Posts by Prophet

Reddit has published its first transparency report, providing an insight into backroom events at the news and social networking giant. On the copyright front the site details the takedown requests that it receives and notes that almost two-thirds are rejected as unlawful or overbroad.

reddit-alienReddit is without doubt one of the most popular sites on the Internet. The community-driven behemoth is the world’s 28th most popular site according to Alexa, rising to 9th most trafficked in the United States.

Founded in 2005, the vocal SOPA opponent‘s last set of published stats (Oct 2014) paint an awesome picture: 174 million unique visitors from 186 countries viewed some 6.1 billion pages.

Aside from posting the latest breaking news, AMAs, plus a million items in between, it will come as no surprise that in 2014 some of Reddit’s users also infringed copyright. Details of subsequent complaints have previously remained private but thanks to the publication of Reddit’s very first transparency report, we now have more of an insight.

While the company has some fascinating thoughts on copyright (which we’ll come to in a moment) it’s notable how few takedown requests Reddit receives.

red-takedownsIn 2014 the site received just 218 requests to remove content, 81% of which were DMCA-style copyright notices.

Interestingly and unlike those who send the notices, Reddit reveals that “real humans” examine each and every request received. It’s clear that in many cases they don’t like what they see.

From 176 DMCA complaints received, Reddit removed content in just 76 instances, 38% compliance overall. For a variety of reasons, in 62% of cases Reddit rejected notices completely.

Overbroad

As previously reported here on TF, on many occasions copyright holders have approached Google in an attempt to have entire Reddit communities removed from its indexes. The search engine mostly rejects those requests and Reddit isn’t impressed by them either.

“We received many copyright takedown requests for entire subreddits. We (and the DMCA) require specific identification of allegedly infringing content, not broad demands to delete entire reddit communities,” the company reveals.

Links don’t infringe copyright

Reddit doesn’t host any content of its own but instead users can post links to material hosted elsewhere, which they do in their millions every day. However, when those links point to infringing content such as movies, music or TV shows, copyright holders tend to see that as facilitation of infringement. Nevertheless, Reddit has its own opinions on what breaches the law.

“A significant percentage of the copyright takedown requests we received were for user-submitted URLs that link to content hosted on other websites. Because links do not generally infringe copyright, we exercise extra scrutiny in assessing takedowns for links,” the company says.

Of course, Google might argue the same point but instead it removes millions of links to content every single week.

Notices fail to meet legal requirements

Under the DMCA a copyright holder can request content to be removed from a third-party website via the sending of a properly formatted DMCA notice. Such notices must include:

– A physical or electronic signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder
– Clear identification of the original infringed work
– Clear identification of the allegedly infringing content

According to Reddit, many notice senders fail to make the grade.

“We rejected many copyright takedown requests because they did not include the information required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA),” the company reports.

Conclusion

Overall and despite its millions of users, it appears that Reddit does not have a significant copyright infringement problem, despite the fact that several sub-reddits are dedicated to linking to infringing content. For now most copyright holders are ignoring the site, while others prefer to complain to Google instead.

Quote from digi247

I have not personally seen them working but from rumours and screenshots that have been flying around these channels are now back open, But it looks to be from Commercial Payservers who else!

Interesting that, thanks for the reply, i have read the channels are opening for them on 4.8e/5.0e but not on 0.8w

Fingers crossed whatever process has been used for the circumvention will be leaked for hobbyists to enjoy also

New revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden have revealed that Canada's main electronic surveillance agency spied on millions of file-sharing downloads from some of the world's most popular sites. More than 100 sites including Dotcom's Megaupload were routinely monitored in a search for extremists.

spyBeing monitored online is a reality largely acknowledged by millions of file-sharers worldwide. Countless rightsholders, anti-piracy outfits, analytics companies and other interested parties crawl BitTorrent and other P2P networks every day, spying on downloads and gathering data.

While the public nature of these networks is perfect for those looking to eavesdrop, individuals who use file-hosting sites are often under the impression that their transfers cannot be monitored by third parties since transactions take place privately from user to site via HTTP.

That assumption has today been blown completely out of the water amid revelations that Canada’s top electronic surveillance agency has been spying on millions of downloads from more than 100 file-sharing sites.

Led by the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s equivalent of the NSA, and codenamed LEVITATION, the project unveils widespread Internet surveillance carried out by Canadian authorities.

A document obtained by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden and released to CBC News shows that in an effort to track down extremists the spy agency monitors up to 15 million downloads carried out by users around the world every day.

According to the 2012 document, 102 file-sharing platforms were monitored by CSE. Just three were named – RapidShare, SendSpace, and the now defunct Megaupload. None of the sites were required to cooperate with the Canadian government since CSE had its own special capabilities.

“A separate secret CSE operation codenamed ATOMIC BANJO obtains the data directly from internet cables that it has tapped into, and the agency then sifts out the unique IP address of each computer that downloaded files from the targeted websites,” The Intercept‘s analysis of the document notes.

Once harvested those IP addresses are cross-referenced with vast amounts of additional data already intercepted by the United States’ NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ. Subsequent searches have the ability to show a list of other websites visited by those downloading from file-hosting sites.

Further associations can then be made with Facebook or Google accounts (via Google analytics cookies) which have the potential to link to names, addresses and other personal details. It’s a potent mix but one apparently designed to weed out just a small number of files from millions of daily events.

According to the LEVITATION documents the system has the ability to track downloads in countries across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and North America.

Under law, CSE isn’t allowed to spy on Canadians, but IP addresses belonging to a web server in Montreal appeared in a list of “suspicious” downloads. Also monitored by CSE were downloads carried out by citizens located in closely allied countries including the U.S., UK, Germany and Spain.

“CSE is clearly mandated to collect foreign signals intelligence to protect Canada and Canadians from a variety of threats to our national security, including terrorism,” CSE spokesman Andrew McLaughlin told CBC.

While it may be of comfort for Canadians to learn that the government is only interested in a small number of files being exchanged outside the country’s borders, mass surveillance of this kind always has the potential to unnerve when mission-creep raises its head.

Again, sorry to bump such an old thread, but does anyone know if a solution was found for these 3 channels ?

According to insiders The Pirate Bay will slim down its operations for the planned comeback. The new version of the site is expected to operate without former admins and moderators, who have responded furiously to the decision. Many key staffers have left the ship to launch their own TPB.

pirate bayJudging from all the teasers on the Pirate Bay homepage the notorious torrent site is preparing to relaunch this weekend.

Those in control of the domain have yet to make an official announcement but several sources inform TF that the site won’t make a full comeback.

Instead, The Pirate Bay is expected to launch a trimmed down version without room for the dozens of moderators and admins who looked after the site over the past decade.

This lighter version of The Pirate Bay will be easier to operate but the plan has also upset many former staffers. This includes people who have been with the site for over a decade, removing fake torrents and other types of spam.

Several admins and moderators have responded to the news with anger and are now openly distancing themselves from the thepiratebay.se site that was their home for years.

“I wish I had better news to come with. The launch that is about to take place on February 1 is not us,” says WTC-SWE, one of the lead admins of The Pirate Bay.

“It was until some dickhead decided to take TPB crew out of the picture. He thinks a site can be run without any staff at all and at the same time keeping up with fakes, internal issues etc,” he adds.

What stings them the most is that many dedicated individuals, who put countless hours into keeping the site functioning, now appear to be being pushed aside on a whim.

“Personally I won’t accept this neither will any of the crew that’s been active for almost 10-11 years. As an admin and human, I won’t stand aside and accept this kind of behavior. This is the worst scenario that could happen,” WTC-SWE says.

“You don’t treat people like horse****,” he adds.

The staff, now in open revolt, have closed the official #thepiratebay IRC channel on EFnet to the public. They won’t offer support anymore for a site that they have no ‘control’ over, but warn people who do want to visit it to be cautious of malware.

Instead, the TPB former crew members are now preparing to launch their own version of the site. This spin-off will be operated from a new domain and will have several long-time mods and admins on board.

WTC-SWE says that they are in possession of a TPB backup which will be used to revive the old site in full. The full staff of moderators and admins remains under his wings and will start over at a home.

“It’s only a matter of time. I will need to blast the whole coding and clean up all the mess. The real TPB will be back with proper staff and all,” WTC-SWE says.

Thus far, the people running the official thepiratebay.se domain have remained quiet. In a few days, when the count-down completes, we are likely to know more about their vision for the site’s future.

After Spanish users increasingly reported being barred from the site, yesterday ISP Vodafone denied it had taken any action against The Pirate Bay. Today, however, the company admits that it is blocking the site after being ordered to do so by the Spanish government.

pirate bayAfter years of developing a reputation as a piracy safe-haven, in recent times Spain has found itself under intense pressure to clamp down on copyright infringement.

After a serious of tweaks and adjustments to local copyright law, January 1st the country introduced tough new legislation backed up by hefty punishments for site operators.

Potential €600,000 fines were enough to scare some sites offline. Others, such as Pablo Soto’s Torrents.fm, disappeared without comment. While the climate in Spain is clearly a different one in 2015, there are now fresh signs of a new crackdown.

Spanish users of local ISP Vodafone have been reporting that their visits to The Pirate Bay are being redirected to a new URL – Castor.vodafone.es. Domain stats reveal that ThePirateBay.se and ThePirateBay.org are indeed two of the top referrers to that URL and that 100% of its traffic comes from Spain.

When Vodafone users began accusing their ISP of blocking The Pirate Bay without a court order, local media approached Vodafone for comment. In a statement yesterday the ISP said it had no knowledge of any blockade. This morning, however, Vodafone changed its mind.

The company now confirms it has received a blocking order from the Spanish government. Vodafone says that it has an obligation to comply with an order “issued by a competent authority”, in this case, the Ministry of Culture.

“In the current Copyright Act, there is a list of authorities who can order the blocking of a website to comply with legislation. That’s what we did,” a source at the company said.

Speaking with Gizmodo in Spain, Vodafone could not confirm the exact date when it began blocking the site but said it complied with the official request around Christmas. That would certainly fall into line with early problems experienced by some users.

It is currently unclear whether other ISPs in Spain have received the same instructions from the Ministry of Culture since ThePirateBay.se remains accessible via all ISPs except Vodafone.

Other major ISPs including Movistar and Orange say they cannot currently confirm if they have received similar blocking instructions from the government.

Today The Pirate Bay remains non-functional as a torrent site but its landing page, currently adorned with a phoenix, suggests a return to glory this coming weekend. If it does, Vodafone users will need a workaround.

In less than a month OldPirateBay.org has grown out to become one of the most popular torrent sites on the Internet. The site has become the default Pirate Bay replacement for many, and the operators hope to keep it that way with a $100,000 cash injection for developers, moderators and uploaders.

oldtpbJust a few days after The Pirate Bay raid the people behind Isohunt.to decided to come up with a temporary replacement, Oldpiratebay.org.

While the site’s operators are not affiliated with the original site, they wanted to offer a hideout for wandering TPB users. This hasn’t been without success as the site is now pulling in millions of visitors per day.

Despite its popularity the OldPirateBay still lacks many of the features The Pirate Bay had. There is currently no upload feature for example, nor is there a moderator crew to keep the site clean.

The Isohunt.to team previously called on the community to improve the project. This has already led to several improvements through the OpenBay’s GitHub repository and with a big cash injection they hope to facilitate the development.

“In order to boost that process we are announcing an unprecedented move,” Isohunt.to announces today.

“$100,000 for developing OldPirateBay.org, are you ready for that?! Anyone can take part in the website development and moderation which will result in public recognition. Also addition to your pay check would be a nice surprise,” they add.

The money will be shared through a contest. Starting next month $10,000 in cash prizes, paid in Bitcoin, will be awarded to the developers who contribute to the top features.

From March 1, OldPirateBay will have upload and moderation capabilities. This will include a ranking system where the top contributors and moderators can divide $5,000 in Bitcoin per group each month.

“The idea behind this message is to empower the community to create OldPirateBay.org as they see it. And we’re ready to reward the most active participants along the way,” the Isohunt.to team notes.

While the site was started as a temporary replacement it will remain online if the Pirate Bay does indeed return next week. This creates an interesting situation as OldPirateBay already outranks the original site in Google’s search engine.

The people behind OldPirateBay believe that the community should decide the long-term fate of the site. If there’s enough interest to keep the site growing then they are willing to stimulate this process.

“The main idea is that community should develop the site in the way they want. So if there will be enough initiative the site will be developed by people. We just want to stimulate it,” Isohunt.to concludes.

A full description of the contest details will be available on the OldPirateBay website in the near future.

A complaint filed by 21st Century Fox's *** TV has ended in Italy's most aggressive site-blocking action yet. Coordinated by the Public Prosecutor of Rome, the operation has resulted in more than 120 international 'pirate' streaming websites being blacked out by local ISPs

guardiaAlongside the United Kingdom, Italy is the most aggressive country in the world when it comes to blocking websites on copyright infringement grounds.

Over the past several years dozens of domains have been censored locally and a new operation has upped that tally significantly following a complaint from a major broadcaster.

*** Italia is a digital satellite television platform owned by *** Plc, the TV company founded by Rupert Murdoch. 21st Century Fox owns a controlling 39% of the shares in *** Plc and with a turnover of more than £7.6 billion ($11.41 billion) it’s one of the largest media companies in the world.

To protect its bottom line, in 2014 *** Italia filed a complaint with authorities against more than 120 websites said to broadcast sporting events, concerts, music, plus film and television works without rightsholders’ permission.

A subsequent investigation was coordinated by the Public Prosecutor of Rome and entrusted to deputy prosecutors Nello Rossi and Eugenio Albamontes. Assistance was provided by the Special Unit for Broadcasting and Publishing (Nucleo Speciale Radiodiffusione Editoria).

Authorities say that pirate content was offered by the sites in a number of ways but streaming in particular, both of live events and via on-demand. Many provided helpful schedules to assist users with planning.

With all sites operating outside Italian territory, local authorities decided to take action to render them inaccessible in the country. A sweep was ordered by magistrate Gaspare Sturzo and this morning 124 websites are reported blocked via local Internet service providers.

The names of most sites hit in ‘Operation Match Off’ have not been released but authorities have pointed out that ‘sportlemon.tv’ was registered in the name of Gottfrid Svartholm. It seems unlikely that the Pirate Bay founder had any operational connections to the site but the domain was registered by PRQ, his former company in Sweden.

In common with previous cases, advertising is being blamed for the revenue generated by these unauthorized sites. The Guardia di Finanza (GdF), the law enforcement agency responsible for dealing with financial crime and whose Special Command Unit carried out the operation, said site users were met with aggressive ads and click-fraud techniques.

Italy has been working hard to counter the rise of advertising on pirate sites. Last summer a Memorandum of Understanding between the online advertising industry (including Google) and the music and movie industries signaled the creation of a central body to tackle the piracy issue.

But despite the agreement it was found that “known brands” were still advertising on the now-blocked sites. As a result authorities are now conducting an investigation into the agencies that placed the ads for companies in the financial, real estate, betting, retail and communications sector.

Enzo Mazza, chief of FIMI, Italy’s answer to the RIAA, said the action against the domains was welcome.

“The Fiscal Police from Rome carried out a very sophisticated operation including the economic angle of the case. This is the largest criminal action involving site blocking ever carried out,” Mazza told TorrentFreak.

“Some sites were also offering music concerts in addition to soccer and sport. We congratulate the special unit of the Fiscal Police and the public prosecutor from Rome for the operation.”

History appears to be repeating itself as The Pirate Bay homepage is displaying a Phoenix once again, suggesting that the site will soon rise from its ashes. If the signs are true, TPB may be up and running next weekend.

phoenix1During the Spring of 2006, less than three years after The Pirate Bay was founded, 65 Swedish police officers entered a datacenter in Stockholm.

The policemen had instructions to shut down the largest threat to the entertainment industry at the time – The Pirate Bay’s servers.

The raid was successful, but while various copyright holder groups claimed a major victory, the Pirate Bay team wasn’t sitting still.

Thanks to a backup made by Fredrik Neij at the last minute, The Pirate Bay returned online in three days. Seemingly unimpressed by the raid, TPB renamed itself to “The Police Bay” complete with a new logo shooting cannon balls at Hollywood.

A few days later this logo was replaced by a Phoenix, a reference to the site rising from its digital ashes.

Last December The Pirate Bay was raided for the second time. This time around there was no quick comeback, but a new update that was added to the site today suggests that it’s coming.

After nearly nine years the Phoenix is once again present on the site’s homepage, offering hope to estranged Pirate Bay users.

Although nothing has been confirmed officially, this is by far the most concrete hint that TPB is working hard on a comeback.

The counter that’s still running down suggests that TPB will return in full glory February 1st, so we should know more within a week. Tick tock, tick tock…

Brighton V Arsenal - FA CUP FTA HD Feed

23.5 east - 11505 - V - 15000 - HD FTA

Very kind gesture mate, good on you :14_002:

The Pirate Bay discontinued its tracker more than half a decade ago, but in recent weeks it returned from the dead to DDoS web-servers all over the world. In what appears to be a misconfiguration of the "Chinese Firewall," tracker.thepiratebay.org is pointed to the IP-addresses of servers that have nothing to do with torrents.

pirate bayOn November 2009 The Pirate Bay announced that it would shut down its tracker for good.

Trackers were outdated according to the site’s owners. Instead, they encouraged BitTorrent users to rely on DHT, PEX and other trackerless technologies.

Despite the fact that the tracker is no longer functional, many old and some new torrents still include the tracker.thepiratebay.org announce address.

While the tracker hasn’t responded to these calls for five years, for some server admins it has now risen from the dead.

Starting early January hundreds of websites have been plagued by traffic from China. While the exact reason remains unclear, it appears that the Great Firewall of China may be in part causing the problems.

Due to a reconfiguration the Pirate Bay domain is being linked to random IP-addresses. This problem applies to various censored sites, but the thousands of connections per second coming from tracker.thepiratebay.org stand out for most people.

It is no secret that BitTorrent users can easily DDoS websites if the tracker address points to the wrong IP, but we haven’t witnessed something of this magnitude before.

Below is a graph Craig Hockenberry posted of a DDoS on his server where the number of requests peaked at 52 Mbps per second, with torrent announces being the most common source.

The suspicion that Chinese efforts to censor the Internet have something to do with the problems seems plausible. Querying Chinese DNS servers returns many seemingly random IP-addresses that change all the time.

In other words, requests to the dead Pirate Bay trackers are sent to seemingly random servers, and none of these have anything to do with the notorious torrent site.

Johannes Ullrich, CTO of SANS Internet Storm Center, came to a similar conclusion and many of his readers reported problems of the same nature.

“We also get a lot of this type of traffic for the last 2 weeks. At moments it causes a total DoS for our webserver. Most of the traffic has thepiratebay as hostname in the http request, but we also see akamai, edgecdn and some more obscure and explicit sites passing in our logs,” Arjan says.

“I work in the banking sector in the UK. We started to see this traffic hit our web servers just before the new year and it has continued since, but thankfully not on a harmful scale. We’ve seen various sites in the host header, including thepiratebay, facebook, googlevideo – all of which appear to be restricted within China,” Anonymous adds.

And the list goes on and on.

Over the past several days reports have come from all over the place, all describing the same problem. Thus far, most server admins have decided to filter out Chinese traffic, which eases the load. But the underlying problem persists.

For now the true origin of the zombie DDoSes remains unknown, but hopefully those responsible will soon realize the crippling mistake they’ve made, and put Pirate Bay’s tracker back in the ground.

Man City v Middlesbrough - FA CUP FTA Feed

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Norwich V Brentford - FA CUP FTA Feed

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Closed - no payserver talk or supporters welcome here

Apple has obtained a patent for a technology that allows people to legally share music and videos with friends. Instead of downloading files from iTunes or another store, customers can get them from friends or family and obtain a license separately. According to Apple, their invention will save bandwidth costs while making piracy less attractive.

apple-p2pLittle over a decade ago Apple revolutionized the music industry with its iTunes store, allowing people to purchase digital copies of their favorite music.

With iTunes, Apple offered pirates a legal option, but the company still sees value in “sharing” music and other media with friends and family.

In fact, the company was just awarded a patent that makes it possible to license P2P sharing.

Titled “decoupling rights in a digital content unit from download” the patent describes a system where users can freely share music and videos with each other. Instead of getting the actual file from iTunes or other stores, users would only need to obtain a license.

Once licensed these files can be shared freely across one’s own devices, with friends, family or even complete strangers.

78a4d62da6d167faae.png

According to Apple such a system has several benefits. Among other things, reduced bandwidth and other overhead costs. This may result in a separate and cheaper price tier for those users who only have to license a media file.

“This reduction in operating expenses may facilitate a two-tier pricing structure. For example, the digital content store may charge a first price to users who download a digital content unit from the store and a second price to users who authorize a digital content unit without downloading the unit,” the patent reads.

This price reduction may then make it more interesting to share files legally, thereby reducing traditional forms of piracy.

“This may encourage users to trade or copy digital content units as well as authorize these copies. Such sharing may, in turn, reduce piracy or illegal copying..,” Apple argues.

3308c15ac1.png

While “legalized P2P sharing” may sound appealing, in theory it’s actually quite restrictive. The idea introduces a new layer of content protection which means that the files in question can only be played on “trusted client software.”

This means that transferring files between devices is only possible if these support Apple’s licensing scheme. That’s actually a step backwards from the DRM-free music that’s sold in most stores today.

It’s unclear whether Apple has any plans to use the P2P licensing technology in the wild. The original idea is a bit dated, but perhaps Apple can think of some less restrictive implementations of their newly obtained patent.

Since the raid in December not much information has been released by authorities in Sweden, but the size of the operation to shut down The Pirate Bay is now becoming evident. According to a source present at the time, police seized at least 50 servers and left no hardware unturned.

The first major raid on The Pirate Bay took place on May 31 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden. It was a dramatic affair, with dozens of police involved, hardware seized and individuals arrested.

But while authorities previously shut down the ‘Bay in a blaze of glory while pressing the maximum publicity button (most probably to send a signal to the United States), this time around things were markedly different. Announcements, when they arrived, were much more considered – vague even.

“There has been a crackdown on a server room in Greater Stockholm. This is in connection with violations of copyright law,” read a statement from Paul Pintér, police national coordinator for IP enforcement.

It seems likely that the more modest tone was the product of 12 years of virtual humiliation at the hands of the world’s most arrogant torrent site. Big announcements of raids and permanent closures are hard to retract when a site returns in 72 hours as it did following the raids in 2006.

This time around the raid was confirmed as taking place in a datacenter located in Nacka outside Stockholm, but very few details have been made available since. However, according to new information, police left no stone unturned to ensure that The Pirate Bay was properly taken down.

A witness to the raid has now confirmed that more than 10 officers turned up at the datacenter which, rather dramatically, is itself embedded into the side of a mountain just outside the capital.

Alongside regular law enforcement officials were a forensics team tasked with securing all available related digital evidence on site. Previously prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad said the investigation into the site would take months and now it’s becoming clear why that’s the case.

To ensure no piece of evidence was left behind, on December 9, 2014 the officers present seized around 50 servers under suspicion of being connected to The Pirate Bay. That’s somewhat more than the 21 virtual servers the site previously claimed to operate.

According to a source familiar with events last month, police not only took away servers that had been live at the time of the raid, but they also gained access to the datacenter’s storage rooms. From there officers seized old equipment, just in case any of it had been used to operate The Pirate Bay.

While shutting down the site was the main goal of the police, evidence is now being sifted through as part of a criminal investigation. Earlier this month prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad confirmed that the process would like take months to complete.

With that underway, speculation continues as to whether The Pirate Bay will ever return. Various hints and suggestions have been appearing on the site’s temporary homepage but as yet not a single torrent or magnet link has been indexed.

Nevertheless, the site remains massively popular. Understandably ThePirateBay.se took a massive hit in traffic when it stopped offering content in December but against all the odds the site is still attracting millions of visitors. According to Alexa, the site is still the 159th most-trafficked in the world.

Finally, as reported earlier this week, the site’s homepage was recently hosted in Moldova but protected by Cloudflare. While the anti-DDoS service is still in place, the site does not appear to be operational from its earlier IP address.

On the move already? Only eight days to find out…….

21 January 2015 Last updated at 18:13

Microsoft has announced that its next operating system will be offered as a free upgrade to owners of devices running Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Phone.

The announcement marks a change in strategy to its previous policy of charging for major updates.

The offer, which is limited to the OS's first year of release, may aid its adoption.

That could help avoid a repeat of the relatively slow uptake of Windows 8.

The event is taking place at the firm's Redmond headquarters.

One analyst suggested the firm needed to change its policy to encourage interest in its ecosystem.

"Overall we know that about only about 10% of computers are running Windows 8 and the adoption rate among companies is similar or lower," said Frank Gillett, an analyst at the Forrester consultancy.

"Developers are not paying much attention to Windows for mass market consumer apps, and you could even argue that for enterprise software most of the energy is going into mobile apps for iPad and Android tablets.

"Windows 10 is in effect a huge invitation to software developers to write exciting, powerful applications that will draw consumers.

"My hunch is that they can succeed in getting a new generation of PC and tablet applications, the challenge is getting people interested in its phones."
Cortana on PCs

Windows 10 brings the same operating system to devices of all sizes, rather than having different ones for PCs/tablets, mobile phones and the firm's Xbox games console.

One of the features highlighted at the presentation was how Cortana - the voice-controlled digital assistant previously limited to Windows Phone handsets - would now work on PCs.

Joe Belfiore demonstrated Cortana, which Microsoft announced it has added to the PC

Microsoft executive Joe Belfiore demonstrated how the software could be told to:

bring up Powerpoint presentation documents
locate photos taken during a specific month
dictate and send emails
tell the user whether or not the weather forecast indicated they should wear a coat later
show where their car was parked

In addition, Mr Belfiore showed how the software could also be used to respond to requests that had been typed rather than spoken into a PC.

Windows 8 had been criticised by some for placing so much focus on touch-centric commands rather than the mouse and keyboard.

But Mr Gillett said he thought the addition of Cortana's voice controls could prove more popular.

"Voice is a going to complement other ways of interacting with the computer not be a substitute," he said.

"If you had to say every command instead of touching or clicking, then that would be annoying.

"But if you can quickly say to Cortana, for example, schedule lunch with my mum next Tuesday, then that is powerful."
Browsing with Spartan

Mr Belfiore also highlighted one of the core benefits of Windows 10: a single app will run on multiple types of device, with the user interface reformatting itself to suit the machine it is running on, rather than having a different program for phones, tablets and PCs.

He showed how this meant more advanced versions of the firm's popular Office programs Excel, Powerpoint and Word could be brought to handsets running Windows 10 than were possible under Windows Phone 8. He also demonstrated a new "universal" Photos app that collates and sorts pictures taken with different devices.

Mr Belfiore also confirmed reports that the firm's web browser, Internet Explorer, was being replaced by a new program codenamed Project Spartan.

This will have Cortana built-in to allow voice commands and provide extra personalised information - such as directions to a restaurant whose website is being looked at.

The software also includes a new "noting mode", which will let users scribble or type over a page and then share it with others.

After signing an anti-piracy deal with Xunlei last year the MPAA is already suing the Chinese file-sharing giant. What went wrong is unclear but documents obtained by TorrentFreak reveal the toughest and most shocking set of anti-piracy demands to be found anywhere on the planet.

mpaa-logoAs one of China’s top 10 Internet companies, Xunlei is a massive operation. In the first three months of 2014 the company enjoyed 300 million monthly unique visitors.

Among other file-sharing ventures, Xunlei operates ‘Thunder’, the world’s most popular torrent client. This and other issues have placed the company firmly on the radar of the MPAA.

The movie group first took legal action against the China-based outfit in 2008 but by 2014 relations began to warm with Xunlei pursuing an IPO in the United States. In May last year there was a breakthrough, with the former rivals signing a Content Protection Agreement (CPA) requiring Xunlei to protect MPAA studio content including movies and TV shows.

In October 2014, however, the MPAA reported Xunlei to the U.S. government, complaining that piracy was rampant on the service. Something had clearly gone wrong, an assertion that was only underlined this morning with a report that the MPAA has now sued Xunlei.

“For too long we have witnessed valuable creative content being taken and monetized without the permission of the copyright owner. That has to stop and stop now,” said Mike Ellis, the MPAA’s Asia-Pacific chief.

While it’s clear that the MPAA are disappointed with Xunlei’s efforts, it’s certainly possible that the company found it impossible to fulfill its agreement with the MPAA. Documents obtained by TorrentFreak dated May 2014 (days before the deal was signed) detailing a draft agreement which Xunlei “stated unequivocally in writing that it will accept” reveal the toughest set of anti-piracy demands ever seen.

Content filtering

The CPA reveals that Xunlei agreed to deploy Vobile‘s fingerprinting system across all of its services (including file-sharing clients) to ensure that no unfiltered content would ever be uploaded or downloaded. Filters were to have been deployed within 120 days of signing the agreement and would have to be implemented on both past and future projects.

Repeat infringers

The CPA requires Xunlei to terminate those who not only infringe but also those who attempt to infringe copyright. For all U.S.-based users of Xunlei the company agreed to implement a three-strike policy, with Chinese user strike numbers to be determined later.

“This is a very strict repeat infringer policy — as strict as exists anywhere in key respects — in that both uploads and downloads count and in that infringement is determined by the filter (not just based on
notices received),” the MPAA document reads.

“[The] filter will identify each and every instance of a user attempting to infringe a studio work, by uploading or downloading. Thus, the repeat infringer numbers likely will be off the charts in our favor when we have those later negotiations. Xunlei is also obligated to preserve data on identified infringers, and we can request this data in our due diligence reviews.”

Site blocking

The CPA also grants the MPAA the power to determine who Xunlei can deal with online.

“[The MPAA] will be able to identify to Xunlei what we believe to be ‘pirate sites’ and Xunlei will block those domains from all aspects of its system (e.g., no using those domains for accelerated downloads and no accepting communications/links from those domains),” the MPAA writes.

Licensing – content is banned unless the MPAA says otherwise

As a content provider Xunlei has licensing deals with many companies to provide legitimate content. However, the CPA with the MPAA restricts the company’s ability to make its own decisions without reference.

“The definition of Unauthorized Content…excludes content for which Xunlei has a license directly or for which the studios have granted a license to a site or users that would extend to and authorize the use contemplated by Xunlei. However, this is not left to Xunlei to determine,” the MPAA notes.

“All content is deemed Unauthorized unless Xunlei obtains express written confirmation from the appropriate studio that a relevant license has been granted,” with the CPA “putting the burden on [Xunlei] to get written confirmations and effectively to create a white list.”

Access to source code

“[The MPAA] will have rights of due diligence, which will allow us access to source code and technical data/documents, to assess Xunlei’s compliance,” the MPAA adds.

When it all goes wrong

The Content Protection Agreement includes clauses for the MPAA not to sue Xunlei for copyright infringement as long as it keeps to its side of the deal. However, it appears the MPAA wanted to avoid legal action if at all possible.

“[In] the event that we are still seeing significant infringement even with Xunlei honoring its filtering obligations, then either [Xunlei] violated its representation (which by agreement is deemed a material breach) or the ongoing cooperation provisions kick in – and if [Xunlei] does not comply with them, we can sue,” the MPAA notes.

“Given the limited relief available in an action in China and the uncertainty of suit in the US, we strongly recommend that we accept the contingent covenant not to sue in the draft CPA.”

There are currently no reports of the MPAA’s legal action in Chinese media but it will be interesting to see the reaction in the days to come.

Hoping to put a dent in ever-growing piracy rates, the MPAA will try to convince domain names registries to stop doing business with pirate sites. In addition, Hollywood's anti-piracy group plans civil action to force registries to seize domain names of illicit torrent and streaming sites.

pirate-runningLast December a leaked document from the MPAA exposed Hollywood’s global anti-piracy priorities for the coming years.

The leak listed the mysterious term “Fujian” as one of the top priorities, without explaining what the name of a Chinese province has to do with online piracy.

Additional documents seen by TF shed more light on the issue. It turns out that the MPAA is slowly but steadily testing a novel legal procedure through which it hopes to seize the domain names of top pirate sites.

Fujian actually refers to the company “Fujian Sharing Import & Export Ltd,” which was sued several years ago for selling counterfeit Polo Ralph Lauren and The North Face clothing.

The counterfeiters used thousands of websites to sell their knockoffs using just as many domain names. If one was taken down, Fujian would simply replace it by a new one selling the same counterfeit gear.

To stop this game of Whack-A-Mole a federal court in New York ordered various intermediaries, including domain name registries, to stop working with the company and hand over the domain names to the clothing manufacturers. If they failed to comply, the registries themselves would be held liable.

In recent years both The North Face and Polo Ralph Lauren frequently updated the list of counterfeit domain names and had them seized by their registries and deleted from search engines.

The movie studios are now planning to use the same strategy against pirate sites. Besides asking reputable domain name registries to take voluntary action, they also plan to use the “Fujian” model in court.

In a detailed overview of its strategies the MPAA says that it wants to “persuade or compel domain name registries that control the reputable gTLDs (e.g., .com, .org) to terminate domain services for demonstrated pirate sites.”

“Efforts principally include civil litigation (Fujian strategy) and outreach to registries seeking to ensure they do not provide domain services to pirate sites,” they add.

Thus far they have had some success in the U.S. in a lawsuit against a ring of counterfeit DVD sites. However, the tactic has yet to be tried against sites that offer streaming services, torrents or links to pirated material.

Behind closed doors the MPAA admits that targeting domain names will be less effective than site blocking, which is also on the agenda, as sites can move to so-called “rogue” registries. But it is still expected to have a decent impact.

“Nevertheless, domain name termination can be very effective in disrupting pirate sites and the user experience in visiting them. At least temporarily, thesite is made inaccessible,” MPAA notes.

“Even sites that come back online can be expected to see reduced traffic, with a corresponding impact on profitability and sustainability,” they add.

And there’s more to worry about. Looking at one of the most recent (24th!) supplemental order in the Fujian case we see that the court grants rightsholders powers that go much further than targeting domain names alone.

The order also requires search engines to delist the infringing URLs, banks to seize the site’s assets, and forbids ISPs, back-end service providers and web designers to do business with the domain name owners.

Whether the MPAA will be successful with their efforts has yet to be seen but persistent pirates may want to learn the IP-addresses of their favorite sites by heart, just in case.