LibreELEC (Leia) v8.95.2 BETA



LibreELEC 9.0 (Leia) Beta 2 has finally arrived after a long gestation period. Based upon Kodi v18 RC4, the 9.0 Beta 2 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 1, major changes are:

  • Updated to Kodi 18 RC4
  • Updated to Linux Kernel 4.19.12
  • 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As the Kodi piracy scene continues to decline we have seen an increase in users with outdated add-ons that cause problems during upgrades so “Safe Mode” counts Kodi startup crashes.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-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

RPi 0/1 LibreELEC-RPi.arm-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

Generic LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

Odroid_C2 LibreELEC-Odroid_C2.arm-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

KVIM LibreELEC-KVIM.arm-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

LePotato LibreELEC-LePotato.arm-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

Slice LibreELEC-Slice.arm-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

Slice3 LibreELEC-Slice3.arm-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Core LibreELEC-WeTek_Core.arm-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Hub LibreELEC-WeTek_Hub.arm-8.95.002.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-8.95.002.tar (info)

WeTek_Play LibreELEC-WeTek_Play.arm-8.95.002.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Play_2 LibreELEC-WeTek_Play_2.arm-8.95.002.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

Firefly ROC-RK3328-CC LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.011-roc-cc.img.gz (info)

Generic Rockchip Box LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.011-box.img.gz (info)

PINE64 ROCK64 / Popcorn Hour Transformer LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.011-rock64.img.gz (info)

Popcorn Hour RockBox LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.011-rockbox.img.gz (info)

MVR9 LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.011-box-trn9.img.gz (info)

Z28 LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.011-box-z28.img.gz (info)

Rockchip RK3399

96rocks ROCK960 LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.011-rock960.img.gz (info)

PINE64 RockPro64 LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.011-rockpro64.img.gz (info)

Rockchip Sapphire Board LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.011-sapphire.img.gz (info)


Rockchip RK3288

ASUS Tinker Board LibreELEC-TinkerBoard.arm-8.90.011-rk3288.img.gz (info)

mqmaker MiQi LibreELEC-MiQi.arm-8.90.011-rk3288.img.gz (info)



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US Online Piracy Lawsuits Hit a Record High Last Year


Since the turn of the last decade, numerous people have been accused in US courts of illegal file-sharing.

Initially, these lawsuits targeted hundreds or thousands of BitTorrent users per case, but this practice has since been rooted out. Now, most file-sharing cases target a single person, up to a dozen or two at most.

This means that the number of “Doe” defendants have gone down, but the same can’t be said for the number of cases that are on the dockets. In fact, the number of file-sharing cases filed last year was higher than ever.

Data collected by TorrentFreak from court records all over the country show that in the first half of the year, more than 3,300 separate lawsuits were filed. The majority of these cases list a single ‘John Doe’ defendant.

This is more than triple the number of lawsuits in the year before, when 1,019 file-sharing cases were filed according to Lex Machina. And it’s also more than the old 2,887 record that was set in 2015.

Pretty much all of this activity can be attributed to two adult industry companies – Malibu Media and Strike 3 Holdings.

Malibu Media, the Los Angeles based company behind the ‘X-Art’ adult movies, has been one of the most active copyright trolls for years. According to data from court records, it filed 1,231 cases in 2017.

The most active filer last year, Strike 3 Holdings, is a relative newcomer. The company, which distributes its adult videos via the Blacked, Tushy, and Vixen websites, has filed 2,092 cases over the past twelve months.

Some of Strike 3’s recent cases

Strike 3’s cases are similar to those filed by Malibu Media. This is no surprise since they are handled by former Malibu lawyer Emilie Kennedy, who now works as in-house counsel at Strike 3.

Together, both companies are good for more than 3,300 new cases last year. In terms of numbers, there’s a gaping hole behind these two, with Bodyguard Productions coming in third place with 70 cases.

To the best of our knowledge, those three are the only filers of lawsuits that targeted alleged BitTorrent pirates last year.

With thousands of new cases, these companies are good for more than half of all copyright lawsuits in the US. According to Justia, there were a little over 6,000 cases in total.

This wave of file-sharing legal action is something that hasn’t gone unnoticed to courts around the country, some of which have become more skeptical.

A high-profile order at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals a few months ago proves to be a particularly significant roadblock. Referencing the decision, federal courts in districts across the US are now demanding “something more” than an IP-address alone.

For now, however, new lawsuits continue to be filed, also in 2019. In the months to come the wider impact of the appeal court ruling will be felt and whether this will affect the number of new cases this year.

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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BitTorrent Unveils New Token to Pay for Faster Downloads


Last year BitTorrent Inc. was officially acquired by TRON, a cryptocurrency startup that aims to establish a truly decentralized Internet.

This means that uTorrent and BitTorrent mainline, two of the most used torrent clients, now have a strong foothold in the crypto world.

Thus far not much has changed, but BitTorrent and TRON have already made it clear that they plan to use cryptocurrency to complement the BitTorrent protocol. In the near future, torrent users will be financially rewarded for seeding. At the same time, they can pay to speed up transfers.

Today, BitTorrent Inc. CEO and TRON founder Justin Sun announced that the payments for faster downloads will happen through a new token called BitTorrent (BTT).

The token, which has native TRC-10 compatibility, will be issued by the BitTorrent Foundation and is exclusively available through Binance Launchpad, a token sale platform for cryptocurrency startups.

“BitTorrent token is the first in a series of steps to support a decentralized internet,” Sun commented on the news.

“In one giant leap, the BitTorrent client can introduce blockchain to hundreds of millions of users around the world and empower a new generation of content creators with the tools to distribute their content directly to others on the web.”

Whether torrent users will be eager to queue up for the token sale is doubtful. There’s no working product yet and even the TRON acquisition itself is not being discussed in the uTorrent forums.

Most interest for the BTT token will likely come from speculative investors. How much money the foundation expects to raise is unclear to us.

BTT token coming soon

According to BitTorrent, BTT tokens will “enable users to exchange tokens to improve network speed.” This is part of “Project Atlas” which also promises financial rewards for users who share a lot of bandwidth.

As reported earlier, Project Atlas will be open for other clients to use and will be backwards compatible. This means that it can handle all existing torrents and talk to clients that choose not to implement it.

The ‘currency’ feature will first be implemented in the uTorrent client for Windows. This will be entirely optional, so users who prefer not to take part can disable it in their client.

While BitTorrent already functions very well, TRON hopes to make it even faster with the cryptocurrency extensions. Ideally, the rewards should also ensure that files are seeded for a longer period, which increases overall availability.

Whether this will actually work in practice has yet to be seen. BitTorrent CEO Justin Sun previously told us that the first features of Project Atlas will be available early this year.

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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Mitch Glazier Becomes New Chairman and CEO of the RIAA


Back in April 2017, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that Cary Sherman, the industry group’s Chairman and CEO, would be retiring at the end of 2018 after a 40-plus year career in music.

In tandem it was revealed that Mitch Glazier, then Senior Executive Vice President of the RIAA, would be promoted to President of the world-famous music industry group. The plan was for Glazier, who formerly acted as Chief Counsel for intellectual property to the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, to take the top job in January 2019.

The announcement was met with enthusiasm by a number of industry executives, including the top brass at Universal Music, Warner Music, and Sony Music Entertainment who all celebrated his 19-plus years with the RIAA. During his tenure, Glazier played a key role in some of the RIAA’s most-prominent anti-piracy actions.

“He helped the music community collaborate on multiple issues, from antipiracy and technology initiatives to landmark litigations such as MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster in 2005,” the industry group said.

“At a time when piracy was rampant and the authorized music marketplace was in its infancy, that case reshaped the legal landscape for actions against pirate sites and helped level the playing field for licensed music services.”

As envisioned back in 2017, Glazier has now become the Chairman and CEO of the RIAA, representing a “new leadership for a new era”, according to the industry group.

“Music matters. It shapes our culture. It inspires generations young and young at heart. It makes us who we are and binds diverse communities together,” Glazier said in a statement.

“I am honored to lead the RIAA during these exciting times as we fight for a music ecosystem that works for everybody – from artists and fans to labels and publishers and songwriters and music services alike.

“That will require that we both embrace digital music innovations, and protect what has always made music great – keeping the dream alive for the next generation of artists and music creators,” Glazier added.

Also moving onwards and upwards is Michele Ballantyne, who with immediate effect has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer of the RIAA.

A former Special Assistant to President Bill Clinton, Special Counsel to then-White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, and as General Counsel for Senator Tom Daschle, Ballantyne also played key roles in copyright protection.

“As COO, Ballantyne manages the day-to-day operations of the RIAA,” her bio now reads.

“A driving force for updating intellectual property laws for the digital age, she has played an instrumental role in advocating for congressional reforms including the Music Modernization Act, the PRO-IP Act that established the nation’s first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator in the Executive Office of the President, and the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 that provided colleges and universities with meaningful tools to reduce the illegal downloading of copyrighted works on campuses.”

Glazier is full of praise for Ballantyne’s achievements, declaring that “there is no one better suited to help lead the RIAA and no one I would rather have at my side than Michele.”

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

While the RIAA became synonymous with aggressive anti-piracy enforcement during the last decade, action against traditional pirate sites during the past few years has been sporadic at best.

Instead, the industry group has tackled the thorny issue of stream-ripping, shutting down YouTube-MP3 in 2017 and following up against similar platforms in 2018.

The industry group still has torrent sites and cyberlockers on its radar (and at times even Cloudflare) but at least for now seems more interested in generating better revenues from sites like YouTube while preventing unauthorized downloads from similar platforms.

That’s when it’s not trying to undermine ISPs’ copyright ‘safe harbors’ in repeat infringer cases (1,2,3).

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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Movie Companies Sue Popcorn Time Operator in US Court


Five years ago Popcorn Time took the Internet by storm as the next major piracy trend.

The software amassed millions of users by offering BitTorrent-powered streaming in an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface.

While the original developers shut down their project after a few months following pressure from Hollywood, others forked the application and took over. Several of these forks were shut down as well, but some remained.

Popcorn-Time.to, originally operating from Popcorn-Time.se, is one of the longest standing forks. The application has been around sine 2014 and is still operational today. Over the years it continued development and even launched its own torrent tracker.

With the major Hollywood studios switching their enforcement efforts to pirate streaming boxes, Popcorn Time appeared to be out the spotlight, but it remained on the radar of a group of smaller film companies.

Venice PI, Millennium Funding, and Bodyguard Productions, which own the rights to prominent film titles such as “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” “London Has Fallen,” and “Once Upon a Time in Venice” are working hard to shut down the site through a federal court in Hawaii.

The case in question was originally filed over a year ago, but in an amended complaint filed a few days ago, the movie companies now identify the alleged mastermind behind the Popcorn Time fork.

The filmmakers believe that Ukranian resident Stanislav Amelychyts is behind the operation. They obtained this name through a former hosting provider, BlackHOST, which served the Popcorn-Time.to website last year.

“Plaintiffs bring this action to stop the massive piracy of their motion pictures brought on by the BitTorrent protocol software application Popcorn Time,” the movie companies write in their complaint.

“Defendant STANISLAV AMELYCHYTS distributes copies of Popcorn time and promotes it for the infringing purpose of ‘watch torrent movies instantly’, including Plaintiffs’ copyright protected Works, via various distribution channels.”

From the complaint

The defendant in question is seen as responsible for pretty much the entire operation, including copies of the software that were distributed through the Google Play store and the uptodown.com website. On the latter site, Popcorn Time was also advertised as a ‘pirate’ tool.

“Here, once again Defendant makes no secret of Popcorn Time’s illegitimate purpose – infringing Copyright protected content by stating ‘Popcorn Time is an app that enables you to watch tons of streaming movies – from classics to new releases…’,” the movie companies write.

Uptodown.com proved to be a pretty popular source too, as the movie companies found out that the Windows and Android versions were downloaded more than 4 million and 12 million times respectively.

What’s interesting about the lawsuit is that it originally started as a case against several anonymous BitTorrent pirates. All but one have been dismissed now. The remaining ‘user’ is Hawaiian resident Clinton Bovee, who is accused of using Popcorn Time and downloading several movies without permission.

The movie companies accuse Bovee of direct copyright infringement and the Ukranian mastermind behind Popcorn Time of contributory copyright infringement.

Through the lawsuit they demand damages, which can go up to $150,000 per pirated film. In addition, the companies request an injunction to shut down Popcorn-Time.to and have the domain transferred to an account under their control.

At the time of writing the court has yet to rule on the request.

While the allegations against Popcorn Time are quite detailed, the only information linking it to the Ukranian defendant comes from hosting company BlackHOST. This could be accurate, but since ‘pirate’ operations rely on fake account info at times, it’s not foolproof.

The Popcorn-Time.to website remains operational at the time of writing. TorrentFreak reached out to the Popcorn Time team for a comment on the allegations, but we haven’t heard back yet.

The attorney for the movie studios has filed similar actions against other alleged pirates and pirate services in the past, including Showbox and Dragon Box.

—

A copy of the complaint referenced in this article is available 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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Reporting When Pirate Releases Hit The Internet is Apparently Illegal Now


While the vast majority of BitTorrent users will simply visit their favorite pirate site for a list of what is available, very often content hasn’t been released online yet. From simply trying to soon to waiting for a delayed release, checking sites can be a bit hit and miss.

For those looking for more information on whether content has hit the Internet yet, it’s possible to use a so-called PRE Database, or PreDb for short. These sites, which can be automatically or manually maintained, contain lists which detail release names, when they became available online, and other relevant information.

While some PreDb sites sometimes contain links to torrents or NZB files, for example, most toe the line from a copyright perspective. They are simple archives of information that cannot be claimed by copyright holders. That, however, doesn’t stop them from trying.

Recently, TorrentFreak had a discussion with the operator of SweTracker, a PreDb/tracer service that focuses on providing information for Nordic releases.

“As a Nordic user I wanted to see where all the Nordic releases are, where to find them, and who had them first,” he explained.

“Swenews.info [another release tracking site] still existed back then, but it didn’t say in plain text which specific tracker had the content, so you had to visit all the possible trackers. So then I decided to create my own version of Swenews but detailing the specific tracker. This was about two years ago.”

While many PreDb-style sites monitor for ‘Scene’ releases using information culled from IRC, SweTracker monitors BitTorrent trackers and publishes information on who won the ‘race’ to put content online first. It does not link to any pirate content whatsoever but anti-piracy companies regularly report the site to Google.

No infrining content but the complaints flood in

As the image above shows, SweTracker has been reported to Google many hundreds of times this year alone by anti-piracy companies who clearly cannot tell the difference between reporting news and offering pirate releases for download. SweTracker’s operator says he’s become used to the problem.

“My personal experience with [anti-piracy companies] is that they don’t really know how stuff works. They often state that users can download or stream movies directly from SweTracker, but that’s simply not true,” he explains.

“But, I try to make life easy and do remove the releases they ask me to remove.
They have contacted me via email several times.”

As far as we can tell, this level of cooperation really isn’t needed. However, SweTracker’s operator says that he’s had serious problems in the past when loose-cannon companies erroneously targeted his site.

He reveals that one company took its complaints about his site to Cloudflare and then to his own web-host, which responded by taking down his entire site until all of the files on it could be checked for infringement. This effort took almost a day during which the site was rendered completely inaccessible.

The problems facing SweTracker are not unique, however. There are perhaps a dozen similar sites online currently, with PreDb.org, PreDb.pw, and Pre.Corrupt-Net.org being among the most respected and visited.

PreDb.org states clearly on its main page that “There are absolutely NO downloads of copyright-protected works, hyperlinks to downloads, torrent files, magnet links, nzb files or similar content on any part of this web site” but that doesn’t prevent complaints.

Google’s Transparency Report indicates that at the time of writing, PreDb.org has had 2,204 URLs reported by content and anti-piracy companies, with Google removing the links from its indexes approximately 65% of the time.

A similar situation is faced by PreDb.pw, which has had 1,103 of its URLs reported to Google with requests that the company removes them from its search indexes. At the time of writing, Google has cooperated almost 85% of the time.

Quite why these sites are aggressively targeted isn’t clear, but it seems likely that simply having a release name on the site is enough to classify it as a full-on piracy resource. As we’ve pointed out dozens of times in the past, a simple whitelist could provide a very simple solution to this problem.

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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Five ‘Piracy’ Predictions For 2019


Following the latest trends is one of the main tasks at the TorrentFreak newsroom and this job continues in the New Year.

While predicting the future isn’t in our job description, we’re not too shy to take a guess or two. After the poor results last year, we might just have a shot in 2019.

Demonoid Makes a Comeback

The first one’s easy, but far from guaranteed. The popular semi-private BitTorrent tracker Demonoid vanished again last year. But it will return.

The site’s owner has been missing in action for a while. However, over the years he has shown to be dedicated to the site and its userbase. The site has made several comebacks in the past and we predict that the same will happen in 2019.

Whether Demonoid will ever return to its glory days, with millions of visitors per week, is doubtful though.

Site Blocking Comes to The US

US-based movie studios have lobbied and litigated for site blocking measures all over the world. This has been quite successful, but on their home turf, all pirate sites remain readily available.

This is particularly ‘problematic’ because US visitors are driving the most traffic to many torrent and streaming portals.

Copyright holders have long feared a SOPA-like backlash if they called on US Internet providers to block sites. However, the tide is slowly turning.

In 2019 we’ll see the start of a broader campaign to bring site-blocking to the US. This is not expected to go easily, but it’s an inevitable move.

The Pirate Bay Goes Underground

For more than a decade, The Pirate Bay has been a thorn in the side of the entertainment industries. This won’t change in the new year, but the pressure will clearly increase.

At the moment, Pirate Bay’s .org domain is safe and Cloudflare is still working with the notorious torrent site as well.

This won’t last. The Pirate Bay will eventually be forced to move ‘underground.’ Instead of operating as a public-facing website, it will serve torrents from the Dark Web, with an .onion domain that can’t be seized.

Game of Thrones Leaks Early

The hit series Game of Thrones will air its final season in 2019. As the most-pirated TV-show in history, it is bound to attract the attention of millions of downloaders.

The makers of the series have taken extreme measures to prevent any storylines from being spoiled but it only requires a small mishap to ruin it all.

This will become apparent again in 2019. At least one episode of the new Game of Thrones’ final season will leak before it airs. This won’t be due to some sophisticated hacking attempt, but rather through a mishap somewhere in the distribution process.

Google Starts Issuing Piracy Warnings

Google has taken countless anti-piracy measures in recent years. However, many rightsholders are still not content.

Ideally, they would like the search engine to remove pirate sites from search results altogether. Google has made it clear that this would be a step too far, but there is something else they can do.

In the next year, Google will add “infringement” alerts to the search engine as well as the Chrome browser. As a result, users will see a warning message when they attempt to visit a site for which Google has received thousands of takedown requests.

The measure will be similar to the warnings Google displays for sites that serve “malware” or other potentially unwanted software.

—-

Happy New Year!

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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BitTorrent Blocklists Are Even Less Effective Than Pirate Site Blocking


Over the past 18 years, ever since P2P clients made their run into the big time, users have been trying to figure out a way to avoid expensive lawsuits.

At the beginning, no real solutions were available, so it was a roll of the dice from start to finish. People either got lucky, or they didn’t. The majority did but a significant number didn’t feel like taking so many chances.

Somewhere along the way, so-called ‘peer-blocking’ applications raised their head. These pieces of software act like a firewall on a user’s computer, with the aim of preventing ‘hostile’ IP addresses from connecting to a torrent client, for example, thus preventing lawsuits.

Over the years, millions of users installed these programs (along with the blocklists containing the supposed IP addresses of anti-piracy groups) believing that no ‘bad players’ could access their machines. Unfortunately for those using them, these blocklists were completely ineffective and remain so today.

Peer-blocking applications should have died a death more than a decade ago but for some inexplicable reason, torrent users on many public forums continue to post about them, asking whether they’re doing the job they’re supposed to and if additional precautions are needed.

Despite plenty of information to the contrary, some still swear by these lists and a few stubbornly believe they are “better than nothing”. If locking every window on a house but leaving the front door open is “better than nothing” to prevent burglars, then it’s difficult to disagree. If making sure is the aim, blocklists should be thrown in the trash can marked ‘placebo’.

The problem is the way these things work. Peer-blocking applications use lists of IP addresses (generally compiled by volunteers) which are thought to be connected to anti-piracy, copyright trolls, government bodies, and others interested in stopping piracy. The aim is that if all of these IP addresses can be blocked, the problem can be solved.

Years ago, when people had less understanding of these matters, blocklists seemed like the tool everyone needed. However, blocklists are massively incomplete, woefully out-of-date, and cannot ever hope to ‘know’ every IP address used by every anti-P2P group. For those that still aren’t convinced, let’s take site-blocking as an example.

When ISPs block ‘pirate’ websites, they prevent users from accessing either their domain names, IP addresses, or DNS. When customers try to access any or all of these things, a firewall on the ISP’s end prevents the connection. No further explanation is necessary because after a decade of blocking, most proficient users generally understand how these things work.

Now think for a moment how easily these blocks are defeated. As soon as an order is handed down, sites can grab a new domain, a new IP address, or have their traffic funneled through any number of proxies and mirrors. Users, for their part, can evade bans by using these modified services or utilizing tools like VPNs. Blocking is very easily bypassed.

Now for the big non-surprise: anti-piracy groups can deploy just as many and more techniques to ensure that their entries on blocklists are out-of-date or completely irrelevant. Their tracking machines can be shifted around IP addresses in the blink of an eye, through datacenters or even residential ISPs, if there is a real need for stealth.

No one anywhere on the planet – no matter how clever or resourceful – has the skill or resources to keep up with these changes and/or make a blocklist that deals with them all. A hundred people couldn’t manage it, nor could a thousand. The information required simply isn’t made public and the result is the publication of blocklists that massively overblock legitimate resources while letting through who-knows-what.

The only real way to ensure that your IP address is never connected to ‘bad players’ while using torrents is to use something like a VPN. Or, of course, don’t share copyrighted content in the first place.

Blocklists have never worked to the extent required and will never work in the future. Anyone who trusts them may as well use a fishing net as a rain hat. It’ll still catch some fish but don’t expect it to keep you dry.

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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Anti-Piracy Companies Continually Report IMDb as a Pirate Site


Anyone even remotely interested in movies and the Internet will have likely stumbled across the Internet Movie Database, or IMDb for short.

The site is an absolute goldmine of information on every imaginable movie, listing everything from cast and crew to user reviews, trailers and trivia, with dozens of additional data points to allow the consumer to research and invest in content.

IMDb is an entirely legal venture but for reasons best known to dozens of content and anti-piracy companies, it is regularly subjected to takedown notices who claim that the service is a pirate site.

For example, early December an anti-piracy outfit working to protect the movie ‘The Wedding Ringer’ for Sony Pictures Entertainment targeted a range of URLs in a notice to Google. Unfortunately, the notice also listed an IMDb URL that offers the legal trailer for the movie.

Even more bizarrely, a company working on behalf of TV company RCN TV filed a strongly-worded notice aiming to protect the TV show “The Law of the Heart“.

“[The URLs contains] an illegal pirated copy of RCN’s copyrighted episodic series La ley del corazon episode/s 01-130. RCN TV has not in any capacity, authorized https://www.imdb.com to distribute its content,” the notice reads.

“RCN hereby requests that based on the DMCA and Google’s own copyright infringement rules, that said portal be removed from its system in order to prevent further abuse and financial losses to our brand as copyright owners.”

The notice lists 132 IMDb URLs, all of which promote and inform the public on the show with none offering any episode for free. Google did the right thing and removed none of them.

But it’s not just foreign companies targeting IMDb with wrongful takedowns. On December 8, an anti-piracy company working for Home Box Office tried to ‘protect‘ the TV show Rellik by removing its IMDb page.

A few days earlier, the same company (this time working for MGM Studios) tried to remove the IMDb page for Get Shorty, while throwing in its Wikipedia page for good measure.

A takedown notice sent on behalf of Columbia Pictures to protect The Amazing Spider-Man 2 didn’t achieve much either.

No, that’s not right…

While most if not all notices that target IMDb are sent in error, there appears to be a common mistake made by some anti-piracy companies.

When sending notices to Google, instead of listing IMDb URLs as the source of the content (it isn’t, but many companies list it as such), they accidentally put IMDb as the infringing URL. This notice sent on behalf of National Geographic lists several such examples.

Google’s Transparency Report lists more than 170 largely bogus DMCA complaints against IMDb, which is something easily prevented with a simple whitelisting of the site’s URL.

What makes things even more ridiculous is that IMDb is owned by Amazon and on every page where legal consumption is possible, the company provides a link where visitors can watch legally using Prime Video. Given that, at the time of writing, the complaints covered more than 4,600 URLs, that’s potentially a lot of lost business via Google search.

Thankfully, as the image below shows, Google’s diligence when reviewing DMCA complaints prevents most notice senders from shooting themselves in the foot. However, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what delisting from IMDb could do for a movie’s sales. Is it really too much effort to whitelist the site?

Google saves the day for hundreds of movies

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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Pirate IPTV Services Will Be Blocked Says Set-Top Box Manufacturer


Over the past couple of years, unauthorized IPTV services have been making their presence known in the ‘pirate’ TV space.

As recently reported, pirate IPTV services are accessed by 5.5% of US and Canadian households. The range of content is phenomenal, with few – if any – official entertainment companies in a position to compete.

Such services are typically accessed via set-top boxes, from ubiquitous Android-based platforms through to dedicated IPTV hardware. None of these devices are designed to be infringing but with the addition of third-party services, they can be transformed into piracy powerhouses.

For those looking for a premium IPTV experience, the MAG box range from Ukraine-based Infomir are the tools of choice. The compact devices are used by thousands of consumers to access legitimate content via a beautiful interface but like any such hardware, these boxes can also be used to access infringing streams.

Infomir has understandably distanced itself from this kind of illicit consumption but until now doesn’t appear to have interfered with the choices of its customers. Moving forward, however, it’s clear that will change.

“Infomir is an international company operating in over 150 countries globally. As a manufacturer of multimedia devices, we are subject to copyright and related rights legislation, which we respect and adhere to,” the company says.

“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.”

IPTV services (both legal and less so) often supply a URL which enables MAG and similar devices to access their ‘portal’. These are entered into the device’s setup page, with the box typically being authorized at the provider’s end by verifying its MAC address against a pre-registered one.

However, Infomir appears able to prevent certain portal URLs from being accessed via its set-top devices and there are some unconfirmed reports online which indicate this may be happening already.

TorrentFreak spoke with Infomir to find out more about this development. Will the company block portals following straightforward copyright complaints, for example, or is a court order required?

“The complaints need not be necessarily backed up by a court order. The form and contents of a copyright complaint must conform to the DMCA requirements,” Infomir Legal Counsel Vladislav Larionov informs TF.

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

Some IPTV providers not only provide access to ‘pirate’ streams but also other content that has the potential to be non-infringing, depending on a users’ circumstances. For instance, there could be questions raised over legality when the holder of a UK TV license only accesses BBC One and similar channels via an IPTV service.

Speaking in more general terms, TF asked Infomir if over-blocking is a concern. The company told us that they require detailed complaints from rightsholders to block portals and they give services that are blocked the right to file a counter-complaint.

“We respect the rights of legitimate service providers, and we are concerned that such service providers might be reported by mistake or due to misidentification. That is why we request that copyright infringement reports submitted to us comply with the DMCA and contain a statement under penalty of perjury that the report is true and accurate,” Larionov explains.

“We also review each copyright infringement report to prevent false or abusive ones. Finally, we provide every service provider with a possibility to oppose a copyright infringement report. In case there is a dispute between a copyright holder and a service provider, we will request a court order to maintain access restriction to a portal.”

While copyright holders who file for blocking injunctions in court can be identified fairly easily, discovering who has filed a complaint with Infomir is less straightforward. The company told TF that it cannot provide information on who has requested a block other than to say it is mostly “big copyright holders, anti-piracy associations, and companies that provide copyright management and protection services.”

Finally, it’s not entirely clear how MAG devices are prevented from accessing portal URLs and Infomir informs TF that it won’t provide that information as it might “downgrade” its “access restriction system”. There is already some speculation on specialist forums that firmware updates may be responsible but no clear confirmation is currently available.

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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