KICKASSTORRENTS Disappears From Google After Penalty

<article class="hentry entry entry-single" id="entry-108130" style="border-right-color: white; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 28px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2em;">Following what appears to be a severe penalty, popular torrent site KickassTorrents has become pretty much unfindable in Google. Meanwhile, the top search result in many locations points to a scam site that's serving malware to its visitors. For now, only DuckDuckGo presents the real site as a main result.<br /><br /><br /><img alt="KICKASSTORRENTS Disappears From Google After Penalty" height="279" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/kickass.jpg" title="KICKASSTORRENTS Disappears From Google After Penalty" width="400" /></article><article class="hentry entry entry-single" id="entry-108130" style="border-right-color: white; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 28px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2em;">With millions of visitors per day KickassTorrents (KAT) is arguably the most visited torrent site on the Internet, outranking even the notorious Pirate Bay</article><article class="hentry entry entry-single" id="entry-108130" style="border-right-color: white; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 28px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2em;">After several domain hops KAT has been operating from the KAT.cr domain name for a few months now. However, in recent weeks many infrequent visitors have experienced trouble locating the site, leading to all sorts of problems.<br /><br />Traditionally, the site has been easy to find through Google by entering the search terms “KickassTorrents” or “Kickass Torrents,” but this is no longer the case.<br /><br />In fact, the official KAT.cr address is nowhere to be found in the top results. Instead, people see the unknown and unaffiliated Kickasstorrents.eu domain on top in many locations, as the screenshot below shows.<div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 0px;"> <div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;"> </div> <center style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 24px;"> <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Google’s KickassTorrents search results</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></center> <center style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 24px;"> <img alt="KICKASSTORRENTS Disappears From Google After Penalty" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-108134" height="440" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/googlekick.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" title="KICKASSTORRENTS Disappears From Google After Penalty" width="600" /></center> <div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;"> </div> <br /><br />The KAT team informs us that Google began to penalize its pages a while ago, for reasons unknown. Perhaps there are ways to solve the problems, but the site is currently not doing any search engine optimization (SEO).<br /><br />“It’s already about five or six months since we started to experience some kind of penalty from Google. The issue is that we were not performing any SEO activities at all,” KAT says.<br /><br />What makes matters worse is that .eu site which tops Google search results is a scam. It doesn’t offer any torrents but instead <a href="http://i.imgur.com/rrWmQum.png">prompts visitors</a> to download File_Downloader.exe, which appears to be <a href="http://www.freefixer.com/library/file/File_Downloader.exe-134494/">malware</a>.<br /><br />The KAT team finds it unfortunate that Google is sending tens of thousands of visitors to a shady site and encourages people to check the official <a href="https://www.facebook.com/official.KAT.fanclub">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/kickasstorrents">Twitter</a>accounts for the latest official domain name.<br /><br />Interestingly, not all search engines treat KAT the same. In Bing the site’s official domain name is not on top either, but it’s listed on the first page. DuckDuckGo does the best job, <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kickasstorrents&ia=about">identifying</a> the correct domain and even tagging it as an “official site,” which is quite useful to estranged KAT users.<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;"> </div> <center style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 24px;"> <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">DuckDuckGo’s KickassTorrents search results</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></center> <center style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 24px;"> <img alt="KICKASSTORRENTS Disappears From Google After Penalty" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-108137" height="429" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/duckkick.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%;" title="KICKASSTORRENTS Disappears From Google After Penalty" width="600" /></center> <div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;"> </div> </div> </article><div class="entry-tools" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"> <section class="pbx-tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span></section></div>

KICKASSTORRENTS Disappears From Google After Penalty

Following what appears to be a severe penalty, popular torrent site KickassTorrents has become pretty much unfindable in Google. Meanwhile, ...

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Utorrent Flagged As ‘HARMFUL’ By Anti-Virus Companies And Google

Several anti-virus vendors have begun blocking uTorrent after identifying the software as malicious or potentially dangerous. In addition, Google Chrome is currently blocking several pages on uTorrent's official website. According to the reports the popular file-sharing application is linked to riskware and trojans.<br /><br /><br /><img alt="Utorrent Flagged As ‘HARMFUL’ By Anti-Virus Companies And Google " height="266" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/utorrent-logo-new.jpg" title="Utorrent Flagged As ‘HARMFUL’ By Anti-Virus Companies And Google " width="400" /><div> <br /></div> <div> With millions of new downloads per month uTorrent is without doubt the most used BitTorrent client around.<br /><br />The software is the main source of revenue for the San Francisco based company BitTorrent Inc. and generates income through advertisements and bundled software.<br /><br />The latter now appears to be causing trouble as several anti-virus vendors have begun listing uTorrent as a security risk. The scanning result below from VirusTotal shows that at least six anti-virus applications, including ESET and Symantec, have flagged the software as problematic.<br /><br />The anti-virus scans associate the uTorrent.exe file with Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT and the controversial <a href="https://www.sophos.com/en-us/threat-center/threat-analyses/adware-and-puas/OpenCandy/detailed-analysis.aspx">OpenCandy</a> bundling software. While this isn’t the first time that uTorrent has been flagged in this manner, we haven’t seen it being reported by this many independent tests before.<br /><br />uTorrent’s Virustotal results<br /><br /><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/images/utorrentvirus.jpg"><img alt="Utorrent Flagged As ‘HARMFUL’ By Anti-Virus Companies And Google " src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/utorrentvirus.jpg" title="Utorrent Flagged As ‘HARMFUL’ By Anti-Virus Companies And Google " /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />In addition to action by the anti-virus companies, uTorrent is also being blocked by Google in several ways. When attempting to download the latest stable release of the torrent client, Chrome flags the software as malicious and <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/images/utmal.jpg">blocks the download</a>, although this only appears to happen sporadically.<br /><br />Google is also actively <a href="http://utclient.utorrent.com/offers/beta_release_notes/release_notes.html">blocking</a> several pages that link to uTorrent and other BitTorrent Inc. software. According <a href="https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http%3A%2F%2Futclient.utorrent.com%2Foffers%2Fbeta_release_notes%2Frelease_notes.html&client=googlechrome&hl=en-US">to Google</a>, parts of the uTorrent website contain “harmful programs.”<br /><br />uTorrent.com warning in Chrome<br /><br /><img alt="Utorrent Flagged As ‘HARMFUL’ By Anti-Virus Companies And Google " src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/utorrentharm.jpg" title="Utorrent Flagged As ‘HARMFUL’ By Anti-Virus Companies And Google " /><br /><br /><br /><br />The same “harmful software” warning from Google <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/chrome-blocks-major-torrent-sites-over-harmful-programs-150710/">also prevented millions of people</a>from accessing popular torrent sites earlier this month.<br /><br />A Google spokesperson informed us that this was the result of the company’s increased efforts to block programs that make “unexpected changes” to people’s computers.<br /><br />“Google Safe Browsing’s ability to detect deceptive software has steadily improved,” the company <a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.nl/2015/07/more-visible-protection-against.html">explained</a> in a recent blog post.<br /><br />“In the coming weeks, these detection improvements will become more noticeable in Chrome: users will see more warnings about unwanted software than ever before,” Google adds.<br /><br />These and the other uTorrent threat reports all seem to be triggered by bundled third-party software bundled. There is no indication or evidence that the BitTorrent client itself is harmful.<br /><br />Update: BitTorrent Inc’s Jordy Berson provided the following comment.<br /><br />“BitTorrent’s products are developed in a secure environment, are securely signed and virus scanned. Our safety record has been consistently good. We are very conservative with partner ads and offers, using a small subset of available offers that are subject to our security and suitability tests.<br /><br />Meanwhile, security vendors and browser security teams have the difficult task of tuning their heuristics and their block lists to catch offenders without implicating harmless software. The increase in false positives in recent months is a result of security companies becoming more aggressive with their tuning in the category of “potentially unwanted programs.” The issue is not unique to uTorrent, and we and other desktop software companies report false positives when they are spotted, with excellent cooperation from most security vendors.<br /><br />We have stated this to our users for some time in the <a href="http://help.utorrent.com/customer/portal/articles/2054417-antivirus-detecting-torrent-install-as-malware">support section of our Web site</a>, located here.”</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span></div>

Utorrent Flagged As ‘HARMFUL’ By Anti-Virus Companies And Google

Several anti-virus vendors have begun blocking uTorrent after identifying the software as malicious or potentially dangerous. In addition, G...

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Top 10 Most Pirated Movies Of The Week – 07/20/15

<article class="hentry entry entry-single" id="entry-108378" style="border-right-color: white; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 28px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2em;">The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Insurgent' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Jurassic World.' 'Ted 2' completes the top three.<br /><br /><br /><img alt="Top 10 Most Pirated Movies Of The Week – 07/20/15 " height="257" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/insurgent.jpg" title="Top 10 Most Pirated Movies Of The Week – 07/20/15 " width="400" /></article><article class="hentry entry entry-single" id="entry-108378" style="border-right-color: white; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 28px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2em;">This week we have one newcomer and one returnee in our chart.<br /><br />Insurgent is the most downloaded movie.<br /><br />The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.<div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 24px; padding-left: 0px;"> <div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;"> <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">RSS feed</strong></a> for the weekly movie download chart.</div> <table class="css hover" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9em;"><thead style="box-sizing: border-box;"> <tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><th style="background: rgb(183, 183, 183); border-bottom-color: rgb(224, 0, 94); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(255, 71, 148); border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: white; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: none solid solid; box-sizing: border-box; color: white; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;" width="12%"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ranking</strong></th><th style="background: rgb(183, 183, 183); border-bottom-color: rgb(224, 0, 94); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: white; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: white; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: none solid solid; box-sizing: border-box; color: white; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;" width="15%"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">(<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-071315/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: white;">last week</a>)</strong></th><th style="background: rgb(183, 183, 183); border-bottom-color: rgb(224, 0, 94); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: white; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: white; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: none solid solid; box-sizing: border-box; color: white; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Movie</strong></th><th style="background: rgb(183, 183, 183); border-bottom-color: rgb(224, 0, 94); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: white; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(255, 71, 148); border-right-width: 1px; border-style: none solid solid; box-sizing: border-box; color: white; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;" width="18%"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">IMDb Rating / Trailer</strong></th></tr> </thead><tfoot style="background: rgb(231, 231, 231); border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.75em;"> <tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td colspan="4" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.6em;"><br /></td></tr> </tfoot><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box;"> <tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">1</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(…)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/insurgent" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">Insurgent</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2908446/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">6.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suZcGoRLXkU" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> <tr style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">2</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(1)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/jurassic_world/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">Jurassic World</a> (TS/Subbed HDrip)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369610/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">7.7</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFinNxS5KN4" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> <tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">3</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(7)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ted_2/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">Ted 2</a> (Subbed HDrip)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2637276/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">6.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3AVcCggRnU" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> <tr style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">4</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(3)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/home_2015/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">Home</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2224026/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyqZf8LiWvM" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> <tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">5</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(2)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/spy_2015/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">Spy</a> (Subbed HDrip)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3079380/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">7.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltijEmlyqlg" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> <tr style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">6</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(4)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_longest_ride" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">The Longest Ride</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2726560/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">7.1</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUS_Q7FsfqU" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> <tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">7</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(5)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mad_max_fury_road/?" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">Mad Max: Fury Road</a> (WEB-DL)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">8.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjBb4SZ0F6Q" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> <tr style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">8</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(8)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/get_hard/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">Get Hard</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2561572/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">6.1</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEqrpuU9fYI" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> <tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">9</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(10)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cinderella_2013/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">Cinderella</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1661199/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">7.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRuHM6rLSF8" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> <tr style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">10</strong></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;">(back)</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kingsman_the_secret_service/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">Kingsman: The Secret Service</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; padding: 0.75em 0.8em;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">8.1</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl8F-8tR8to" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #353f45;">trailer</a></td></tr> </tbody></table> </div> </article><div class="entry-tools" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"> <section class="pbx-tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-left: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span></section></div>

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies Of The Week – 07/20/15

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Insurgent' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Jurassic World....

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Most Aussie Pirates Are The Industry’s Best Customers

A survey commission by the Australian government has found that more than a quarter of all local Internet users consume content illegally online. Interestingly, while 7% of the population were found to be hardcore pirates who spend nothing on legitimate content, those who pirate and also buy legally are the industry's best customers.<br /><br /><br /><img alt="Most Aussie Pirates Are The Industry’s Best Customers " height="400" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/spongepirate.jpg" title="Most Aussie Pirates Are The Industry’s Best Customers " width="326" /><div> <br /></div> <div> As Australia continues to grapple with its online piracy problem, a new report commissioned by the office of Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has revealed both the scale of the problem and an interesting twist.<br /><br />Carried out in conjunction with the UK government and executed by TNS Global, the survey of 2630 people found that 26% of the population aged 12 years and up – 5.2 million people – had consumed illegal content online during the first three months of 2015.<br /><br />That doesn’t mean that one in four Aussies never put their money in their pockets though. The survey found that just 7% of the population are hardcore pirates who never pay for anything and only consume illegal content. Other pirates buy legitimate content to some extent.<br /><br />When drilling down further, however, the figures appear to worsen. Of all Internet users over 12 who also consumed media content in the first quarter of 2015, 43% said they had done so illegally. Movies proved the most popular among pirates, with 48% saying they had obtained them online without permission. Music came in second place with 37%, while TV shows (33%) and video games (22%) took up the third and fourth slots.<br /><br />In terms of piracy volumes, the survey found that music was the most-download content with an estimated 254 million tracks obtained in the first quarter of 2015. Around 95 million movies, 82 million TV shows and 9 million video games add to the total.<br /><br />On average, Aussie pirates downloaded or streamed around 16 items of content each in the first three months of the year, with music proving the most popular by file volume followed by TV, movies and video games.<br /><br />When looking at overall consumption of digital content, around 66% of movies were obtained illegally versus 36% of TV shows. Music tracks and video games were neck-and-neck with 30% and 29% respectively.<br /><br />When it comes to methods for obtaining unauthorized content the survey results present a slightly confused picture.<br /><br />“Infringers were far more likely than non-infringers to use peer-to-peer methods,<br />in the form of BitTorrent software (26%), uTorrent (28%) and Pirate Bay (19%),<br />whereas 5% or less of non-infringers said they had used these services,” the survey notes.<br /><br />Of course, uTorrent is BitTorrent software and the Pirate Bay requires the use of BitTorrent software in order to function. But in any event, it appears that BitTorrent methods are more popular with those who obtain content illegally than those who do not.<br /><br />But perhaps the biggest question is what motivates these individuals to pirate.<br /><br />Among all pirates, 55% said they consume content illegally because it’s free and a sizable 51% cited ease of access and convenience as a primary motivator. Speed was a factor among 45% of respondents, with 21% noting that they did not wish to wait for content to become available locally.<br /><br />Interestingly, among pirates who said they never buy any content, 27% said they download illegally in order to “try before they buy”. Among those who consume legal and illegal content, that figure jumps to 38%.<br /><br />So what might cause pirates to change their ways?<br /><br />Perhaps unsurprisingly almost four out of ten infringers said cheaper prices on legal services would help. However, the next most popular responses were all about availability. If all content was made available legally that would help 38% of infringers to change their ways while 36% said that timely availability of content when compared to the rest of the world would be a good motivator.<br /><br />Yet another sign that better legal services are the key to reducing infringement came with pirates’ assessment of <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/aussie-isps-advocate-three-strikes-solution-to-piracy-150220/">various measures</a> the government and rightsholders have lined up to tackle infringement.<br /><br />Nearly a quarter of infringers said that the thought of being sued might help them change their ways while just 17% felt that a letter from their ISP could deter them from further piracy. Although not currently on the agenda, 21% said that Internet suspensions might prove effective.<br /><br />Interestingly, when asked if anything at all could stop them pirating, just 5% of all infringers said nothing could, rising to 10% among hardcore “buy nothing” pirates.<br /><br />Finally, the survey provides yet another timely reminder that branding all pirates as enemies of the entertainment industries is a very bad idea. When looking at four content types – movies, TV shows, music and video games – the survey found that those who consumed a mix of legal and illegal content SPENT MORE on legal content than those who only consume content illegally.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span></div>

Most Aussie Pirates Are The Industry’s Best Customers

A survey commission by the Australian government has found that more than a quarter of all local Internet users consume content illegally on...

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Youtube Faces Russia Web Block Over Pirate

YouTube has been given just days to respond to copyright infringement complaints or face blocking measures in Russia that for some could take down the whole site. The local telecoms watchdog says that since YouTube has failed to completely remove links to two TV series despite earlier complaints, action is being taken against the site.<br /><br /><br /><img alt="Youtube Faces Russia Web Block Over Pirate" height="284" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/youtubeface.jpg" title="Youtube Faces Russia Web Block Over Pirate" width="400" /><div> <br /></div> <div> Following intense pressure from local and international entertainment companies, on August 1, 2013 Russia introduced a brand new anti-piracy law.<br /><br />Initially covering only movies, the law allowed websites offering ‘pirate’ content to be blocked by local ISPs if they fail to respond to complaints. Late November 2014 the law was further amended to include all copyrighted content except images.<br /><br />The legislation has been used dozens of times to threaten unresponsive sites with blocking at the ISP level, but in many cases operators have complied to ensure they keep off Russia’s blocklist. Surprisingly the world’s largest user-generated content site YouTube today finds itself perilously close to becoming a new addition.<br /><br />The problem dates back several months when TV shows owned by TNT-network appeared on the site without authorization. In April, YouTube received requests from local telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor to delete the content and apparently responded in a timely manner.<br /><br />However, fresh monitoring carried out by Roskomnadzor this month reportedly found almost 140 links to the same content, an event that prompted the watchdog to initiate the start of the blocking procedure.<br /><br />“On the application of the right holder ‘TNT-Teleset’ and in accordance with a decision of the Moscow City Court from April 7, 2015, tentative interim measures of protection of the exclusive rights to [two TV series] have been implemented against social networking website YouTube.com,” Roskomnadzor announced.<br /><br />“Notification with a request to remove the unlawfully placed materials has been repeatedly directed at the administration of the Internet resource. Currently, access to the illegal videos has not been limited.”<br /><br />For YouTube, the clock is now ticking. Roskomnadzor is alerting Russian users that on Monday July 27 YouTube pages will be added to Russia’s national register of copyright violators. However, due to the way blocking is sometimes implemented, Roskomnadzor warns that for some the entire site may be rendered inaccessible.<br /><br />“The video hosting site has a huge audience, and for some users the resource could become completely unavailable,” Roskomnadzor’s Vadim Ampelonsky <a href="http://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2015/07/22/601731-roskomnadzor-vneset-youtube-s-reestr-zapreschennih-saitov-s-27-iyulya">told</a> local media.<br /><br />“The administration of YouTube has always responded to our needs and removed illegal content. But in [this case] this hasn’t happened for reasons that aren’t apparent to us. We very much hope that we will not have to put YouTube on the blocklist registry.”<br /><br />It’s unclear why YouTube hasn’t responded to the requests of Roskomnadzor. The company is usually responsive to complaints and it should be trivial to add the TV shows in question to its ContentID system so that uploads of the same can be spotted in the future. But in any event, YouTube has just days to respond before the banhammer falls.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span></div>

Youtube Faces Russia Web Block Over Pirate

YouTube has been given just days to respond to copyright infringement complaints or face blocking measures in Russia that for some could tak...

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Pirate Bay Led Hollywood The Way, Co-Founder SAYS By Ernesto

<br />During his stay in prison, Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij was deprived of the Internet and forced to view broadcast TV. A grueling experience, but not as bad as it used to be, something the Pirate Bay can take credit for in part. Still, Fredrik believes that there's plenty of room for improvement.<br /><br /><br /><img alt="Pirate Bay Led Hollywood The Way, Co-Founder SAYS By Ernesto" height="400" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg" title="Pirate Bay Led Hollywood The Way, Co-Founder SAYS By Ernesto" width="386" /><div> <br /></div> <div> Fredrik Neij, one of The Pirate Bay’s co-founders, was released early May after serving a 10-month prison sentence for his involvement with the site.<br /><br />He has since returned to his home in Laos, where he’s picking up his life again. Speaking with TF, Fredrik says that he didn’t miss computers or the Internet as much as he’d expected.<br /><br />What Fredrik missed the most about being ‘disconnected’ was instant access to news, information and entertainment. Instead of having access to the latest movies and TV-series without interruptions, he was forced to watch broadcast TV.<br /><br />“Watching broadcast TV again for the first time in roughly 12 years was gruesome. I don’t know how people stand the commercial breaks without going insane,” Fredrik tells TorrentFreak.<br /><br />However, the Pirate Bay co-founder also admits that quite a bit of progress has been made in recent years. In part, Hollywood and the video entertainment industry made these changes to give consumers something they would otherwise get on sites such as The Pirate Bay.<br /><br />“I saw a lot of things that probably would not have existed without The Pirate Bay, like every channel having their own streaming services, and the short time between US premiere and it being aired on networks worldwide, usually just a few days or a week,” Fredrik says.<br /><br />Netflix is a prime example of a video streaming service that has become a great success. But from a Pirate Bay user perspective there is still plenty of room for improvement.<br /><br />For example, people should be able to get all their video entertainment at one service, instead of having to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/most-top-films-are-not-available-on-netflix-research-finds-140926/">use a dozen or so</a>. Similarly, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/eu-commissioner-wants-to-abolish-netflix-geoblocking-150227/">blocking access </a>to potential customers based on their location is an outdated business model that has to go.<br /><br />“While I think all the new streaming services are great, if they want to take on piracy for real, they need to combine all services behind a common pay-wall so you don’t need several accounts to follow your favorite shows,” Fredrik notes.<br /><br />“They also really need to address the geo-blocking problems and provide global availability of the all content at the same price. Until big media makes it as easy or easier to get all your media in one place no matter where you live, there will be a need for sites like TPB.”<br /><br />Of course, The Pirate Bay doesn’t use any geo-blocking tools and the site also has a content library that beats any legal service. Because of this, TPB’s co-founder believes that the site will remain popular for a while.<br /><br />Now that Fredrik’s back home he can catch up on Doctor Who and Archer again. He’s also closely following Pirate Bay related developments, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">last year’s raid</a> in particular.<br /><br />“Back when I ran things it only took three days to get back up from a raid. The new team took a good 6 weeks, but they have been doing a good job on TPB these last few years, and eventually restored the site to its former glory,” Fredrik says.<br /><br />And even if the police managed to take the site down again, new Pirate Bays will take over as long as the demand is there.<br /><br />“Even if TPB is permanently shutdown, the December raid shows that there will always be sites ready to fill the void. One again showing that meeting consumer demand is far more effective than trying to enforce lobby-bought laws with no support among the general public,” Fredrik concludes.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span></div>

Pirate Bay Led Hollywood The Way, Co-Founder SAYS By Ernesto

During his stay in prison, Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij was deprived of the Internet and forced to view broadcast TV. A grueling exper...

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Microsoft Logs IP Addresses To Catch Windows 7 Pirates

A presumed pirate with an unusually large appetite for activating Windows 7 has incurred the wrath of Microsoft. In a lawsuit filed at a Washington court, the Seattle-based company said that it logged hundreds of suspicious product activations from a Verizon IP address and is now seeking damages. <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" Microsoft Logs IP Addresses To Catch Windows 7 Pirates " height="243" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/microsoft-pirate.png" title=" Microsoft Logs IP Addresses To Catch Windows 7 Pirates " width="400" /><br /> Due to the fact that one needs to be present on most computers in order for them to work at all, operating systems are among the most pirated types of software around. <br /><br />There can be little doubt that across its range in its 29 year history, Microsoft’s Windows operating systems have been pirated countless millions of times. It’s a practice that on some levels Microsoft has <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-weve-always-had-freemium-its-called-piracy-141021/">come to accept</a>, with regular consumers largely avoiding the company’s aggression. <br /><br />However, as one or perhaps more pirates are about to find out, the same cannot be said of those pirating the company’s products on a commercial scale. <br /><br />In a lawsuit filed this week at a district court in Seattle, Microsoft targets individuals behind a single Verizon IP address – 74.111.202.30. Who he, she or they are is unknown at this point, but according to Microsoft they’re responsible for some serious Windows pirating. <br /><br />“As part of its cyberforensic methods, Microsoft analyzes product key activation data voluntarily provided by users when they activate Microsoft software, including the IP address from which a given product key is activated,” the lawsuit reads. <br /><br />Microsoft says that its forensic tools allow the company to analyze billions of activations of Microsoft software and identify patterns “that make it more likely than not” that an IP address associated with activations is one through which pirated software is being activated. <br /><br />“Microsoft’s cyberforensics have identified hundreds of product key activations<br /> originating from IP address 74.111.202.30…which is presently assigned to<br /> Verizon Online LLC. These activations have characteristics that on information and belief, establish that Defendants are using the IP address to activate pirated software.” <br /><br />Microsoft says that the defendant(s) have activated hundreds of copies of Windows 7 using product keys that have been “stolen” from the company’s supply chain or have never been issued with a valid license, or keys used more times than their license allows. <br /><br />In addition to immediate injunctive relief and the impounding of all infringing materials, the company demands profits attributable to the infringements, treble damages and attorney fees or, alternatively, statutory damages. <br /><br />This week’s lawsuit (<a href="http://ia601507.us.archive.org/10/items/gov.uscourts.wawd.214013/gov.uscourts.wawd.214013.1.0.pdf">pdf</a>) follows <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-sues-does-for-activating-pirated-software-141208/">similar action</a> in December 2014 in which Microsoft targeted the user behind an AT&T account.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak </span>

Microsoft Logs IP Addresses To Catch Windows 7 Pirates

A presumed pirate with an unusually large appetite for activating Windows 7 has incurred the wrath of Microsoft. In a lawsuit filed at a Wa...

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The Pirate Bay Is Down (Updated)

The Pirate Bay is down at the moment, causing a mild panic among many BitTorrent users. With the raid of last December fresh in mind some fear the worst, but the current issues appear to be caused by an SSL problem. <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" The Pirate Bay Is Down (Updated) " height="400" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-bay.jpg" title=" The Pirate Bay Is Down (Updated) " width="386" /><br /> After weeks without any significant outages, the Pirate Bay has become unreachable since a few hours. <br /><br />With <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">the raid</a> of a few months ago still fresh in memory some fear that the problems may be of a more serious nature. <br /><br />It’s currently not clear what’s causing the problems. What we do know is that the site’s domain name is currently working properly. <br /><br />The Pirate Bay currently displays a CloudFlare error message suggesting that TPB has an invalid SSL certificate. <br /><br />This may be the result of a misconfigured or expired SSL certificate, which causes problems for sites that use CloudFlare’s full (strict) SSL feature. <img alt=" The Pirate Bay Is Down (Updated) " src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/tpbssl.jpg" title=" The Pirate Bay Is Down (Updated) " /> <br /><br />Interestingly, some users report that they can still access the site via the Tor network, including the popular Pirate Browser. <br /><br />The Tor traffic goes through a separate server, and it appears that this part of the site’s infrastructure is not going through CloudFlare. <br /><br />TorrentFreak reached out to The Pirate Bay team for a comment on the situation and we will update this article if we hear back. <br /><br />Update: The site is back for most people now.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span>

The Pirate Bay Is Down (Updated)

The Pirate Bay is down at the moment, causing a mild panic among many BitTorrent users. With the raid of last December fresh in mind some f...

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Hollywood Urged Cameron To Keep DVD Ripping Illegal

A few months ago the UK Government legalized copying of MP3s, CDs and DVDs for personal use, as that would be in the best interest of consumers. A common sense decision for many, but leaked emails now show that Hollywood fiercely protested the changes behind the scenes. <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" Hollywood Urged Cameron To K" height="358" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/uk-flag.jpg" title=" Hollywood Urged Cameron To K" width="400" /><br /> To most consumers it’s common sense that they can make a backup copy of media they own, but in the UK this was illegal until late last year. <br /><br />After consulting various stakeholders the Government decided that it would be in the best interests of consumers to legalize copying for personal use. <br /><br />Perhaps unsurprisingly, not all copyright holders were in favor of the legal changes. In fact, emails published from the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack reveal that Hollywood wanted to stop the plans by urging UK Prime Minister David Cameron to keep Hollywood’s interests in mind. <br /><br />The first email mentioning the issue was sent January last year. Here, Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton was informed that MPAA boss Chris Dodd wanted him to give Cameron a call. <br /><br />“Essentially, Dodd thinks (and we agree) it would be helpful for you to call Prime Minister Cameron if you are willing in order to ensure our position is fully considered,” <a href="https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/106890">the email</a> from Sony’s Keith Weaver reads. <br /><br />According to Weaver it was still uncertain whether Hollywood’s concerns would be properly heard in Parliament. <br /><br />“This is because prior interactions with the U.K. government over the last few months have left us with no certainty that our concerns will be addressed in the proposal that will be presented to Parliament for an up or down vote in February,” he explained. <br /><br />Hollywood’s stance is that copying for private use should remain illegal if there are legal options available. <br /><br />“A private copy exception must not apply in the event there are commercially available services that achieve the same need,” Weaver wrote. <br /><br />Examples such as <a href="https://www.myuv.com/">UltraViolet</a> show that there is no market failure in the UK, and that private copying exceptions aren’t needed, in Hollywood’s view. <br /><br />On the contrary, technical protections and restrictions are needed for legal services to flourish. <br /><br />“We need to rely upon a legal framework that respects the technical protections necessary launch new consumer-oriented commercial services – this is key to our ability to make investments in films and great new TV shows,” Weaver added. <br /><br />From the emails it’s not clear whether or not Sony’s CEO called Prime Minister Cameron at the time. <br /><br />However, a few months later in June 2014 Lynton and Cameron had a meeting where the issue was prominently listed <a href="https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/111867">on the agenda</a>, along with other anti-piracy issues. <br /><br />Despite the lobbying efforts at the highest level, the protests of the MPAA and Sony Pictures were not successful. After a brief delay the private copying exceptions eventually <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/uk-government-legalizes-cd-ripping-cloud-backups-today-141001/">became law in October</a>.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak </span>

Hollywood Urged Cameron To Keep DVD Ripping Illegal

A few months ago the UK Government legalized copying of MP3s, CDs and DVDs for personal use, as that would be in the best interest of consu...

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Top 10 Most Pirated Movies Of The Week – 05/04/15

<div class="entry-summary"> <div class="entry-lead"> The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Seventh Son.' 'Furious 7' completes the top three.</div> </div> <div class="entry-content"> <img alt=" Top 10 Most Pirated Movies Of The Week – 05/04/15 " class="alignright size-full wp-image-105227" height="281" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/kingsman.jpg" title=" Top 10 Most Pirated Movies Of The Week – 05/04/15 " width="400" /><br /> This week we have four newcomers in our chart.<br /> Kingsman: The Secret Service is the most downloaded movie.<br /> The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.<br /> <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/"><b>RSS feed</b></a> for the weekly movie download chart.<br /> <table class="css hover"> <thead> <tr> <th width="12%"><b>Ranking</b></th> <th width="15%"><b>(<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-042715/">last week</a>)</b></th> <th><b>Movie</b></th> <th width="18%"><b>IMDb Rating / Trailer</b></th> </tr> </thead> <tfoot> <tr> <td colspan="4"><br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span></td> </tr> </tfoot> <tbody> <tr> <td><b>1</b></td> <td>(…)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kingsman_the_secret_service/">Kingsman: The Secret Service</a> </td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/">8.1</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl8F-8tR8to">trailer</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>2</b></td> <td>(…)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/seventh_son/">Seventh Son</a> </td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1121096/">5.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXiNkOjM7oM">trailer</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>3</b></td> <td>(2)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/furious_7/">Furious 7</a> (CAM/TS/R6)</td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2820852/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yISKeT6sDOg">trailer</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>4</b></td> <td>(…)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_sniper/">American Sniper</a> </td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136/">7.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MItGoIxoVGk">trailer</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>5</b></td> <td>(…)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/get_hard/">Get Hard</a> </td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2561572/">6.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEqrpuU9fYI">trailer</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>6</b></td> <td>(1)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/jupiter_ascending_2014/">Jupiter Ascending</a> </td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1617661/">5.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ZzMkDLjWI">trailer</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>7</b></td> <td>(3)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fifty_shades_of_grey/">Fifty Shades of Grey</a> </td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322441/">4.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfZWFDs0LxA">trailer</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>8</b></td> <td>(6)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/avengers_age_of_ultron/">Avengers: Age of Ultron</a> (CAM)</td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2395427/">8.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAUoeqvedMo">trailer</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>9</b></td> <td>(4)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/interstellar_2014/">Interstellar</a> </td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxOhd4qlnA">trailer</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>10</b></td> <td>(5)</td> <td><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_cobbler_2015/">The Cobbler</a> </td> <td><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3203616/">5.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMVGScC0vDA">trailer</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <br /> <section class="pbx-tags"><b></b><br /></section>

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies Of The Week – 05/04/15

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' tops the chart this week, followed ...

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MPAA Funds Pro-Copyright Scholars To Influence Politics

This week the MPAA opened applications for a new round of research grants, hoping the result will be "pro-copyright" academic papers. In an email leaked in the Sony hack the movie industry group further says it's looking for pro-copyright scholars who they can cultivate for further public advocacy. <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" MPAA Funds Pro-Copyright Scholars To Influence Politics" height="262" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mpaa-logo.png" title=" MPAA Funds Pro-Copyright Scholars To Influence Politics" width="400" /><br /> Last year the MPAA started a new <a href="http://www.mpaaresearchgrants.org/">grants program</a> inviting academics to pitch their research proposals. <br /><br />Researchers are being offered a $20,000 grant for projects that address various piracy related topics, including the impact of copyright law and the effectiveness of notice and takedown regimes. <br /><br />Last month marked the silent start of a new round of grant applications for the fall of 2015. <br /><br />There’s no public announcement but MPAA boss Chris Dodd previously said there’s a need for better and unbiased copyright related research to find out how recent developments are affecting the film industry. <br /><br />“We need more and better research regarding the evolving role of copyright in society. The academic community can provide unbiased observations, data analysis, historical context and important revelations about how these changes are impacting the film industry…,” Dodd noted. <br /><br />While Dodd’s comments about unbiased research are admirable, there also appears to be a hidden agenda which until now hasn’t seen the light of day. <br /><br />In an email leaked in the Sony hack MPAA General Counsel Steven Fabrizio <a href="https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/111948">explains</a> to the member studios that they’re soliciting pro-copyright papers. The April 2014 email further reveals that the MPAA hopes to identify pro-copyright scholars who can be used to influence future copyright policies. <br /><br />“As you know, as one component of our Academic Outreach program, the MPAA is launching a global research grant program both to solicit pro-copyright academic research papers and to identify pro-copyright scholars who we can cultivate for further public advocacy,” Fabrizio writes. <br /><br />Needless to say, soliciting pro-copyright papers and spotting pro-copyright scholars for public advocacy doesn’t sound very unbiased. <br /><br />Perhaps for this reason the MPAA has decided not to publicize the initiative too much. There was no press release on the official site regarding the grants and it’s also unknown which scholars received last year’s grants. <br /><br />While $20,000 is relatively modest, the MPAA is also funding scholars outside of the grant program with much more. Last November we revealed that the MPAA had donated over a million dollars to Carnegie Mellon University in support of its piracy research program. <br /><br />Thus far the Carnegie Mellon team has published a few papers. Among other things the researchers found that the <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-shutdown-boosted-movie-revenues-130307/">Megaupload shutdown worked</a>, that piracy mostly <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2132153">hurts revenues</a>, and that censoring search engine results can <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/search-engines-can-diminish-online-piracy-research-finds-140916/">diminish piracy</a>. <br /><br />As expected, these results are now used by the MPAA as a lobbying tool to sway politicians and influence public policy.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak </span>

MPAA Funds Pro-Copyright Scholars To Influence Politics

This week the MPAA opened applications for a new round of research grants, hoping the result will be "pro-copyright" academic pap...

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Anti-Piracy Measures Putting Internet Users At Risk

While entertainment companies and authorities believe they are necessary to stem the tide of online infringement, many current anti-piracy strategies are putting Internet users at risk. Domain suspensions, seizures, plus search engine down-rankings are all playing a part in creating a less-safe online environment. <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" Anti-Piracy Measures Putting Internet Users At Risk " height="326" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/danger-p2p.png" title=" Anti-Piracy Measures Putting Internet Users At Risk " width="400" /><br /> While it’s not entirely clear when the theory first appeared, the notion that cutting the head off one file-sharing site results in the creation of several others has been in circulation for many years. <br /><br />The analogy, regularly referred to as the file-sharing ‘hydra’, is often deployed in response to action taken by entertainment companies and local authorities. Tripping off tongues somewhat easily, the defensive reaction paints anti-piracy measures as a futile waste of time. <br /><br />Nevertheless, the outrage these measures often provoke suggest that they do have some impact, if only the raising of blood pressure and gnashing of teeth among site users. Whether or not they reduce overall piracy rates long-term remains to be seen, but right now these strategies are almost certainly undermining the safety of Internet users. <br /><br />Domain attacks – blocks <br /><br />Attacks against site domains come in various shapes and sizes but all are designed to limit a site’s ability to remain operational. While they are undoubtedly an annoyance to site owners, they also cause problems for site users. <br /><br />For example, many leading ‘pirate’ sites are <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/court-orders-uk-isps-to-block-popcorn-time-150428/">blocked by ISPs in the UK</a>. The blocks are easily circumvented <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">using a VPN</a> but in the case of some of the bigger sites, hundreds of proxy and mirror sites have appeared to facilitate access. <br /><br />The end result is that there are now dozens of Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents clones, lookalikes, mirrors and proxies. Long live the hydra, right? Well not quite. <br /><br />We’ve already seen the chaos and confusion these sites can cause and the situation isn’t getting any better. It is now very likely that hundreds of thousands of casual users think they are using a relatively trustworthy known site when they are not. Sadly, many clones are filled with aggressive and sometimes malicious ads not present on the original site. <br /><br />Domain attacks – suspensions and seizures <br /><br />As documented on many previous occasions, a key strategy of the entertainment industries is to put pressure on domain companies and registries to stop them providing domains to pirate sites. One of the sites hit on a number of occasions is KickassTorrents (KAT). <br /><br />KAT has lost several domains in recent years including KAT.ph (<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-domain-seized-after-music-industry-complaint-130614/">music industry action</a>), Kickass.so (<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-taken-domain-name-seizure-150209/">unconfirmed</a>) and more recently <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-domain-seized-within-24-hours-next-stop-cr-150424/">KickassTorrents.im</a>. <br /><br />Currently the site is operating from KAT.cr (Costa Rica) but ever since the last switch a steady stream of apparently confused site users have been writing to TF and posting on sites including Reddit. <br /><br />“I never had to sign up for KAT before, why is it asking me to now?” one asked. <br /><br />“Why is Kickass asking for my credit card details?” questioned another. <br /><br />Obviously one of these questions is more serious than the other, but both have straightforward explanations. Some users are so confused about which domain the site is operating from they are using any number of fake sites instead, some of which are asking for credit card details. <br /><br />It’s a horrible situation provoked entirely by action against the official site’s domains, but are so many casual users being affected? <br /><br />Search engine downranking <br /><br />For years Hollywood and the recording industry have been placing immense pressure on Google to stop presenting ‘pirate’ sites in its search results. After resisting for some time, Google began tweaking it algorithms to downrank sites that have the most copyright complaints logged against them. <br /><br />In October 2014, Google made its biggest changes yet which resulted in traffic to torrent and other file-sharing sites <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/googles-new-downranking-hits-pirate-sites-hard-141023/">taking a nosedive</a>. And now, thanks to decisions made by Google, a simple search for KickassTorrents presents listings that do not include the real site at all, but fake sites looking for money instead. <br /><br /><img alt=" Anti-Piracy Measures Putting Internet Users At Risk " src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/kick-goog1.jpg" title=" Anti-Piracy Measures Putting Internet Users At Risk " /> <br /><br />Deliberate disruption – but at what cost? <br /><br />While blocks are easily circumvented, it is clear that forcing sites from domain to domain undermines their reputation with users. To those not keeping up with the news on a regular basis, disappearing sites seem unreliable due to their own incompetence. When they are ‘found’ using Google but then start asking for credit card details, users must really begin to think the worst. <br /><br />While this must be music to the ears of Hollywood and the music industry, one has to question how many innocent victims are getting caught up in this mess. <br /><br />“I registered for a free trial to obtain pdf of washing machine manual but ended up with free trial of Fat Games which is all games, so had to ring this number to cancel trial,” <a href="http://www.tellows.co.uk/num/02033000135">said</a> a user of the <a href="https://www.tacomedia.net/signup?sf=media">dubious service</a> running hand-in-hand with fake site KickassTorrents.to. <br /><br />Living in the ghetto <br /><br />The instances detailed above are just the tip of the iceberg. With every new seizure, suspension and blockade, more scammers will see opportunities to make money by tricking users to sign up to bogus services while obtaining their credit card details by deception. <br /><br />Of course, none of these problems can be blamed directly on the music or movie companies since they aren’t the ones running the scams. That being said, whenever concern is expressed for the well-being of Internet users supposedly <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-reports-top-pirate-sites-u-s-government-141027/">exposed to malware</a> on pirate sites, at some point that concern should be extended to those subjected to malware and identity fraud as a result of anti-piracy strategies. <br /><br />Yeah, don’t hold your breath.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span>

Anti-Piracy Measures Putting Internet Users At Risk

While entertainment companies and authorities believe they are necessary to stem the tide of online infringement, many current anti-piracy ...

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Why ISPs Should Stop Forwarding Piracy Settlement Demands

<br />Every day thousand of Internet subscribers receive a piracy warning from their Internet provider. Increasingly, these notifications also include a settlement request ranging from $20 to hundreds of dollars. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ISPs should protect their customers from these invasive tactics. <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" Why ISPs Should Stop Forwarding Piracy Settlement Demands" height="272" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/rightscorp-real.jpg" title=" Why ISPs Should Stop Forwarding Piracy Settlement Demands" width="400" /><br /> There are many ways copyright holders approach today’s “online piracy problem.” <br /><br />Some prefer to do it through innovation, while others prefer educational messages, warnings or even lawsuits. Another group is aiming to generate revenue by obtaining lots of small cash settlements. <br /><br />Rightscorp and CEG TEK have chosen the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/expendables-3-downloaders-told-to-pay-up-or-else-140918/">latter model</a>. Their emails are sent as regular DMCA notices which many ISPs then forward to their customers, often with a settlement demand included. <br /><br />Both companies send <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/us-internet-providers-receive-1-1-million-piracy-settlements-per-week-140726/">millions of warnings</a> to U.S. Internet providers every year, but how these are handled varies per ISP. Some, including Charter, forward the entire notice, while others such as Comcast strip out the settlement details. <br /><br />To find out more about the legality of these notices, and the options Internet providers and subscribers have, TorrentFreak sat down with Electronic Frontier Foundation (<a href="https://www.eff.org/">EFF</a>) staff attorney Mitch Stoltz. <br /><br />According to Stoltz, Internet providers should carefully review what they’re forwarding to their users. Under U.S. law they are not required to forward DMCA notices and stripping out settlement demands is in the best interest of the consumer. <br /><br />“In the U.S., ISPs don’t have any legal obligation to forward infringement notices in their entirety. An ISP that cares about protecting its customers from abuse should strip out demands for money before forwarding infringement notices. Many do this,” he says. <br /><br />“An ISP can also choose not to forward notices at all if they are deficient, misleading, or inaccurate,” Stoltz adds. <br /><br />Misleading notices <br /><br />The notices these companies send are designed to threaten and pressure the recipient, who is often not the person who downloaded the allegedly infringing material. <br /><br />“The problem with notices demanding money from ISP subscribers is that they’re often misleading,” Stoltz notes. <br /><br />“They often give the impression that the person whose name is on the ISP bill is legally responsible for all infringement that might happen on the Internet connection, which is simply not true.” <br /><br />Some of the notices mention disastrous consequences, such as excessively large jury verdicts against file sharers who previously had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. <br /><br />However, they forget to mention that these type of piracy cases almost never go to court. Similarly, ISPs rarely disconnect casual copyright infringers. <br /><br />“Rightscorp, for one, has never sued an accused file sharer. Having an ISP forward a demand for money also makes it seem like the ISP will cut off the subscriber if they don’t pay, which is also not true– most ISPs don’t ban customers just because a penny-stock outfit in Santa Monica asks them to,” Stoltz says. <br /><br />Legal repercussions? <br /><br />As a result of the threatening language many subscribers fear that they might be made bankrupt. The reality, however, is that nothing usually happens if they opt to ignore the threats. <br /><br />Stoltz advises people who receive a notice not to reach out to the sender. Instead, they should carefully consider their options and consult a lawyer if needed. <br /><br />“Circumstances vary, and it’s always a good idea to talk to a lawyer about your specific situation. Be cautious about communicating with any company or lawyer that accuses you of copyright infringement – they will use anything you say against you. Stop, think, and read carefully before you decide to send money or information.” <br /><br />In theory ISPs do have the right to disconnect an account after a subscriber receives multiple notices, but this is relatively rare. The same is true for lawsuits. As far as we know neither Rightscorp nor CEG TEK have taken a file-sharer to court. <br /><br />“They would rather scare a hundred people into paying $20 than spend thousands on a lawsuit against one person,” Stoltz says. <br /><br />The problem remains that even a minuscule chance of getting in trouble is enough for some to pay up. Some people just want the whole thing to go away, that’s what the settlement model is based on. <br /><br />The only way to make this threat disappear is for Internet providers to either strip the settlement demands, or simply toss all notices in the trash.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span>

Why ISPs Should Stop Forwarding Piracy Settlement Demands

Every day thousand of Internet subscribers receive a piracy warning from their Internet provider. Increasingly, these notifications also in...

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Kim Dotcom Awarded Millions For Legal Bills And Living Expenses

<br />Kim Dotcom has succeeded in getting more of his seized funds released by the courts in New Zealand. In addition to millions for legal expenses, the entrepreneur will receive $128K per month including $60K to pay mansion rent, $25,600 to cover staff and security, plus $11,300 for grocery and other expenses. <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" Kim Dotcom Awarded Millions For Legal Bills And Living Expenses " height="291" src="https://torrentfreak.com/images/dotcom-laptop.jpg" title=" Kim Dotcom Awarded Millions For Legal Bills And Living Expenses " width="400" /><br /> How much does it cost to enjoy a reasonable standard of living in the modern world? A couple of thousand dollars a month? Three thousand? Four? <br /><br />For Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, none of these amounts scratch the surface, a problematic situation considering all of his assets were previously seized by the U.S. and New Zealand governments. <br /><br />In February a “broke” and “destitute” Dotcom <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/destitute-kim-dotcom-begs-high-court-for-millions-150226/">appeared</a> before Justice Patricia Courtney, asking for living expenses and a massive cash injection to pay historical and current legal fees. Dotcom was previously granted around US$15,000 per month to live on but high costs had left him “penniless”. <br /><br />Following the hearing Justice Courtney’s ruling is largely good news for Dotcom, with the Judge taking into consideration claims by authorities that the entrepreneur has funds in a trust that could help pay his expenses. <br /><br />“The trust’s major asset is its shareholding in Mega Ltd, said to be worth more than $30m (US$22.6m). In evidence Mr Dotcom said that there were difficulties in selling Mega shares because they were blocked from being sold until the planned listing of Mega, which is now scheduled for late May 2015 (though it is possible that this date will be pushed back). There was no evidence to the contrary,” the Judge’s ruling reads. <br /><br />“I have concluded that Mr Dotcom does not have the ability to meet his legal and reasonable living expenses from trust assets because, on the evidence, those assets are not sufficiently liquid.” <br /><br />Noting that he still owes former lawyers around US$1.5m, the Judge said that Dotcom’s estimate for financing his legal battle <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-avoids-u-s-clutches-for-three-more-months-150501/">against extradition</a> is between US$1.5m and US$3m. This amount will be released from currently restrained government bonds. <br /><br />Next up was the Dotcom family’s accommodation costs. Rent on the now-famous mansion amounts to US$754,000 per annum under a lease Dotcom signed in February 2013 and which expires in the same month 2016. The Judge decided that terminating that lease would result in additional costs. <br /><br />“If [Dotcom] were to terminate the lease in order to find a more modest home, he would immediately be exposed to a significant contractual liability for the existing rental in addition to the costs of any new accommodation,” the Judge writes. <br /><br />“Little would be saved by requiring Mr Dotcom to move into more modest<br /> accommodation pending the expiry of the lease; it is more likely that the total amount required to house Mr Dotcom and his children and meet his lease commitment would actually prove greater than simply remaining where he is. <br /><br />“I therefore accept that, in the particular circumstances of this case, a figure of $80,000 (US$60,300) per month is reasonable for accommodation.” <br /><br />The Judge also considered Dotcom’s claims for items like security, staff wages and other general expenses. <br /><br />Dotcom currently has eight staff but the Judge felt that five would be sufficient to assist with cleaning, cooking, shopping, managing the grounds and caring for Dotcom’s children. <br /><br />“I allow $25,000 ($18,850) per month for staff,” the Judge said. <br /><br />Turning to Dotcom’s request for $20,000 (US$15,000) for groceries, fuel and maintenance etc, the Judge said this was a little high considering Dotcom’s estranged wife Mona could be expected to chip in. <br /><br />“On the basis that the children’s mother can be expected to contribute to<br /> some of these costs I consider that the figure of $20,000 (US$15,000) is a little high and would reduce that to $15,000 (US$11,300) per month,” the Judge added. <br /><br />In addition to the legal fees mentioned earlier, in total Dotcom was awarded $170,000 (US$128,000) per month to cover living expenses. <br /><br />“Mr Dotcom may have access to that figure each month pending the expiry of the lease on the property,” the Judge said. “At that point I would expect that the position will be reviewed.”<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak </span>

Kim Dotcom Awarded Millions For Legal Bills And Living Expenses

Kim Dotcom has succeeded in getting more of his seized funds released by the courts in New Zealand. In addition to millions for legal expen...

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Torrents Are Good For A Quarter Of All Encrypted Traffic

<br />Encrypted Internet traffic is surging according to data published by Canadian broadband management company Sandvine. A new report reveals that 25 percent of the encrypted downstream traffic in North America is consumed by BitTorrent transfers, second only to YouTube. <br /><br /><img alt=" Torrents Are Good For A Quarter Of All Encrypted Traffic " height="354" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/spy.jpg" title=" Torrents Are Good For A Quarter Of All Encrypted Traffic " width="400" /><br /> In recent years it has become apparent that BitTorrent users are increasingly <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-users-long-for-anonymity-111021/">searching for options</a> to hide their download footprints. <br /><br />Thus far, however, there was little information available on how much of all encrypted traffic is file-sharing related. A new <a href="https://www.sandvine.com/trends/encryption.html">report</a> published by Sandvine now provides some insight into this. <br /><br />To find out how much of all Internet traffic is encrypted, and what the most popular sources are, last month the company gathered data in collaboration with a North American fixed access network. <br /><br />The findings reveal that nearly 30% of all downstream traffic is encrypted. The majority of the traffic remains unencrypted (65%), and the small remainder has yet to be identified. <img alt=" Torrents Are Good For A Quarter Of All Encrypted Traffic " src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/sand.png" title=" Torrents Are Good For A Quarter Of All Encrypted Traffic " /> <br /><br />Looking at the individual sources of encrypted traffic we see that YouTube currently accounts for most of it. More than 11% of all downstream traffic comes from encrypted YouTube data, which is nearly 40% of all encrypted traffic. <br /><br />BitTorrent transfers come in second place with 7.2% of the total downstream traffic, which is good for nearly a quarter of all encrypted data. <br /><br />It’s worth noting that the report only looks at downstream traffic. BitTorrent’s share of upstream traffic is usually much higher, so the total percentage of all encrypted traffic will be well over 25 percent.<br />  <img alt=" Torrents Are Good For A Quarter Of All Encrypted Traffic " src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/sandenc.png" title=" Torrents Are Good For A Quarter Of All Encrypted Traffic " /> <br /><br />Another fact worth mentioning is that before YouTube made the transition to support secure data transfers, BitTorrent was the number one source of encrypted traffic according to Sandvine. <br /><br />With Netflix poised to move to encryption by default, the relative share of BitTorrent will probably drop even further in the near future. Absolute traffic is expected to keep growing, however. <br /><br />In response to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/aussie-anti-piracy-plans-boost-demand-vpns-150308/">various anti-piracy initiatives</a> and monitoring schemes around the world, BitTorrent users are increasingly turning to anonymizing services such as <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/">encrypted VPNs</a>. It will be interesting to see how this trend develops during the years to come.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak</span>

Torrents Are Good For A Quarter Of All Encrypted Traffic

Encrypted Internet traffic is surging according to data published by Canadian broadband management company Sandvine. A new report reveals t...

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Music Industry ‘Shuts Down’ Top Torrent Trackers

<br />A regional court in Hamburg has ordered a hosting company to identify the operators of three iconic BitTorrent trackers that together coordinated dozens of millions of transfers per day. The order is the result of a complaint from German music group BVMI, which says it's behind the shutdown of the trackers shut down earlier this year. <br /> <br /><br /><a href="http://torrentfreak.com/images/opentracker.png"><img alt=" Music Industry ‘Shuts Down’ Top Torrent Trackers" height="290" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/opentracker.png" title=" Music Industry ‘Shuts Down’ Top Torrent Trackers" width="400" /></a><br /> OpenBitTorrent, PublicBT and Istole.it have long been the three largest BitTorrent trackers on the Internet, coordinating the downloads of 30 million people at any given point in time. <br /><br />This means that these non-commercial services, powered by the open source Opentracker software, handled a staggering three billion connections per day – each. <br /><br />We say handled, because the trackers have been offline since mid-January. The trio mysteriously disappeared, but the German music industry group BVMI now takes credit for the shutdowns. <br /><br />According to BVMI’s lawfirm <a href="http://www.raschlegal.de/news/filesharing-netzwerk-schwer-angeschlagen-rasch-rechtsanwaelte-erreichen-abschaltung-der-drei-groessten-bittorrent-tracker-der-welt/">Rasch</a>, the hosting company took the tracker offline after they were ordered identify the operators. However, the host initially refused to disclose the personal details. <br /><br />In an injunction released this week a <a href="http://justiz.hamburg.de/landgericht-hamburg/">Hamburg court</a> ordered that the hosting company now has to hand over the personal details of the tracker operators. <br /><br />The ruling follows a complaint from BVMI and is the first against so-called standalone BitTorrent trackers. These trackers do not host or process any infringing material themselves and are a content neutral part of the BitTorrent ecosystem. <br /><br />According to BVMI CEO Florian Drücke the music industry has recently expanded its focus beyond traditional torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, to include these standalone trackers. <br /><br />“Without the Tracker, it will be much more difficult for those who offer and seek illegal content to make the first connection,” Drücke says. <br /><br />The downside, however, is that legal torrents also use these trackers to coordinate connections. <br /><br />According to <a href="https://www.wbs-law.de/">Christian Solmecke</a>, a German IT lawyer who has experience with file-sharing cases, the verdict comes a a surprise. <br /><br />“The court ruling amazes me. Apparently the court assumes that BitTorrent trackers are by definition something illegal. This is not the case,” he says. <br /><br />The lawyer doesn’t deny that the trackers play a role in both legal and illegal transfers, but they are content neutral and merely passing on metadata, similar to a DNS provider. <br /><br />“By the same argument these BitTorrent trackers are switched off you might ultimately forbid an ISP to continue to provide Internet access to end users, if copyright violations are committed,” Solmecke adds. <br /><br />While the three targeted trackers have been offline for months already, the ruling means that these type of services had better avoid Germany as their home base in future. <br /><br />“Apparently, the music industry sees the entire BitTorrent network as ‘evil’,” Solmecke concludes. <br /><br />Update: The article was updated to state that the court order only requires the host to identify the operators. <br /><br />Rasch lawyer Mirko Brüß further notes that this case should not be compared with and ISP who provides Internet access to consumers. <br /><br />“It appears Mr. Solmecke is not familiar with the BitTorrent technology. He is obviously not aware of the fact that the “opentracker” software comes with a blacklist. The tracker operators were asked to add certain info-hashes to this blacklist but failed to do so within a reasonable period of time,” Brüß says. <br /><br />“After their ISP was made aware of this situation, he shut the servers down in order to prevent his own liability. This is basically the same as the established notice-and-takedown proceedings under the DMCA and cannot be compared to an ISP providing internet access to end users.”<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak </span>

Music Industry ‘Shuts Down’ Top Torrent Trackers

A regional court in Hamburg has ordered a hosting company to identify the operators of three iconic BitTorrent trackers that together coord...

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Showtime and HBO Sue Over ‘Pre-Piracy’

<br />HBO and Showtime are not known to go after pirate sites, but the upcoming Mayweather v Pacquiao fight has proven to be an exception. Together with Mayweather Promotions and Top Rank Boxing the companies have sued two websites that announced intentions to stream the fight this weekend. <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" Showtime and HBO Sue Over ‘Pre-Piracy’ " height="326" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/maypa.jpg" title=" Showtime and HBO Sue Over ‘Pre-Piracy’ " width="400" /><br /> HBO and Showtime are no stranger to online piracy. Their TV-shows are pirated millions of times each month. <br /><br />Nevertheless, both companies are not known for suing pirates or website owners, until now. <br /><br />Yesterday the two companies filed <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/263525367/Hbo-Showtime-Fight">a complaint</a> at a federal court in Florida targeting the websites boxinghd.net and sportship.org. Both are accused of planning to stream the upcoming Mayweather v Pacquiao fight. <br /><br />In a unique pre-piracy case, the companies accuse the sites’ owners of various copyright related offenses of an event that has yet to take place. <br /><br />The suing parties have invested many millions of dollars which they hope to earn back in part through pay-per-view sales. But instead of the $89 to $100 people in the U.S. have to pay, both sites promise free access. <br /><br />“There are no authorized online streams of the Coverage for delivery to United States audiences,” the complaint clarifies, adding that the defendants “are seeking to benefit from this high profile, live Fight by infringing the rights of Plaintiffs.” <br /><br />The site’s owners would then profit from these free streams though various advertisements. The example below includes a screenshot of the boxinghd.net site, which has since been <a href="http://boxinghd.net/">removed</a>. <img alt=" Showtime and HBO Sue Over ‘Pre-Piracy’ " src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/streamingmanny.jpg" title=" Showtime and HBO Sue Over ‘Pre-Piracy’ " /> <br /><br />HBO and Showtime argue that the anticipated stream of the fight will infringe on their rights and cause irreparable damage. <br /><br />To stop the sites’ operators from linking to streams of the event the companies have asked the court for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. In addition, HBO and Showtime demand damages to compensate for the expected losses. <br /><br />The lawsuit has already had some effect as boxinghd.net has thrown in the towel and is no longer advertising the fight. Time will tell whether sportship.org will be knocked down too.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak </span>

Showtime and HBO Sue Over ‘Pre-Piracy’

HBO and Showtime are not known to go after pirate sites, but the upcoming Mayweather v Pacquiao fight has proven to be an exception. Togeth...

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Historic Pirate Bay Domain Decision Will Arrive Early May

<br />After hearing argument from both the prosecutor and the organization in control of Sweden's .SE domain names this week, the Stockholm District Court will now consider the fate of two key Pirate Bay domains. With a verdict due in less than two weeks, will the Court order a historic confiscation or will the notorious site maintain its Swedish links? <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" Historic Pirate Bay Domain Decision Will Arrive Early May" height="356" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb-logo.jpg" title=" Historic Pirate Bay Domain Decision Will Arrive Early May" width="400" /><br /> A small Scandinavian country in Northern Europe, Sweden has become a key battleground for international copyright holders looking to stamp their authority on millions of BitTorrent users. Attacking the sites they populate is a key strategy and above all others the destruction of The Pirate Bay is paramount. <br /><br />Born and developed in Sweden, the now notorious site is no longer the most popular in the world (that crown is <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/top-popular-torrent-sites-2015-150104/">currently worn</a> by KickassTorrents) but its profile ensures it remains a target with massive propaganda value. When The Pirate Bay is crushed a corner will have been turned, Hollywood and the record labels believe. <br /><br />Over the years the site has been squeezed out of Sweden, and Sweden has been squeezed out of the site. Numerous court orders and raids have ended its physical presence in the country and its Swedish management have long since gone. <br /><br />Indeed, as far as its operations at this moment are concerned, the only big connection the site has with Sweden is its domain name – ThePirateBay.se – and authorities are now doing whatever they can to break that most visible link. <br /><br />ThePirateBay.se (the site’s main domain) and PirateBay.se (a lesser used alternative) are being targeted by Prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad, the man behind the operation that <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-police-raid-the-pirate-bay-site-offline-141209/">took the site down</a> in December. Filed back in 2013 at the District Court of Stockholm, the motion targets Punkt SE, the organization responsible for Sweden’s top level .SE domain. <br /><br />This week the parties met in the Stockholm District Court, each putting forward their side of the argument. Ingblad didn’t respond to TorrentFreak’s offer to contribute to this article, but we know that he believes that Pirate Bay domains are criminal tools that enable copyright infringement, tools that should be confiscated by the state. <br /><br />Punkt SE, on the other hand, maintains that holding a registry responsible for infringement has no basis in law. Furthermore, disabling domains is an ineffective way to deal with infringement. <br /><br />“We believe it is wrong to pursue legal action against a top-level administrator like .SE to take away a service from the internet,” Punkt SE’s Maria Ekelund informs TF. <br /><br />“To confiscate a domain name is ineffective and disproportionate to achieve the impact of the earlier judgment, that is, to suspend access to the service itself.” <br /><br />In 2009, Swedish ISP Black Internet <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-taken-offline-by-swedish-authorities-090824/">was ordered</a> to stop providing Internet access to The Pirate Bay. The ISP initially declined to appeal the ruling but appeared to change its mind after its infrastructure was subjected to a <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/ex-pirate-bay-isp-sabotaged-calls-in-police-090825/">huge cyber-attack</a>. <br /><br />While the appeal was <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/ex-supplier-of-pirate-bay-bandwidth-given-leave-to-appeal-091109/">granted</a>, the ISP <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-lands-triple-strike-on-pirate-bay-openbittorrent-100522/">failed</a> to have the original decision overturned and subsequently blocked all traffic into and out of the IP addresses used by The Pirate Bay. For The Pirate Bay, the dream of trouble-free hosting in Sweden was largely over. <br /><br />But still, the site has found a way to stay online, no matter where in the world it has thrown anchor. Punkt SE believes that taking away Pirate Bay’s domain will do little to change that. <br /><br /><img alt=" Historic Pirate Bay Domain Decision Will Arrive Early May" height="234" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/IIS-SE.jpg" title=" Historic Pirate Bay Domain Decision Will Arrive Early May" width="400" /><br /> “To remove a domain name can be likened to taking away a sign that shows the address to a store operating illegally. Just because the sign disappears, does not mean the business disappears,” Ekelund adds. <br /><br />“However, we think it is good that the issue should be examined because the legal situation is unclear. This case differs from previous cases because it is not only directed against the holder, but also directly against .SE.” <br /><br />So now the waiting begins. In less than two weeks the Stockholm District Court will hand down its decision. Victory for Punkt will underpin the registry’s stance on limited liability and will buy The Pirate Bay more time. A win for the prosecutor will deliver a fairly serious blow to the site and draw a line in the sand for others looking to embark on similar adventures. <br /><br />But, perhaps more importantly, in the event the Court sides with the prosecution, Sweden will at last rid itself of the site that put the country in the crosshairs of the United States. No longer serviced from Swedish soil, with hardware or domain names, The Pirate Bay will be cut adrift to float at sea. <br /><br />Where will it dock next? That will remain a secret, at least for now.<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak </span>

Historic Pirate Bay Domain Decision Will Arrive Early May

After hearing argument from both the prosecutor and the organization in control of Sweden's .SE domain names this week, the Stockholm D...

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Movie Studios Give ‘Pirate’ Sites A 24h Shutdown Ultimatum

<br />On behalf of the major Hollywood movie studios the Motion Picture Association (MPA) is demanding that pirate site operators shut down within 24 hours, or else. The recent push targets a wide variety of services, including some of the top torrent sites. Thus far, the only casualty appears to be a rather small linking site. <br /><br /><img alt="Movie Studios Give ‘Pirate’ Sites A 24h Shutdown Ultimatum " height="367" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-running.jpg" title="Movie Studios Give ‘Pirate’ Sites A 24h Shutdown Ultimatum " width="400" /><br /> In recent years Hollywood has tried several tactics to deal with so-called pirate sites. <br /><br />Through lawsuits against isoHunt, Hotfile and Megaupload, for example, or by targeting intermediaries such as search engines, Internet providers and hosting companies. <br /><br />The most direct option, however, is to simply contact the site owners directly. This is what the MPAA’s European branch has been doing lately. <br /><br />During recent weeks various sources have informed TorrentFreak about emails received from Jan van Voorn, the MPA’s Vice-President Global Content Protection, Internet Operations. The emails all use standardized language and have been sent to a wide variety of services ranging from some of the biggest torrent indexes, to linking sites and hosting services. <br /><br />The MPA mail puts the site operators on notice and alerts them to European jurisprudence under which they may be held liable for linking to pirated movies and TV-shows. <br /><br />“Without prejudice to our contention that you are already well aware of the extensive infringements of copyright, this Notice fixes you with actual knowledge of facts and circumstances from which illegal activities […] are apparent,” Van Voorn writes. <br /><br />Among other things the email mentions that Article 14 of the E-Commerce Directive requires sites to stop offering infringing material. In addition, the Hollywood group cites other recent cases supporting their claim. <br /><br />Without making a specific threat, the MPA demands that site operators stop offering infringing material within 24 hours. <br /><br />“This Notice requires you to immediately (within 24 hours) take effective measures to end and prevent further copyright infringement. All opportunities provided by the Website to download, stream or otherwise obtain access to the Entertainment Content should be disabled permanently,” the email reads. <br /><br />Interestingly, the movie studios are not just worried about pirated films. Towards the end of the email they also point out that some sites are using movie posters without permission. <br /><br />“Finally, we draw your attention that any use of the artwork of the Entertainment Content (e.g. movie or TV show posters) (‘Artwork’) is prohibited without authorization of the rights holder. Since the MPA Members haven’t authorized the Website to publish the Artwork, the Website is infringing copyright on that basis as well,” Van Voorn writes. <br /><br />For now the threats haven’t made too much of an impact. Only one site that we know of has shut down after receiving the email recently, and that’s the relatively unknown link site micromkv.com. <br /><br />TF contacted the movie industry group for more details on the efficiency of the campaign. The MPA didn’t provide any details but informed us that the emails are standard notices sent to websites that carry infringing content. <br /><br />“These notices ask respectfully that effective measures be taken to stop further infringement,” an MPA spokesperson says. <br /><br />“This activity is part of the MPA’s ongoing strategy to curb copyright infringement, encourage consumers to use legal sources of content and increase the viability and quality of those services that actually pay creators for their work.” <br /><br />It remains unclear whether the MPA will take legal action against the warned sites, or if the group will focus its anti-piracy efforts elsewhere. <br /><br />— <br /><br />One of MPA’s emails is posted in full below.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <img alt="Movie Studios Give ‘Pirate’ Sites A 24h Shutdown Ultimatum " src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/mpamail.png" title="Movie Studios Give ‘Pirate’ Sites A 24h Shutdown Ultimatum " /><br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"> credit:torrentfreak </span>

Movie Studios Give ‘Pirate’ Sites A 24h Shutdown Ultimatum

On behalf of the major Hollywood movie studios the Motion Picture Association (MPA) is demanding that pirate site operators shut down withi...

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Grooveshark Shuts Down & Apologizes To The RIAA

<br />To conclude a massive copyright infringement lawsuit launched by the major recording labels, Grooveshark shut down a few hours ago. Acknowledging mistakes had been made and apologizing profusely, the company said that it would delete all stored music and hand over its website and intellectual property to the RIAA. <br /> <br /><br /><img alt=" Grooveshark Shuts Down & Apologizes To The RIAA " height="187" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/groove2.jpg" title=" Grooveshark Shuts Down & Apologizes To The RIAA " width="400" /><br /> Owned and operated by Florida and New York based Escape Media, Grooveshark has been a fly in the recording industry’s ointment for almost a decade. <br /><br />Founded in 2006, the company had an abrasive relationship with the world’s largest record labels, one that led it into legal conflict on a number of occasions. <br /><br />Nevertheless, Grooveshark built an extremely popular product. With a reported 35 million users per month (Spotify has around 60 million), the company attracted high-profile advertisers including Mercedes Benz. It also managed to pull of limited licensing deals with big labels. <br /><br />But for some time the writing has been on the wall. With a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/labels-win-grooveshark-copyright-infringement-case-140930/">defense under the DMCA in tatters</a> (it was revealed the site’s founders and staff had uploaded copyrighted music to the site themselves), a case brought by the major labels (UMG Recording Inc et al v. Escape Media Group Inc et al) was bound to come to a sad end this week. <br /><br />With <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/grooveshark-faces-736-million-in-copyright-damages-150427/">$736 million in potential damages</a> floating around on the horizon, the conclusion was never likely to be good. And, as expected, a few hours ago the upstart music venture delivered the bad news. <br /><br />“Today we are shutting down Grooveshark,” the company announced. <br /><br />“We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music. But despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service. <br /><br />“That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation,” the company said. <br /><br />Revealing a consent judgment arrangement with the RIAA, Grooveshark confirmed what many observers had feared. There would be no chance of a resurrection. <br /><br />“As part of a settlement agreement with the major record companies, we have agreed to cease operations immediately, wipe clean all of the record companies’ copyrighted works and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights,” Grooveshark said. <br /><br />The statement represents a huge change in attitude from a company that built its business on perceived protections offered by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. But in the end, however, the legislation offered no safe harbor. <br /><br />Instead, and probably through gritted teeth, Grooveshark’s farewell notes that although it was indeed a pioneer in an under-served market, obtaining permission from the labels (rather than forgiveness) is the right way to approach the market. <br /><br />“At the time of our launch, few music services provided the experience we wanted to offer – and think you deserve. Fortunately, that’s not longer the case. There are now hundreds of fan friendly, affordable services available for you to choose from, including Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, Beats Music, Rhapsody and Rdio, among many others,” the company said. <br /><br />“If you love music and respect the artists, songwriters and everyone else who makes great music possible, use a licensed service that compensates artists and other rights holders. You can find out more about the many great services available where you live here: http://whymusicmatters.com/find-music.” <br /><br />Although short, the RIAA’s statement gets straight to the point. <br /><br /><img alt=" Grooveshark Shuts Down & Apologizes To The RIAA " height="400" src="http://torrentfreak.com/images/riaa-logo.jpg" title=" Grooveshark Shuts Down & Apologizes To The RIAA " width="393" /><br /> “Escape Media today entered into a consent judgment with a permanent injunction with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. <br /><br />“Under terms of the settlement, Grooveshark founders Josh Greenberg and Sam Tarantino admit to creating and operating an infringing music service and Escape Media agrees to significant financial penalties if the terms of the settlement are not followed,” the RIAA said. <br /><br />“This is an important victory for artists and the entire music industry. For too long, Grooveshark built its business without properly compensating the artists, songwriters and everyone else who makes great music possible. This settlement ends a major source of infringing activity,” the RIAA said. <br /><br />For Grooveshark the show is certainly over and in final words to its loyal fans, the company thanked them for their commitment. <br /><br />“It has been a privilege getting to know so many of you and enjoying music together. Thank you for being such passionate fans. Yours in music, Your friends at Grooveshark April 30, 2015.”<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">credit:torrentfreak </span>

Grooveshark Shuts Down & Apologizes To The RIAA

To conclude a massive copyright infringement lawsuit launched by the major recording labels, Grooveshark shut down a few hours ago. Acknowl...

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