Torrent sites come in all shapes and sizes. Most are known for being indexes of .torrent files or magnet links which facilitate access to various types of media. When these sites specialize in indexing copyrighted content, the law in most developed regions (particularly the EU) renders them illegal.
However, some torrent platforms operate almost completely in the shadows, not necessarily by design, but because of the important services they provide exist almost exclusively behind the scenes.
Most people who regularly load a torrent file or a magnet link into a torrent client will see information related to the content they’re downloading and sharing. Things such as peer counts (the number of seeders and leechers) probably attract the most attention but in every client one is also able to see which torrent ‘trackers’ are helping with their transfers.
These ‘trackers’ are servers that are able to put torrent clients sharing the same content in touch with each other. The IP addresses of other seeders and leechers are delivered to everyone in a torrent ‘swarm’ so that sharing of media can take place. The same goal can be achieved via DHT and PEX but trackers are more immediate and much appreciated by file-sharers.
Unlike regular torrent indexes that can be monetized through web-based advertising, standalone trackers that aren’t connected to a particular torrent site are mostly run as non-profits. Indeed, many notable trackers over the years never generated a penny and were run as hobbyist projects. As such, their existence relies upon the operator’s desire to keep the thing going, which isn’t always easy.
One of the longest-standing trackers was Leechers Paradise, words that have appeared in hundreds of millions of torrent clients over the years. However, an announcement from its operator means that the tacker will shut down for good due to fear over upcoming legislation in the EU.
“Sadly after 12 years I am calling it quits. Article 13 of the new EU copyright law requires that all uploads are screened. This is impossible which would make this site illegal,” operator ‘Eddie’ writes.
“This coupled with my ISP kindly asking to move my site out of there [sic] datacenter. Means no more: leechers-paradise.”
While Article 13 certainly has sites like YouTube concerned, they actually host, curate, and promote content. Leechers Paradise, which simply acted as a networking tool, did not. There’s a big difference.
It remains unclear whether the finalized Article 13 text will be applicable to the activities of a content-agnostic tracker like Leechers Paradise, but after 12 years ‘Eddie’ probably has plenty of other reasons not to continue with his project, so that’s to be respected.
Leechers Paradise – gone but not forgotten
As the image above shows, at the end of July the tracker was servicing 132.3 million peers, a figure that provides a small indication of how important the tracker was to torrent users around the world.
Figures published in August indicated that the tracker was serving just over six million torrents using IPV4 and just over 54,000 using IPV6.
Traffic stats: August 31, 2018
As an indicator of how Leechers Paradise has grown over the years, one can compare stats from June 2013 with those of today. Back then the site was assisting transfers on ‘just’ 17,152 torrents which together had 95,817 peers and 56,505 seeders.
While other important standalone trackers look set to continue, the loss of Leechers Lair should come as a disappointment to millions of torrent users worldwide. Perhaps the greatest irony is that most won’t have any idea of the scale of the role it played.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/network.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-12-07 17:34:092018-12-07 17:34:09Huge Torrent Tracker Calls it Quits After 12 Years, Citing Article 13
After being acquired by anti-piracy company Irdeto earlier this year, it was expected that anti-tamper technology company Denuvo would go on to even bigger things.
Instead, the anti-tamper protection is being subjected to a barrage of cracking activity.
With a recent announcement detailing the importance of protecting AAA titles if only for a couple of weeks, the company appeared to be lowering expectations of a longer piracy-free period. Now, however, even those aspirations have been shattered following the release of Just Cause 4.
This long-anticipated AAA action-adventure title is the follow-up to Just Cause 3, which was also protected by Denuvo. That game was released in December 2015 but wasn’t cracked until the end of February 2017.
Compare that with Just Cause 4. The game was released on December 4, 2018 then cracked and leaked online December 5, 2018. Just Cause 3 and Just Cause 4 were both defeated by cracking group CPY, who are clearly getting very familiar with Denuvo’s technology.
Just Cause 4: Day Two Crack
While having the game appear online the day after release is bad enough, another problem is raising its head. According to numerous reviewers on Steam, the game is only worthy of a ‘thumbs down’ based on complaints about graphics, gameplay, and numerous other issues.
While these things are often handled via early patches from developers, the negative reviews mean that the average score on Steam is currently just 5/10. That, combined with the availability of a pirated version online, seems like a possible recipe for disaster and something that could raise its head later should sales fail to impress.
That being said, dedicated Steam users can be particularly critical. Metacritic scores show an improved picture, with a Metascore of 75 out of a possible 100. Not great, but still slightly higher than the 73 achieved by Just Cause 3.
These are undoubtedly tough times for Denuvo but it would be premature to count out the technology just yet. There can be little doubt that its high-profile has presented a challenge that’s being relished by cracking groups, who seem prepared to invest significant resources into undermining its work.
A turnaround is still possible but protecting a title for just a day just isn’t enough, even by the company’s shortening expectations. Certainly, having a game cracked before its official launch, as happened with Hitman 2 last month, is almost as bad as it gets.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/crack-feat.jpg2821200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-12-07 02:33:082018-12-07 02:33:08Just Cause 4 Cracked a Day After Release – But it Gets Worse
While there are several business models that are able to keep pirate sites up and running, advertising is one of the most popular.
With huge amounts of traffic landing on both torrent and streaming platforms, even with low-quality adverts it’s possible for both site owners and advertising companies to generate decent profits.
Until now, pirate site operators have been the main targets for law enforcement agencies but a recently concluded case in Germany shows that the authorities are prepared to extend their reach when required.
According to Germany-based anti-piracy group GVU, the Leipzig District Court has now sentenced three employees of an Internet advertising agency to prison terms for aiding and abetting copyright infringement.
The investigation was led by the Integrated Investigation Unit Saxony (INES) at the Saxon Attorney General’s Office and supported by the GVU with analysis and insights.
“The defendants had brokered advertising space on well-known piracy portals such as kino.to or iload.to and displayed lucrative banner ads on a large scale,” GVU reveals.
“In this way, they achieved profits of more than 350,000 euros. They were aware that they were involved with structurally infringing sites, which apparently offered almost exclusively copyrighted files for download and streaming.”
The sentences for the trio were considerable, despite not being directly involved in the running of the sites. The manager of the agency received a sentence of one year and eight months, with two programmers each receiving one year and four months in prison. However, since the defendants confessed, all sentences were suspended.
“The verdict sets a significant precedent because up to now no advertising agency in Germany has ever been prosecuted for its support of illegal portal sites,” GVU concludes.
While they attracted significant volumes of traffic in their prime, both Kino.to and iLoad.to are long gone from the piracy ecosystem.
Kino.to was once the king of all Germany-based streaming sites. It was raided in 2011 as part of a huge multi-national anti-piracy operation but various clones have since tried to keep the pirate flag flying in its honor.
Finally, Tarnkappe reports that GVU is about to lose its funding from the MPA. The organization told the publication that Germany is still important but a new and more integrated approach is required.
“The MPA continues to promote a vibrant and diverse creative industries in Germany and throughout the European Union – and to defend the rights of authors to be compensated for their work,” an MPA spokesperson said.
“However, as film and television piracy continues to develop rapidly, become increasingly online and international, we need to develop our overall approach to be more integrated and coherent. This requires a more flexible local presence and direct cooperation with local and regional law enforcement agencies. Germany is a strategically important market for the MPA and we are determined to continue playing a key role.”
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/court2-featured.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-12-06 11:32:092018-12-06 11:32:09Three Sentenced For Placing Advertising on Pirate Sites
Banksy is without a doubt one of the most mysterious yet best-known street artists in the world.
His works are the most sought after in their genre for which collectors are happy to pay serious cash.
One of his paintings was sold at Sotheby for £1.4 million in October, which is a reasonable amount. However, as soon as the hammer went down a built-in shredder tore half of it to pieces.
Apparently, Banksy had built a shredder into the painting, carefully planning his ‘stunt,’ which carries a deeper criticism of course.
The stunt was widely covered in the media and also documented by Banksy on his own YouTube channel. The street artist rarely uploads anything so media outlets were keen to republish the video, which offered a behind-the-scenes perspective on the shredding.
Apparently, the French media giant Canal+ used the material as well. However, they went a step further and have claimed it as their own, asking YouTube to remove the original, which it did.
“Video unavailable This video contains content from Canal Plus, who has blocked it on copyright grounds,” a message now reads instead.
Removed
The issue was picked up by professional engineering YouTuber Dave Jones on Twitter. He describes YouTube’s takedown system as a joke, adding that Canal+ should love its Content ID privilege.
While it’s not entirely clear how this happened it’s likely that Canal+ used Banksy’s video in its own programming, adding it to the Content ID system. That certainly would not be the first time this has happened.
It’s impossible to summarize all mistakes, but the fact that bird chirping and white noise videos were previously flagged as copyright-infringing content says enough.
In all honesty, mistakes are bound to happen when a company operates on a scale as large as YouTube. On the other hand, opponents of EU’s proposed ‘upload filters’ under Article 13 will use it as an example of what can go wrong.
By popular choice, YouTube makes millions by taking content from regular folk like you. Having a 20:20 vision and looking at how they approach copyright laws is an entirely different matter.
Just because you think you own the copyright of anything you upload, you should first check and be crystal clear that you do. You can also check any other uploads that you’ve made to YouTube by following these steps:
Open the YouTube Studio app.
You can then check to see videos with copyright claims.
Please select your chosen one so that you can view it.
Any video with information about the Content ID or stating that the copyright has been taken down can be accessed by clicking a copyright icon, to show what has been flagged.
Before you add content, be sure it’s within YouTube’s copyright guidelines, look at any loopholes too, and be sure your content is safe and protected. Be sure any uploads are water-tight so that if YouTube or another third party try to make a claim, you have the relevant proof. By doing this, you should be home and dry, and you can send YouTube or the third party packing, as they will not be able to claim it as their property or take it down.
In a few hours or days, this mistake will likely be corrected. However, there is certainly room for more balance. Right now, YouTube users can lose their channel after three copyright strikes, but rightsholders can make mistake after mistake.
As for Banksy, we doubt that he’s seriously upset by any of this. He has seen some of his most iconic works being painted over in the past. Unlike with YouTube, these aren’t so easy to restore.
—
The header image was taken from another Banksy video, which is still online.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/banksyshred1.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-12-05 20:30:582021-02-21 19:26:34Banksy’s Own Video Shredded By YouTube Following Canal+ Copyright Claim
YouTube has opened the door for millions of people to share knowledge and information with the rest of the world.
This is also true for piracy-related topics. While YouTube itself doesn’t allow users to post copyright-infringing movies or TV-shows, there are many videos on the platform that demonstrate how to get this content elsewhere.
A lot of these ‘tutorials’ center around Kodi media player. While Kodi itself is perfectly legal, there are numerous third-party add-ons that turn it into a piracy platform. To achieve this, there are dozens of high profile YouTubers who are willing to offer a helping hand.
A search for “Kodi addon guide” on YouTube reveals a treasure trove of options. Many of these feature Kodi addons that clearly display pirated movies while showing users how to access them.
This has been going on for years, but there are more and more reports of videos and YouTube accounts being flagged. Several Kodi-piracy related YouTubers have lost their videos or have found themselves demonetized.
This is also what happened to “Kodi No Limits” a few days ago. The popular channel with over 600,000 videos was removed by YouTube following multiple takedown requests from copyright holders.
“This account has been terminated because we received multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement regarding material the user posted,” a message on the channel reads now.
Kodi No Limits before it was removed
It’s unknown which videos were found to be infringing. As far as we know, the account didn’t post any pirated videos or TV-shows, so we assume that copyright holders reported several ‘tutorials’ as copyright infringement.
The Kodi No Limits website remains online. It still features several Kodi-related guides, including how to install the “No Limits Magic” build. However, none of the embedded videos are showing up as they still point to the terminated YouTube account.
There is a chance that these may be updated in due course though. While losing 600,000 subscribers is a severe blow, Kodi No Limits is not backing down. Its Twitter account and other social media are still active, including Instagram where the channel shutdown was confirmed.
Kodi No Limits’ message, via Doc Squiffy
The message also teased a new channel. And indeed, recent posts on social media now link to new video content which appears on a newly registered ‘No Limits’ YouTube account.
The question remains how long that will stay up of course. YouTuber Doc Squiffy rightfully points out that many others who operate in the same niche have had videos taken down or entire channels demonetized by YouTube recently.
That also brings us back to an article we wrote a few months ago. This suggested that YouTube won’t put up with blatant piracy tutorials forever. This appears to be the case indeed, especially when copyright holders are actively targeting them with takedown requests.
TorrentFreak reached out to “Kodi No Limits” via an associated contact address, but at the time of writing we haven’t heard back.
After two years of hard work by all volunteers, either part of the team or of our great community we can finally say the last steps towards Kodi v18 are being made. In past years many things have changed, either visually or code wise and to be honest i can’t even recall most. We as team would certainly like to thank every developer and user who spent time helping us get this far.
To this point the current v18 version has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it’s not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.
Changes in RC2
Most notable changes to mention in this Release Candidate:
Update documentation regarding Python and Skin develoment: Kodi Doxygen
Linux powermanagement: change logind detection to also use Dbus
Android: Fix playback for some PVR add-ons
Fix performance issue in PVR recording sub menu by reducing number of resume point update requests
Android: Assign joysticks in order of MRU (last activation)
Fix crash when an add-on did not define a version number
VideoPlayer: fix state of a/v players after switching refresh rate
Add new setting that allows to hide “spoiler” text for TV shows or movies
Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github repository found here: RC1 changes.
Currently included
To this point in time we’ve done
More than 9386 commits (code chunks changed)
More than 3000 pull-requests (collection of commits that were included in one go)
More than 8638 changed files
More than 503.000 code lines removed
More than 427.000 code lines added
Over 36 open source developers
A lot of free time developing and testing these changes
Quite likely several cases of beer or wine
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create looking back. As such this release article will only cover the biggest changes. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way. From now on all v18 releases will not contain any big new features as we are focussed on bug fixing or improvements only.
Make sure to also go through our news sections which contain all past announcements regarding the Leia release and some highlights of what it will contain.
Current available skins
Due to changes in how Kodi works, all skins need to be updated for each release. As of this moment the following skins have been update by their developers and are readily available from our repository.
More will follow at a later point in time when we approach final release.
Kodi’s GitHub codebase new face and better documentation
Starting with Kodi v18 Leia, our build guides are kept up-to-date against the current code base. Hopefully, up-to-date against a single pull request or code commit. This might seem of little importance but consider this: if, in two years time, you decide that you want to compile Kodi Leia for whatever reason, you won’t need to dig through the Wiki, forum guides, old HOW-TOs, etc, to achieve what should be a simple task. The correct build instructions are right there, alongside the code. Of course, there are things we can’t control and in two years a lot can change. Your shiny new OS or hardware might not be compatible with an older Kodi version. That’s not our fault, by the way. ;)
Next to our forum, some of the best sources for finding answers are the Kodi wiki pages. With each release certain aspects of the software change and this of course needs to be reflected on the official wiki pages. Several team members and regular users spend quite some time updating and tweaking these pages to become a helpful one stop place for all information.
DRM (Digital Rights Management)
With the work above being done in the video player a possibility came up to also allow something that opens Kodi up for using it in combination with DRM protected content. These days it’s quite common for content owners and providers to protect their content with encryption. With v18 we added the ability to also play this content as it was actually intended by the DRM system. Depending on the used hardware and included license you can now playback this content which usually also comes with a subscription service. Instead of the sometimes clunky apps a possibility would be to just use the trusted Kodi environment to watch what they have to offer. There are already several add-ons available from our repository that already use this capability and we certainly hope more will follow and that content providers will make their service available as official add-on.
Throughout the user interface we have added tiny changes and improvements. Some might not be noticeable however it should improve the general usability. Additionally the settings section underwent some modification as well. We would like to advise to go through all the setting sections and adjust them to your liking. At the bottom of the interface there’s a small extended description on what each setting does.
Music library
Music section also gained lots of improvement for those who cares a lot about having a clean music library. Going through the code and scanning options a better understanding was gained on the past intentions and redone in a more structured way. The same accounts in a smaller part for video library although that was in a better maintained state. What is new however in v18 is that similar to music we can now also use the embedded tags instead of the file names to fill the library. For now this has been disabled by default as there’s simply a lack of really well defined standard and proper easy to use video tagging software. We hope with Kodi now gaining this ability a gained interest will make these available.
Live TV
Next part is the great feature of Kodi to use it as your Live TV and recording front-end. It’s one of the less well known features as it requires certain knowledge and tinkering to set this up however once it works you’ll love it. To be able to use this you’ll need some extra hardware like a USB tuner or a network tuner like HDHomerun to get the cable or ether signal converted to a video stream. This in combination with one of the PVR server software options like VNSI or TVHeadend (more options are available) you instantly gain a very pleasant TV experience. What has been done over time is improving the usability and stability of this component and trying to make it a great replacement for your normal cable/ether set top box. A starting guide can be found here: Live TV and PVR/DVR Setup Guide
Python 2 & 3 compatibility will be enforced
Currently, Kodi includes the Python 2.7 interpreter to run add-ons written in Python programming language. However, Python 3 was released almost 10 years ago and the matter of implementing the Python 3 interpreter in Kodi has been brought up on the Kodi forum several times. Now, thanks to a successful GSOC 2017 project, we have a working Python 3.6 interpreter for Kodi, and on the latest DevCon 2017 in Prague Team Kodi decided that it’s time to move on and migrate Python add-on subsystem to Python 3. There are several reasons for that:
Python 3 is mature enough and more and more Python libraries either convert their codebase to Python 3-compatible or drop Python 2 support completely (Django is the most notable example).
Most current Python books, tutorials and courses are focused on Python 3.
Python 2 is not actively developed. It receives only security patches while Python 3 gets all the cool new features with every minor version.
However, Python 3 is not backward-compatible with the 2nd version so some transition process is required. Currently the plan is the following:
Kodi 19 (M*) will be released with Python 3 interpreter for running Python-based add-ons.
After the release of Kodi 18 (Leia) only add-ons that are compatible with both Python 2 and 3 will be accepted to the official add-on repository. Also, Python 3-only add-ons will be accepted to the repositories for Kodi 19 (M*) and above.
Add-on developers are highly encouraged to convert their add-ons to Python 2/3-compatible so that after the release of Kodi 19 (M*) we will have enough add-ons that work with the new version.
Test builds based on Kodi 18 with the Python 3 interpreter will be provided continuously so add-on developers can test their add-ons for compatibility with Python 3. Test builds for Windows are already available for downloading from here and test builds for Ubuntu can be obtained from this PPA.
One the v18 version has been branched off for final release the nightlies will become Python 3 only while the release builds will still be Python 2.
Writing Python code that is compatible with both 2 and 3 versions is totally possible and the “big” Python world has been doing it for years since the release of Python 3.0. There are a number of tools and best practices developed to simplify this process. Please read this Kodi Wiki article for more information and technical details about the migration process. Also a special Wiki section has been created that will be updated with new information. You can post questions about converting your add-on code to Python 3-compatible or share your experience in “Python 3 migration” subforum on the official Kodi forum.
Binary repository
We can now finally say binary repostory has been finalised for Android, OSX and Windows and are happy to say we can finally split off the binary add-ons from our main Kodi installer which reduces it to half the normal size. For users this means that as already mentioned the installer is much smaller and the Kodi version they get is just enough to get started. Once they decide to get extra functionality like a using PVR they simply go to the repository and only install what they need unlike now where we preinstall them all. Next is the fact that for example a PVR add-on received some fixes you don’t have to wait till we release a new Kodi version. Just like Python and Skin add-ons you will just received the updated PVR add-on and can enjoy the improvement straight away.
Android, Android TV Leanback suggestions, search and voice typing
Regarding Android we just continued to do what we started some years ago and that was stripping all custom written code and simply following the official Android standards. When XBMC back then became available for Android a lot of specific code was written to get it running on those low powered devices and we had more capabilities than any other application back then. Over time stock Android improved a lot and basically all what we had custom made was becoming readily available to be used. At that point we started dropping old stuff and just applied the standards which reduced support burden for the developers. Now all that was done we could start looking at new features and from that we gained the Leanback search integration on Android TV that shows Kodi content on Android TV itself. We now also include Google Assistant out of the box so theoretically you don’t have to pick up the remote anymore. To be honest it’s still uncomfortable and weird talking to your TV giving it commands. For Android TV Oreo there’s a whole new interface which includes the option to fill so called Channels that shows specific content from your app. We can proudly say that Kodi is actually one of the first applications that actually has this integrated. With the great hidden Kodi feature called Smartplaylists you can now populate the Android TV screen with content you want. For the touch enabled devices we can also say this has improved quite a lot as well make it feel more natural.
Linux gained some great things as well which might not mean a lot for regular users though. For our Google Summer of Code we had a project integrating Wayland display server protocol (again) to our code base which is meant to be the successor of X11 Window System. Since Linux is also quite divided on display drivers we had quite a lot of code implementations getting Kodi running on the variety of devices out there. To reduce the maintenance burden of this code a general path was chosen and for GBM (Generic Buffer Manager) and V4L2 (Video for Linux). With this only a small part of the initial code is needed to get devices running and from this newer devices would just run out-of-the-box once the Linux kernel supports these.
Retroplayer and input manager
Retroplayer together with input manager makes controlling Kodi using various remotes or controllers much better and a plug and play experience. Not having to thinker to get the correct configurations is something that we all would like and hopefully this achieves this. Kodi’s history is rooted in video games. When we were known as XBMC on the original Xbox, games were a first-class medium. They could be browsed within XBMC, and launching a game was as easy as playing a movie. In particular, retro games held a magic appeal for me. Because they were so accessible, they were able to bring together many diverse people in my life. Gaming history fascinates me, and through XBMC I was able to explore and learn about games I would otherwise never be able to experience.
Today I’m excited to announce that Kodi is bringing the ability of playing retro games to Kodi users. I believe there exists a “technical divide”, where those who haven’t been exposed to emulation can’t use it. My vision is to bridge this divide by hiding emulation entirely, truly democratizing access to gaming history. Any why stop at accessibility? I call the project “RetroPlayer” — being able to play a game using movie paradigms. Live gameplay can be paused. Leaving and returning later will persist where you left off. Fast-forwarding requires some zany reflexes. And my favourite: gameplay can be rewound in real time. Initially, we’re including two simple, recognizable games. I purposefully left some manual configuration and rough edges in our Beta 3 release to reduce the immense scope of the project. With the help of the awesome emulation community, I’m sure we can tackle the hard problems left between us and zero-configuration bliss. Accessible emulation is a monumental effort that could never be done without the dedication of our team and the countless testers we’ve had over the last 6 years. Our project is built on libretro, an API from the RetroArch team. We owe this milestone in emulation to their hard work porting over 100 emulators and games. Thank you!
After years of work we can finally announce that Kodi v18 will be available as full 64-bit Windows application. This means we run 64-bit on all capable platforms which is quite the achievement. We recommend every user to upgrade to this 64-bit version if you also run 64-bit Windows. You can find this under system information in Windows itself.
For Windows specific several big things happened. First of all we got added as 32-bit Bridge application to Windows store which makes it easier for new users to install Kodi and receive updates. A simultaneous action was converting Kodi to a full 64-bit application which took quite some effort. A more detailed story can be read here: Windows 64-bit is here
Now that was out of the way a long lived dream of quite a few became an option again. Getting Kodi running back on a XBOX like where it all started more than 15 years ago. Since 27 December 2017 we released Kodi once again for the XBOX (One) and is available from the Store.
Important note: For the moment the UWP/XBOX version will remain in Beta stage until several issues are resolved.
Development on Kodi also includes making sure it keeps working on all current and older operating systems. However at some point we also have to say goodbye and end support.
In the past we already had to say goodbye to the first XBOX, Windows XP, Apple TV2, Ubuntu 12.04, anything lower than OSX 10.8 and all versions lower than Android 5 (Lollipop).
Inspired by the galaxy far, far away theme, our resident artist Sam went above and beyond and designed perhaps the coolest Kodi announce video of all time.
We loved his work so much that we’re modelling the Kodi 18 shirt after it along with more art to come. Here it is, our newest, coolest shirt: K-18L
(Available in several shirt colours and not just black or white)
Release time
Since we now started the RC cycle a final release will be on the near horizon. When the final release will actually be is yet unknown as it all depends on the stability now more people will start using the v18 builds.
That’s about it for now and we’ll go back at improving this upcoming v18 release. Should you wish to give it a try a new version is readily available each day as well as nightly version. We can certainly recommend trying it out however take in mind that it’s not fully production and living room ready yet (take a backup). So far a guestimate of several tens of thousands users already use it so it can’t be that bad can it. You can get it from the download page clicking on the platform of choice and hitting the “pre release” tab. For Android and Windows we have an easy to use download add-on which you can find in our repository.
Go to the Official download page and choose the platform of choice and you will find these builds under the pre release tab.
Donations or getting involved
Getting involved is quite easy. Simply take the plunge and start using v18.0 Leia. If you use this version, we encourage you to report problems with these builds on our forum first and after that, if asked and the bug is confirmed, submit the issue on Github (following this guide: How to submit a bug report). Do note that we need detailed information so we can investigate the issue. We also appreciate providing support in our Forums where you can. You can of course also follow or help promote Kodi on all available social networks. Read more on the get involved page. If you do appreciate our work feel free to give a small donation so we can continue our effort. Just find the big “Donate” button at the top of the website. All donations go towards the XBMC foundation and are typically used for travel to attend conferences, any necessary paperwork and legal fees, purchase necessary hardware and licenses for developers and hopefully the yearly XBMC Foundation Developers Conference.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/kodi-14-pachinn-2-e1428457912875.png280672Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-12-04 14:28:582018-12-06 20:53:02Kodi v18 Leia RC2 – A new hope
First launched just a decade ago, search engine DuckDuckGo is a goto tool for Internet users who value their privacy.
Unlike many competitors, the site doesn’t keep a record of users’ IP addresses or other sensitive information.
The search engine also has a variety of useful features such as instant answers and bangs. The latter are particularly useful for people who want to use DuckDuckGo to search directly on other sites.
Typing ‘!yt keyword’ will do a direct search on YouTube, for example, ‘!w keyword’ goes to Wikipedia, and ‘!torrentfreak keyword’ does a search on TorrentFreak. This library of bangs has been around for a long time and has grown to more than 10,000 over the years.
However, a few days ago, roughly 2,000 of these were removed. Interestingly, this included many bangs that link to torrent sites, such as The Pirate Bay, 1337x and RARBG. Similarly, bangs for OpenSubtitles, Sci-Hub and LibGen are gone too.
Pirate Bay bang stopped working
Initially, it was unclear what had happened, but after people started asking questions on Reddit, DuckDuckGo staff explained that this was part of a larger cleanup operation.
DuckDuckGo went through its bangs library and removed all non-working versions, as well as verbose ones that were not actively used. In addition, many pirate site bangs were deleted as these are no longer “permitted.”
“Bangs had been neglected for some time, and there were tons of broken ones. As part of the bang clean-up, we also removed some that were pointing to primarily illegal content,” DuckDuckGo staffer Tagawa explains.
The search engine still indexes the sites in question but it feels that offering curated search shortcuts for these sites in their service might cause problems.
Apparently, this wasn’t a major issue when the bangs were first introduced. However, perhaps in part due to a changing perspective on the role of third-party intermediaries, DuckDuckGo sees potential liability issues now.
“It may not seem like so at first blush, but it is very different legally if it is a bang vs. in the search results because the bangs are added to the product by us explicitly, and can be interpreted legally as an editorial decision that is actively facilitating that site and its content.
“We operate globally, as do bangs, and products that actively facilitate interaction with illegal content can have us and our employees face significant legal liability, and jeopardizing the entire service,” Tagawa adds.
Not all users are happy with the decision. They point out that some of the removed sites can be used to access legal content as well, such as open source Linux versions. But DuckDuckGo doesn’t want to take any risk.
It is pointed out that users can still achieve the same with other tools. For example, Firefox allows users to create their own search shortcuts, which work pretty much the same as bangs.
Luckily, the TorrentFreak bang has rightfully survived DuckDuckGo’s purge. Also, anyone who’s looking for a recent Linux distribution can still use the ‘!distro’ bang.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/computerkeyboardfeat.png2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-12-03 23:27:592018-12-03 23:27:59DuckDuckGo Removes ‘Pirate’ Site Bangs to Avoid Liability
Statistics are great. As long as you have enough data points, you can ‘win’ virtually any argument by citing only those that support your claim.
This technique is used everywhere, also in debates about copyright, especially when it comes to the impact of online file-sharing on revenue.
Rightsholders frequently cite from studies that reveal major losses. At the same time, their opponents pick findings which clearly prove that there is no serious harm. Both may be right, but neither tell the full story.
If you read the headline of this article it’s easy to see that the ‘pro-piracy’ side will gladly put the findings in their arguments folder. However, the same research actually has something in store for anti-piracy advocates as well.
The research we’re referring to is published by Zhuang Liu of the University of Western Ontario, in a paper (pdf) titled “Quantifying the Heterogeneous Effects of Piracy on the Demand for Movies.”
Liu conducted an in-depth study on the link between piracy and sales, using estimated download numbers from pirated torrents as a key variable. This revealed that different types of piracy can have different effects.
After monitoring downloads and sales, including box office and DVD figures, for a period of 40 weeks and comparing it to the tracked piracy activity, he concludes that piracy does impact sales negatively. That said, its effect is far from uniform.
“File sharing reduces the total revenue of the motion picture industry from the box office by $ 231 million in total or 2.71% of the current box office in the US for my sample of 40 weeks in 2015,” the article reads.
On average, piracy results in a loss of roughly $500,000 per movie. That’s not insignificant. The bulk of the harm is not created at the box office though, but with DVD aftersales, the research found.
“Unlike the box office, in the home-video market, DVD revenue decreases by a surprising 36% due to piracy,” Liu writes.
What’s interesting to note is that not all piracy types have the same effect. For the earlier low-quality releases (CAM and TS), the “word-of-mouth” effect outweighs the negative effects on sales. Most of the harm is done by later high-quality leaks (WEBDL, DVDrip and BRRip), which compete directly with DVD and Blu-ray sales.
While the net effect of piracy is negative, pirates can also serve as promoters. Through word-of-mouth ‘advertising’ piracy positively impacts box-office attendance, Liu estimates.
“There’s some benefit from piracy, the word-of-mouth from piracy actually contribute to a total of $68.7 million to the industry box office and DVD revenue,” Liu says, clarifying that the figure applies to a period of 40 weeks and is limited to the US.
There’s another upside of course, as pirates save a lot of money, much more than the movie studios lose. This means that if all piracy could be eradicated, consumer welfare would be ‘lost.’
“Consumer welfare decreases when we ban piracy, which is much higher than the increase in motion picture industry revenue,” Liu notes.
That said, it’s unrealistic to expect that piracy could be banned entirely. Movie studios take down files and sites whenever they can, but a pirated copy is never hard to find. That brings us to another important finding.
If a single movie is protected from piracy successfully, it ‘only’ gains an average $70,000 in additional revenue.
“Consumers who watch pirated movies simply like ‘pirated stuff’, so if studios try to report and remove torrents of a movie on the file-sharing network, the pirate consumers will just switch to other pirated movies. The improvement in revenue will be very small, around $70,000 on average per movie,” Liu tells us.
That last point is important. If all piracy was eliminated, films would see a $500,000 increase in revenue per title. But in more isolated cases, which is what mostly happens today, the effect is much lower.
The research offers several interesting insights, to say the least. However, it is not without shortcomings. As it only looks at BitTorrent traffic, it captures only a small part of the piracy ecosystem.
In addition, tracking torrent downloads accurately also has its challenges. Liu aggregated completed counts form various BitTorrent trackers, which likely means that the downloads are overestimated.
We would caution anyone from drawing strong conclusions from this or any other study. What it does brilliantly show, however, is that not all piracy is the same. The quality and timing of leaked files are crucial, and the effects differ greatly between the box-office and DVD aftersales.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/cherries.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-12-03 08:26:592018-12-03 08:26:59‘Movie Piracy Brings in Millions of Extra Revenue Through Promotion’
Hollywood frequently stresses that piracy not only hurts the major studios, but also smaller independent productions.
While that may be true, for many independent artists obscurity is actually a bigger problem than piracy.
This idea is also shared by Lee Gardner, the Director and co-writer of the film “Adopting Trouble.” A digital copy of the film came out on Amazon this week where it can be rented for $0.99 or brought for $4.99.
The problem is, however, that people have to notice the film first. That’s a tough job when there’s virtually no marketing budget available. This is why Gardner and his team at Rare Legend Films decided to reach out to RARBG, one of the top torrent sites.
Realizing that pirates will get their hands on the film anyway, he sent the film’s master files to the site, whose in-house release group FGT turned those into torrents of varying qualities.
Aopting torrents…
The releases come with a special note from Gardner himself, who explains why his production company took this unconventional step.
“The thing they never tell you when you are making your film is that you won’t have enough money for marketing and without it, no-one will see your film. Maybe torrenters can fill that gap and spread the word on independent films,” he writes.
The director sees torrenters as trendsetters. This is why the film came out on RARBG before the official Amazon release. While there are no obligations, a donation or plug are welcome of course.
“So we are giving it to torrenters a little earlier than anyone else. If you like our movie. Please donate. Throw us a clam, a shekel or two. Tell your friends, your family and everyone you know,” Gardner adds.
Director’s message
Other filmmakers have shared their work on torrent sites in the past, and it’s always interesting to hear their motivations. Especially when they work directly with a site such as RARBG.
Speaking with TorrentFreak, Gardner says that RARBG was the only site he reached out to. The director was already familiar with the site and knew that it displayed a list of newly released movies, so it was a good fit.
The reason is simple as well; it’s all about exposure.
“The worst thing for an independent filmmaker is if no one ever sees their film. We had a micro-budget for our film and it was mostly out of our own pockets with no interest from distribution companies since we have no name talent involved,” he says.
Without a marketing budget and knowing that the film would be pirated anyway, they felt like they had nothing to lose.
That said, Gardner certainly isn’t arguing that piracy helps the movie industry as a whole. However, it’s a reality that they have to deal with.
“I wish piracy didn’t exist but I don’t think it will ever go away. Our little three-man production company certainly doesn’t have the means or the time to go after people the way Hollywood does,” he says.
“Piracy clearly has an impact economically on filmmakers, theaters, and distribution companies, but I don’t know that anyone can say exactly how it affects everything.”
The effects of piracy can vary but so can the motivations of pirates. Gardner doesn’t believe everyone pirates because they refuse to pay. In part, it’s a sign of anti-establishment, but also skepticism about what’s being offered.
“I think many people are hesitant these days to spend money on movies, even Hollywood offerings. When I take my family of five out to the theater it’s hard if the movie is a letdown,” Gardner says.
For independent films, there is even more hesitance. People often have no clue what to expect. They often don’t know the directors, writers or actors. So there might be room for innovation there.
One option would be to allow people to watch the beginning of a movie for free, so they can decide whether it’s worth their money or not.
“We need to find solutions to ease that hesitancy and better support independent filmmakers. One solution could be a platform where a potential customer can see the first 20 minutes of a film for free,” Gardner notes.
As for “Adopting Trouble,” people can watch it entirely for free on RARBG and other torrent sites where it was uploaded. Those who like it can choose to make a donation or grab a copy on Amazon.
To avoid issues, Gardner stresses that his company will keep standard performance copyright. This means that others can’t take it and sell it elsewhere, as happened with “The Man From Earth: Holocene.”
It will be interesting to see whether the torrent release delivers the exposure Gardner hoped for.
If that’s the case it might be worth repeating in the future. That would also depend on other factors of course, as a sanctioned torrent release may be harder to pull off with outside investors in the project.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/movie-featured.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-12-02 17:25:562018-12-02 17:25:56Director Shares Movie on Torrent Site Before ‘Official’ Release
TorrentFreak recently reported on the plight of developer Matt Huisman, the creator of what he believed to be a completely legitimate Kodi add-on.
Huisman created the ‘Showmax Add-on’ which provided access to content provided by Showmax, an online video subscription service launched in South African back in 2015. As a competitor to Netflix and Amazon Video, Showmax requires a paid subscription.
Despite suggesting that it wasn’t opposed to introducing a Kodi add-on of its own, Showmax never came up with the goods. So, after appeals from the company’s customers, Huisman took it upon himself to create an add-on so that Showmax users could conveniently view content inside Kodi.
The important thing to note is that the ‘Showmax Add-On’ was designed from the ground up to be non-infringing, in that it required all users to have a valid, paid-for subscription with Showmax. Nevertheless, Showmax recently asked anti-piracy company Irdeto (Denuvo’s owner) to take action against the add-on, filing complaints with both Huisman and Github, where the add-on had its official repository.
With the Showmax Add-On taken down from both Huisman’s site and Github, the matter was considered to be over. However, that clearly wasn’t the case. In a move that makes little sense, Irdeto has now filed an infringement complaint against Huisman with PayPal.
“We are contacting you as we have received a report that your website www.matthuisman.nz is currently infringing upon the intellectual property of Irdeto BV. Such infringement also violates PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy,” an email sent to Huisman by PayPal reads.
“If you feel your sales do not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of Irdeto BV, please complete the attached Objection to Infringement form.”
Huisman, who is the developer behind several similar projects, has a “Show me Love” page on his site, in which he invites fans to donate in appreciation of his work. He informs TorrentFreak that he never sold the Showmax Add-On and he’s shocked that Irdeto has taken such action.
“Irdeto have just had my PayPal (for donations) shut down. Wow! I wasn’t even selling [the Showmax] add-on,” he says.
Huisman is now required to file a counter-notice with PayPal in the hope of regaining full access to his account. However, PayPal has already warned him that if action isn’t taken soon, the company will “escalate” the matter.
“Failure to respond by the following date will result in the further escalation of this issue: December 01, 2018,” PayPal’s Brand Risk Management center advises.
On face value, this action by Showmax and Irdeto (who are both owned by corporate giant Naspers) is somewhat confusing.
It is perhaps understandable that they don’t want a third-party Kodi add-on being used to access their content (even though an account is still required), but going after a developer’s means to take donations for all of his projects is a measure usually reserved for fully-fledged ‘pirate’ sites.
Torrent sites come in all shapes and sizes. Most are known for being indexes of .torrent files or magnet links which facilitate access to various types of media. When these sites specialize in indexing copyrighted content, the law in most developed regions (particularly the EU) renders them illegal.
Banksy is without a doubt one of the most mysterious yet best-known street artists in the world.
There are several reasons for that:
Regarding Android we just continued to do what we started some years ago and that was stripping all custom written code and simply following the official Android standards. When XBMC back then became available for Android a lot of specific code was written to get it running on those low powered devices and we had more capabilities than any other application back then. Over time stock Android improved a lot and basically all what we had custom made was becoming readily available to be used. At that point we started dropping old stuff and just applied the standards which reduced support burden for the developers. Now all that was done we could start looking at new features and from that we gained the 
For Windows specific several big things happened. First of all we got added as 32-bit Bridge application to Windows store which makes it easier for new users to install Kodi and receive updates. A simultaneous action was converting Kodi to a full 64-bit application which took quite some effort. A more detailed story can be read here: 
First launched just a decade ago, search engine 
Statistics are great. As long as you have enough data points, you can ‘win’ virtually any argument by citing only those that support your claim.
Hollywood frequently stresses that piracy not only hurts the major studios, but also smaller independent productions.
