Posts by Prophet

December 24, 2014

Former Pirate Bay operator Fredrik Neij is currently jailed in Sweden after being captured in Thailand last month. However, according to leaked emails, the MPAA believes that the Swede could also face hacking related charges - and it doesn't stop there.

One by one the key players behind The Pirate Bay have been captured by police and forced to complete jail sentences previously determined by Swedish authorities.

The most recently detained was Fredrik Neij, a key player in the operations of The Pirate Bay right from the very early days of the site.

After realizing that his fate in Sweden involved a 10 month jail sentence, Neij fled to Laos in Asia where he lived until recently with this young family. He traveled from Laos into bordering Thailand on many occasions but last month his luck ran out.

On November 4, immigration police announced that Neij had been detained while crossing the border into Nong Khai, a city in North-East Thailand. What followed was a very public press conference in which a bewildered looking Neij was paraded before the media while flanked by several officers.

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But while the rest of the world had to wait until November 4 to hear the news, leaked emails obtained by TorrentFreak show that the Hollywood studios knew about things well in advance.

In an email dated the day before Neij’s arrest was made public, the MPAA advised chiefs at Disney, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros, NBC Universal and FOX of the Swede’s arrest. But things went deeper than that.

Already there had been rumors in Thai media that “U.S. movie companies” had hired a lawfirm to track down Neij and that a house on the island of Phuket plus a bank account containing five million baht ($153,000) had been discovered. Emails seen by TF confirm the MPAA’s involvement, but also that they didn’t want that noticed in public.

“Jan Van Voorn [MPA’s Regional Director for Content Protection] and Neil Gane [former policeman, former AFACT boss, now MPA APIC chief in Asia] are in contact with both Swedish and Thai authorities providing additional assistance,” the email reveals.

“Thai Immigration is planning a press conference for tomorrow, November 4. We have alerted our Communications Section, and do not plan to comment to the media.”

Another email confirmed the MPA’s intention to lie low, but that it might already be too late to hide any involvement.

“Huge win! Don’t know if hackers will retaliate,” an email from a studio begins. “MPA is laying low and quiet, but the pirate blogs are attributing the pursuit to movie studios.”

While a brash affair, the press conference itself revealed few details of Neij’s actual arrest other than the time, place, and what he was wearing. However, the correspondence the MPAA had with the studios reveals they knew quite a bit more.

Holding a long-standing belief that Neij was somehow still associated with the running of The Pirate Bay, in 2011 the studios obtained a beefed-up injunction which banned the Swede from being involved with the site.

Not only has their mindset remained the same for three years, but the studios also believe that Neij could be on the hook for other offenses too.

“Neij is facing a 10 month prison sentence in Sweden for his conviction in the Pirate Bay case. Neij may also face new charges for his continuing role in the operation of TPB and two additional charges for computer hacking,” the emails read.

No additional details on any hacking charges were provided or have been released since, but the MPAA are hopeful that items taken from Neij when he was arrested will provide the clues.

“Two laptop computers were seized from Neij at the time of his arrest, and may provide additional evidence against Neij and others in the ongoing TPB investigation in Sweden,” the MPAA writes.

While an investigation into The Pirate Bay is now obvious following the raid two weeks ago, another MPAA email confirms that a criminal referral was also made against “TPB co-founder Frederik Neij and his ISP DCP Networks.”

Fredrik Neij is currently serving his 10 month Pirate Bay related sentence in a Swedish jail but his arrival there from Thailand was never announced publicly. He is the third key Pirate Bay operational figure to be jailed.

Gottfrid Svartholm was the first to be detained after authorities in Cambodia handed him over to Swedish police in 2012. Gottfrid completed his sentence but is currently detained in Denmark following an unrelated hacking case.

Peter Sunde was captured by a special police unit on a farm in Sweden during the summer of 2014. Sunde served his sentence and is now a free man, probably traveling around Europe.

With the imprisonment of Fredrik Neij the MPAA now have the full set, an achievement they were happy to pat themselves on the back for.

“Another excellent example of global cooperation and coordination between our content protection hubs,” a November email concludes.

Last December the MPAA announced one of its biggest victories to date. The Hollywood group won its case against file-hosting site Hotfile, who agreed to a $80 million settlement. However, this figure mostly served to impress and scare the pubic, as we can now reveal that Hotfile agreed to pay 'only' $4 million.

It’s been nearly a year since Hotfile was defeated by the MPAA, resulting in a hefty $80 million dollar settlement.

While the public agreement left room for the file-hosting service to continue its operations by implementing a filtering mechanism, the company quickly shut down after the settlement was announced.

As it now turns out, this was the plan all long. And not just that, the $80 million figure that was touted by the MPAA doesn’t come close to the real settlement Hotfile agreed to pay.

Buried in one of the Sony leaks is an email conversation which confirms that the real settlement payment from Hotfile was just $4 million, just a fraction of the amount widely publicized in the press.

“The studios and Hotfile have reached agreement on settlement, a week before trial was to start. Hotfile has agreed to pay us $4 million, and has entered into a stipulation to have an $80 million judgment entered and the website shut down,” the email from Sony’s SVP Legal reads.

Considering the time and effort that went into the case, it would be no surprise if the movie studios actually lost money on the lawsuit.

The good news for the MPAA is that the money was paid in full. There were some doubts if Hotfile would indeed pay up, but during the first weeks of December last year the $4 million was sent in three separate payments.

The huge difference between the public settlement figure and the amount that was negotiated also puts previous cases in a different light. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the $110 million settlement with isoHunt and the $110 deal with TorrentSpy were just paper tigers too.

Whether or not the Hotfile case resulted in a net loss is probably not that important to the MPAA though. Hollywood mostly hopes that the staggering numbers will serve as a deterrent, preventing others from operating similar sites.

Quick Update on this ::

Sony Pictures: 'The Interview' will be in theaters on Christmas Day

Sony Pictures has released a statement confirming a "limited theatrical release" on Thursday, but so far has not provided a list of where the movie will be shown, or if any video on-demand release is a part of the plan. According to Lynton the studio never gave up on releasing the movie, and "we are continuing our efforts to secure more platforms and more theaters so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience." Now we're faced with the toughest question of all: Did we actually want to see this movie?

Sony Pictures:

SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES LIMITED THEATRICAL RELEASE OF THE INTERVIEW ON CHRISTMAS DAY

[Hollywood - December 23, 2014] Sony Pictures Entertainment today announced that The Interview will have a limited theatrical release in the United States on Christmas Day.

"We have never given up on releasing The Interview and we're excited our movie will be in a number of theaters on Christmas Day," said Michael Lynton, Chairman and CEO of Sony Entertainment. "At the same time, we are continuing our efforts to secure more platforms and more theaters so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience."

"I want to thank our talent on The Interview and our employees, who have worked tirelessly through the many challenges we have all faced over the last month. While we hope this is only the first step of the film's release, we are proud to make it available to the public and to have stood up to those who attempted to suppress free speech.

A group of 12-year-old girls had the police called on them after they decided to bring their iPhones and iPads to a showing of The Hunger Games at a local cinema. The police officers who rushed to the scene were unable to find any recorded footage, but by then the children were too distressed to watch the rest of the film.

The movie industry sees the illegal recording of movies as one of the biggest piracy threats and for years has gone to extremes to stop it.

It started well over a decade ago when visitors began sneaking handheld camcorders into theaters. These big clunkers were easy to spot, but as time passed the recording devices became smaller and easier to hide.

While recording a movie for strictly personal use is not illegal in UK cinemas (despite industry efforts to have the law changed), theaters continue to outlaw the use of recording devices. Most recently, Google Glass was banned, and phones and tablets need to be switched off as well.

In a code of conduct the movie industry and cinemas have agreed that employees will take immediate action when they spot someone with a recording device, but some cinema staff take these obligations way too far.

At a Cineworld cinema in Brighton Marina, UK, employees dialed the national 999 emergency number after they spotted a group of 12-year-old girls with iPhones and iPads at a showing of The Hunger Games.

The girls, accused of recording parts of the movie, were hauled outside where two police cars rushed towards the scene with flashing lights.

Although recording movies is not a crime in the UK (as long as there’s no intent to distribute), the officers still carefully inspected the devices for ‘bootleg’ material. After their search turned up nothing the girls were allowed back in. However, the teens decided to wait outside, reportedly in tears, until their parents came to pick them up.

Louise Lawrence, the mother of one of the girls, is outraged by the treatment. Not just the false piracy accusation, but also the fact that they were left out in the cold afterwards.

“Our girls were falsely accused, had the police called on them and then just left in tears. It’s outrageous. If they have done this to our children they will do it again,” she says.

A Cineworld spokesperson stresses that they apologized to the parents for the mistake, adding that it’s common procedure to take these actions.

“While we regret that the customers felt distressed, we are confident that the correct procedures were followed. If our staff see such behavior we expect them to notify the cinema management immediately and to call the police. However, we have taken on board the concerns expressed by the parents and we are reviewing how the policy is applied to younger customers,” she adds.

While movie theater staff could indeed call the police if they suspect that a commercial pirate is in their midst, a group of 12-year-old girls with iPhones hardly falls into the category.

And calling the national emergency number certainly seems to be taking things too far.

- - - Updated - - -

If that were my kids being treated that way i would be down there wanting more than a word with those workers, shocking way to treat kids ffs

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A high-profile police raid carried out on Kim Dotcom's New Zealand mansion has been declared legal by the country's Supreme Court. The Court acknowledged that the search warrants used against Dotcom were 'deficient' in detail, but this did not result in a miscarriage of justice.

Almost three years ago, New Zealand police carried out a spectacular and aggressive armed raid against individuals accused only of copyright infringement.

Acting on allegations from the United States government and its Hollywood partners, officers of STG, New Zealand’s elite counter-terrorist force, raided Kim Dotcom’s mansion. The German-born businessman was detained along with his wife Mona and their children.

Mid 2012, a High Court judge found that the warrants used in the raid were overbroad and therefore illegal, but a February 2014 Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion.

While acknowledging that the warrants contained flaws, a panel of three judges at the Court of Appeal found that overall the warrants were legal.
Dissatisfied with the ruling, Dotcom took the case all the way to the Supreme Court complaining that the warrants were overbroad and lacked detail. The verdict was handed down today.

In another disappointing ruling for the Megaupload founder, this morning the Supreme Court found that the 2012 raids on Dotcom’s home were carried out legally.

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The raids on Kim Dotcom’s mansion. Legal, says Supreme Court

Four Justices – John McGrath, William Young, Susan Glazebrook and Terence Arnold – dismissed Dotcom’s appeal while agreeing that the 2012 warrants were not unreasonably vague and general. Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias dissented, but her determination that there had been a miscarriage of justice was overruled.

One judge aside, the Court acknowledged that while the original search warrants were indeed deficient when detailing the alleged offenses, those shortcomings did not result in damage for Dotcom and his associates.

“The majority of the Court has decided that, although the search warrants were deficient in their description of the offenses to which they related, these defects did not result in any miscarriage of justice to the appellants,” the Court wrote in its summary.

“While the search warrants did not specify that the offenses were against United States law, or that the offenses were punishable by two or more years’ imprisonment, this did not cause any significant prejudice to the appellants.”

When taking all circumstances into account, including the explanations given to Dotcom by police carrying out the raid, the Court found that Dotcom (and fellow claimants Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram Van Der Kolk) were given enough detail about the alleged offenses to which the search warrants related.

Dotcom, who along with his co-appellants will have to pay court costs of $35,000, aired his disappointment on Twitter.

“New Zealand Chief Justice Dame Elias got it right in both Supreme Court decisions in my case. She must be as frustrated as I am,” Dotcom wrote.

After The Pirate Bay started showing signs of life yesterday, EZTV made a full recovery today. The site of the popular TV-torrent distribution group is accessible again from its original domain name EZTV.it, complete with freshly updated content.

eztv-logo-smallNearly two weeks ago Swedish police raided a center in the city of Nacka, close to Stockholm.

The Pirate Bay was the main target of the raid, but collateral damage caused several other torrent sites to go down as well. These included EZTV, the go-to place for many torrenting TV fans.

Shortly after the raid TF spoke with the EZTV crew, who quickly managed to recover several servers so proxies could serve the latest torrents again.

Getting the entire site up and running proved to be more challenging, but today it appears to have fully recovered. This means that EZTV is accessible from its original EZTV.it domain once again.

The site is loading intermittently at the time of writing, but if it doesn’t pop up right away it should be visible after a few refreshes.

While the EZTV website was down for 13 days, the TV-torrent distribution group only stopped releasing torrents for a day or so. During the downtime fresh content was still shared on other torrent sites, such as ExtraTorrent.cc and Kickass.so

Curiously, coinciding with the comeback some proxies including Eztv-proxy.net have stopped working, most likely because they have to change a few settings to connect to EZTV’s backend.

While EZTV may have fully recovered, many other sites hit by the raid are still experiencing problems.

The Pirate Bay has put up a pirate flag and a counter, but no index or torrents. The torrent cache Zoink.it and the popular Istole.it tracker previously returned, but are currently offline again.

For now, however, it appears that EZTV is here to stay.

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Bitcoin trader Charlie Shrem has been sentenced to two years in jail for indirectly helping people swap cash for bitcoins on the Silk Road marketplace.

The Silk Road shut down in 2013 following raids by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies which said it was trading in illegal drugs.

Shrem was caught in the Silk Road raids for trading a total of $1m (£640,000) for bitcoins used on the site.

His sentence also includes forfeiting $950,000 (£608,000) to the US government.

Shrem was not directly involved with the Silk Road but was charged because of his association with Robert Faiella who set up an exchange that let the marketplace's customers swap cash for bitcoins. The virtual cash was the only form of currency accepted on the Silk Road.

Bitcoins are a virtual currency built around a complicated cryptographic protocol and a global network of computers that oversee and verify which coins have been spent by whom.

The Judge who handed down the sentence said Shrem was not "some kid making a one-time mistake" but had "excitedly" helped Faiella get access to bitcoins. Faiella is due to be sentenced in late January. He has pleaded guilty to running an unlicensed money transmitting business.

Prior to his arrest Shrem was a strong advocate for bitcoins and served as vice chairman of the foundation that helped to guide the virtual currency's development. He has now resigned from this post.

Lawyers working for Shrem said his involvement stemmed from his interest in bitcoins rather than the Silk Road. The two year sentence is less than government lawyers sought who said he should face 57 months in jail.

The operator of the Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, is due to face trial in January. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of dealing drugs and conspiracy.

Quote from drfs

Now just a black page.

Still getting the clock here mate, using the ip address 178.175.135.122 (BT connection)

This is such a good buy, shocked somebody hasn't snapped it up yet

Yes Nano, they changed to the clock now, something is defo afoot :thumb:

haha, nice one bud, was talking about this on another thread this morning, that's good news, at least we will get a HQ rip to view

Quote from TK4|2|1

Pulling the movie just makes people want to see it more.

Sent by pressing the screen on 1 of my Apple devices, cuz that's how I roll..

Your not wrong, i wanted to see it before all this fuss, but like you said want to see it more now

One of the rumor's is that Sony may release it online, guess it will get leaked at some point anyway

The company behind the Oscar-winning Dallas Buyers Club is spreading its anti-piracy tentacles. After testing out the United States, Voltage Pictures is sending out cash demands in Europe. The company's lawfirm says that letter recipients "are happy to be made aware" they're acting illegally and are handing over the cash.

For years lawyers for movie outfit Voltage Pictures have been writing to U.S. based Internet users demanding cash for alleged copyright infringements. Judging from its legal persistence the company has probably made some decent profits while doing so.

Earlier this year Voltage began filing lawsuits against alleged downloaders of its hit movie Dallas Buyers Club. In common with all similar actions the end game is not a full trial but cash settlements from worried Internet account holders.

But while there are millions of torrent users in the U.S., Voltage and its partners are now venturing overseas. According to Danish news site Berlingske, the Dallas Buyers Club piracy-into-profit model is now operating in Europe.

In a letter obtained by the publication after being sent to an alleged Dallas Buyers Club downloader, veteran anti-piracy lawfirm Maqs demands a cash payment of around $250 to make a supposed lawsuit disappear.

The lawfirm increases its chances of a ‘hit’ by writing to the ISP account holder but noting that payment should be made “if you, or someone in your household” acknowledges having downloaded or shared the movie.

“We know that in a particular household is a computer where this [piracy] has occurred from. That is why we have been asked to contact these people by the film company,” Clausen said.

In further comments the lawyer acknowledges that the Internet account holder may not be the infringer and that it could’ve been a child, neighbor, or other third-party, but whether targets will understand the implications of this remains to be seen.

These days chasing down individual file-sharers is almost unheard of in Denmark, so it’s unclear whether targets of Voltage and its Danish partners will be aware of when they’re liable and when they not. Unsurprisingly the early signs indicate that some people are simply paying up.

“Some [letter recipients] are happy to be made aware that they have done something illegal. They have recognized this, paid us, and learned their lesson. It is positive and also the response that we have hoped for,” Clausen says.

As is common in these cases, some letter recipients have told the lawfirm that they have open wifi that could’ve been used by anyone. Some claim they don’t even have a computer. Responses from others are more predictable.

“A few have responded aggressively and negatively to the letter, and several have not responded at all,” Clausen adds.

But for all groups, there is a deadline. Maqs informs its targets that if no payment is made in 15 days, it may “be necessary to institute legal proceedings”. Given past experience it seems unlikely that will transpire but Maqs says that all options remain open.

“It is a choice by the rights owner, whether one wants to go to court with this later,” Clausen concludes.

It comes as no surprise that Denmark has been introduced to so-called mass BitTorrent lawsuits and if predictions hold out, expect many more European countries to become similar targets in 2015.

After nearly two weeks of downtime the official domain of The Pirate Bay is showing signs of life. For now ThePirateBay.se is only waving a pirate flag, but that's good enough to give many Pirate Bay users hope for a full recovery.

pirate bayOn December 9 The Pirate Bay was raided at the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof data center built into a mountain complex near Stockholm.

Despite the rise of various TPB clones and rumors of reincarnations, thepiratebay.se domain remained inaccessible, until today.

This morning the Pirate Bay’s nameservers were updated to ones controlled by their domain name registrar binero.se

A few minutes ago came another big change when The Pirate Bay’s main domain started pointing to a new IP-address (178.175.135.122) connected to a server hosted in Moldova.

Thus far there’s not much to see. The domain only displays a waving pirate flag, but the recent changes will give many estranged Pirate Bay users hope that the site will be restored to its former glory

The DNS changes haven’t propagated everywhere yet, but soon most people should see the following landing page.

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Whether a full comeback is in the works remains a mystery for now. Interestingly, the source of the page shows that the pirate flag is hosted by Isohunt.to’s “Open Bay” site where it serves as a background.

TorrentFreak asked both the Pirate Bay and Isohunt.to crews for a comment, thus far without a response. It could be that TPB and Isohunt.to are collaborating on something, hopefully we’ll hear more on that soon.

A few days ago Isohunt.to launched “The Open Bay” initiative, which allows anyone to run a “copy” of The Pirate Bay. The TPB crew previously said that it would like to see as many clones as possible, so perhaps the domain will link to that for the time being.

“We’ve always lived by Kopimi. We love being cloned. It would be amazing if, like in the classic movie Spartacus, everyone could stand up and say “I am The Pirate Bay,” TPB’s Mr 10100100000 told us earlier.

Time will tell whether Pirate Bay’s “comeback” will be a full one, an encouragement for people to start their own clones, or something completely different.

In 2011, police in two countries coordinated to take down a private torrent site that had largely flown under the radar. This week, 3.5 years after the raid, two alleged operators of the site faced a criminal trial in Sweden. Having uploaded no content themselves, will they be held liable for the actions of their users?

In 2009, in the wake of the first Pirate Bay trial and the guilty verdict handed to its operators, other admins with file-sharing sites in Sweden began to reconsider their positions.

Piling on the pressure, Antipiratbyrån (now Rights Alliance) wrote to several sites warning them to end their copyright-infringing activities or face the consequences.

While most simply ignored the threats, some decided it was time to close down. One pair, SweDVDR and SoftMP3, did so alongside the release of their source code. This led to the creation of two new sites which eventually merged into one to become ‘eXcelleNT’, or XNT as it was known in public.

For two years the site grew in size and reputation but in 2011 things came crashing down. Just as promised 24 months earlier, Antipiratbyrån / Rights Alliance investigated the site and filed a complaint with the police. In May the authorities pounced, arresting a man in Borlänge, Sweden, and another in the Stockholm area a day later. The site’s server was seized in Germany.

“We believe that the men have been administering and managing the site together,” said prosecutor Frederick Ingblad at the time.

In April 2014, almost three years after the raids, prosecutor Ingblad announced that the men had been prosecuted and would be heading to court. This week they appeared before the Falu District Court to appear before a criminal copyright infringement trial.

“On this file-sharing site 1,050 different types of movies and TV shows were made available to the public illegally without rightholders’ approval,” Ingblad said this week.

The case, which received support from German authorities, centers around the unauthorized distribution of movies and TV shows between March and May 2011, including content owned by Warner Bros. and Disney.

The men, aged 23 and 24, stand accused of operating XNT in a case similar to the one involving The Pirate Bay in 2009. However, while the man from Borlänge admits to running the site, he feels no crime has been committed since he uploaded no content himself and only provided a sharing platform.

His lawyer, Sven-Erik Charles, goes even further. Charles believes that his client can not be convicted of infringement in Sweden since any crimes were committed overseas

“The issue in this lawsuit is where the crime were committed, abroad or in Sweden. This particular site’s server was located in Germany,” he said.

With most private BitTorrent trackers there’s an issue with site funding that’s usually overcome by users making donations. In this case XNT also received voluntary payments from its users – $6,500 to be precise. However, according to SR.se, the prosecutor has already determined that money was not the motivation behind the site and the men didn’t get rich as a result.

“It’s about the desire to compete with other sites, you want to be the quickest to upload some movies and become the greatest, pure and simple,” Ingblad said.

As noted following the Supreme Court decision earlier this week, 1000 movies and TV shows is way above the newly-established threshold for file-sharers to avoid custodial sentences. The men have other concerns too, however. As expected the entertainment companies represented by Rights Alliance have also lodged a multi-million claim for damages.

The men’s fate on both counts will be determined in the coming weeks.

After theaters all around the U.S. backed away from screening The Interview, this week Sony pulled the controversial movie. But now BitTorrent Inc. has stepped into the fray with an online distribution offer. "For us this about the two things we care about most: an open Internet and a sustainable future for creativity," the company said.

theinterviewFor Sony Pictures and the creative talent behind The Interview, the past several weeks have been extraordinary. With Sony falling to a crippling hack attack reportedly at the hands of North Korea, never before has a movie resulted in so much corporate destruction.

As the dust settles, at least temporarily, Sony finds itself between a rock and a hard place. After pulling the movie this week following threats of terror attacks on theaters, Sony was criticized by President Obama yesterday who described the decision as “a mistake“.

Sony responded with a statement from CEO Michael Lynton: “We have not caved. We have not given in. We have persevered, and we have not backed down. We have always had every desire to have the American public see this movie.”

But with theaters dropping like flies and “not been one major VOD or one major ecommerce site” stepping forward to show the film, the studio’s options are limited. Last night, however, a hero stepped forward to take on the tyranny of state-sponsored terrorism.

“Like everyone else around the world, we’ve been following this egregious hacking of Sony’s servers over the past few weeks,” BitTorrent Inc. said in a statement to VB.

“A trend has emerged among commentary in the days since Sony announced they would not release the motion picture, ‘The Interview.’ There have been calls for Sony to release the film online. And many have contacted us asking: Would they be able to release the movie using BitTorrent?

“Though we normally would not offer commentary during such a trying time for another company, the answer is yes,” the company said.

bittorrent-bundleBitTorrent Inc. believes that Sony’s best option to “take back control of their film” and not cave in to “terrorist threats” is to utilize the company’s BitTorrent Bundles.

Not only would Bundles allow everyone to view The Interview at home safe in the knowledge they aren’t going to get blown up, but this would strike “a strong note for free speech” while allowing Sony to set whatever price they like for the film, BitTorrent Inc. says.

While there is certainly a promotional aspect to BitTorrent Inc.’s offer, releasing the movie using the BitTorrent protocol would solve Sony’s initial distribution problems. The company could probably flick the switch and have this movie out by Monday, if they’re really wanted to.

Of course, any release via BitTorrent Bundles would mean that The Interview would also become available on public and private torrent sites within hours. At this point anyone could download the movie for free. There had been suggestions earlier this week that Sony should go straight to torrent sites with the movie anyway, but BitTorrent Inc. thinks this is a bad idea.

“We disagree, however, with some that have suggested that Sony should make the film available through piracy sites. That would only serve to encourage bad actors. It’s also important to make the distinction that these piracy sites are not ‘torrent sites.’ They are piracy sites that are wrongfully exploiting torrent technology,” the company said.

It seems unlikely that BitTorrent Inc. will seal the deal with Sony, but if they were successful this would not only be a major coup for the company but one steeped in irony.

As BitTorrent Inc. promises to strike a blow for freedom using BitTorrent, for the past several weeks the Sony hackers have also been using the BitTorrent protocol to distribute the very files they obtained from Sony.

Just goes to show, BitTorrent technology really can be used for anything.

Prominent movie torrent release group ETRG had its Twitter account suspended today for an alleged copyright infringement. The incident is rather unique as ETRG hasn't tweeted any links to pirated material.

pirate-twitterThe ExtraTorrent Release Group, or ETRG for short, is one of the best known sources for pirated movies.

The group releases dozens of popular films on various torrent sites each week and has a steady following of movie fans looking for fresh content.

Some of these followers track new releases through ETRG’s Twitter account. While the group doesn’t link to any copyrighted material, it does list the titles of new releases there.

One would think that ETRG isn’t violating Twitter’s policies by merely pasting a title. However, a few days ago two tweets mentioning “The Signal” got them in trouble.

The tweets were targeted with a DMCA takedown request which led to the immediate suspension of the group’s account.

“Twitter suspended ETRG’s account with no logical or valid reason. In fact they didn’t even give the reason. All I got was a DMCA notification and next day the account was suspended,” ETRG tells TF.

In its copyright and DMCA policy Twitter explains that it takes action against “tweets containing links to allegedly infringing materials,” but ETRG didn’t post any links, just text.

And there are more strange things happening. The takedown notice was sent on behalf of “Wild Side” and also targeted tweets from @PRoDJi and @TorrentBird. These tweets were removed as well, but interestingly enough the associated accounts haven’t been suspended.

ETRG is disappointed with Twitter’s actions and says the company is caving in to unreasonable demands from copyright holders.

“It shows how these sites are influenced by the powerful movie industry to do anything they want,” the group says.

A few years ago the group stopped posting links after it has its account suspended and at the time Twitter re-enabled it within a day. But even without links it couldn’t escape another suspension.

Hoping to get its account reinstated ETRG filed a counter-notice, but several days have passed since and they have yet to hear back from Twitter. Meanwhile, the account remains suspended.

Manchester City V Crystal Palace - FTA HD Feed

30 west - 11495 - H - 7120 It comes up as BT TES 50

Sony may have withdrawn The Interview but not everyone is scared of releasing the movie. Author Paulo Coelho, whose book The Alchemist has sold in excess of 165 million copies, has just offered to buy the rights to the movie from Sony. He informs TorrentFreak that it would go straight on BitTorrent, for free.

As has become customary in the past few weeks, the so-called Guardians of Peace hackers contacted TorrentFreak on Tuesday advising us of the latest release from their Sony hack.

The tone on this occasion was different. Threats of destroying Sony’s business had given way to suggestions of 9/11 style attacks on locations daring to show the now-controversial movie The Interview. Under increasing pressure, last evening Sony decided to pull the film.

“In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release,” Sony said in a statement.

While it’s believed the US government will officially point the finger at North Korea today, not everyone is scared of being associated with the movie. In fact, BitTorrent-loving, Pirate Bay-supporting, best-selling author Paulo Coelho is interested in buying the rights – and then some.

In a message to Sony this morning, Coelho – who offered to testify for the defense in The Pirate Bay trial of 2009 – laid down his offer.

“I offer @SonyPictures 100k for the rights of ‘The Interview’ I will post it free on my blog,” the author announced.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Coelho confirmed that if successful he’ll make the movie available for free using BitTorrent. But what made him want to get involved in the controversy?

“As a writer, freedom of information /distribution is important for me. You can’t bend to threats,” Coelho told TF.

“Worse, you can’t give an excuse that [Sony] decided to pull the plug fearing ‘terrorist attacks’. It is my understanding that what they really fear are email leaks.”

While the amount offered by Coelho is small beans against a movie that could end up costing Sony $100m (hack costs not included), it’s being offered by an individual who knows all about leveraging file-sharing to his benefit.

In 2007 Coelho sold in excess of 100 million books and since its release his novel The Alchemist has shifted more than 165 million copies. Extraordinary writing talent aside, Coelho is unusual in that he embraces piracy and is more than happy to let people download his work for free.

In an earlier interview with TorrentFreak the Brazilian said that he wanted people to have the opportunity to ‘try’ his books for free, but some of his publishers wouldn’t agree to that right away. So, taking matters into his own hands, Coelho put his books onto BitTorrent and hosting sites to achieve his aims.

“The ultimate goal of a writer is to be read. Money comes later,” he said.

In fact, BitTorrent distribution is helping Coelho’s sales today more than ever before.

“Adultery, my new book, broke all records this year, and I believe that one of the reasons was there being many copies on P2P sites,” the author says.

Coelho concluded his offer to Sony Pictures this morning by suggesting he should be contacted via the company’s Brazil division. Whether a response will be forthcoming will remain to be seen, but in any event it seems unlikely that The Interview will remain dark forever.

Although Sony has reportedly killed its theatrical and VOD releases and has “no further release plans” for the movie, in the piracy world forbidden fruit is always the sweetest. File-sharers are now very keen indeed to get their hands on the movie, which is known to be available in DVD screener format.

Should that leak – and copies usually do – then there will be absolutely nothing that anyone can do about that, North Korea included. It won’t land on The Pirate Bay of course, but Coelho doesn’t think that will be too much of a problem.

“Thanks isoHunt,” he concludes.

Fenopy, one of the older torrent sites that's been around for nearly nine years, has shut down voluntarily. The closure marks the end of what once was described as the first "web 2.0" torrent site.

A few days ago Fenopy.se stopped responding, leaving tens of thousands of regular users without one of their favorite torrent sites.

The downtime wasn’t related to Pirate Bay’s troubles. Instead, the site’s domain name had simply expired.

fenopy

TF talked to Fenopy’s owner who says that the expiration was not an accident, but planned a long time ago. The site’s owner decided that it was time to move on, and let the site vanish.

“Fenopy was being operated by an Artificial Intelligence that I created back in 2011 and was on autopilot during the past 2 years. The domain just expired few days ago.” he says.

Fenopy gained a lot of visitors in 2006 when it was the first full-fledged torrent site with a “modern” looking design and nifty web 2.0 features.

In recent years the site’s traffic went down considerably, not in the last place because of various ISP blockades.

The owner of Fenopy gave us the following statement which is food for thought, discussion, and much more.

—

On Liberty of Knowledge:

I wanted to talk about the values of sharing in this statement.

But shame on us. For taking the greatest invention of our era, The Internet, and turn it into a marketing and surveillance web; all for feeding our greed and controlling the information.

Inside every artist, scientist, priest, student, politician and every man, is a will. Will to be heard and be remembered. From the dawn of time, we shared and reasoned our perceptions of our surroundings with one another. We documented them in inscriptions, fables, and books. Gathered them in our most sacred places; from Hanging Gardens of Babylon to Library of Alexandria. So everyone could access the knowledge of us freely to grow out of nonage.

The Internet could become our global library of knowledge. The path was by giving every information to everyone for the sake of giving. What we saw was an Internet owned and operated by enterprises. We need enterprises, but we also need to realize that each enterprise function to protect self-interests and profits. So we decided to guard the knowledge and reveal it; allowing everyone access, without forcing them to go through guardians who would conceal it. We made mistakes too, but at least we tried.

Power heard and acknowledged. It forced my brothers at The Pirate Bay to exile from their fatherlands. They found love and friendship in the people of the new lands.

Our brothers – Aaron, Gottfrid, Fredrik, and Peter – have fulfilled their mission. They sacrificed their freedom to fight the greed while living a modest life in prisons and remote corners of our world.

They are the heroes of our generation, the martyrs of the digital era, the liberators of our knowledge in art, science, and humanities. They broke the constructs of ownership and freed themselves even from their lands. Like all of us, they made mistakes too; yet they fought for a human reason.

May the death of these websites, the libraries of our modern age, be a lesson for future generations, that path to liberty starts with courage.

I finish this eulogy with Immanuel Kant:

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) “Have the courage to use your own understanding,” is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.”

This, once liberated us from Dark Ages in Europe. Hope it will liberate all of us again.

With peace
Breathe in union