With tens of millions of active Kodi media player users around the globe, there is a thirst for information on how to utilize the open source software.

As a result, dozens of websites and blogs have appeared to fill this niche, many of them dedicated to tips, tutorials, and news on the latest add-ons and developments.

Founded in 2015, KodiTips.com is one of the most popular, with more than a million visitors every month. The site was created to fill a gap in the market, its operator informs TorrentFreak.

“At the time, there wasn’t a lot of tutorials and how-to guides for Kodi add-ons and hardware. The site’s original and continuing message is to offer guides on how to understand and setup Kodi, and to clarify what Kodi is vs what it isn’t (doesn’t host content, addons only scrape content hosted by others, etc), ” he explains.

KodiTips is certainly comprehensive, regularly publishing details on all the major add-ons while posting changelogs to keep visitors informed. On Thursday, however, the site lost access to its Facebook page following a copyright infringement complaint.

“We removed or disabled access to the following content you posted on Facebook because we received a notice from a third party that the content infringes their copyright(s),” a message from Facebook declared.

What is a little surprising about Facebook’s notice is that it does not detail any specific infringing content, listing only “Page: Kodi Tips – Android TV, Amazon Fire Help” and “Copyrighted Work: Other” as the allegedly infringing content.

Predicatably, the platform doesn’t seem keen to get involved in the argument either.

“Facebook isn’t in a position to adjudicate disputes between third parties. If you believe this content shouldn’t have been removed from Facebook, you can contact the complaining party directly to resolve your issue,” the notice reads.

The takedown notice, reviewed by TF, lists the “rights owner” as Sky while offering an email address often used by the company to deal with infringement disputes. We aren’t publishing it in full but the address has been in use for years, often in complaints filed against allegedly-infringing users of eBay.

This isn’t the first time that KodiTips has had its Facebook page taken down following an infringement complaint. Back in July 2018, the site lost its original page following a similar complaint, losing 80,000 subscribers in the process. Luckily, it still has more than 70,000 followers on Twitter.

The operator of KodiTips informs TF that he doesn’t intend to contest the takedown, branding it a waste of “time and energy”. He also confirms that Sky has never contacted him before, with the same being true for other anti-piracy groups such as the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.

Given the controversial nature of some third-party Kodi add-ons, copyright complaints in connection with them certainly don’t come as a surprise. However, to the best of KodiTips’ operator’s knowledge, he has never infringed Sky’s copyrights via his tutorials and know-how.

Thanks to the super-vague notice from Facebook, he remains in the dark.

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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Tens years ago India only had about five million broadband subscribers. Today, there are close to half a billion.

This massive increase has left its mark on society, and as we envisioned at the time, it proved to be a growth market for pirates as well.

The high online piracy rates are a problem, but offline there are issues too. As it turns out, many of the camcorded movie leaks that appear on pirate sites originate from Indian movie theaters.

This presents a problem for both Bollywood and Hollywood, both of which have repeatedly argued that current copyright legislation is not properly equipped to deal with the problem.

“The Indian Government should swiftly enact legislative amendments to outlaw unauthorized recording of all or part of an audiovisual work in a cinema,” MPAA noted just recently. 

The US Trade Representative also highlighted this issue in its most recent Special 301 Report, noting that proposed amendments to the Cinematograph Act have stalled for several years.

Whether this outside pressure had an effect or not, the Indian Government is now proposing a new amendment to the Cinematograph Act to target unauthorized copying in theaters. As a result, camcording pirates may soon face jail time and hefty fines.

The proposal suggests putting a maximum prison sentence of three years on unauthorized recording audio or video footage at a movie theater. In addition, there’s a maximum fine of Rs.10 Lakhs, which is roughly $14,000.

The amendment in question reads as follows:

“Notwithstanding any law for the time being in force including any provision of the Copyright Act, 1957, any person who, during the exhibition of an audiovisual work, cinematographic in an exhibition facility used to exhibit cinematograph films or audiovisual recordings and without the written authorization of the copyright owner, uses any audiovisual recording device to knowingly make or transmit or attempt to make or transmit or abet the making or transmission of a copy or visual recording or sound recording embodying a cinematograph film or audiovisual recording or any part thereof or a copy of sound recording accompanying such cinematograph film or audiovisual recording or any part thereof during subsistence of copyright in such cinematograph film or sound recording, shall be punishable with imprisonment not exceeding three years and shall also be liable to fine not exceeding Rs.10 Lakhs, or to a term of imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or both.”

The draft legislation has yet to pass but major players in the movie industry are happy with the announcement.

Uday Singh, managing director of the MPA’s Motion Picture Distributors Association (MPAA-India),  says that the camcording amendment will put India on par with other countries that already have similar measures.

“Most countries in the world either have a law or some kind of a provision that covers camcording. It is a welcome move. We used to see a lot of leaks in the supply chain in this area. I think that this is one more step towards plugging that leak,” Singh notes, quoted by Television Post.

While there is not yet a fully-fledged anti-camcording law, there hasn’t been a shortage of arrests. Indian law enforcement has taken steps against unauthorized recording in theaters on several occasions.

This even led to the arrests of several, presumably innocent, theater owners. The Indian Film Exhibitors Association recently called on the Madras High Court to put a halt to these overbroad crackdowns.

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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ARIN may not be well known to the wider public, but it provides a crucial service which affects the Internet at large.

One of the main tasks of the non-profit organization is to distribute crucial Internet number resources, including IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses, and AS numbers.

These numbers are not directly allocated to individual end-users. They typically go to large companies including Google and Amazon, Internet registrars, as well as ISPs such as AT&T, Comcast, Bell, and Rogers.

For several decades these companies have maintained a voluntary Whois database, keeping track of customers assigned a large block of IP-numbers. Not the average Joe’s Internet connection, but a large university, or a hosting provider, for example.

In a letter sent to the Canadian Government as part of the Statutory Review of the Copyright Act, ARIN stresses that the Whois database is an important copyright enforcement tool.

Note: the submission was not approced by ARIN’s CEO, see update below.

“When copyright infringing material or other illicit content is found online, Whois is often the first point of investigation of the source,” ARIN writes.

“Law enforcement agencies and private parties with a legal interest can access the Whois database either in accordance with the registrar’s policies, or under judicial order.”

Until recently, this Whois database was kept in place by ARIN through a “carrot” and “stick” approach. Companies would regularly come back to request new IP-addresses (carrot), and ARIN would only allocate this if the Whois database was properly maintained (stick).

This has worked fine for over thirty years, but the American non-profit fears that their “stick” may no longer be as effective now things are moving to IPv6.

Since the IPv4 address pool is exhausted, companies are moving to IPv6 addresses, which are widely available. This means that these companies may not have to return to ARIN for years.

Without this pressure, these companies may neglect the Whois database, the organization fears.

“ISPs and others will be able to request large blocks IPv6 numbers and may not need to return to ARIN for replenishment for several years. As a result, ARIN will no longer have a mechanism to require compliance with maintaining up to date records of IP dispersals,” the organization writes.

“As no other regulatory or other mechanisms exist that would require this information be updated and preserved, it is likely that many organizations will rarely or never do so.”

ARIN fears that without a proper Whois database, rogue players could “wreak havoc.” That will make it harder to investigate and stop copyright infringement, as well as other illegal activity.

As such, the organization is asking the Canadian Government to “require” companies and ISPs that receive large blocks of numbers to “maintain an up-to-date registry of the assignment of internet numbers.”

In addition, the Government shoulds take legislative or regulatory action to ensure that companies which can assign internet numbers to third parties have a legal duty to keep the Whois database up to date.

ARIN recommendations

This is the first time we’ve seen ARIN getting involved in copyright enforcement discussions at this level. It will be interesting to see how their request will be received.

Whether all 5,896 ARIN members stand behind the request is doubtful. Milton Mueller, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy and a former ARIN advisory committee member, believes that it’s a bad idea to fragment these kinds of policies on a country-to-country basis.

Mueller also questions whether most ARIN members stand behind the submission, which was apparently sent in without consulting the organization’s broader base.

“I think ARIN’s community would be shocked to see its staff inviting national governments to regulate them without any discussion or vetting of this idea within the community,” he informed The Wire Report.

Copyright holders in the United States and abroad will likely welcome the proposal though. For them, Whois data has been a hot topic over the past several months.

In addition to the IP-address allocation data, rightsholders are also concerned about the domain name Whois data, which many companies obscured following the implementation of the GDPR, the EU’s new privacy regulation.

Update: ARIN’s CEO John Curran rejected the recommendations, which he never approved, according to a follow-up from The Wire Report.

We reached out to ARIN asking for further clarification. We assume that it will be retracted, but that has yet to be confirmed.

Update 2: ARIN informs TorrentFreak that it will “seek to amend” the submission “to accurately reflect ARIN’s position.”

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A copy of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology can be found here (pdf).

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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By offering access to high quality movies and TV-shows, streaming site Flixtor.to has become the go-to site for many pirates.

Everything went relatively smoothly until Last November, when the popular site suddenly disappeared from the web.

Initially, it was unknown what caused the downtime but after a week the Flixtor team announced that the site had been taken out by an unexplained catastrophe.

This was a major disappointment to the platform’s users, especially those who just paid for VIP access. However, it was not the end. According to a temporary message posted on the site, everything would be rebuilt from scratch.

After more than a month had passed, the promised comeback arrived last weekend. Flixtor.to resurfaced and, at first glance, it looks pretty much the same as before. However, all the backend code had to be rewritten.

“Sorry it took so long but it was a lot of work to recover. The outside looks the same but everything under the hood had to be rewritten,” the Flixtor team writes in a public announcement.

Flixtor’s back

There’s still a lot of work yet to be done but a Beta version of the site is functional.

“We’re in BETA for the next few days. This means that we’re in the middle of updating and fixing things so expect some downtime every now and then,” the Flixtor team notes.

During the coming days and weeks, the site will be optimized. This includes adding to the content library, which isn’t complete just yet. According to Flixtor, the prime focus will be on rebuilding the TV-show library first.

VIP users are also reassured by the Flixtor team. They will all receive new login credentials which give them access to the same perks as before, including all videos in 1080p quality.

It’s still unclear what happened to the site last November. Flixtor is certainly one of the prime targets of the Hollywood studios, but there are no signs that the outage was caused by a coordinated enforcement effort.

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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Warning: This may contain spoilers.

As a huge Black Mirror fan, I was excited – extremely excited – to learn that Netflix would be presenting the latest installment of the series at the end of December.

Right on cue, Bandersnatch hit the streaming service and within minutes I’d left the office for the comfort of the living room. Firing it up on my four-year-old LG smart TV I was immediately frustrated. According to the video that began to play, my TV is too old and outdated to play the promised interactive feast.

This, I initially thought, was part of the usual mind games Black Mirror likes to play with its viewers. I was wrong. My TV really was incapable of playing Bandersnatch. Undeterred, I grabbed an Amazon Firestick and within 15 minutes had set up Netflix and was watching the show. Minor setup irritations aside, I was in the game – literally, and in more ways than one.

The story behind Bandersnatch is important to me and as a former ZX Spectrum programmer, the nostalgia was fantastic. The title was immediately exciting too.

Bandersnatch – along with Psyclapse – were two ‘megagames’ planned by long-defunct UK developer Imagine in the 1980s, neither of which came to fruition. Only adding to the fun was that the main character in Bandersnatch, young programmer Stefan Butler, shared the same surname as Imagine founder Mark Butler. No coincidence, of course.

From here, however, things went downhill – for me at least.

‘Playing’ Bandersnatch (or effectively choosing ‘yes’ or ‘no’ at various points) felt archaic. Aside from much better ‘graphics’, these choices felt little more advanced than those presented in early interactive video games such as Night Trap and Sewer Shark on the Sega CD / Mega-CD in the early 90s. Or (fans of Bandersnatch, please forgive me) the 1980s laserdisc game Dragon’s Lair, which admittedly only had one ending (Bandersnatch has five).

Nevertheless, desperate not to miss out on better things to come, my partner and I continued ‘playing’ Bandersnatch but sadly (and this is just my opinion) things didn’t improve.

While still fascinated by the details (even down to the ancient dk’Tronics addon Spectrum keyboard hidden away in one of the scenes), this didn’t feel like the groundbreaking adventure we’d been promised.

Ultimately, i’m desperately sad to say, the key emotion that developed in me while watching Bandersnatch was one of frustration, especially the seemingly endless looping back after ‘bad’ decisions. This felt like interactivity for the sake of it but the online hype meant that this movie was always going to be popular and, of course, a target for pirates.

But the big question remains: how it could be replicated outside Netflix?

Initially, several torrents appeared online featuring the default run through of the show, i.e the version of Bandersnatch that viewers would get if they didn’t make any decisions at all in the movie.

According to statistics gathered by TorrentFreak, this version is doing pretty ‘well’ on most torrent sites, even without any form of interactivity. There’s also a ‘full’ version containing in excess of five hours of footage – good luck enduring or making sense of that.

However, pirates always want something more – they want the full Netflix experience, probably without paying for the streaming service, if possible.

Notably though, there is still no ‘pirate’ fully-interactive version of Bandersnatch available publicly. This is interesting on a number of fronts. Firstly, pretty much everything gets pirated these days but apparently, perhaps for technical reasons, this is proving more difficult. In 2019, that is somewhat strange.

We’ve had the technology to do this – albeit much less seamlessly – since DVD chapters were invented. Interactive porn movies have been available for years and, albeit in a more primitive form, CD ROM-based titles dating back decades could’ve achieved something passably similar.

Pirates can decrypt DVDs, Blu-rays, defeat most DRM – including cracking the fiendish Denuvo – yet preparing a system to play through a few video clips in a user-selected order is either too difficult or, more likely, too time-consuming for the pirates at the top of the pyramid.

This has led to many interesting comments on torrent and discussion sites, many centered on how this problem can be solved. But perhaps more interestingly, there are others advising another course of action.

“For this one in particular, YOU NEED to experience it on Netflix,” the top commenter on a RARBG torrent writes.

“It’s not just a movie… You can even get the character to go crazy and start a kung-fu fight with his therapist and father, or even get the actual actor to have a mental breakdown during shooting… Amazing idea. It feels like you’re inside an old-school adventure game.”

Just to reiterate, this is a user of one of the most popular torrent sites, that indexes the majority of mainstream stuff that anyone could ever need (and has all of the Bandersnatch torrents available), advising people that they need to enjoy this on Netflix. A subscription service, no less.

Although one swallow does not a summer make, as Aristotle once said, the commenter is absolutely correct. If the viewer wants to have the full Bandersnatch experience right now, he or she is going to have to dig deep and give Netflix a few dollars for the privilege. For a big movie title, this is pretty much unprecedented.

While I’ve not been particularly complimentary about Bandersnatch as a package, one has to admire Netflix and Charlie Brooker and his team for having the guts to put something like this together. Not only have they produced something that seemingly the whole world is talking about (even if some didn’t enjoy it), they’ve created a movie experience that is currently unavailable for free.

And, let’s not forget, this is just the beginning. The Verge has a great article on other potential uses for a title like Bandersnatch, particularly that the ‘adventure’ choices made by viewers could be further leveraged to generate additional revenue streams.

I enjoyed chopping ‘my’ dad up, but it would be a shame for Netflix to do the same to this format. It’s only just beginning and the next few iterations, when they inevitably arrive, will surely be a lot better. And, indeed, even more difficult to pirate. For now at least.

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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