The Spy Who Dumped Me is the most downloaded movie.
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.
RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/movie-featured.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-10-22 10:20:142018-10-22 10:20:14Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 10/22/18
Despite always operating within the law, the team behind the popular Kodi media player have found themselves at the middle of huge piracy controversy.
While a stock Kodi installation is entirely legal, millions of users install special third-party add-ons that grant access to huge libraries of infringing content. This isn’t recommended by the official Kodi team but there’s little doubt that most Kodi users now connect the media player with free movies, TV shows, and live sports.
To counter this threat, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment – a coalition of 30 media giants including the MPAA, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and Sony – has been targeting developers of third-party add-ons that provide access to infringing content. Many have stopped their activities following legal threats but the ecosystem remains lively and as a result, Kodi remains popular with the public.
With this in mind, it’s perhaps a little surprising that Sony Australia is actively encouraging users of its range of Android-based smart TVs to install Kodi on their devices.
As the image from Sony’s website shows, the company not only places Kodi in the number one spot for recommended Android TV apps, it highlights that “community-created addons” can be used to “provide access to popular internet streaming media services.”
Kodi streaming addons are where it’s at…
The hyperlink in Sony’s recommendation links to the official Kodi wiki which in turn links to official addons (which shouldn’t cause any legal issues) and unofficial repositories, which aren’t guaranteed to be problem-free by the Kodi team.
However, the same page also offers a list of banned addons, which are mostly used to access infringing content. They can’t be downloaded or installed from the wiki page but they do provide a handy guide for users looking for an entry point into the darker parts of the Kodi world.
At this point, it should be reiterated that stock Kodi is entirely legal and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Sony’s promotion of Kodi or legal addons. However, seeing Sony recommending Kodi’s ability to utilize third-party add-ons is somewhat of a surprise, given Sony’s efforts as part of ACE to discourage people from using those that infringe.
Of course, that’s where the problem lies.
The vast majority of users of Kodi and/or Sony’s TVs will not know which add-ons they are supposed to use and which ones are legal and which ones are not. That said, it’s almost inevitable that they’ll gravitate towards the ones offering the most exciting content, which means precisely the type of addon being targeted by ACE and by default, Sony Pictures.
Still, if Sony is happy to recommend third-party Kodi add-ons to get the best out of its televisions, it must be confident that its customers will do the right thing. There are plenty of legal addons available but good luck to the layman when it comes to filtering them out.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/broken-tv.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-10-21 19:18:562018-10-21 19:18:56Sony Promotes Kodi Streaming Add-Ons as Ideal for its Android TVs
A few weeks ago the MPAA, together with several other trade groups, submitted its annual list of ‘notorious markets’ to the US Trade Representative (USTR).
These submissions help to guide the U.S. Government’s position toward foreign countries when it comes to copyright enforcement, putting significant pressure on the mentioned sites.
The MPAA’s submission included many of the usual targets including The Pirate Bay and Fmovies, but also several hosting sites or cyberlockers.
The latter category is interesting. While there are unmistakenly several “rogue” hosting platforms that don’t care about copyright holders, not all fit the billing. One of the bad actors according to the Hollywood group, however, is Rapidvideo.
“Rapidvideo.com is a streaming/download cyberlocker with a global Alexa ranking of 999. Rapidvideo.com had 21.66 million worldwide unique visitors in August 2018 according to SimilarWeb data,” the MPAA wrote.
“The site incentivizes users to upload content with an affiliate program. The site pays from $7.50 to $60 USD per 10,000 views depending on the country in which the viewer is located,” the Hollywood group added.
As is usual in these reports, there is virtually no detail about any alleged copyright-infringing activity. While we’re pretty certain that Rapidvideo stores some pirated videos, this is no different from Google Drive or Dropbox, for example.
The MPAA’s report does mention that some hosting sites don’t remove infringing files, but only the reported links to these files. On top of that, many sites don’t respond well to takedown notices at all.
So that must be the case with Rapidvideo then? Well, the site’s owner wholeheartedly disagrees.
“We have a DMCA agent guy working with us, who also works with the MPAA and other rightsholders. He was happy with our anti-piracy methods, but the MPAA reported our site to the government nonetheless,” Rapidvideo’s Alex informs TorrentFreak.
As it turns out, Rapidvideo doesn’t fit the MPAA’s description at all.
The site processes takedown requests, has a designated DMCA agent, a repeat infringer policy, and it even implemented an MD5 hash filter system to ensure that flagged files are not re-uploaded.
While the company is incorporated in Belize, it believes that it’s fully compliant with US, Canadian and EU law. It even complies with the proposed ‘upload filter’ the EU may implement in the near future.
In recent months Rapidvideo was approached several times by a representative of an anime video distributor. Many of the recent enforcement changes were implemented as a result between the distributor and Rapidvideo’s copyright agent.
This was also communicated to other rightsholders, including MPAA members, the site’s owner says. However, that didn’t prevent the listing on the MPAA’s most recent overview of rogue sites.
“After the whole procedure, we learned that we would appear on the list submitted by the MPAA to the U.S. Government. This, despite that everything was correctly implemented in compliance with the regulations and rules, including the DMCA,” Alex says.
Rapidvideo was told that they didn’t process all notices correctly. While the site admits that some reports were set aside, those were all inaccurate takedown notices. For example, they lacked details that are actually legal requirements.
“They said that we did not correctly handle all DMCA notices, but those were not fully correct, as required by the DMCA law. Many parts were missing, such as a signature of the rightsholder representative or the names of the infringing works.”
The video hosting site feels that if the copyright holders push them to comply with the law, those companies should be held to the same standards. Also, none of the rightsholders complained about the rejections directly.
Rapidvideo hasn’t sent an official rebuttal to the USTR, so it could very well be listed in the official overview of Notorious Markets early next year.
The video hosting site is fully confident that its policies and procedures are compliant with copyright law. They are not intimidated by the MPAA’s report, and with their upload filter, they have nothing to fear from the EU either, according to the owner.
“We have everything fully ready for the EU upload filter. We are also a legal company that pays taxes and complies with all rules and regulations, so we are not afraid of any possible outcomes,” Alex concludes.
Once upon a time, Internet users were free to look at whatever content they liked. There was an almost complete absence of intervention from third-parties, which was mostly a good thing.
However, after the number of Internet users rocketed, more threats began to emerge. Viruses and other types of malware became pervasive, aiming to abuse users’ computers in various ways, from creating botnets to simple vandalism.
As a result, the security market has boomed. Barely a week goes by without some website or piece of software triggering an alert on a machine protected by good anti-virus and anti-malware tools. They don’t always get it right but most interventions are welcomed when the intention is to keep us safe.
On top, however, Internet users are finding online resources censored. Nation states sometimes decide what citizens can and cannot read, while corporate firewall products and network routers often act as over-protective nannies, blocking content based on non-transparent, non-public rules.
Here at TorrentFreak we’re used to censorship. Every few months we’re contacted by readers trying to access our news articles on public WiFi, only to find that the site is blocked alongside various warnings, none of which are true. It’s almost as if the word ‘torrent’ in our URL has been blindly blacklisted for some reason.
Sadly, this week we’ve discovered that Steam, the popular digital game distribution and social networking platform, has jumped on the “let’s censor TorrentFreak” bandwaggon. A tip from a TF reader and Steam user highlighted the problems he’d experienced when trying to read TF articles via Steam’s chat interface.
“I don’t know if you’re already aware of this but the PC gaming software ‘Steam’ is flagging your website as ‘suspicious’ in its chat interface,” he explained.
As the first image below shows, Steam first flagged a link to an article we published this week detailing how Japan intends to crack down on sites that offer links to copyrighted content.
Suspicious news?
The small irony here is that the article details how Japan needs to bring in new and highly controversial laws to criminalize linking to copyrighted content, something which is currently legal in the country. Steam, however, is free to block links to our 100% legal copyrighted content on a whim, mark our platform as “suspicious”, while blocking users from reading our reports.
The second image below shows just how misguided Steam’s policy is. This week, TorrentFreak broke the news that cheat developers in Australia face home searches and asset freezing following legal action from GTA V developer Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive.
It is an original article that covers an important and growing issue in the gaming sector that will hopefully prove of interest to gamers – the very people using Steam’s platform. However, Steam users are prevented from following links to the piece because someone or something at Steam has labeled our news site as “potentially malicious.”
GTA V news – censored
While these are just two examples, we could go on forever. As the large image below shows, Steam has banned our entire platform and put up a warning that’s not only completely false but also damaging to our reputation.
“https://torrentfreak.com has been flagged as being potentially malicious. For your safety, Steam will not open this URL in your web browser. The site could contain malicious content or be known for stealing user credentials,” the warning reads.
Stealing user credentials? Insulting and ridiculous
Of course, on its own platform Steam is fully entitled to block resources that it believes can harm its users. Some might even argue that it has a duty of care to do so, in order to keep its community safe. However, making blatantly false statements while blocking access to accurate news reporting shouldn’t ever be part of that.
Steam is no stranger to blocking links to sites in the file-sharing niche. Previously we’ve reported how it blocked links to KickassTorrents, The Pirate Bay, and MEGA.nz.
While the ban on MEGA was lifted shortly after our article was published back in April, the company appears to be out of favor with Steam once again. Tests show that Mega.nz links are completely banned by the gaming platform with a warning about malicious content and potential stealing of credentials. Meanwhile, known scam sites such as Demonoid.to are in the clear, according to Steam.
There is nothing malicious about our news resource and we’re really upset at the suggestion we might steal user credentials. We’d therefore be very grateful indeed if a Steam engineer could remove TorrentFreak.com from its blacklists, whenever he or she gets a couple of free minutes.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/censorship3.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-10-20 13:16:592018-10-20 13:16:59Steam Bans All Links to TorrentFreak News as “Potentially Malicious”
After many years of targeting people who share larger volumes of content on peer-to-peer file-sharing apps and services, Japan is now taking aim at pirate sites.
In basic terms, rightsholders would like to see overseas pirate sites blocked by local ISPs, in much the same way as they are in dozens of countries elsewhere in the world. However, the process is proving a difficult one to move forward, as interference with communications is viewed by many as an invasion of users’ browsing privacy.
The Japanese Government is currently attempting a review on piracy measures for the Internet and has requested input from rightsholders and other interested parties. That’s resulted in a submission from CODA (Content Overseas Distribution Association), an anti-piracy coalition featuring major video, publishing, and software organizations.
“Infringement of rights occurs across national boundaries due to the development of the Internet, and the identification of infringers is extremely difficult. The response to this is extremely difficult and we believe that there are limits under the existing laws of Japan, and new initiatives are necessary,” CODA writes in a submission seen by TF.
Noting that criminal complaints and other measures against several targeted ‘pirate’ have proven ineffective, CODA says it is being hindered by online services that help to keep operators anonymous.
So-called “bulletproof” hosters that ignore copyright law are highlighted first. These providers have policies in place to protect their customers, often ignoring takedown notices filed under the DMCA while hiding identities of site operators. Bulletproof hosters were described as an emerging threat by the RIAA recently.
CODA also complains about domain privacy services which allow domain registrants to hide their identities from prying eyes. One such service, Njalla, which was launched by Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde last year, is singled out for criticism.
“[S]ervices such as offshore hosting / bulletproof hosting that ignore the DMCA and domain registry services selling complete anonymity are rampant. It is now clear that [pirate site] ‘Mangamura’ was also using Njalla,” CODA adds.
Mangamura was a huge pirate manga site that apparently shut itself down last April. In the last few months of its life alone, the site was accessed well over half a billion times. This led to Toyko-based Kodansha, Japan’s largest publisher, to file a criminal complaint against the platform. CODA estimates that Mangamura caused losses amounting to US$2.9 billion.
Given the specific mention in the submission, it seems likely that Mangamura’s use of Njalla caused problems for rightsholders and/or investigators. Njalla helps to keep the registration details of domain names private by registering domains in its own name (holding company 1337 Services LLC), not the customer’s, meaning that the owner of Mangamura should be harder to trace.
Mangamura.org Njalla WHOIS
An agreement allows the customer to use Njalla-registered domains however they like (as long as it doesn’t hurt someone’s “health or safety”) and they are able to take domains back or transfer them at any time. In the meantime, they are shielded from third-parties discovering who is really behind their domains.
TorrentFreak asked Njalla whether they’ve ever had any complaints about Mangamura’s registration but at the time of publication, the service was yet to respond. However, one only has to read a sample of the company’s interactions with content company lawyers to see how it sometimes responds.
In the meantime, CODA continues to push its case to introduce blocking mechanisms in Japan. This wouldn’t solve the anonymity problem posed by bulletproof hosters and services like Njalla, but having ‘pirate’ sites rendered inaccessible in the country would certainly help.
That being said, things are not going smoothly.
According to a report published by Mainichi, a panel of government experts has been unable to compile an interim report on measures against pirate sites due to disagreements over the suitability of site blocking.
While rightsholders believe the practice should be implemented as soon as possible, there are serious concerns that blocking violates the country’s constitution.
“There are strong misgivings among many of the panel members who specialize in law that blocking is unconstitutional, and it’s unacceptable,” said Ryoji Mori, a lawyer on the panel.
On Wednesday, nine panel members opposed to blocking issued a statement, insisting that legislation “should be deferred and cooperation sought with the private sector to advance measures other than blocking.”
Those measures are said to include restriction of advertising on ‘pirate’ sites to hit revenues, plus further cooperation between content creators and the telecoms industry. Several ISPs in Japan currently block several ‘pirate’ sites voluntarily.
The Canadian Government is currently exploring if and how the current Copyright Act should be amended to better fit the present media landscape.
One of the key issues is the compensation that artists receive for their work. This was also the focus of a hearing before the House Heritage Committee this week, at which Bell (BCE) and Rogers both made an appearance.
The companies are Canada’s largest Internet providers, but both also have their own media branches. As such, they have an interest in copyright issues, which they made quite apparent during the hearing.
Bell and Rogers called for several changes to the Copyright Act to address the piracy issue. Interestingly, the proposals were identical on many fronts, with both companies highlighting how piracy is causing millions in lost revenue.
First up was Rob Malcolmson, Bell’s Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs. Instead of addressing artist compensation directly, he drew the focus to the “impact of organized content theft” instead.
“This issue is fundamental to the topic the committee is studying because no matter what remuneration model you adopt, creators can never be fairly compensated if their work is being widely stolen,” Malcolmson said.
He went on to cite a series of piracy statistics published in recent years, including the increased popularity of pirate streaming boxes, and the fact that more than a quarter of all Canadians are self-proclaimed pirates.
To address this rampant “theft”, Bell presented three recommendations. The first is to criminalize online streaming of pirated material. This doesn’t mean that any end-users would end up in jail, but it should act as a deterrent for operators of pirate streaming sites and services.
Rob Malcolmson
Bell’s second suggestion is to get the authorities and public officials actively involved in anti-piracy enforcement actions. The UK and US were cited as examples where local police and special units help to deal with piracy issues.
“We recommend that the government should create and consider enshrining in the Copyright Act an administrative enforcement office and should direct the RCMP to prioritize digital piracy investigations,” Malcolmson notes.
Finally, Bell also reintroduces the piracy blocking proposal of the Fairplay Canada Coalition. The CRTC denied this application earlier this month, noting that it lacks jurisdiction. This is something the government could change through an update of the Telecommunications Act.
Alternatively, website blocking could be addressed by an update to the Copyright Act, which would make it easier for courts to issue injunctions against ISPs and other intermediaries. This would simplify site blocking, but could also apply to search engines, hosting companies and payment processors.
“In addition, a new provision could be added to the Copyright Act that would apply more broadly to intermediaries such as ISPs, web hosts, domain name registrars, search engines, payment processors, and advertising networks,” Malcolmson said.
Following Bell’s testimony, the committee’s attention moved to Pam Dinsmore, Vice-President Regulatory, Cable, at Rogers Communications. She also stressed the importance of addressing piracy, mentioning various statistics and the rise of online streaming in particular.
Interestingly, Rogers’ proposals to deal with this problem show a lot of overlap with those put forward by Bell. For example, the company also suggests criminalizing online streaming.
“The Act should make it a criminal violation for a commercial operation to profit from the theft and making available of rights holders exclusive and copyrighted content on streaming services. In our experience, the existing civil prohibitions are not strong enough to deter this kind of content theft,” Dinsmore said.
Pam Dinsmore
Rogers also raised the site-blocking issue. Specifically, it should be easier for rightsholders to obtain injunctions against intermediaries in the piracy ecosystem. This includes ISPs, domain name registrars, search engines, and content delivery networks.
“For example, a rights holder should be able to quickly obtain an order from a court to require an ISP to disable access to stolen content available on pre-loaded set-top boxes without concern that the operation of section 36 of the Telecommunications Act might impede this effort,” Dinsmore added.
While none of these suggestions directly impact the compensation of artists, which was the topic at hand, Rogers did present an idea at the end. According to the company, section 19.3 of the Copyright Act could be updated to change the current 50/50 royalty split between artists and labels to 75/25, favoring the artists.
Not all members of the Heritage Committee were impressed by the idea, which comes at the expense of the labels, with some asking what Rogers was willing to hand out itself.
“Are you willing to give up some more money as you suggested the record label should?” Conservative MP Martin Shields said. When Dinsmore replied that she didn’t know what the mechanism for that would be, the MP replied: “It’s a little strange that you’re suggesting someone else to give up money, but not your company.”
MP Randy Boissonnault, in particular, was not at all impressed by the telco’s proposals and stressed that the hearing was not the right venue to call for these changes.
“Your submissions to this committee ring hollow and tin ear,” Boissonnault said, noting that they are too technical and not addressing the topic at hand. “This is the place where we’re advocating for artists. You said so in your submissions and yet what we see is – go after the ISPs – shut down the piracy. We get that, we know that.”
Randy Boissonnault
Even if the claimed $500 million in lost subscriber revenue could be recouped, artists would still get the same size of the pie, the Liberal MP noted.
“There’s nothing more that’s coming from your shareholders to go into the pockets of artists. So where’s the creativity from industry to put more money in the pockets of artists? Because you won’t have things to sell from Canada if we don’t support the artists and consumers.”
While Bell and Rogers likely hoped for a different response, and may not get what they want out of this hearing, it’s clear that their push for tougher anti-piracy measures didn’t end at the CRTC earlier this month.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/copyright-featured.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-10-19 07:14:552018-10-19 07:14:55Bell and Rogers Ask Government to Simplify Site Blocking and Criminalize Streaming
Section 115a of Australia’s Copyright Act allows copyright holders to apply for injunctions that force ISPs to prevent subscribers from accessing ‘overseas online locations’ that facilitate access to infringing content.
The legislation has been used on a number of occasions since its adoption in 2015 and as a result, dozens of notorious pirate sites are now inaccessible via regular means. However, pirate sites are often quick to adapt, with mirrors, proxies and other sites popping up to reactivate access.
Additionally, search engines – Google in particular – provide a handy reference guide for those looking for these kinds of resources. The entertainment industries are therefore keen to plug this loophole, to ensure that their web-blocking efforts are as effective as possible. That has resulted in the publication today of proposed amendments to copyright law.
Where existing legislation compels ISPs to prevent access to sites listed in an injunction, the amendments attempt to deal with sites that “have started to provide access to the online location after the injunction is made”, meaning that subsequently appearing mirrors and proxies can be dealt with much more quickly.
Turning to the perceived problems with search engines, the amendments will allow rightsholders to apply for injunctions that will not only target infringing ‘online locations’ but also their appearance in search results.
Companies including Google will be required to “take such steps as the Court considers reasonable so as not to provide a search result that refers users to the online location.” Search providers will also be compelled to deal with the subsequent appearance of mirrors and proxies by ensuring that these don’t appear in search results either.
In a statement published this morning, the Department of Communications offered the following summary.
“The Copyright Amendment Bill will ensure a broader range of overseas websites and file-hosting services widely used for sharing music and movies are within the scope of the scheme, and provide a means for proxy and mirror pirate sites to be blocked quickly,” the statement reads.
“The amendments will also further empower copyright owners to seek Federal Court orders requiring search results for infringing sites.”
That search engines are being targeted in this manner is not a surprise. Entertainment industry groups everywhere believe that Google has become a key part of the piracy problem and rhetoric has at times been scathing, particularly in Australia where Village Roadshow chief and outspoken piracy critic Graham Burke has continually slammed the company.
In a TV interview with Sky News Australia yesterday, Burke said that site-blocking is working to an extent but is being undermined by the actions of Google.
“It’s been very effective because the traffic to the blocked sites is down 53% and that’s extremely gratifying. But it should be down 90% and the reason it’s not down 90% is because Google are saying ‘Hey, the front door’s been shut but hey folks, here’s the back door, we’ll lead you round to the backdoor’. In so doing, actually – in my view – they’re facilitating crime,” Burke said.
The Village Roadshow chief added that Google is helping people to circumvent the legislation of the Australian Government and is making it very easy for people to “break the will of the Australian Parliament and Australian courts.”
“If you Google in ‘Watch Mad Max Fury Road’ up will come a whole raft of pirate sites. [Google are] taking people to the proxies, to the mirror sites, of the pirates and they’re doing it unashamedly,” he said.
“Google have no interest in Australian jobs, Australian culture, and the Australian economy. They make protesting noises but it’s a sham.”
Google already and voluntarily demotes pirate sites in search results based on the number of DMCA notices it receives against them. However, should this legislation be adopted, it will be required to remove references to them completely following an injunction, at least in the Australia-facing parts of its service.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/roadblock-blocked-feat.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-10-18 16:13:532018-10-18 16:13:53Australia Targets Google With Tough New Anti-Piracy Law
Had it succeeded, the Bangladesh Bank Heist would easily have been the biggest bank robbery in history.
It was carried out almost entirely in the digital realm, using a variety of exploits and malware, in order to leverage access to the SWIFT banking network and the US Federal Reserve.
In Part One, we look at exactly what happened in the Bangladesh heist, and walk through how it was carried out. To help us through the complex story, we hear from Cheryl Biswas, Strategic Threat Intel Analyst in Cyber Security at a Big Four consulting firm.
After covering the how of the robbery, we consider whether trusted systems like SWIFT can remain secure in an information environment replete with radically heterogeneous, eminently hackable device
—
Cheryl Biswas wishes to make clear that she speaks here on her own behalf Her views do not represent those of her employer.
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Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing crypto, privacy, copyright and file-sharing developments. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary, and analysis.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/computerkeyboardfeat.png2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-10-18 01:12:522018-10-18 01:12:52Steal This Show S04E07: ‘Bangladesh Bank Heist, Part 1
In an effort to reduce levels of copyright infringement, content companies and distributors have adopted site-blocking as one of their preferred anti-piracy tools.
The practice is now commonplace across Europe, with many of the main torrent and streaming portals blocked by local ISPs.
In Sweden, ‘pirate’ site blocking became a reality in February 2017 when ISP Bredbandsbolaget (Broadband Company) was ordered to block The Pirate Bay and streaming portal Swefilmer.
That process took a long time to come to fruition. The original lawsuit, filed in 2014 by Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film, and the Swedish Film Industry, initially went in the ISP’s favor.
A subsequent appeal, however, saw the rightsholders emerge victorious, with Bredbandsbolaget ordered to implement “technical measures” to prevent its customers from accessing the ‘pirate’ sites through a number of domain names and URLs.
For more than a year, other ISPs in Sweden have been able to provide subscribers with access to The Pirate Bay, since the earlier case was targeted at just one ISP. Now, however, local ISP Telia finds itself in a similar position following an order handed down Monday by the Patent and Market Court.
Following an application by a huge coalition of content companies and groups including the Swedish Film Industry, Nordisk Film, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox, Telia must now block subscriber access to several ‘pirate’ sites.
As is often the case, torrent favorite The Pirate Bay heads the list, with streaming platforms Fmovies, Dreamfilm and NyaFilmer following closely behind.
Cited by IDG, Per Strömbäck of the Film and TV Industry Cooperation Committee said that a favorable decision was anticipated.
“The decision was expected and complies with the current legal situation. Now it’s high time that Telia takes the same responsibility in Sweden as it already does in Denmark and Norway,” Strömbäck said.
While the move to site blocking in Sweden hasn’t always plain sailing, last year’s decision in the Bredbandsbolaget case laid down some valuable pointers.
The Court found that under EU law it is possible for copyright holders to obtain an injunction against ISPs whose services are used to commit copyright infringement, noting that the Swedish Copyright Act should be interpreted “in the light of EU law.”
Before deciding on an injunction, the Court also sought to ensure that any blocking would be proportional. Since sites like The Pirate Bay and similar platforms primarily offer illegally-distributed copyright-protected content, a blocking order is now considered an appropriate response.
The decision handed down Monday is an interim measure valid from October 30. From that date, Telia must prevent its subscribers from accessing the sites listed in the complaint and keep those measures in place until the case is finalized. In the meantime, Telia says it is considering its position.
“We are surprised by the news and we are going to analyze the decision to decide if we will appeal,” says Telia spokesperson Iréne Krohn.
“We believe that legislators and courts should make the assessment. Service providers cannot and do not want to decide what’s available on the internet.”
In a reaction to the news, Jon Karlung, CEO of freedom-loving ISP Bahnhof, criticized the court and its decision.
“It is a specialized court without credibility that represents a special interest,” he said.
“[Blocking] does not work technically and, in principle, you can not build a filter for everything you dislike on the internet. You are destroying the core of the internet, to communicate freely.”
The injunction handed down against Bredbandsbolaget last year was the first of its kind in Sweden. It had a time limit of three years and a penalty of around US$56,000 for any breaches. The details on the Telia case will be revealed in due course.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/pirate_bay2.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-10-17 10:11:542018-10-17 10:11:54Court Orders Swedish ISP Telia to Block The Pirate Bay & FMovies
Requiring only an IMDb number, Vodlocker.to allows anyone to embed videos, many of which are pirated.
This turned out to be a welcome feature for many smaller site operators, who use basic scripts to set up a streaming portal with minimal investment. In exchange, Vodlocker can serve some extra ads on these sites, which makes it a win-win for both parties.
More recently, however, it appears that ‘someone’ has added some extra code to the Vodlocker site that does more than streaming video or placing ads. As a result, the embedded videos are also being used to DDoS certain video streaming portals.
Looking at the source of the embed pages, we see a piece of JavaScript that attempts to load content from external sites. This is triggered by unwitting visitors; not once, but dozens of times per second. The smaller sites in question, understandably, collapse under this load.
The script
When we checked the site on Monday, Rainierland.com and Movie2k.st were being targeted, resulting in downtime. Today, the code has been updated and it’s now pointing movie4k.is, which is mostly unreachable as a result.
Movie4k.is attack in action
It’s not clear what the motivation for this attack is, or if Vodlocker is perhaps compromised, but it appears to be an intentional effort to take these streaming sites down.
Before the weekend the German news site Tarnkappe reported that another site, Filmpalast.to, was suffering from a similar DDoS attack.
Many of the sites that rely on these Vodlocker.to embed codes probably have no idea that they are participating in the attacks. The same is true for their visitors, who are unwittingly transformed into an army of stream-watching DDoS bots.
We contacted several of the affected sites for a comment but haven’t heard back. Vodlocker.to has no contact address listed, so we haven’t been able to reach out to the site itself.
The JavaScript-based attack itself isn’t new. Cloudflare previously highlighted the problem, describing it as a growing issue on the Internet.
“If an attacker sets up a site with this JavaScript embedded in the page, site visitors become DDoS participants. The higher-traffic the site, the bigger the DDoS,” Cloudflare explained in a blog post some years ago.
“Since purpose-built attack sites typically don’t have many visitors, the attack volume is typically low. Performing a truly massive DDoS attack with this technique requires some more creativity.”
In this case, there appears to be enough volume to take smaller sites offline. Not only are there a lot of sites who rely on the Vodlocker.to embeds, the visitors generally keep their tabs open for a more than an hour, while they’re watching, continuously hammering away.
This week we have three newcomers in our chart.
A few weeks ago the MPAA, together with several other trade groups, submitted its annual list of ‘notorious markets’ to the US Trade Representative (USTR).
After many years of targeting people who share larger volumes of content on peer-to-peer file-sharing apps and services, Japan is now taking aim at pirate sites.
The Canadian Government is currently exploring if and how the current Copyright Act should be amended to better fit the present media landscape. 
Had it succeeded, 
Last year we highlighted a rather interesting service which makes it easy for 
