Aussie Senate Dismisses Concerns & Approves New Tough Anti-Piracy Law


Section 115a of Australia’s Copyright Act allows copyright holders to apply for injunctions to force ISPs to prevent subscribers from accessing ‘pirate’ sites.

The legislation has been used on many occasions since its introduction in 2015 but copyright holders say the law needs to be tightened to prevent circumvention. Those concerns spawned the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2018, which contains proposals to close the loopholes.

One of the key aims is to restrict access to proxy and mirror sites that appear after an injunction has been granted. However, the amendments lay out the ability to do that without court intervention, something that’s making activists and academics nervous.

Another is to expand grounds for an injunction. Currently “online locations” outside Australia with a “primary purpose of infringing” are targets for blocking. The amendments would see sites that have “the primary effect” of infringing or facilitating infringement also being sucked in, opening the door for blocking general purpose file-hosting sites.

Finally, search engines are seen as useful indexes for people looking for information to access sites that have already been blocked. The amendments forsee platforms like Google purging their search results of references to blocked sites.

Yesterday, the Senate’s Environment and Communications Legislation Committee published the results of its inquiry. Those hoping for an additional dissenting voice will be disappointed.

“The committee is of the view that the amendments proposed by the bill are likely to improve the operation of the injunctive scheme in section 115A of the Copyright Act, and represent a measured and proportionate response to concerns identified by stakeholders in relation to the operation of that scheme,” the report reads.

“In this respect, the committee also notes that the majority of submissions received by the committee supported the bill and recommended that it be passed unamended.”

Quantifying its decision, the Committee acknowledges concerns that “adaptive injunctions” (which allow for post-injunction proxy and mirror sites to be blocked) will be left up to copyright holders and ISPs to decide, so without intervention from the Court they could be open to abuse. However, it believes that enough safeguards are in place to ensure that does not happen.

“[T]he committee is of the view that the measures are appropriately circumscribed. In particular, the committee notes the evidence that the Court would maintain ultimate oversight over these injunctions, as well as the evidence that there must a sufficient nexus between the online location covered by the original injunction and the location to which the order is expanded,” the report reads.

Tackling the complex “primary effect” amendment, the Committee notes that it has its critics and could, in theory, encompass legitimate platforms. However, it says that there are “adequate safeguards” already present in Section 115A of the Copyright Act so “this would not occur in practice.”

Finally, on forcing search engines to purge their results of previously-blocked sites, the Committee again acknowledges objections from those who feel such measures are unnecessary. Again, however, the report dismisses the concerns, noting that search engines may play a role in both infringement and enforcement of copyright so the measures are “appropriate.”

It also notes that a voluntary arrangement between copyright holders and search engine providers may yet be reached, so if all else fails the proposed amendment will provide an “important backstop” in the event such agreements prove ineffective.

Summing up, the Committee offers the suggestion that the new amendments should be subject to a review two years after being put in place, a period that should allow enough time to assess whether any components need to be “clarified, rationalised or improved”

“The committee considers that, on balance, the benefits of the bill outweigh any potential negative impacts that could arise from the proposed amendments. The committee therefore recommends that the bill should be passed,” the report concludes.

The full report can be downloaded here (pdf)

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Court Rules MusicMonster Stream-Ripping Service Illegal


Stream-ripping tools and services have been around for many years and are currently most closely associated with obtaining tracks from YouTube, Spotify, and Deezer.

However, before these undoubtedly more efficient tools came along, users with an aversion to peer-to-peer networks often used software to ‘record’ songs from streaming Internet radio stations.

While more cumbersome than straightforward downloading, there are virtually no risks attached to doing so, with many considering this ‘private copying’ and therefore completely legal.

Somewhere in the middle sit services like MusicMonster.fm, a Germany-based service that claims to make stream-ripping easy, by scanning Internet radio streams for the user, ripping out songs, and then making these available to the end user for download.

“First, you should put together a wish list – just click the button ‘I want!’ next to your favorite songs,” MusicMonster’s site reads.

“If one of these songs is played in one of the web radios monitored by MusicMonster.FM, the song will be recorded automatically and digitally and will be recorded on [the site’s storage space].”

From here (or from Dropbox if the option is selected), songs can be downloaded to the user’s computer in MP3 format. This, the site suggests, isn’t a problem because users have already paid for the right when the stations paid their licensing fees.

“The ability to save music (eg: analog recording) is a paid right. The customer has already paid for it,” MusicMonster advises.

“If you have not noticed this in recent years, then the music industry has received payments without providing anything in return. Now this consideration will be used by you. The MP3 music file you have recorded and created is not a copy of the original piece of music, but an independent legal object.”

Perhaps needless to say, record labels aren’t impressed with this type of product and MusicMonster.fm eventually came to the attention of Sony Music’s lawyers.

In September 2017, the Munich Regional Court delivered a first instance judgment that MusicMonster itself is the creator of the copies, not the user, so in this case the act of stream-ripping represents a violation of the label’s reproduction rights.

Following an appeal by the service, on November 22, 2018 the Higher Regional Court of Munich agreed that the operators of the site could not rely on the private copying exception, declaring the MusicMonster platform both unlicensed and unlawful.

The Federal Music Industry Association (Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI)) welcomed the ruling.

“This is a very important decision that contributes further clarification,” says BVMI Managing Director Dr. Florian Drücke, who describes MusicMonster as a service trying to generate profit using the private copying exception.

“The industry will continue to be consistent against such brazen business models that unfairly interfere with the legal digital market, mislead consumers, and disregard the rights of artists and their partners.”

René Houareau, Legal & Politics Director at BVMI, adds that courts are increasingly able to identify illegal and opportunistic business models from those that are officially licensed and return revenue to the entertainment industries.

BVMI adds that stream-ripping is a big problem for the music industry worldwide but acknowledges that in some instances in Germany, the use of stream-ripped music sits in a legal gray area.

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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TRON’s Financial Incentives for Torrent Users Will be Private by Design


When the relatively new cryptocurrency TRON acquired BitTorrent a few months ago, there was ample speculation on the future of the company.

As the main developer of both uTorrent and BitTorrent Mainline, future decisions will impact a userbase of roughly 100 million people.

After a brief period of silence, TRON’s founder Justin Sun assured the public that BitTorrent was not going anywhere. Instead, he proposed a new project that aims to make it even better.

The idea behind Project Atlas, as it’s named, is to add ‘currency’ to the BitTorrent protocol through a series of extensions. This makes it possible to financially reward seeders, or to speed up torrents by paying for faster access.

While many TRON investors praised the idea, with some claiming that it will revolutionize the Internet, BitTorrent users tend to be more skeptical of this type of change.

At TorrentFreak, we had some questions as well, and luckily TRON’s Justin Sun was willing to fill in some blanks.

We already knew that the Project Atlas would be open for other clients to use and would be backwards compatible. This means that it can handle all existing torrents and talk to clients which choose not to implement it.

TRON’s founder confirmed this, adding that uTorrent and BitTorrent users won’t be forced to use it.

“There will be a setting to allow turning the feature on and off,” Sun told TorrentFreak.

“It will work with all existing torrents. The clients which do not have this optional protocol extension will function as before, similarly to a Project-Atlas-compatible client with the setting turned off.”

BitTorrent already uses a “tit-for-tat” scheme which rewards people for sharing and vice versa. TRON’s founder sees the new financial incentives as a logical extension of that.

“We see the Project Atlas system as an extension of this design decision — one that can persist across time and across swarms, and one where bandwidth contribution is rewarded whether you are actively downloading or seeding,” Sun tells us.

The goal

Another question that was on people’s minds is how it will all work, privacy-wise. Are users’ downloads tracked in a database? Can these be tracked back to individuals?

According to TRON, this is not the case. The protocol extension will be compatible with any and all torrents, but the rewards cannot be linked to specific files. The torrent client merely rewards people for how much they share.

“We know that privacy is very important to people, especially in the digital age, so we are designing the system with privacy in mind and an ability to opt-out of this new feature,” Sun says.

“The incentive system itself is not related to individual torrents. It tracks only that a certain number of tokens were transferred from one peer to another, and the details of this token transfer will not be publicly visible.”

It’s also important to note that Project Atlas will first be rolled out in desktop clients. This means that the new uTorrent Web and the similar BitTorrent Web, which came out this week, are in the queue for now.

Before the TRON acquisition, BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen suggested that these web clients could eventually replace the company’s desktop versions. However, Sun stresses that there is absolutely no plan to phase out the desktop products.

We also asked Sun about his thoughts on the frequent associations that are made between BitTorrent and piracy. Previously the RIAA sent a letter to BitTorrent Inc, asking it to add a hash filter to block pirated content, for example. Sun, however, chose not to comment on whether this is an option or not.

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

This is also Sun’s long-term goal.

“We would like to see more users, more seeds, and a protocol that represents an even faster technology. With Project Atlas, we plan to make torrenting in general faster and easier for novices and experts alike,” Sun says.

For now, it’s a priority to get the first version of Project Atlas out to the public. While no hard date is mentioned, this is planned for the next few months.

“We expect the first features of Project Atlas will be available around early 2019,” Sun concludes.

Whether Project Atlas will be well received by the community and if it will indeed bring about the changes TRON and BitTorrent envision, will become more clear then.

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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UK Copyright Trolls Reactivate, Five Years After Alleged Movie Piracy


During September 2014, TorrentFreak became aware of a case that had appeared before the Chancery Division of the High Court.

TCYK LLP v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd featured a company behind the Robert Redford movie The Company You Keep and ISP Sky. The former claimed that some of Sky’s Internet subscribers had infringed TCYK’s rights and should be pursued for damages.

That TCYK were testing the waters in the UK wasn’t a surprise. In the United States, TCYK LLC previously filed dozens of copyright infringement lawsuits against Internet subscribers in several states including Illinois, Colorado, Ohio, Florida and Minnesota, demanding cash settlements.

TCYK prevailed in its case against Sky, and the ISP warned its customers that some of their details would be handed over based on alleged infringements carried out in 2013.

“A company called TCYK LLC, which owns the rights to several copyrighted films, has claimed that a number of Sky Broadband customers engaged in unlawful file-sharing of some of its films,” Sky told those affected.

“In support of this claim, TCYK LLC says it has gathered evidence of individual broadband accounts (identified online by unique numbers called IP addresses) from which it claims the file sharing took place,” Sky told those affected.

In 2015, TorrentFreak became aware of letters sent to Sky customers with TCYK, in conjunction with London-based firm Hatton and Berkeley, demanding a few hundred pounds to make supposed copyright infringement cases go away. It is unknown how many people paid up but at least one hopeless case was settled by a defendant.

As is often the case, many letter recipients decided to ignore the settlement demands in 2015, perhaps believing it was some kind of scam, perhaps believing the cases would go away. For more than three years, that’s exactly what happened.

However, during the past couple of weeks, TCYK and partners Hatton and Berkeley took a second bite of the cherry, writing again to non-responsive letter recipients in the hope they’ll now pay up.

Letters reviewed by TorrentFreak were sent by Catherine Hyde who is a Consultant Solicitor at Birmingham-based law firm My Business Counsel. The letter says that Hyde is acting on behalf of H&B Administration LLP and TCYK LLC. Hyde is also listed as “Legal Counsel” for Hatton and Berkeley.

“I have recently taken over the conduct of the above matter from and on behalf of my clients with regard to the copyright protection of their interest in the Work,” Hyde begins.

“Following my file review, I note that the last correspondence that was sent to you was in 2015 when my client notified you that there has been an instance of copyright infringement of the Work via your Sky Broadband router. Your response was never received.”

Hyde states that her client “does not wish to pursue this matter through the courts” and prefers to deal with the matter amicably, if possible.

Offering up contact details, the solicitor then asks letter recipients to get in touch, to either admit to the offense of downloading the work and/or making it available to others, or to deny the offense and provide an explanation.

Those who want to admit to the offense (which allegedly took place more than five years ago) are invited to sign an undertaking to secure their Internet connection and/or prevent other people in the house from “illegally downloading in the future.”

Unless the person signing is prepared to monitor every user in the household at all times and/or ban them from the Internet completely, that, of course, is an impossible request.

But what Hyde is really looking for on behalf of her clients is a cash settlement, and this is where things begin to get interesting. While demands three years ago tended to hover around the several hundred pounds mark, TCYK and Hatton and Berkeley now have a new idea up their collective sleeves.

Demanding amounts that invariably exceed £1,500, the letters take the price of the DVD at launch and use the size of the torrent swarm at the alleged time of infringement as a multiplier.

“The expert in this instance has ascertained that the swarm size you were involved in is [redacted]. The loss in this regard is therefore [£ redacted] (swarm size x £9.99 (sale price at first release (less taxes)),” the letter reads.

So, if a swarm size was 100 at the time of the alleged infringement, the settlement amount is 100 x £9.99 = £999. A swarm size of 200 would be double that.

This type of damages calculation is the first we’ve seen and upon initial view, seems a potentially reasonable way of putting a figure on precise losses, as UK law requires. However, it is potentially flawed, given the way BitTorrent works.

When people join a swarm (say of 100 users, or ‘peers’ as they’re known), they will connect to other users who are all sharing the same movie. The damages claim indicates that since there are 100 peers, then the defendant must have connected to each of them, in order to share the full movie with them all. Proving this, however, is extremely difficult.

When a torrent client connects to a swarm, it will obtain the IP addresses of potentially connectable peers, but it is extremely rare for the client to connect to them all. Some clients will reject the connection request and it’s likely that of the 100, only a dozen or two will actually connect. It is also possible that only a handful will connect.

Perhaps more importantly, an outsider monitoring the swarm cannot see how many or which other clients any particular client is connected to and/or whether they actually shared any content with them. The theoretical position changes for an initial seeder of content (given their importance to the entire swarm), but that’s not being claimed here.

Connections between peers are direct and outsiders cannot intervene. The only thing a monitoring company can potentially prove is that an IP address was in a swarm at a particular time and/or connected to THEIR torrent client, which is what tends to happen at the evidence-gathering stage.

While this is generally enough to prove on the balance of probabilities (the threshold in a UK civil case) that some infringement has taken place, the difficult-to-prove calculation presented in the letters suggests that the alleged infringer connected to 100 to 200 peers and sent each one a full copy of the work, valued at £9.99. The chances of this happening are slim to none since all peers connect to each other and take whichever missing pieces they need.

The letter goes on to suggest extreme action for those who deny the claims as set out.

“In the event you deny the infringement, my client reserves the right to seek an Order that you provide up all equipment (including PCs, laptops, and mobile phones) with previous or current access to the IP address for forensic analysis. Alternatively, you can arrange your own forensic analysis at your own expense,” Hyde adds.

A recent case in the United States saw a judge pour cold water on this type of aggressive discovery, noting that all computers, phones, and tablets belonging to the owner of the home and anyone who used its Internet connection would need to be examined to find someone who could be sued.

While “reserving the right” and actually seeking an order are two entirely different things, it will be interesting to see if a judge in the UK would be willing to sign off on such a request after five years have passed.

Depriving everyone in a household of every Internet-enabled device used in the last half-decade is a staggeringly big ask, particularly when the claim has been dormant for so long. The letter claims the issue is “urgent and serious”, however.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Hatton and Berkeley founder Robert Croucher confirmed that the involvement of H&B Administration LLP is to provide an “insured and administrative wrapper”.

This mechanism, which helps to the limit the plaintiff’s exposure in the event of an adverse court ruling following a fight with an alleged infringer, was detailed in our earlier article.

“I can say that these type of proceedings are to be wrapped with an insurance policy hereon providing a level of risk mitigation to rights holders seeking reparation for damages sought at trial,” Croucher said.

To see how this particular ‘wrapper’ was formed, one only needs to query Companies House in the UK.

H & B Administration LLP (the wrapper) is a partnership involving Robert Croucher, partner Brigitta Kudor, plus TCYK LLC, which is the US company involved in similar copyright cases.

In accounts dated December 31, 2017, H & B Administration LLP was declared as having £558 in the bank. Given the idea is to limit the liability of the partnership to the money invested in the LLP by the partners, £558 (perhaps conveniently) doesn’t stretch very far in the event of a legal disaster for the partnership.

Received a similar letter? Contact TorrentFreak in complete confidence.

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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Hollywood Wants Hosting Providers to Block Referral Traffic From Pirate Sites


Under US law, hosting companies are seen as neutral intermediaries, but according to the MPAA, these companies should take more responsibility for their role in the piracy ecosystem.

In a letter sent to the US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) Vishal Amin last week, Hollywood’s MPAA requests the Government’s assistance in this matter.

The IPEC requested input from the public on the new version of its Joint Strategic Plan for Intellectual Property Enforcement to which the MPAA replied with a broad range of suggestions.

The group notes that while there has been a lot of progress on the legal supply side, piracy remains a problem. This is in part due to a lack of involvement from third-party Internet services, who could do more to combat piracy.

“Compounding matters is the lack of accountability of some major online platforms for their failure to prevent content theft and other illicit conduct over their services,” the MPAA’s Senior Vice President Neil Fried writes.

In its submission, the MPAA highlights that there are some voluntary agreements in place, with payment services and advertisers for example, but that’s not enough. Other platforms and intermediaries should follow suit, they argue.

This includes hosting providers, which have the ability to shut pirate sites down. However, according to the MPAA, many refuse to do so, voluntarily at least.

“Given the central role of hosting providers in the online ecosystem, it is disconcerting that many refuse to take action when notified that their hosting services are being used in clear violation of their own terms of service prohibiting intellectual property infringement and in blatant violation of the law,” the MPAA notes.

This should change, and the Hollywood group has some concrete examples of how these companies can improve.

Besides processing takedown notices and terminating repeat infringers, as they are required to do by law, the MPAA also wants hosting companies to use automated piracy filters on their servers.

“Hosting providers should filter using automated content recognition technology; forward DMCA notices to users, terminate repeat infringers after receipt of a reasonable number of notices, and prevent re-registration by terminated users,” the MPAA suggests.

In addition, hosting providers should not challenge suspension court orders, when copyright holders go up against pirate sites. Going a step further, hosts should keep an eye on high traffic volumes which may be infringing, and ban referral traffic from pirate sites outright.

The MPAA wants these companies to “implement download bandwidth or frequency limitations to prevent high volume traffic for particular files” to “remove files expeditiously” and “block referral traffic from known piracy sites.”

Some of the MPAA’s recommendations

Some of these suggestions go pretty far. The referral ban, for example, means that hosting providers would have to make sure that Pirate Bay visitors are blocked from entering one of the sites they host through a direct link, even if that site itself is perfectly legal.

The referral ban may be aimed at stopping pirate linking sites from using legitimate storage services for infringing content, but that would result in collateral damage as well.

Hosting companies are not the only web-services that can ‘improve’ their anti-piracy policies, of course. The MPAA also wants reverse proxy servers, such as Cloudflare, to terminate infringing sites, or at least identify their true location.

Regular ISPs don’t have to block pirate sites, at least not voluntarily. However, the MPAA notes that this changes when they are subject to a court order in the applicable jurisdiction.

The Hollywood group hopes that IPEC will continue its efforts to encourage these companies to implement “voluntary” measures. It anticipates that some will argue that this violates free expression, but MPAA notes that it does the opposite.

“[C]urbing illegal activity promotes free expression by creating a safer environment where individuals feel comfortable to communicate and engage in commerce, and to create and lawfully access content.”

The push for voluntary agreements with Internet services is just the tip of the iceberg though.

The MPAA further asks IPEC to make sure that that access to WHOIS data should be made public again, to ensure that trade agreements include proper copyright protections, and to encourage other Government departments including the Department of Justice to beef up their anti-piracy efforts.

—-

MPAA’s full submission to the US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator 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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Kodi Edition Raspberry Pi Case Version 2 – May The (Open) Source Be With You!


Two years ago, we surprised everyone by taking our first step into hardware by announcing the ‘Kodi Edition’ Raspberry Pi case. For the past year, we’ve been working with Flirc on an exciting and ambitious newly-designed case to follow that one. Using the second-generation Flirc case as a starting point, we wanted something prominent that both matches the character of Kodi and blends seamlessly into your entertainment systems.

We’re eager to show you what we’ve been working on. More than that, we’re thrilled to announce that, starting today, it’s available to order.

Still manufactured from aluminum, we’ve now gone to the dark side with a metallic, jet black coating for that cool Vader look. It will be a beautiful addition for your living room and is definitely the case you’ve been waiting for.

The top edge is polished, and features anodized silver to create a mirror-like finish that hugs the Kodi-branded, soft touch plastic.

The second-generation case features better access to the SD card, a better built-in heatsink, precision manufacturing, and subtle details that make a great case amazing.

And, just like the first case, a percentage of every sale will go towards cancer research at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, where they lead the industry in groundbreaking cancer treatments and trial medications.

The second-generation ‘Kodi Edition’ Raspberry Pi case is a limited edition: starting today, though, you can order them from Flirc and The Pi Hut.

Thank you, and Happy and Healthy Holidays from team Kodi and team Flirc.
 

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US Judge Slams Copyright Troll For Using His Court “Like an ATM”


Strike 3 Holdings is one of the most active copyright trolls in the United States, filing more than 1,800 copyright infringement cases in the past 13 months.

Its modus operandi is familiar – harvest allegedly infringing IP addresses from BitTorrent swarms, obtain the identities of the people behind the ISP accounts, then chase them down for a cash settlement.

While it’s unknown how many people have settled with the company for hundreds to thousands of dollars, the alleged ‘John Doe’ infringer featuring in a case filed in the District of Columbia seems destined not to join their ranks.

In common with similar cases, Strike 3 Holdings asked the Court to help unmask the identity of an alleged pirate of the company’s porn, who used a Comcast connection to do the dirty deed. However, a scathing and entertaining memorandum opinion from Judge Royce C. Lamberth explains why that is not going to happen.

The Judge begins by speaking of Strike 3 in disparaging terms, noting that the company’s geolocation technology is “famously flawed”, adding that it simply cannot identify an alleged infringer.

“Simply put, inferring the person who pays the cable bill illegally downloaded a specific file is even less trustworthy than inferring they watched a specific TV show,” Judge Lamberth writes.

The Judge notes that ISPs have been forced to unmask alleged infringers in the past but says this can make the currently innocent defendant visible in a Google search, associated with the websites “Vixen, Blacked, Tushy, and Blacked Raw” through which Strike 3’s DVDs are distributed.

“The first two [website titles] are awkward enough, but the latter two cater to even more singular tastes,” he says.

“Imagine having your name and reputation publicly – and permanently – connected to websites like Tusky and Blacked Raw. (Google them at your own risk). How would an improperly accused defendant’s spouse react? His (or her) boss? The head of the local neighborhood watch?

“The risk of a false accusation are real; the consequences are hard to overstate and even harder to undo. And Strike 3’s flawed identification method cannot bear such great weight.”

Going on to criticize Strike 3 for filing 1,849 cases in the past thirteen months, including 40 in his district, Judge Lamberth says that such serial litigants prey on low-hanging fruit then run away at the first sign of resistance.

“They don’t seem to care about whether defendant actually did the infringing, or about developing the law. If a Billy Goat Gruff moves to confront a copyright troll in court, the troll cuts and runs back under its bridge,” he writes.

“Perhaps the trolls fear a court disrupting their rinse-wash-and-repeat approach: file a deluge of complaints, ask the court to compel disclosure of the account holders; settle as many claims as possible; abandon the rest.”

Unfortunately for Strike 3, Judge Lamberth doesn’t intend to play ball. He explains that Strike 3’s call for discovery does not outweigh the potentially non-infringing defendant’s right to be anonymous, while denying Strike 3’s ex parte motion to subpoena Comcast for the defendant’s identity and dismissing the case without prejudice.

According to the Judge, Strike 3 has little chance of identifying a defendant who can be sued without resorting to aggressive discovery, including examinations of all computers, phones, and tablets belonging to the owner of the home and anyone who used its Internet connection.

In further detailing why he denied Strike 3’s request, the Judge notes that of the forty cases filed in his district, none have reached the Court of Appeals. A total of 22 were voluntarily dismissed, with all but one following the same formula.

“Strike 3 files a complaint (identical in every case except for the infringing IP address). A few weeks later, Strike 3 files a motion to subpoena the anonymous defendant’s ISP,” the Judge writes.

“Satisfied by Strike 3’s showing of likely personal jurisdiction, the court grants the motion, usually providing at least twenty days for the defendant to move to quash the subpoena and sometimes providing for the defendant’s continued anonymity. Nothing happens for a few weeks, and then Strike 3 voluntarily dismisses the suit.”

In the one case that bucked the trend, a defendant was allowed by the court to proceed anonymously – but then Strike 3 dropped the case.

In his conclusion, Judge Lamberth takes one final swipe at Strike 3, describing the troll outfit in some of the most explicit terms ever used in court and leaving little to the imagination.

“Armed with hundreds of cut-and-pasted complaints and boilerplate discovery motions, Strike 3 floods this courthouse (and others around the country) with lawsuits smacking of extortion. It treats this Court not as a citadel of justice, but as an ATM.

“Its feigned desire for legal process masks what it really seeks: for the Court to oversee this high-tech shakedown. This Court declines,” the Judge concludes.

The full memorandum opinion can be found here (pdf)

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





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IPVanish VPN $79.99 For 2 Years!

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The most anticipated day for deals in already happening and on GeekBuying plenty of offers are available! The Black Friday on GeekBying offers 7 rounds of flash sales with super-low prices and in each one of them there are products starting from $0.01! Of course the $0.01 are limited so you have to hurry-up in order to get them but in any case, there are other great offers as well that can make you do the deal of the year, easily. The flash sale start at 16:00 (GMT +8) on November 22nd and end at 16:00 (GMT +8) on November 27th.

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Hot Sellers, TV Box, Wearables, Gadget

Other great offers are also available, the H96 MAX+ Android 8.1 TV Box is on sale for just $48.99 or if you are looking for a more budget-friendly new device the Tanix TX3 for just $30.99.

The offers continue with some other great categories like the 50 OFF where you can find everything for half the price, Outdoor gadgets with great offers, Home essentials and also Fashion! Everything you might want is available so make sure to check the dedicated Black Friday page from GeekBuying at: https://bit.ly/2KqG8mn

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Kodi v18 Leia RC1 – A new hope


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.

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 opensource 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.

Confluence, Pellucid, Rapier, Transparency

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. ;)

Read more here Kodi’s GitHub codebase new face and better documentation

The wiki pages

One of the best sources of information next to our forum for asking question and finding answers is 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 helpfull 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.

Read more here Kodi and DRM

Estuary interface and settings

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 and fill the library based on that instead of using file names. 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 thinkering 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. <--break->There are several reasons for that:

  • Python 2 End of Life is planned for 2020.

  • 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 instal 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.

Read more here Kodi v18 – Binary add-ons repository

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.

 

Read more here Kodi v18 – Android Leanback suggestions, search and voice typing

Linux

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 favorite: 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!

Written by developer: Garbear

For support questions go here: Game support

Windows 64-bit is here

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.

Read more here Kodi v18 – Windows 64-bit is here

Windows UWP and Xbox One

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 instal 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.

Read more here Kodi v18 – Xbox One

Goodbye Windows Vista

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).

Read more here Kodi v18 – Goodbye Windows Vista

 

The V18 Leia t-shirt

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.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9gVaeb9le4?modestbranding=0&html5=1&rel=1&autoplay=0&wmode=opaque&loop=0&controls=1&autohide=0&showinfo=0&theme=dark&color=red&enablejsapi=0]

We loved his work so much that we’re modeling 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)

Kodistore

 

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.

 

May the force be with you…..





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