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In this episode, we meet Steve Phillips of The Pursuance Project. Pursuance is a new tool for organising activists and journalists online which springs directly from the work of journalist Barrett Brown and Barrett’s experience handling the Stratfor HBGary leaks around 2012-2013, which resulted in him going to prison.

We discuss the tech behind the Panama Papers and Snowden leaks, the details behind the HB Gary leaks, how Steve was inspired by the story of Anonymous’ first big online hit and how organizational tools are the new frontier online – whether for corporate teams or activist groups.
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Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing copyright and file-sharing news. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary, and analysis.

The guests for our news discussions will vary, and we’ll aim to introduce voices from different backgrounds and persuasions. In addition to news, STS will also produce features interviewing some of the great innovators and minds.

Host: Jamie King

Guest: Steve Phillips

Produced by Jamie King
Edited & Mixed by Riley Byrne
Original Music by David Triana
Web Production by Siraje Amarniss

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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The movie industry sees illegally recorded movies as one of the biggest piracy threats and goes to extremes to stop it.

Over the years, movie theaters have used audio and video watermarking tools to detect pirates, for example. And during prominent events, night-vision goggles and other spy tech is used to monitor movie goers.

Most anti-piracy efforts are not particularly pleasing for the public, but a new technology from Philips hopes to change this. In a recent patent application the technology company proposes an ambient lighting system for movie theaters that will hinder pirate recordings.

“The major motion picture studios are losing large amounts of money due to piracy. The worldwide motion picture industry, distributors, theaters, video stores and pay-per-view operators, lose each year billions of dollars as a result of piracy,” the company begins.

Philips notes that many of the current security measures, such as watermarking, make piracy traceable. However, they don’t prevent actual recording and distribution. Watermarks can be simply rendered useless if pirates remove them afterwards, for example.

“The problem with current security measures in digital cinema is that they do not prevent pirates from filming the content from the cinema screen. Watermarks can help to identify the source of pirate content, but it does not prevent the actual copying and spreading of the content.”

The ambient lighting solution is different and Philips believes that it could reduce piracy substantially.

The concept is quite easy. By shining light on the visitors from the side, at a certain frequency, the pirate recordings will be severely degraded up to a point where they’ll become completely unwatchable.

“The solution proposed here is to shine visible light from an (additional) light source with a pre-determined modulation frequency at the cinema screen while the movie plays,” the patent application reads.

“When the frequency is chosen well, a camera will not be able to properly film the content, because the light source runs out of sync with the camera resulting in stripes running through the movie content.”

The idea is partly inspired by Philips existing Ambilight technology for TVs. This generates lighting effects around the TV that correspond to the video content. The cinema setup will do the same while hindering pirates in the process. A win-win situation, according to Philips.

“It is yet a further aspect to provide a more immersive experience when watching video content on a display device in combination with anti-piracy measures,” the patent application reads.

It’s unclear whether there are concrete plans to roll out the technology at movie theaters. Philips, however, is no stranger to these type of anti-piracy solutions. The company previously rolled out CineFence, a forensic marking technology for both image and sound, targeted at digital cinema content.

In any case, it’s a good marketing message to get movie theaters to try ambient lighting. Whether it’s really effective has yet to be seen though.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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Tonight, August 26, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Floyd Mayweather Jr. will finally meet UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor in what is being billed as the biggest fight in boxing history.

Although tickets for inside the arena are still available for those with a lot of money to burn, most fans will be viewing on a screen of some kind, whether that’s in a cinema, sports bar, or at home in front of a TV.

The fight will be available on Showtime in the United States but the promoters also say they’ve done their best to make it accessible to millions of people in dozens of countries, with varying price tags dependent on region. Nevertheless, due to generally high prices, it’s likely that untold thousands around the world will attempt to watch the fight without paying.

That will definitely be possible. Although Showtime has won a pre-emptive injunction to stop some sites offering the fight, many hundreds of others are likely to fill in the gaps, offering generally lower-quality streams to the eager masses. Whether all of these sites will be able to cope with what could be unprecedented demand will remain to be seen, but there is one method that will thrive under the pressure.

Torrent technology is best known for offering content after it’s aired, whether that’s the latest episode of Game of Thrones or indeed a recording of the big fight scheduled for the weekend. However, what most ‘point-and-click’ file-sharers won’t know is that there’s a torrent-based technology that offers live sporting events week in, week out.

Without going into too many technical details, AceStream / Ace Player HD is a torrent engine built into the ever-popular VLC media player. It’s available on Windows, Android and Linux, costs nothing to install, and is incredibly easy to use.

Where regular torrent clients handle both .torrent files and magnet links, AceStream relies on an AceStream Content ID to find streams to play instead. This ID is a hash value (similar to one seen in magnet links, but prefaced with ‘acestream://’) which relates to the stream users want to view.

Once found, these can be copied to the user’s clipboard and pasted into the ‘Open Ace Stream Content ID’ section of the player’s file menu. Click ‘play’ and it’s done – it really is that simple.

AceStream is simplicity itself

Of course, any kind of content – both authorized and unauthorized – can be streamed and shared using AceStream and there are hundreds of live channels available, some in very high quality, 24/7. Inevitably, however, there’s quite an emphasis on premium content from sports broadcasters around the world, with fresh links to content shared on a daily basis.

The screenshot below shows a typical AceStream Content ID indexing site, with channels on the left, AceStream Content IDs in the center, plus language and then stream speed on the far right. (Note: TF has redacted the links since many will still be live at time of publication)

A typical AceSteam Content ID listing

While streams of most major TV channels are relatively easy to find, specialist channels showing PPV events are a little bit more difficult to discover. For those who know where to look, however, the big fight will be only a cut-and-paste away and in much better quality than that found on most web-based streaming portals.

All that being said, for torrent enthusiasts the magic lies in the ability of the technology to adapt to surging demand. While websites and streams wilt under the load Saturday night, it’s likely that AceStream streams will thrive under the pressure, with viewers (downloaders/streamers) also becoming distributors (uploaders) to others watching the event unfold.

With this in mind, it’s worth noting that while AceStream is efficient and resilient, using it to watch infringing content is illegal in most regions, since simultaneous uploading also takes place. Still, that’s unlikely to frighten away enthusiasts, who will already be aware of the risks and behind a VPN.

Ace Streams do have an Achilles heel though. Unlike a regular torrent swarm, where the initial seeder can disappear once a full copy of the movie or TV show is distributed around other peers, AceStreams are completely reliant on the initial stream seeder at all times. If he or she disappears, the live stream dies and it is all over. For this reason, people looking to stream often have a couple of extra stream hashes standing by.

But for big fans (who also have the money to spend, of course), the decision to pirate rather than pay is one not to be taken lightly. The fight will be a huge spectacle that will probably go down in history as the biggest combat sports event of all time. If streams go down early, that moment will be gone forever, so forget telling your kids about the time you watched McGregor knock out Mayweather in Round Two.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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In the months that preceded the January 2012 raid on file-storage site Megaupload, authorities in New Zealand used the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) spy agency to monitor Kim and Mona Dotcom, plus Megaupload co-defendant Bram van der Kolk.

When this fact was revealed it developed into a crisis. The GCSB was forbidden by law from conducting surveillance on its own citizens or permanent residents in the country, which led to former Prime Minister John Key later apologizing for the error.

With Dotcom determined to uncover the truth, the entrepreneur launched legal action in pursuit of the information illegally obtained by GCSB and to obtain compensation. In July, the High Court determined that Dotcom wouldn’t get access to the information but it also revealed that the scope of the spying went on much longer than previously admitted, a fact later confirmed by the police.

This raised the specter that not only did the GCSB continue to spy on Dotcom after it knew it was acting illegally, but that an earlier affidavit from a GCSB staff member was suspect.

With the saga continuing to drag on, revelations published in New Zealand this morning indicate that not only was the spying on Dotcom illegal, the entire spying operation – which included his Megaupload co-defendants – was too.

The reports are based on documents released by Lawyer Peter Spring, who is acting for Bram van der Kolk and Mathias Ortmann. Spring says that the High Court decision, which dates back to December but has only just been made available, shows that “the whole surveillance operation fell outside the authorization of the GCSB legislation as it was at the relevant time”.

Since Dotcom is a permanent resident of New Zealand, it’s long been established that the GCSB acted illegally when it spied on him. As foreigners, however, Megaupload co-defendants Finn Batato and Mathias Ortmann were previously considered valid surveillance targets.

It now transpires that the GCSB wasn’t prepared to mount a defense or reveal its methods concerning their surveillance, something which boosted the case against it.

“The circumstances of the interceptions of Messrs Ortmann and Batato’s communications are Top Secret and it has not proved possible to plead to the allegations the plaintiffs have made without revealing information which would jeopardize the national security of New Zealand,” the Court documents read.

“As a result the GCSB is deemed to have admitted the allegations in the statement of claim which relate to the manner in which the interceptions were effected.”

Speaking with RadioNZ, Grant Illingworth, a lawyer representing Ortmann and van der Kolk, said the decision calls the entire GCSB operation into doubt.

“The GCSB has now admitted that the unlawfulness was not just dependent upon residency issues, it went further. The reason it went further was because it didn’t have authorization to carry out the kind of surveillance that it was carrying out under the legislation, as it was at that time,” Illingworth said.

In comments to NZHerald, Illingworth added that the decision meant that the damages case for Ortmann and van der Kolk had come to an end. He refused to respond to questions of whether damages had been paid or a settlement reached.

He did indicate, however, that there could be implications for the battle underway to have Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk extradited to the United States.

“If there was illegality in the arrest and search phase and that illegality has not previously been made known in the extradition context then it could be relevant to the extradition,” Illingworth said.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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Hila and Ethan Klein are the duo behind h3h3productions, a YouTube channel dedicated to the comedy found in Internet culture.

With more than 4.6 million subscribers the channel is doing extremely well, but last year faced a fight for its very existence. In May 2016, the pair announced they were being sued by YouTuber Matt Hosseinzadeh, who also produces comedy content and publishes it on his MattHossZone channel.

The problem lay in a video produced by H3h3productions (published on a sister channel in February 2016) in which they poked fun at Hosseinzadeh, using clips of their rival’s videos for material. The Kleins said this was fair use but Hosseinzadeh viewed it as copyright infringement.

According to the Kleins, Hosseinzadeh initially approached them with settlement offers of a few thousand dollars and also gave them the opportunity to publicly apologize and promote his content. The Kleins refused to back down so at this point, Hosseinzadeh sued for copyright infringement and defamation.

Fighting a lawsuit is extremely expensive but the Kleins received overwhelming support online, particularly via a GoFundMe campaign that pulled in over $170,000.

With the legal battle well underway, both sides asked the court for a summary judgment in their favor in advance of a full trial. In a decision handed down yesterday by District Judge Katherine B. Forrest, the Kleins prevailed. In a 21-page ruling, the Judge wastes no time in getting straight to the point.

Describing the Klein’s video and the critique contained within as “quintessential criticism and comment” equivalent to the kind one might find in a film studies class, Judge Forrest goes on to examine the cornerstones of fair use, including the purpose of the work, the amount of copyrighted content used, and the effect of the use of the content on its potential market.

“Any review of the Klein video leaves no doubt that it constitutes critical commentary of the Hoss video; there is also no doubt that the Klein video is decidedly not a market substitute for the Hoss video,” Judge Forrest writes, noting that the former effectively transformed the latter into “fodder for caustic, moment-by-moment commentary and mockery.”

“For these and the other reasons set forth below, defendants’ use of clips from the Hoss video constitutes fair use as a matter of law,” the Judge concludes.

On the defamation front, Hosseinzadeh fared no better, with the Judge noting that truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim.

“Further, it is clear that defendants’ comments regarding the lawsuit are either non-actionable opinions or substantially true as a matter of law. For these and the other reasons set forth below, plaintiff’s defamation claim fails. Defendants’ motion for summary judgment is therefore GRANTED, and plaintiff’s motion is DENIED.”

The news was quickly welcomed by Ethan Klein.

We won the lawsuit. Video coming soon. Huge victory for fair use on YouTube.

— Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) August 23, 2017

What happens next is largely up to Hosseinzadeh. He still has the opportunity to appeal the case but whether he will take that opportunity given the clarity of the ruling and the additional costs involved will remain to be seen.

In the meantime, the decision (via Techcrunch) provides food for thought and guidance for other YouTubers making reaction videos.

The ruling doesn’t give YouTubers blanket clearance to continue with impunity but does clarify how much content can be used, provided adequate commentary and criticism is present. They’re valuable guidelines in a notoriously difficult area of copyright law.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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