For well over a decade, content industry groups – mainly representing movie and music companies – have petitioned courts around the world to limit access to so-called pirate sites.

The theory is that by blocking sites that host or link to infringing content, piracy rates will go down, thus leading to increased sales. However, not much evidence is available to say that blocking is effective in achieving the latter two objectives, even if direct visits to pirate sites are reduced.

Nevertheless, entertainment groups continue to press ahead with blockades in many countries against a huge number of sites. Their latest target, streaming site Cuevana, is not only very popular in South America but also a bit of a veteran in the piracy scene.

Offering a wide range of movie and TV show content for instant viewing, Cuevana has been a Hollywood and TV company irritant for almost a decade. In 2012, an administrator of one variant of the site was arrested in Chile following a complaint by HBO, but not even that managed to kill the platform.

Available now via a number of domains, a partial solution to the Cuevana problem appears to be blocking. To that end, Disney, Fox, Paramount, Columbia, and others filed a complaint against the popular platform in Argentina, hoping that the courts would render the site inaccessible in the region. According to SimilarWeb data, Cuevana2.com is the country’s 109th most-popular site.

Following an initial application by rightsholders, the National Chamber in Criminal and Correctional Matters has now reversed an earlier ruling and ordered a provisional blockade of Cuevana.

Due to the site providing unlicensed access to works owned by the plaintiffs, the Court found that the site is in breach of Law 11.723, which covers intellectual property matters. Article 79 reportedly allows measures to prevent further infringement.

Like many popular under-siege pirate sites, Cuevana also relies on multiple domains and addresses to keep itself online and accessible. With this in mind, the Hollywood companies have filed requests to have all Cuevana-related domains blocked in Argentina, to prevent circumvention of their injunction.

Much like The Pirate Bay, Cuevana appears to have many namesakes which may, or may not, be linked to the official platform.

According to local media reports, the court found that blocking ‘pirate’ websites is an “appropriate and proportional measure” to prevent infringement, particularly in the case of Cuevana which has been infringing copyrights for many years.

While Cuevana variants have always been popular in South America and other Spanish-speaking regions, the platform attracted international attention in 2014 when the MPAA reported it to the United States Trade Representative.

Following the success of its web-based portal, the pirate site began offering Cuevana Storm, a Popcorn Time-like streaming solution, utilizing torrents under the hood. It now appears to have reverted largely to web-based streaming, relying on file-hosting sites for content.

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

Source link

For many years, Ukraine has been openly criticized for not doing enough to tackle both online and offline piracy.

The country is known for its high piracy rates but enforcement against local pirate and gray-area hosting platforms has been sporadic and largely ineffective.

According to an announcement from Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, however, fresh action has taken down at least one and possibly many piracy-linked Internet resources.

The Ministry says that officers from the Kiev Department of Cyberpolicies, together with investigators from the Vasylkivsky police department, have executed a warrant in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia. Their target was a 24-year-old man suspected of running the pirate streaming portal OneMov.net and several other pirate sites.

OneMov.net – shutdown notice (Image credit: Ukraine Government)

The authorities say that the individual “reproduced and distributed audiovisual works” belonging to Universal City Studios LLLP, which is represented locally by the Ukrainian Anti-Piracy Association.

The government department says that OneMov attracted attention due to its international appeal. Although it was administered from Ukraine, the platform carried movies that were mostly in English, with titles later appearing in Ukrainian and Russian.

After carrying out what is being described as an “authorized search”, police say they discovered items linking the man to the platform.

“In his apartment, the system unit of a personal computer containing an electronic control panel of the site was removed. In addition, a router was found that was used to administer the specified web resource and bank cards, which included funds from advertising on the specified site,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.

An officer searching the suspect’s PC (Image credit: Ukraine Government)

The authorities claim that the arrested man could also be the brains behind another 10 pirate sites but at the time of writing, the names of those sites haven’t been released. However, a screenshot of what appears to be the suspect’s computer reveals links not only to OneMov, but also MovDB.net and OneStream.cc, both of which are currently inaccessible.

The arrested man is being investigated for offenses under Part 3, Article 176 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Infringement of Copyright and Related Rights) and could receive a prison sentence of up to six years.

Earlier this year the United States Trade Representative (USTR) kept Ukraine on its Priority Watch List (pdf), accusing government agencies of using pirated software and a “failure to implement an effective means to combat the widespread online infringement of copyright in Ukraine.”

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

Source link

As the heated debate over the EU’s controversial Article 13 proposals continues, YouTube is becoming ever more vocal.

Relatively silent in the run-up to the September vote which saw the European Parliament vote in favor of proposals put forward by Axel Voss’ EPP group, YouTube now seems very concerned over the possibility of being held liable for infringing content uploaded to its platform.

“While we support the goals of article 13, the European Parliament’s current proposal will create unintended consequences that will have a profound impact on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people,” Wojcicki wrote in blog post earlier this week.

Wojcicki’s statement carried a stark warning that liability for YouTube under Article 13 could force the platform to block content from EU citizens. No company could take on such a financial risk, she said.

Thus far, the Article 13 debate has been polarized, with the entertainment industries hugely in favor and companies like YouTube and pro-Internet freedom groups strongly against. Now, however, a new development has created an interesting split in the ranks, with Julia Reda, MEP for the Pirate Party, warning that YouTube is now lobbying in favor of upload filters.

As detailed in a release from Reda’s office this morning, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has made a number of statements in recent weeks that indicate that the video hosting platform is in favor of pre-filtering content before it’s made available to the public.

Of course, Google has its ContentID filtering system already in place, meaning that it would be in pole position to further dominate the video hosting space, if the filtering option is adopted by the EU.

“The fact that Youtube is now publicly lobbying for mandatory upload filters is not surprising in the least. By introducing ContentID, YouTube has already proven that is is very much capable of developing filters for certain types of content, such as music,” Reda explains.

“If the entire market was obliged to install such filters, YouTube would not only be miles ahead in of its competitors in the development of such technologies, it would also be in a position to sell its filters to smaller platforms. Large platforms such as YouTube would grow further and be presented with an entirely new business model. The significantly smaller EU competition would be left behind.”

In common with many activists, Reda is passionately against the idea of content being filtered. The MEP points to numerous failures of YouTube’s ContentID system that have led to entirely legal content being blocked or deleted from the platform. Reda also warns of a slippery slope where filtering leads to other unintended consequences, such as the stifling of copyright exceptions including parody or quotation.

During October, Wojcicki posted on the company’s blog, warning that Article 13 could “drastically change the Internet.” The piece was effectively a rallying cry to millions of YouTube creators, who were urged to take to social media to protest the proposed legislation.

Now, however, Reda is warning YouTubers against taking YouTube’s stance as their own, noting that its CEO has been in Strasbourg lobbying in favor of upload filters and is only interested in avoiding legal liability.

“The fear of many YouTubers that internet culture and independent creatives will be sacrificed in this reform is certainly justified. They should however not make the mistake of singing from YouTube’s hymn sheet, whose CEO has only been outspoken against the liability of platforms for copyright infringements, while presenting mandatory upload filters as a reasonable compromise,” Reda says.

“If you look more closely at the countless videos, it’s apparent that most YouTubers are warning of the exact problems that YouTube’s ContentID upload filters are already causing today: unjustified copyright strikes and the automated deletion of entirely legal creative content. YouTube and its YouTubers have very different interests in this debate.”

The fact that Julia Reda is now speaking out so clearly against YouTube is likely to prove somewhat of a conundrum to the music industry critics who have been regularly attacking her on Twitter.

While she has risen above many embarrassingly childish accusations, some have claimed – without any evidence – that she’s somehow shilling for YouTube-owner Google in respect of Article 13.

Clearly, the battle lines in this war aren’t so easily drawn.

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

Source link

This morning, the Asia Video Industry Association’s (AVIA) Coalition Against Piracy (CAP), which represents the interests of groups including the MPA and other major companies, revealed the results of a commissioned YouGov survey.

“In a recent study of the content viewing behavior of Thai consumers, it was revealed that 45% of consumers use a TV box which can be used to stream pirated television and video content,” CAP writes.

“These TV boxes, also known as Illicit Streaming Devices (ISDs), allow users to access hundreds of pirated television channels and video-on-demand content, usually with a low annual fee.”

In the above paragraph, the precise definition of “consumer” isn’t particularly clear. Also, the use of the phrase “can be used” is open to ambiguity. TorrentFreak spoke with Neil Gane, General Manager of CAP, who was happy to clarify on both fronts.

“The survey focused on Internet-connected/online consumers. [T]he survey also included consumers who are online and yet don’t view video content, as all respondents were given the option to select ‘Not applicable – I don’t watch television and video content’,” Gain explained.

Gane further clarified that the 45% of consumers does not include users who use general “piracy-capable” devices such as computers, laptops, mobile phones, or Firestick/Chromecast dongles etc.

CAP’s General Manager added that while most devices “can be used” to stream pirated content, the survey was “solely focused on TV boxes pre-loaded with infringing app(s), which by definition would make them illicit streaming devices (ISDs).”

Examples of ‘pirate applications’ found on such devices include Mango TV, HD Playbox, and U Play, which provide access to streaming movies and TV shows, mainly on Android.

With the details established, the claims of the effects of piracy-enabled devices are more easily digested. CAP says that of the 45% of consumers who bought such a device, “more than two in three (69%) stated that they canceled all or some of their subscriptions to legal pay TV services.”

The YouGov research also established that younger people are attracted to piracy-configured devices. They are particularly popular among 18 to 24-year-olds, “with more than three in four (77%) canceling legitimate subscription services as a result of owning ISDs, especially international online subscriptions (40%).”

Of course, no recent anti-piracy announcement would be complete without claims about malware running riot.

“The damage that piracy does to the creative industries is without dispute,” Gane explains.

“However, the damage done to consumers themselves, because of the nexus between content piracy and malware, is only beginning to be recognized. Piracy websites and applications typically have a ‘click happy’ user base, and, as such, are being used more and more as clickbait to distribute malware.”

There is little doubt that many users of pirate websites are indeed “click happy” in their quest for free content and that can lead them into trouble. However, we’ve covered malware issues before (specifically in respect of so-called “Kodi Boxes”) and found nothing to suggest that there is a significant risk to consumers.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a risk with other software pre-installed on set-top boxes – it’s a computer after all, and all such devices are vulnerable to infection. That means that as a minimum, all users should consider running anti-virus software on all devices capable of doing so.

That being said, set-top boxes are isolated machines that rarely carry much of value to malware distributors. Most people don’t browse on these machines, send email, or enter any personal or banking information. There is always some risk involved, but in the set-top box environment, it’s almost certainly minimized.

Speaking with TF, Neil Gane said that the study wasn’t related to malware but he stands by his references to the “piracy/malware nexus”. He also pointed us to a September 2018 EU report that found that trojans and malware can be found on pirate sites, leading to “not only financial losses, but also theft of personal data and other risks of unwanted access and control.”

While that’s true, the same report also stated that copyright-infringing websites and streaming services are not normally considered to be dominant sources of malware.

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

Source link

The LibreELEC 9.0 Alpha cycle has continued and releases for Amlogic and Slice hardware have been added additionally to the test cycle. We official support now Khadas VIM (AML S905X) and the LePotato (AML S905X) too. Since the 8.90.006 release we support a wide range of Rockchip devices. There are no plans to release LibreELEC 9.0 images for NXP/iMX6 hardware as support was removed from Kodi some months ago. Support will be reinstated in a future LibreELEC, we wrote an dedicated article about the future of LibreELEC.

Alpha releases are important to the team because we cannot test every scenario and sometimes sidestep issues without realising. The project needs a body of regular testers to go find the problems we miss. Testing will be particularly important for LibreELEC 9.0 as Kodi v18 includes substantial internal changes to VideoPlayer and introduces new retro-gaming capabilities.

** ROCKCHIP **

We added several Rockchip devices at this release. Please consider it as alpha quality and not yet as perfect. All kind of flavors of HDR, 4k and audio are supported already. These images are rather new and it is likely that you hit an problem sooner or later. Please report them at our issue tracker or at the dedicated Rockchip forum that they could get fixed. Within the LE9 release cycle we are likely not able to finish the Rockchip devices to reach an perfect stable state – they stay in alpha status as long it is needed.

TEST NOTES

Our current focus is the OS core and we are more interested in hardware and driver bugs than Kodi problems. Please report the issues you find by starting a thread in the forums or use our bug tracker. Raspberry Pi users are reminded that dtoverlay=lirc-rpi has now been deprecated. Please read the infrared remotes wiki page  before updating.

** CAUTION **

Alpha builds exist for hands-on testing not a hands-off experience. If you run Alpha builds you must be willing to report issues and engage the LibreELEC and Kodi developers in hunting bugs. If you have no idea what a debug log is or “wife acceptance factor” is critical, these builds are not for you. If you want to run Alpha builds please make a backup and store it somewhere off-box first. Your failure to make a backup is not our problem.

Updates since v8.90.006 ALPHA:

– updated to Kodi 18 Beta 5
– Kernel updated to 4.19 for Generic, RPi and Slice
– added updated DVB drivers to all S905 devices
– fixed Odroid_C2 update problems
– removed: systemctl mask eventlircd can no longer be used to get long-press support on remotes
– a lot more updates and fixes, have a look at the full changelog

LibreELEC 9.0 Alpha 007 (Kodi 18 Beta 5)

To update an existing installation from within the Kodi GUI select manual update in the LibreELEC settings add-on and then check for updates; select the LibreELEC 9.0 channel and then the 8.90.007 release. To create new install media please use our simple USB/SD Creator App. The following .img.gz files can also be used to create install media or update the old fashioned way:

RPi 2/3 LibreELEC-RPi2.arm-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

RPi 0/1 LibreELEC-RPi.arm-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

Generic LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

Odroid_C2 LibreELEC-Odroid_C2.arm-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

KVIM LibreELEC-KVIM.arm-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

LePotato LibreELEC-LePotato.arm-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Core LibreELEC-WeTek_Core.arm-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Hub LibreELEC-WeTek_Hub.arm-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Play LibreELEC-WeTek_Play.arm-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

WeTek_Play_2 LibreELEC-WeTek_Play_2.arm-8.90.007.img.gz (info)

RK3328

Firefly ROC-RK3328-CC LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.007-roc-cc.img.gz (info)

Generic Rockchip Box LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.007-box.img.gz (info)

PINE64 ROCK64 / Popcorn Hour Transformer LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.007-rock64.img.gz (info)

Popcorn Hour RockBox LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.007-rockbox.img.gz (info)

MVR9 LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.007-box-trn9.img.gz (info)

Z28 LibreELEC-RK3328.arm-8.90.007-box-z28.img.gz (info)

RK3399

96rocks ROCK960 LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.007-rock960.img.gz (info)

PINE64 RockPro64 LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.007-rockpro64.img.gz (info)

Rockchip Sapphire Board LibreELEC-RK3399.arm-8.90.007-sapphire.img.gz (info)

RK3288

ASUS Tinker Board LibreELEC-TinkerBoard.arm-8.90.007-rk3288.img.gz (info)

mqmaker MiQi LibreELEC-MiQi.arm-8.90.007-rk3288.img.gz (info)

Source link