LibreELEC 9.0 (Leia) Beta 3 has finally arrived after a long gestation period. Based upon Kodi v18 RC5.2, the 9.0 Beta 3 release contains many changes and refinements to user experience and a complete overhaul of the underlying OS core to improve stability and extend hardware support. Kodi v18 also brings new features like Kodi Retroplayer and DRM support that (equipped with an appropriate add-on) allows Kodi to unofficially stream content from services like Netflix and Amazon.

Compared to 9.0 Beta 2, major changes are:

• Added support for Khadas Edge RK3399 Board
• Updated to Kodi 18 RC5.2
• Updated to Linux Kernel 4.19.14
• Fixed DVBSky S960 driver (tx jahutchi)
• a lot more updates and fixes, have a look at the detailed changelog

Compared to 8.2, major changes are:

Settings Add-on:

• Changeable SSH passwords!
• Default firewall (iptables) with simple configurations for Home/Public networks
• Updates are moved to their own menu, other options are cleaned up a little
• Safe Mode boot when Kodi experiences startup problems

Changeable SSH passwords and a default firewall configuration have been added to combat the increasing number of HTPC installs that can be found on the public internet. The increase is partly due to simple maths; our userbase has grown so the number of users inappropriately exposing their HTPC to the internet has also grown. The static password for libreelec is present on most/all password dictionary lists so it’s important we start encouraging users to change it (the first-run wizard will prompt when SSH is enabled).

More people are using VPN services for privacy without realising this exposes SSH/SMB/Web services. To combat this problem we have added simple firewall configurations for Home/Public networks; the Home configuration blocks inbound connections from non-private networks, e.g. traffic from the Internet to the public IP address used with the VPN connection.

As the Kodi piracy scene continues to decline we have seen an increase in users with outdated add-ons that cause problems during upgrades so “Safe Mode” counts Kodi startup crashes. After five startup failures it intervenes with a default (clean) configuration and prominent warning so users know there is a problem – but still have a working GUI to troubleshoot from.

Retroplayer:

Kodi v18 brings initial support for retro gaming and the ability to play hundreds of retro games directly from within Kodi. We provide a large number of emulator cores from our add-on repo, but no games (bring your own) although there are a couple of open source test game add-ons (2048 etc.) in our repo. In this first iteration of Kodi retro gaming support the user interface can be a little confusing and we still need to write-up some HOWTO guides for the wiki. Kodi developers are working on a game database (for Kodi v19) which will make the process of managing and using game ROMs easier in the future.

DVB Drivers:

We now offer a larger range of DVB drivers (depending on your platform) to choose from. The “DVB drivers from the latest kernel” option also includes the majority of Hauppage drivers which have been recently upstreamed into the kernel, which is great to see!

Rockchip:

Despite the 8.95.1 release number our Rockchip releases remain in an Alpha state with limited support. The Kodi version is updated but there are no significant video/audio improvements to the Rockchip 4.4 kernel codebase – and none planned. Our work on Rockchip support has refocussed onto the Linux 4.20 kernel to use the modern kernel frameworks needed for the next-generation Kodi video pipeline. This work is progressing nicely, but it means the 4.4 codebase “is what it is” until a future kernel bump.

New Devices:

Amlogic

• Khadas VIM(1) – requires a clean install if using current community images
• Libre Computer Le Potato

Rockchip

• 96rocks ROCK960
• ASUS Tinker Board
• Firefly ROC-RK3328-CC
• Khadas Edge
• PINE64 ROCK64
• PINE64 RockPro64
• Popcorn Hour RockBox
• Popcorn Hour Transformer
• Rockchip Sapphire Board
• Mqmaker MiQi

If you experience problems, please open an thread at our forum. You can also open an ticket at our issue tracker.

Downloads:

RPi 2/3 LibreELEC-RPi2.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

RPi 0/1 LibreELEC-RPi.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

Generic LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

Odroid_C2 LibreELEC-Odroid_C2.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

KVIM LibreELEC-KVIM.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

LePotato LibreELEC-LePotato.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

Slice LibreELEC-Slice.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

Slice3 LibreELEC-Slice3.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Core LibreELEC-WeTek_Core.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Hub LibreELEC-WeTek_Hub.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

Warning: Update at WP1 is broken if you use img.gz – please use .tar to update:

WeTek_Play LibreELEC-WeTek_Play.arm-8.95.003.tar (info)

WeTek_Play LibreELEC-WeTek_Play.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Play_2 LibreELEC-WeTek_Play_2.arm-8.95.003.img.gz (info)

*** IMPORTANT ***

Rockchip images are not available via the USB/SD Creator App (we’re working on a fix)

Please download them manually!

Rockchip RK3328

NO RK3328 builds for LE9 B3 due a major bug that prevents booting.

Rockchip RK3399

Khadas Edge LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.012-khadas-edge.img.gz (info)

96rocks ROCK960 LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.012-rock960.img.gz (info)

PINE64 RockPro64 LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.012-rockpro64.img.gz (info)

Rockchip Sapphire Board LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.012-sapphire.img.gz (info)

Rockchip RK3288

ASUS Tinker Board LibreELEC-TinkerBoard.arm-8.90.012-rk3288.img.gz (info)

mqmaker MiQi LibreELEC-MiQi.arm-8.90.012-rk3288.img.gz (info)

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Since the turn of the decade, Austria has been grappling with the controversial issue of pirate site blocking.

While rights holders have long-insisted that blocking is an appropriate and proportionate response to large-scale infringement, local Internet service providers have remained unconvinced, despite many legal processes.

Last November, the Supreme Court finally ruled that The Pirate Bay and other “structurally-infringing” sites including 1337x.to can indeed be blocked, if rights holders have exhausted all other options. However, the decision wasn’t without complications.

The Telecom Single Market (TSM) Regulation established the principle of non-discriminatory traffic management in the EU. It does allow for the blocking of copyright-infringing websites but only when supported by a clear administrative or judicial decision.

However, rights holders have also written to ISPs in Austria demanding that they block sites that are potentially related to a blocked platform (such as a mirror or proxy) but aren’t specifically detailed in an official order.

Last January, this problem finally came to head when, after ‘voluntarily’ blocking several Pirate Bay clones, ISP T-Mobile reported itself to the Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Telecommunications (RTR) for a potential net neutrality breach. As reported by Tarnkappe, other providers including A1, Drei, Kabelplus, Liwest, and UPC later followed suit.

“The decision of the providers to self-disclose may seem surprising at first glance,” says Maximilian Schubert, Secretary General of Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA).

“However, this self-disclosure will hopefully open the eyes of many people entrusted with the topic of how unclear and almost worrying the situation is in this country.”

At issue is whether local ISPs are obliged to block ‘pirate’ sites following an informal request from rights holders and in the absence of an official order. It now transpires, thanks to pressure from the ISPs, that they do not have to block following such requests.

Telecoms regulator Telecom Control Commission will now get involved when a block is requested which will lead to a supervisory process and a full review by the agency. Informal blocking of domains following a simple request from rights holders is therefore ruled out.

“From ISPA’s point of view, this has sent another clear signal that network blocking constitutes a serious infringement of fundamental rights,” Schubert says.

“To rely on an informal system of ‘bartering’ in such a sensitive matter, as the rights holders have requested, is simply incompatible with the principles of a modern constitutional state. It is now up to the legislator, while respecting the fundamental rights concerned, to find a solution that takes account of the different interests.”

Moving forward, ISPA says that ISPs want an “independent judicial body” to confirm in advance the legality of any blocking while ensuring that a minimum of time and resources are expended on the blocking process.

“In addition, users need to be able to clearly understand why they are being blocked and thus have the opportunity to fight the block directly at the crucial point. Furthermore, the providers must be compensated for their costs and protected against any claims of third parties,” ISPA concludes.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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Over the years we’ve written numerous times about questionable copyright claims on YouTube.

This problem is far from new but more and more stories are emerging every week. Over the past days, a claim on a Star Wars fan film has caught a lot of attention.

The video in question was created by the popular Star Wars Theory channel, which published the first episode of the “Vader” fan film just before Christmas.

The channel is operated by Toos, a dedicated Star Wars fan, who made the video for like-minded fans. Aware of the sensitive stance rightsholders have regarding fan films, he reached out to Lucasfilm beforehand.

The company, which was the original copyright holder of the Star Wars franchise before it sold to Disney, said that Toos couldn’t monetize the project, nor could he crowdfund it. However, if he stuck to the rules it could continue. This meant that Toos paid for the production himself and published it without ads.

All seemed fine for the first weeks after the episode was put up. The video was viewed millions of times and received tens of thousands of likes. However, this week things changed.

Without prior notice, Warner/Chappell – which controls the rights to Star Wars’ music – moved in and claimed the video. While the fan film remains online, it’s now showing ads with the revenue going directly to the music publisher.

“They have claimed the whole movie because there is a piece in there that uses the rendition of The Imperial March,” Toos says.

This isn’t the original sound recording that was used in Star Wars, as Toos hired a composer to write a remake of the original theme music. However, according to Warner/Chappell, it’s a cover which they, apparently, want to be paid for.

Responding to the issue in a YouTube video, Toos says he’s disappointed. After being told that he can’t monetize the film, one of the rightsholders has moved in and monetized it instead.

“It’s not about the money, it’s the principle,” Toos says. “Someone from one of those companies went in there and manually claimed it. To me, that’s just very vindictive. It’s very rude.”

Soon after Toos published his response on the “Star Wars Theory” channel, it blew up. People directed much of their anger at Disney and characterized the copyright claim as clearly false.

False in this case is a matter of perspective. While non-commercial fan films are often allowed, the rightsholders can still claim it. Whether this claim is rightful or if it’s a fair use ultimately has to be decided in court.

Toos doesn’t want to take it that far. Following the public outrage, Warner/Chappell reached out to his network to indicate that it wouldn’t back down. This puts him in a tough spot.

Toos can easily dispute the claim. If Warner/Chappell uphold it, he can appeal again after which the music publisher has to file an official DMCA notice. This will then result in a strike on the channel and the video will be removed as well.

At that point, Toos can file a counter-notice. YouTube will then restore the video after ten days unless Warner/Chappel takes the matter to federal court. Not a very pleasant outlook, to say the least.

Warner/Chappel could easily win a potential lawsuit. They argue that the film’s music is based on the original composition of Star Wars themes, which is indeed the case. That the film is non-commercial doesn’t mean any use is fair use, there are other factors that play a role as well.

Toos prefers to let the issue go. He still plans to continue with the second episode, although he won’t use any Star Wars themed music for that.

The good news is that the copyright claim and response brought a lot of attention to the Star Wars Theory channel and the “Vader” fan film. That doesn’t hurt the support he receives through Patreon and other avenues, which comes in handy as Newsweek notes that the film cost around $150,000 to shoot.

As for Warner/Chappell, they will likely continue to claim videos which they believe infringe their rights. This is not the first fan-made project they have gone after and it likely won’t be the last.

Update: The claim was removed. Toos notes that Lucasfilm stepped in. As a result, the Vader fan film is ad-free again.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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While legal IPTV platforms exist online, the acronym is also closely associated with services providing access to unlicensed live TV feeds.

These services can be easily accessed via a PC, tablet, or mobile phone, but many are accessed via Android-type set-top boxes. Another option is to use the MAG range of set-top devices available from Ukraine-based Infomir.

The company strongly disassociates itself from such infringing uses and in support of that announced last December that following complaints from rightsholders, it would prevent users from accessing allegedly-infringing portals.

“Upon receiving complaints from a copyright holder, Infomir is obliged to restrict access from its devices to any portal suspected of copyright infringement. The restriction will be maintained until the issue with the copyright holder is resolved,” the company said.

News of this action, or at least its effects, spread quickly among many IPTV users. Customers of several unlicensed services reported that portal URLs (the domain names used by devices to access IPTV services) had been blocked on their MAG devices and were no longer accessible.

Some providers changed their portal URLs in response but that was always destined to become a game of whac-a-mole. However, right from the beginning it seemed that MAG devices themselves contained the solution and it didn’t take long before that was confirmed.

In a post to Reddit, an unnamed developer using a ‘throwaway’ account revealed how he’d defeated the blocking system.

“I’ve spent the last few days digging around with [network analysis tool] Wireshark + custom firmware to see how this was working, and it turns out it’s quite simple and can be removed from all current firmware on all models that I’ve tested (250/254/256/322/324),” he wrote.

“We *could*, as people currently are, keep changing portal URLs – but this is not sustainable and as the box is phoning home on every boot, is more than likely just making it easier for Infomir to just re-block on the next wave of updates to the blacklist.”

The full breakdown is available on Reddit and indeed other places elsewhere but speaking with TorrentFreak the developer offered to put some more meat on the bones.

‘Thr0wawayicus’ told TF that when connected to the Internet, MAG devices use encryption to access a URL on Infomir’s servers. This results in the creation of a file called dls.backup on the local device.

“The encrypted communication is made up of an HTTPS connection to the mentioned URL,” he said.

“I can only guess at the contents but at minimum, it contains the data that is saved as dls.backup, although I can’t rule out that it potentially also reports the portal URLs you’re using back to Infomir to build up their database for potential future blocks,” he postulated.

‘Thr0wawayicus’ says that left him with two tasks – patch the browser present in MAG devices (or block the hosts file to prevent access to the blacklist), or erase the dls.backup file to prevent cached lookups.

He told TF that deleting the file is probably fine since it likely has no other purpose than to block URLs – it didn’t exist in any firmware prior to the latest releases and is referred to internally as a “domain list file”.

While some technically-minded people will be able to follow the detailed instructions available online (we’ve published just the very bare bones here for reporting purposes), ‘Thr0wawayicus’ has also put in a lot of work to streamline the process.

MAG devices are designed to accept custom firmware. In fact, Infomir provides all the tools that users need to compile their own. ‘Thr0wawayicus’ says that he used these tools to create custom ‘anti-blocking’ firmware variants for popular MAG devices. These have been placed on file-hosting platforms and torrents for public consumption.

“The firmware was built with the officially available tools, from source files Infomir release specifically for the purpose of building custom firmware,” he explained.

“There are no license terms prohibiting you from editing the filesystem as needed. It’s no less legal than stopping say a Chinese WiFi camera from phoning home.”

While that might possibly be the case, we aren’t linking to modified firmware here. That being said, ‘Thr0wawayicus’ reveals that he spent considerable amounts of time putting them together.

“Reverse engineering the issue took me around a day. The longest part of the process which took a couple of days after that was the building and testing of all the individual firmware files for each model of the MAG to automate the process of disabling the check in a manner which would require no special intervention or technical knowledge from the end user,” he revealed.

“The time spent waiting for flashes to complete (because I had to go back and forth between the official firmware and mine for testing) probably made up the majority of those two days.”

The developer said he was motivated to bypass the portal blocking present in these devices because he isn’t comfortable with an equipment manufacturer dictating what people can and cannot do with their devices.

As previously highlighted, Infomir previously stated they are simply carrying through with their obligations to block allegedly-infringing content as required under both US and European law.

“Our policy is to comply with the EU and US legislation on copyright and take into account best practices in the area of handling of copyright infringement reports,” the company told TF.

“In particular, we only process the reports of copyright infringement that contain all the elements of notification envisaged by the DMCA.”

Infomir also added that it filters for false or abusive claims and provides all blocked providers with the opportunity to oppose a copyright infringement report. In the event of a dispute, the company said it would request a court order to maintain access restriction to a blocked portal.

Infomir informs TorrentFreak that its products are aimed at professional IPTV service providers and the company strives to maintain high standards of hardware and software.

“All the tools we provide to our customers are designed to be used solely by legitimate service providers,” says Infomir Legal Counsel Vladislav Larionov.

“We understand that there might be ways to circumvent any restriction system on any device, be it set-top box, smart TV, tablet, smartphone etc. To ensure high enough level of reliability of the restriction system, we get it in line with the recommendations of anti-piracy associations we cooperate with.” 

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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With English Premier League clubs reporting revenues of £4.5 billion for the period 2016/17, top-tier football is extremely lucrative.

The Premier League itself has a three-year TV deal which came into effect during the same period, with a record-breaking £5.1 billion paid to the League by broadcasters Sky and BT.

A new deal, effective 2019 to 2022, netted the Premier League £4.45 billion and the football organization is extremely keen to protect its revenues and that of its customers by tackling piracy head on.

Maintaining that momentum, today the Premier League announced the opening of a brand new office in Singapore, its first international office and one with the primary aim of dealing with unlicensed consumption.

Based in Tanjong Pagar, which is located within the Central Business District in Singapore, the office will reportedly provide a base for the Asia-Pacific region. From here, the League will deploy its anti-piracy enforcement program across “multiple” markets.

In terms of anti-piracy activities, the Premier League is best known for its crackdown on streaming piracy, particularly when it comes to live events.

In the UK, the League has pioneered and developed “live stream” injunctions which allow it to request that ISPs block illicit streams of matches to disrupt piracy as soon as it takes place.

The practice mainly tends to cause disruption on Saturday afternoons and although some illicit IPTV providers have deployed some successful countermeasures, there are always plenty of complaints on Saturday about illegal streams going down.

Until now, these blocking measures have been restricted to the UK but with this expansion and a brand new office focused on piracy, it seems likely that the scheme could be launched in other countries too.

“The Asia-Pacific region is strategically important for the Premier League and its clubs,” says Premier League Director of Broadcasting Paul Molnar.

“Singapore provides an excellent location for our first international office and we look forward to using this base to support our many broadcast partners across the region.

“Equally, it is critical that we now deploy local resource and expertise to combat the increasing threat of piracy which undermines all stakeholders in the creative industry.”

While the new Singapore office is the Premier League’s first anti-piracy focused overseas base, the company is no stranger to enforcement in the region.

Last year the Singapore High Court granted an injunction following complaints from The Premier League, Singnet PTE Ltd, Fox Networks Group Singapore PTE Ltd, NGC Network Asia LLC, and Fox International Channels (US) Inc.

Neil Gane, General Manager of AVIA’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP), of which The Premier League is a member, told TorrentFreak that the motion was heard on November 2, 2018, with the court subsequently handing down an order against “eight authentication domains.”

“Singapore has been considered a bastion of Intellectual Property rights across the region, and the court’s decision to block access to popular illegal applications preloaded onto ISDs and sold in Singapore reaffirms this contention,” he added.

The Premier League referenced this action in today’s announcement, noting that it is also taking criminal action against suppliers of ISDs (Illicit Streaming Devices) and working with Thai authorities to raid those in the supply chain.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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