Terrarium TV was one of the most impressive ‘pirate’ apps in recent years. Utilizing video content hosted on file-hosting platforms, it grew to become a serious competitor to apps like Showbox and Popcorn Time.

Last week, however, developer NitroXenon announced that the project would be shutting down

“It has always been a great pleasure to work on this project. However, it is time to say goodbye. I am going to shut down Terrarium TV, forever,” he wrote.

“I know this day will come eventually. I know it would be hard to let go. But it is really time for me to move on to other projects.”

As always, people wanted to know why the project was really being shut down. TorrentFreak spoke with NitroXenon who told us….very little. When questioned he refused to speak about his motivation, which of course led to speculation, some of it reasonable, some of it less so.

The big possibility, of course, is legal threats. Given that NitroXenon refused to answer, we might deduce that he’s under pressure not to speak. However, no substantial facts were available to definitively back that up so we had to take his statement at face value.

And then this weekend, out of the blue, NitroXenon scared thousands of Terrarium TV fans with a surprise announcement.

Former users of Terrarium TV, who didn’t immediately uninstall the app as NitroXenon had previously advised, suddenly started receiving notifications on their devices.

“Uninstall immediately!” one warned. “Your IP address and location are being tracked!”

“We can’t guarantee that details won’t be shared upon request,” advised another.

These kinds of notifications are not what the average user expects and of course, panic ensued. Was this some kind of scare tactic to ensure the last few people uninstalled the app or were the notifications sent out of genuine concern for users?

On Sunday, TorrentFreak was able to reach NitroXenon and ask him what on earth is going on. He had nothing reassuring to say.

“I’m just telling the truth,” he told TF. “Almost every app tracks user’s IP [addresses]. And if I must [hand] the info to authorities then I’ll do it.”

Other than this statement, NitroXenon had nothing to add. However, on behalf of people getting the scary notifications, we asked the obvious question. Why would NitroXenon retain logs after the application had been shut down and why, if he hasn’t been asked to retain them already, didn’t he simply purge them?

We received no response but if we have to analyze this situation, we’d say that something doesn’t feel right here.

Presuming for a moment that NitroXenon has come under pressure to a) shut down the app and b) not speak about the fact that he’s been threatened, that would fit the current pattern of developers who have found themselves in a similar situation over the past few months.

That being said, if IP address and location details are indeed being logged (the app had permissions for location), then why publicly warn users that is the case? The data has already been logged and deleting Terrarium now probably isn’t going to make much difference. Also, if the aim is to collect details of pirates, why sabotage that by giving out a warning while, potentially, undermining a non-disclosure agreement?

That leads us to the possibility that these are scare tactics but, put very simply, we have no proof either way. There might be a threat and there might not but we’ve never heard of a case where people who have simply streamed content (rather than uploaded) have been pursued by content companies.

There are several other possibilities too, including that NitroXenon got sick of the whole project and decided to burn the thing to the ground (unlikely, given how friendly he was in the past) or maybe he’s having his strings pulled by parties keen to send a message to movie and TV show pirates.

To our knowledge, this is an unprecedented development for ‘pirate’ applications, no matter what is going on behind the scenes. Whether users choose to uninstall the app moving forward is their prerogative but it seems unlikely that IP address evidence would prove of much use in this case, given that Terrarium never hosted the infringing content itself.

There are no guarantees, of course, so the rumors and speculation will continue, including that a hostile third-party, not content companies, have taken over both the app and NitroXenon’s Reddit account…..

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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The digital world has made it much easier to buy and consume entertainment.

Whether it’s a movie, music track, or book, a shiny “buy now” button is usually just a few keystrokes away.

Millions of people have now replaced their physical media collections for digital ones, often stored in the cloud. While that can be rather convenient, it comes with restrictions that are unheard of offline.

This is best illustrated by an analogy I read a few years ago in a research paper by Aaron Perzanowski and Chris Jay Hoofnagle, titled: “What We Buy When We Buy Now.”

It goes something like this:

Imagine purchasing a book on Amazon, which is promptly delivered to your home. You put it on the bookshelf so you can crack it open on a rainy day. However, when you wake up the next morning there’s an empty spot on the shelf. The book disappeared.

In an email, Amazon customer service explains that it was recalled at the behest of a copyright holder. They quietly dispatched a drone, which entered your home at night to take the book away, and issued a refund.

This may sound utterly crazy, but in the digital world, it’s a reality. A few years ago, Amazon remotely wiped several books from customers’ Kindle e-readers because of a copyright complaint.

When these Amazon customers woke up the following day they found that the books they thought they owned, which ironically included George Orwell’s “1984,” were no longer theirs. Just like that.

This issue is much broader than just Amazon of course, there are restrictions on most of the online media you can “Buy Now.” This was brought to the forefront again this week when Anders G da Silva noticed that Apple had removed three movies from his iTunes library. Movies he bought.

Apple informed him that the movies were not accessible to “redownload” because they were no longer offered by the Canadian iTunes Store. Apparently, Apple’s license to distribute the titles has expired.

Hey Apple

In this case, it only applies to the copies that were stored in the cloud. Any movies already downloaded on a device should work fine. While not widely known, this is covered by Apple’s terms of service.

“Content may not be available for Redownload if that Content is no longer offered on our Services,” iTunes’ terms read.

Technically it makes sense. If Apple no longer has a license, they can’t distribute the files. But wouldn’t it make more sense to adapt these licensing agreements to the modern time? Why not allow indefinite redistribution to people who previously bought something legally?

Today’s reality is that ‘owning’ something in the digital world is something entirely different than owning something offline. A movie studio or book publisher can’t barge into your house and take a Blu-ray or book, but online it’s an option.

It is rare that downloaded media actually disappears from people’s devices, as happened in the aforementioned Amazon case, but there are other ‘digital’ restrictions too.

If you buy a Blu-ray disc of the latest “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie you are free to lend it to a friend, or even sell it on eBay after you’ve watched it. In the digital world that’s often not an option. You don’t really own what you buy.

This brings us back to the research paper I mentioned earlier, which was previously featured by the LA Times.

The researchers examined how the absence of the right to resell and lend affects people’s choice to buy. They found that, among those who are familiar with BitTorrent, roughly a third would prefer The Pirate Bay over Apple or Amazon if they are faced with these limitations.

These rights restrictions apparently breed pirates.

“Based on our survey data, consumers are more likely to opt out of lawful markets for copyrighted works and download illegally if there is no lawful way to obtain the rights to lend, resell, and use those copies on their device of choice,” the researchers concluded.

The paper in question is two years old by now, but still very relevant today. While we don’t expect that anything will change soon, people should at least be aware that you don’t always own what you buy.

It’s an illusion.

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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After complaining that Russian Internet giant Yandex had failed to keep pirated versions of their content out of its search results, several major broadcasters filed a lawsuit with the Moscow City Court.

Gazprom-Media outlets including TNT, TV-3, 2×2, and Super went straight for the jugular, petitioning the Court to have ISPs block Yandex’s video indexing platform. The Court granted the request and gave Yandex until August 30 to remove all of the offending content.

Initially, Yandex flat-out refused. The company said the law was being misinterpreted, claiming that current legislation states that pirate content must be removed from sites hosting it and that search engine links are not covered.

However, after announcing that it would appeal the decision of the Moscow City Court, Yandex suddenly changed its mind on removing the content. Fearing its entire platform would be blocked by ISPs, Yandex erred on the side of caution, deleting all content that may (or indeed may not) have infringed the media companies’ rights.

Early September the TV channels again filed lawsuits with the Moscow City Court, again over the appearance of links to their content appearing in search results.

“Four lawsuits were filed by Yandex. In all the lawsuits, the TV channels ask the Court to oblige the defendant to stop creating technical conditions that ensure the placement of works on the Yandex.ru website,” press secretary of the court Ulyana Solopova told Interfax.

With a decision on the matter pending (and the underlying aim of Gazprom Media to reach a settlement agreement with Yandex), soon after the Moscow City Court responded to Yandex’s original appeal against a preliminary blocking injunction.

In a blow to Yandex, the Court upheld its original ruling, meaning that the decision to remove the content before an ISP ban was put in place was well-timed by the search company.

However, it now appears that the confusion over the requirements of the law will see the government step in to offer a solution. According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov, the country’s anti-piracy legislation needs to be “improved” following the Yandex/Gazprom Media dispute.

“Regarding the regulation of data in terms of copyright and intellectual property rights, of course, the improvement of legislation, including anti-piracy, is exactly necessary,” Akimov told Interfax.

“By the end of the year we will try to present the necessary amendments to the Duma, which will allow us to more clearly define the rights of the parties,” he said.

Akimov said that the amendments will be the product of negotiations between the Federal Antimonopoly Service, intellectual property bodies, and the Ministry of Economic Development and Business.

It is currently unclear which direction the talks will go and whether any changes will favor Yandex’s perception of the law or the Moscow City Court’s interpretation.

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Last month it was reported that a Netherlands-based repository, which contained several popular Kodi addons, had been shut down by anti-piracy group BREIN.

The Dutch developer and administrator of XvBMC-NL was visited by bailiffs in July and soon after the repository shut down. BREIN offered to settle the matter for 2,500 euros as long as the admin known as ‘Z’ signed an abstention agreement.

Months earlier, however, the XvBMC-NL repo was an unwitting participant in a campaign to infect Kodi users with cryptocurrency-mining malware, security firm ESET reports.

“According to our research, the malware we found in the XvBMC repository was first added to the popular third-party add-on repositories Bubbles and Gaia (a fork of Bubbles), in December 2017 and January 2018, respectively,” ESET writes.

“From these two sources, and through update routines of unsuspecting owners of other third-party add-on repositories and ready-made Kodi builds, the malware spread further across the Kodi ecosystem.”

ESET reports that the malware has a multi-stage architecture and uses techniques to hide the fact that the cryptominer came from a malicious addon. The miner, which is Monero-based, runs on Windows and Linux only, a relief to Android and macOS users who appear to be unaffected.

The three potential infection routes appear to be fairly cunning, ESET notes.

1. [Users] add the URL of a malicious repository to their Kodi installation so as to download some add-ons. The malicious add-on is then installed whenever they update their Kodi add-ons.

2. [Users] install a ready-made Kodi build that includes the URL of a malicious repository. The malicious add-on is then installed whenever they update their Kodi add-ons.

3. [Users] install a ready-made Kodi build that contains a malicious add-on but no link to a repository for updates. They are initially compromised, though receive no further updates to the malicious add-on. However, if the cryptominer is installed, it will persist and receive updates.

Further analysis by ESET shows that the top five countries affected by the threat are the United States, Israel, Greece, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

With the Bubbles repo now down, that is no longer a source for the malware. Gaia, ESET reports, is no longer serving the malicious code either. However, Kodi users who were infected could still have the malware on their machines and there’s a risk that other repos and Kodi builds could be distributing the code, “most likely” without their knowledge.

Timeline of the attack, as per ESET

A very detailed technical analysis of the attack has been published by ESET along with instructions on how users can discover if they’re affected.

“To check if your device has been compromised, scan it with a reliable anti-malware solution. ESET products detect and block these threats as Win64/CoinMiner.II and Win64/CoinMiner.MK on Windows and Linux/CoinMiner.BC, Linux/CoinMiner.BJ, Linux/CoinMiner.BK, and Linux/CoinMiner.CU on Linux,” the company reports.

“On Windows you can use the ESET Free Online Scanner, and on Linux the free trial of ESET NOD32 Antivirus for Linux Desktop, to check your computer for the presence of these threats and remove anything that is detected. Existing ESET customers are protected automatically.”

While the attack is undoubtedly serious, at the time of writing its reach appears to be limited. By examing the malware authors’ Monero wallet, ESET estimates that a minimum of 4,774 users are infected. Between them they have unwittingly generated around 5,700 euros or $6,700 for the attackers.

As ESET notes, Kodi malware is very rare. Aside from the case detailed above and the DDoS attack carried out briefly by an addon and reported here on TF, no other evidence of malware being distributed via Kodi addons has been reported.

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Earlier this week, officers from Hampshire County Council’s Trading Standards unit assisted by local police executed a warrant at an address in Bursledon, Hampshire.

A 41-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman were arrested as part of a pirate IPTV investigation. They were detained under suspicion of offenses under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and money laundering.

In a statement, Hampshire County councilor Roy Perry said that illegally offering content from companies such as Sky and BT Sport causes losses to legitimate business and perpetrators will continue to be pursued by the authorities.

The statement indicated that others involved in illegal IPTV were being targeted in both Scotland and Ireland. An announcement from Europol now provides additional detail.

Citing a complex year-long investigation coordinated by Europol and involving the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Police Scotland, Trading Standards, the UK Intellectual Property Office, the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) and Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), the law enforcement agency confirmed four further arrests in Southern Ireland.

Two men, aged 42 and 45, and two women, aged 37 and 40, were detained following house searches in Crumlin, Dublin and Ashbourne, Co Dublin.

All were arrested and questioned under the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 and the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010.

Authorities said moves were underway to freeze six bank and two credit union accounts containing €84,000. Nine other third-party accounts are said to have been limited. Reports indicate that more than €700,000 was paid into the accounts during the past three years.

During the house searches, computer equipment and cash were also seized

“This is an organized criminal enterprise where consumers are funding criminality and depriving genuine industry of legitimate revenue,” said Detective Superintendent George Kyne, Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

“Consumers are providing their payment details to unknown individuals and leaving themselves open to being the victims of fraud and/or data theft. The security around these devices and illegal streaming platforms exposes customers and leaves their home systems vulnerable.”

With details of the operation in England and Southern Ireland filtering through, events in Scotland are yet to be clarified. Europol has only confirmed that “several actions took place” and as yet there are no reports of any arrests.

Europol added that the investigation received intelligence and assistance from major TV companies and the Motion Picture Association.

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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