add more of the latest best titles, and we’ll extend our licence period so they can watch for longer,” said *** chief executive Jeremy Darroch, adding that there was an opportunity to establish Boxed Sets as a new premium offering in their own right with increased marketing support and a stronger brand identity.

Darroch knocked back the idea of a new 4k ready box – reported as Project Ethan – explaining the rate of change was different to what it was ten or even five years ago. Rather than replace the entire set-top box inventory it was more likely that changes were made to the software stack.

“Ultra HD is TBD – it does really well on big screens, but less impactful on smaller screens,” said Darroch. “The jury is still out as to how big an idea it will be, we’re thinking about the box power, how we build into the software stack and the broadcast infrastructure that goes alongside that.”

NOW TV, ***’s pay-as-you-go service is receiving a revamped set-top, again based on the Roku platform, in which *** has a small investment. It will also receive a new logo and an above the line advertising campaign.

*** has made NOW TV a distinctive product; 80% of NOW TV users have never considered a *** subscription.

The AdSmart platform is also being developed; customers in the UK will start to see tailored promotions as well as the subsitutional ads based on segments such as market groups and postcodes.

Of the international markets, Italy with a higher number of connected boxes is more likely to see the service ahead of Germany.

Fibre broadband and 4G telephony will come together through BT’s successful bid for mobile company EE.

The UK telco is to pay £12.5 billion for the Deutsche Telekom-Orange JV that is the biggest mobile telephony company in the UK. It currently holds 31 million customers including 24.5 direct mobile customers and 834,000 fixed broadband customers.

EE also supplies an MNVO service to BT’s rival ****** Media.

BT now plans to upsell its broadband, fixed telephony and pay-TV services to those EE customers who do not currently take a service from BT.

“This is a major milestone for BT as it will allow us to accelerate our mobility plans and increase our investment in them. The UK’s leading 4G network will now dovetail with the UK’s biggest fibre network, helping to create the leading converged communications provider in the UK. The enlarged BT will offer significant opportunities for employees as we lead the creation of a world-class digital infrastructure for Britain,” said BT chief executive Gavin Patterson.

BT is funding the purchase through new debt financing and approximately £1bn from the placing of new BT shares. The Equity Placing will be launched in due course

Following the Transaction and Equity Placing, Deutsche Telekom will hold a 12% stake in BT and will be entitled to appoint one non-executive member of the BT Board of Directors. Orange will hold a 4% stake in BT.

EE was formed in 2010 from the merger of Orange and DT’s operations in the UK: Orange UK and T-Mobile UK. The current wave of merger activity is expected to continue with the sale of O2 – once BT’s own Cellnet mobile network – to Hutchison Whampoa, operator of 3.

The £4billion battle for live TV coverage of the Premier League is set to be a three-way contest.

The dominance of *** and BT Sport is likely to be challenged by Eurosport owners Discovery Communications when bidding for 2016-19 closes on Friday.

The fierce competition for the 168 live games per season, which are split into seven packages, could set the price for a single match at an amazing £8million.

There will also be an increase on the current £2bn for overseas deals, plus the £204m agreed with the BBC for Match of the Day. *** are expected to pour all their resources into retaining at least four of their prime first-pick packages and BT will want an increase on their current deal which gives them 38 live games per season.

Qatar-based beIN Sport, the richest TV network in the world, could also make a bid.

Who will be bidding in the auction for domestic live rights to the Premier League?

*** and BT, who currently share coverage, will both be involved again. They paid £3.018billion between them for the 2013-16 rights. That is expected to rise for 2016-19, and potentially soar to £4bn if other serious bidders enter the auction, such as US-based giant Discovery Communications and Qatar-owned beIN Sports.

Will *** lose matches this time?

It’s feasible. Under the current deals, *** have 116 live games per season, and BT have the other 38 games, for a total of 154 live games per season, which were sold in seven packages.

The auction for 2016-19 also has seven packages for sale but more games overall. Five packages have 28 games per season and two packages have 14 games. About a dozen of the extra games will be shown on Friday nights.

Any one broadcaster will be allowed a maximum of 126 games per season — or four ‘big’ packages plus one ‘small’ package. That’s what *** currently has and will want to keep. They will almost certainly be willing to pay more than the £2.28bn over three years they paid last time.

But will another major player splash the cash and reduce what *** have? BT have deep pockets. They spent £897m on Champions League and Europa League live rights for three seasons starting 2015-16. They won’t want less than the 38 PL games they have now and can be expected to bid strongly.

The real unknown is whether Discovery and beIN Sports will come in with blockbuster bids. That could blow the market open and send prices soaring, again.

Why is there such fierce competition for Premier League games?

A generation ago virtually nobody in Britain paid to watch TV over and above their licence fee. Now around 60 per cent of households (or 16m homes) pay for a subscription whether ***, ****** or BT.

Increasingly, the battle between these communications giants is for the ‘triple play’ market (phone, internet and TV from one source) and the ‘quad play’ market (which adds mobile phones).

They want you to get all your services from them. Live Premier League matches are being used in an attempt to influence your choice. With millions of people paying £600-plus a year for these services, it’s a massive industry.

Will Premier League football cost me more from 2016-17? Will I need more subscriptions?

It’s feasible that *** and BT will share the rights again in broadly the same way they do now, and fans won’t notice any difference to pricing. But if a third or even fourth broadcaster gets involved more subscriptions will be needed, almost certainly at extra cost. Although if *** lose a lot of games they may have to reduce prices to keep customers.

Will the clubs get richer?

Oh yes. The total broadcasting pot for the 2013-16 period was more than £5.5bn, mostly from domestic live rights (£3.018bn) and foreign rights (£2.23bn) with highlights, near-live rights and mobile rights on top.
The 2016-19 total pot is expected to be close to £7bn with £4bn from domestic rights. The vast bulk of the cash will end up being split among the Premier League clubs.

Will ticket prices go down?

You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? Almost certainly not and not by much in any case.
Many Premier League games are sold out or nearly sold out, even though ticket prices are the most expensive in the world. While the demand is there, clubs will charge what they can.

The only rider to that is that the Premier League hierarchy would like to see clubs offer more cheap deals, particularly to away fans and younger people. It remains possible that an increase in TV money will allow more subsidies for schemes like this... but don’t bank on it.

Sony almost withdrew from the MPAA after the movie trade group failed to support the studio as it faced an unprecedented cyber-attack last year. As disquiet continues over the way the MPAA operates while burning through huge amounts of cash, big changes now lie ahead for the Hollywood group.

mpaa-logoDuring November 2014, Sony Pictures was subjected to one of the most aggressive cyber-attacks in living memory. The studio’s systems were almost completely compromised, with thousands of emails leaking online alongside several major films.

While the hackers clearly wanted to finish Sony for good, in the end their efforts proved unsuccessful. The studio appears to be on the path to recovery with the hack costing ‘just’ $15m so far. Nevertheless, the fallout continues.

Last week it was revealed that Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal will be stepping down and now further revelations suggest that the hack will have wider implications outside Sony.

According to a report, Sony Pictures chairman Michael Lynton became infuriated by the complete lack of support offered to his company by the MPAA as it withered under the hack last year. While MPAA chief Chris Dodd eventually admitted that he’d handled the issue poorly, the damage had been done.

Alongside disquiet over the amount of cash the MPAA burns through every year, it’s now been revealed that Lynton began making plans for Sony to take the unprecedented move of leaving the movie industry group.

While this immediate crisis appears to have been averted (Lynton is said to have reversed course around Oscar time), he and other studio executives are now seeking to comprehensively alter the way the MPAA operates.

Several options are currently on the table, including opening up the MPAA to new members and expanding its mandate to include TV and digital content. Also under the spotlight are costs.

At the moment each of the member studios – Sony, Disney, Warner, Paramount, 20th Century Fox and Universal – pumps around $20 million into the MPAA every year (some of it going to Dodd’s salary of $3.3m) but it’s still not enough as the group is currently running at a loss.

The MPAA does have assets though, such as a valuable property (mentioned on several occasions in emails leaked from the Sony hack) located in Washington near the White House. That could be sold or developed to balance the books.

The New York Times managed to reach MPAA chief Chris Dodd on the telephone Thursday. When asked about the prospect for big changes at the MPAA he said: “I’m for that, completely.”

Dodd was on his way to have dinner in Los Angeles with top studio executives – Sony’s Lynton included – and he confirmed that a revamp of the organization was on the menu.

“He’s there. I’m glad he’s there. I think he’s handled this well,” Dodd said of Lynton, noting that some “feel more strongly” about potential changes at the MPAA than others.

Part of the MPAA’s problems relate to its inability to move quickly. All member companies have to agree on a course of action before it can be taken, something highlighted only too clearly when Dodd became hamstrung when considering what to do in support of Sony.

It’s questionable if that situation would improve with the addition of yet more members, but it would bring in much needed cash. The organization lost $4.4m in 2013 according to its latest tax filing.

Whether the coffers can be buoyed with a cash injection from the sale of MPAA real estate seems less certain. Asked about the MPAA’s Washington building and its lobbying-friendly location, Dodd sounded a note of caution.

“It’s an important spot,” he said.

*** has taken the exclusive live rights to screen The Open golf tournament for five years from 2017, leaving the BBC with a daily two hour highlights programme.

Reaction to a blog post written by Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport, was generally hostile from sports fans who note the £204 million paid by the corporation for Premier League highlights last week, a bid that was unopposed by other broadcasters.

In her blog, Barbara Slater said: "It goes without saying that the loss by the BBC of live TV rights to The Open Championship is very disappointing. We believe our bid was competitive because we wanted to retain live coverage, but ultimately we could not match what Pay-TV had to offer. You can’t win everything you go for - it’s the nature of the business we’re in."

Regarding the BBC's rights to show highlights of The Open, she added: "we believe a daily, two-hour highlights package on BBC Two in peak-time will ensure The Open continues to reach a large TV audience. We know from experience that a well-timed highlights package can, in certain circumstances, be very popular – our coverage from the Ryder Cup in 2014 attracted nearly 6m viewers – over 2m more than the live action on Pay-TV."

*** meanwhile has promised that will "extend and enhance coverage of The Open, including live coverage of all four days' play in their entirety across TV, online, mobile and tablet devices, allowing customers to watch wherever they are.

"Both new and existing golf fans will benefit from this partnership, which will enable The R&A to make a ground-breaking investment in grassroots golf, and work with *** Sports to excite and engage viewers through the innovative coverage."

Barney Francis, *** Sports Managing Director, said: “The Open is the world’s preeminent golf championship and we are committed to taking coverage of the event to new levels. We offer something for every sports fan and this exciting agreement for The Open means our customers can now enjoy all four Majors live. *** Sports has a passion for golf that has spanned two decades, offering unrivalled commitment, airtime and promotion as well as year-round innovative coverage. We look forward to working with The R&A to entertain and engage new and existing golf fans through our multi-platform coverage and also at the grassroots level via *** Academy.”

The new rights agreement also offers *** Sports viewers exclusively live coverage of The Walker Cup in 2019 at Royal Liverpool.

This and next year's Open will still be shown on the BBC.

NEW YORK – Alleged Silk Road darknet mastermind Ross Ulbricht was convicted of drug conspiracy and other charges Wednesday for allegedly founding and running the drug-trafficking site that served as an underworld version of eBay for a worldwide network of dealers and users.

A jury of six women and six men returned the verdict after little more than three hours of deliberations, capping a more than three-week trial featuring evidence that Ulbricht used the online alias Dread Pirate Roberts to found and build Silk Road into a underworld bazaar for everything from heroin and cocaine to phony IDs and computer-hacking programs.

Ulbricht, 30, showed little emotion as the verdict was read. His mother, Lyn, and father, Kirk, each held a hand to their forehead as the jury forewoman pronounced their son guilty on all charges in a seven-count indictment.

U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest, who presided over the trial, set a tentative sentencing date of May 15. Ulbricht faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison and could face life behind bars for the convictions.

As the judge adjourned court, an Ulbricht supporter yelled out, "Ross is a hero!" A moment later, his family and friends called out, "We love you, Ross," as federal marshals led him away.

Ulbricht looked at them, waved, and then disappeared through a door as he was led back to a holding cell.

Outside the Manhattan federal courthouse afterward, Ulbricht's parents said he would likely appeal. Much of the defense team's evidence was improperly barred from being introduced at the trial, they said.

"When it's not an even playing field, it's not a fair trial," said Lyn Ulbricht. "If we don't have fair trials in this country, then we're all in trouble."

Asked about her son's reaction to the verdict, she said, "I'm sure it's not the best day he's ever had."

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the conviction and the government's seizure of millions of dollars in bitcoins, the electronic currency Silk Road operated on, "should send a clear message" that "the supposed anonymity of the dark web is not a protective shield from arrest and prosecution."

Prosecution evidence alleged that Ulbricht planned Silk Road as far back as 2009 and launched the site two years later by renting a house near his family's Austin home, where he raised hallucinogenic mushrooms for sale.

By 2011, Silk Road was open for business, with secrecy measures designed to make it difficult for anyone to identify the true identities of the marketplace's operator, buyers and sellers. The business used a computer routing system known as Tor that sent messages from the participants through multiple computer servers located in Iceland and elsewhere that were rented under false identities.

Silk Road also required its anonymous buyers to trade money for bitcoins and then use the electronic currency for all transactions. The site charged a percentage commission on each deal, generating a bitcoin stash for Ulbricht that prosecutors said was worth roughly $18 million at the time of his arrest.

Quote from Manc-Red

I'm clearing this pack on 1w to my joy :)

http://s25.postimg.org/54uvxbb73/screenshot.jpg

Done a fair amount of trawling the net and yet to see this working on 0.8w :62:

The ISP linked with The Pirate Bay says the company no longer hosts the site. According to Trabia the site's operator announced plans to leave Moldova in January, ahead of a government piracy meeting. Now Cloudflare's services hide the true location of The Pirate Bay, right in the MPAA's backyard.

phoenix1The Pirate Bay is without doubt the most controversial file-sharing site ever to hit the Internet. Even Napster, still mentioned nearly 15 years after its demise, fails to eclipse the sheer number of headlines generated by The ‘Bay.

Throughout the site’s roller-coaster history, one element has remained constant. Sooner or later, one way or another, companies and organizations that provide infrastructure to the notorious site all come under the spotlight.

The latest Internet service provider to become associated with The Pirate Bay is Moldovan-based Trabia, the country’s largest datacenter. In January the ISP said that it supports freedom of speech and “barrier-free Internet usage” but noted that clients – Pirate Bay included – have to obey local and international laws.

It goes without saying that The Pirate Bay has rarely been associated with that kind of compliance so when the site came back online last Saturday, Trabia would’ve had good reasons to expect trouble. However, in the event, it did not do so from the company’s servers, Trabia has announced.

Trabia founder Sven Wiese says the operator of the infamous site contacted the ISP in January to inform the company that it would move to another location. While there’s no real reason to doubt Wiese’s word, it is now fairly difficult to backup the move with hard facts since, as usual, TPB is obfuscating its true location.

Speaking with Moldova.org, Wiese notes that The Pirate Bay is now ‘hosted’ with Cloudflare. While that’s not strictly true (the actual site is bound to be located in a separate hidden location), Cloudflare services are indeed providing a ‘front-end’ to the site.

It’s an interesting situation. After Hollywood pumped cash into Sweden to have local anti-piracy outfit Rights Alliance investigate and then raid The Pirate Bay in December, the site has not only resurrected itself but has boldly planted some of its infrastructure firmly in the studios’ backyard.

Use of U.S.-based Cloudflare is not without its issues and has certainly helped the conspiracy theorists. Earlier this week several large publications bought into the notion that The Pirate Bay is now an FBI honeypot. It’s not (and the site will discontinue using it soon) – but if simply using Cloudflare is a cause for concern, let the nail-biting begin.

In addition to the original Pirate Bay, many of the largest Pirate Bay clones and alternatives also use Cloudflare. They include ThePirateBay.com.ua, ThePirateBay.co.in, ThePirateBay.cr, ThePirateBayv2.org and ThePirateBay.lv. Even the largest of them all – OldPirateBay.org – uses Cloudflare in its setup.

Cloudflare hasn’t commented on The Pirate Bay’s use of its services but for Trabia over in Moldova, associations with the site are set to put piracy discussions back on the agenda. According to the State Agency for Intellectual Property (AGEPI), the hosting of the Pirate Bay in the country may have “boosted the notoriety” of Moldova overseas.

“In our country no one doubts that a thief who stole something must be arrested,” said AGEPI deputy Ion Tiganas. “We want to be considered as a country that has laws and where these laws are respected.”

Tiganas says that this month there will be a meeting to discuss intellectual property rights and as a result of The Pirate Bay’s foray into the country, the site will be on the agenda.

Hotfile and several major book publishers have agreed to an out-of-court settlement of their piracy dispute. Last year the publishers filed a complaint with a Florida District Court, demanding up to $7.5 million from the defunct file-hosting service. How much Hotfile will pay to resolve the case is likely to remain unknown.

hfpLittle over a year ago the MPAA announced that it had settled its legal dispute with Hotfile for $80 million, which in reality came down to just $4 million.

Shortly after the settlement was announced a group of major book publishers followed in Hollywood’s footsteps.

Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, John Wiley and Sons, Elsevier and McGraw-Hill lodged a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, accusing Hotfile of vicarious copyright infringement.

“Hotfile built a business off of infringement. The book publishers’ rights were massively infringed by the site and its operators. They should not be allowed to simply pocket their profits and walk away from the harm they caused,” a representative of the book publishers told TF at the time.

The publishers held Hotfile liable for the many copyright-infringing works that were shared by its users, including ‘Office 2007 for Dummies’ and ‘C++ How to Program,’ As compensation for the damage that was suffered they demanded up to $7.5 million.

Hotfile later refuted that is was responsible for pirating users, and last December the Court scheduled a mediation conference hoping both parties would be able to resolve their issues.

This session was indeed effective as mediator Jeffrey Grubman informed the Court this week that both parties have agreed on a settlement.

“Mr. Anton Titov attended the mediation via ***pe on behalf of Defendants, along with Defendants’ counsel. At the conclusion of the mediation session, the parties agreed in principle to a complete resolution of the dispute subject to final written settlement documentation,” Grubman writes.

The details of the agreement are unlikely to become public. However, it’s likely that Hotfile agreed to pay a settlement fee as it did in the MPAA case.

The finer details still have to be fleshed out and District Court Judge Beth Bloom has decided to administratively close the case for now. If the planned settlement falls apart either party has the option to reopen it.

For Hotfile the settlement will mark the end of several controversial years where it went from being one of the top file-hosting sites more than 100 million page views per month, to a defunct service with no visitors at all.

An anti-piracy outfit working on behalf of porn studios has surprised 'pirate' students with demands for cash. The University of California passed on the $300 threats from CEG TEK alongside suggestions to pay up, but advice given by a campus computer science professor could put even more people at risk.

pirate-cardFor more than a decade copyright holders have been sending out warnings and threats to people they believe have downloaded and shared content without permission. In 2015 the practice is now at unprecedented levels.

While some might agree that targeting student pirates is fair game, it can cause issues. The RIAA got the ball rolling more than ten years ago but abandoned the practice amid public outcry – and after having new laws passed which compel educational establishments to deal with the issue or lose funding.

But while receiving a notice about an unauthorized music download is one thing, receiving a threat over porn downloads is something entirely different. Nevertheless, students are now receiving cash demands from anti-piracy companies acting on behalf of the adult industry which include the titles of the movies allegedly downloaded.

Two such cases have just been documented by the University of California in Santa Barbara. The University reports that the Associated Students Legal Resources Center received two cases inside a week after students were sent threats by anti-piracy outfit CEG TEK via the University’s Information Technology Office and Cox Communications.

The threats included demands for $300, which AS Legal Resource Center attorney Robin Unander told the University’s Daily Nexus were deterrent amounts and not designed to be compensation.

“Right now it seems that the intent from CEG Tek is to make aware to students to stop,” Unander said.

Sadly, Unander is seems unaware of CEG Tek’s business model. The outfit regularly demands much higher sums, up to several thousand dollars, and is very clear that payments are to be made to avoid legal action.

Unander also advises students who are caught by CEG TEK to comply with the cash demands but CEG TEK have no history of ever carrying a threat through to its conclusion. Indeed, the company has no idea who they are targeting since their threats are forwarded by ISPs to users and only they know the identity of the recipient.

But while the advice given above may be a little wide of the mark, comments made by UCSB computer science professor Giovanni Vigna are of greater concern. From the Daily Nexus:

Computer science professor Giovanni Vigna said he thinks the students who allegedly downloaded the porn illegally made their usage easy to track by using a website like BitTorrent.com, which makes it accessible for anyone, including anti-piracy firms, to see what they have downloaded

Of course, BitTorrent.com certainly isn’t offering porn downloads to anyone but it’s the subsequent advice that raises the biggest alarm. Things start off well, however.

“If people use well-known content distribution networks, those users can be easily tracked,” Vigna said.

Fair enough, but then Vigna suggests that if BitTorrent users only download and don’t continue to seed once the file is complete, they wouldn’t have received a threat.

“After [students have] downloaded, they make [the files] available to the rest of the world and they usually raise a sort of alarm. If they would have probably taken the porn and movies out of their disk right away, they probably wouldn’t have been targeted,” Vigna said.

The advice is poor. What many BitTorrent users don’t appreciate is that anti-piracy companies monitor torrents of their clients’ content all the time and they don’t care whether users have some or all of the file. Once people start participating in a swarm, whether that’s downloading, uploading or both (such is the nature of BitTorrent) they can and will be tracked by companies such as CEG TEK.

While it’s now clear that the University of California forwards CEG TEK cash demands to students, they’re not the only ones. According to the Cashman Law Firm, Rice University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Stanford University, University of Michigan, Wisconsin University and the University of Alaska all comply with the company’s requests.

Finally, other anti-piracy companies see an alternative solution to the problem of campus file-sharing. Yesterday digital fingerprinting company Audible Magic debuted a new version of its CopySense system.

CopySense can monitor campus networks for users attempting to download and share content on peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent. Using a built-in database of digital fingerprints of music and movies, CopySense is able to detect attempts by users to download or share infringing content. They are then directed to a landing page informing them of the University’s network policies.

“Sharing of non-copyrighted files on P2P networks is ignored, thus allowing the campus to embrace and allow P2P file sharing for non-infringing uses,” the company says.

While that will be some comfort to users, the fact that everything they do is being spied on by Audible Magic will probably not.

A federal court in Georgia has quashed a broad DMCA subpoena which required local Internet provider CBeyond to reveal the identities of alleged BitTorrent pirates. The magistrate judge ruled that ISPs don't have to hand over personal information as they are not storing any infringing material themselves.

pirate-runningHired by prominent clients such as Warner Bros. and BMG, Rightscorp began sending DMCA subpoenas to dozens of smaller local ISPs in the United States last year.

Unlike regular subpoenas these are not reviewed by a judge and only require a signature from the court clerk. This practice is questionable because these type of subpoenas are generally not applicable to file-sharing cases.

Despite these concerns dozens of ISPs have complied with the requests, identifying their customers, who would then have received settlement demands for their alleged wrongdoing.

CBeyond, owned by Birch Communication, is one of the few ISPs that decided not to hand over customer data without a fight. The ISP filed a motion to quash the subpoena arguing that Rightscorp is on a piracy fishing expedition, while misleading the court.

One of the main arguments was that the DMCA doesn’t allow copyright holders to identify file-sharers. These type of subpoenas would only apply to services that actually host infringing material.

The Court agreed with this assessment and has quashed the subpoena (pdf). As a result, the subscribers don’t have to be identified.

“CBeyond contends that the section does not apply to service providers that act only as a conduit for data transferred between other parties and that do not store data. The court agrees,” Magistrate Judge Janet King writes.

The Judge noted that the applicable subpoena power of the DMCA indeed only applies to services that store content. This excludes ISPs who only transmit customer data.

Rightscorp had argued that the subpoenas are necessary because otherwise copyright holders will not be able to stop and deter infringers. However, Judge King held that Congress should rewrite the law if this is the case, citing an earlier District Court ruling.

“It is the province of Congress, not the courts, to decide whether to rewrite the DMCA in order to make it fit a new and unforeseen internet architecture and accommodate fully the varied permutations of competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new technology.”

In addition to quashing the subpoena CBeyond also asked the court to sanction Rightscorp, but this request was denied.

While the order is good news for the affected subscribers, the case isn’t over yet. Rightscorp has filed objections to the order of the Magistrate Judge and wants it overturned.

For now, however, Rightscorp’s efforts to target smaller ISPs with DMCA subpoenas has been stopped in its tracks. The company filed its latest subpoena several months ago and is unlikely to file more before the pending cases are resolved.