Game of Thrones Pirates Being Monitored By HBO, Warnings On The Way


Earlier this week, HBO released the long-awaited seventh season of the hit series Game of Thrones.

The show has broken several piracy records over the years and, thus far, there has been plenty of interest in the latest season.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by HBO. Soon after the first episode of the new season appeared online Sunday evening, the company’s anti-piracy partner IP Echelon started sending warnings targeted at torrenting pirates.

The warnings in question include the IP-addresses of alleged BitTorrent users and ask the associated ISPs to alert their subscribers, in order to prevent further infringements.

“We have information leading us to believe that the IP address xx.xxx.xxx.xx was used to download or share Game of Thrones without authorization,” the notification begins.

“HBO owns the copyright or exclusive rights to Game of Thrones, and the unauthorized download or distribution constitutes copyright infringement. Downloading unauthorized or unknown content is also a security risk for computers, devices, and networks.”

Under US copyright law, ISPs are not obligated to forward these emails, which are sent as a DMCA notification. However, many do as a courtesy to the affected rightsholders.

Redacted infringement details from one of the notices

The warnings are not targeted at a single swarm but cover a wide variety of torrents. TorrentFreak has already seen takedown notices for the following files, but it’s likely that many more are being tracked.

  • Game.of.Thrones.S07E01.720p.WEB.h264-TBS[eztv].mkv
  • Game.of.Thrones.S07E01.HDTV.x264-SVA[rarbg]
  • Game.of.Thrones.S07E01.WEB.h264-TBS[ettv]
  • Game.of.Thrones.S07E01.HDTV.x264-SVA[eztv].mkv
  • Game.of.Thrones.S07E01.720p.HDTV.x264-AVS[eztv].mkv

This isn’t the first time that Game of Thrones pirates have received these kinds of warnings. Similar notices were sent out last year for pirated episodes of the sixth season, and it’s now clear that HBO is not backing down.

Although HBO stresses that copyright infringement is against the law, there are no legal strings attached for the subscribers in question. The company doesn’t know the identity of the alleged pirates, and would need to go to court to find out. This has never happened before.

Filing lawsuits against Game of Thrones fans is probably not high on HBO’s list, but the company hopes that affected subscribers will think twice before downloading future episodes after they are warned.

The DMCA notice asks ISPs to inform subscribers about the various legal alternatives that are available, to give them a push in the right direction.

“We also encourage you to inform the subscriber that HBO programming can easily be watched and streamed on many devices legally by adding HBO to the subscriber’s television package,” the notice reads.

While this type of message may have an effect on some, they only cover a small fraction of the piracy landscape. Millions of people are using pirate streaming tools and websites to watch Game of Thrones, and these views can’t be monitored.

In addition, the fact that many broadcasters worldwide suffered technical issues and outages when Game of Thrones premiered doesn’t help either. The legal options should be superior to the pirated offerings, not the other way around.

—

A redacted copy of one of the notices is available below.

—

Dear xxx Communications,

This message is sent on behalf of HOME BOX OFFICE, INC.

We have information leading us to believe that the IP address xx.xxx.xxx.xxx was used to download or share Game of Thrones without authorization (additional details are listed below). HBO owns the copyright or exclusive rights to Game of Thrones, and the unauthorized download or distribution constitutes copyright infringement. Downloading unauthorized or unknown content is also a security risk for computers, devices, and networks.

As the owner of the IP address, HBO requests that xxx Communications immediately contact the subscriber who was assigned the IP address at the date and time below with the details of this notice, and take the proper steps to prevent further downloading or sharing of unauthorized content and additional infringement notices.

We also encourage you to inform the subscriber that HBO programming can easily be watched and streamed on many devices legally by adding HBO to the subscriber’s television package.

We have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted material detailed below is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. The information in this notice is accurate and we state, under penalty of perjury, that we are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. This letter is not a complete statement of HBO’s rights in connection with this matter, and nothing contained herein constitutes an express or implied wavier of any rights or remedies of HBO in connection with this matter, all of which are expressly reserved.

We appreciate your assistance and thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Your prompt response is requested. Any further enquiries can be directed to [email protected]. Please include this message with your enquiry to ensure a quick response.

Respectfully,

Adrian Leatherland
CEO
IP-Echelon

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





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IPTV Service Raided By Police & Shutdown, Operator Arrested


As torrents and regular streaming continue in the background, premium IPTV services are becoming increasingly popular.

Available for a few pounds, dollars or euros per month, these products offer a TV viewing service to rival and even beat those put out by the world’s leading entertainment distribution groups.

For an outlay of less than £8 in the UK, for example, it’s possible to receive more TV channels than Sky, Virgin and BT Sport have to offer – combined – and then much more on top.

The main providers (wholesalers, for want of a better term) cascade their products/channels down to smaller providers who act as retailers with direct contact with the public. These kinds of businesses are on the rise and often sell their products locally, via websites and social media, Facebook in particular.

Yesterday it appears that one of these ‘retailers’ found out what it’s like to be the low-hanging fruit in the piracy chain. During the course of the day, visitors to BulkyIPTV’s forums began complaining that the system had gone down.

“Is the bulkyiptv server down at the minute? If so can anyone tell me how long this is likely to take?” posted one.

“Yes mine is down too, v annoying. Also the website is redirecting to partycabs!” said another.

Indeed, the main website for BulkyIPTV had stopped offering various IPTV and similar TV-focused products and begun redirecting to a company offering a white London taxi cab experience for partygoers.

How BulkyIPTV looked before its disappearance

Questions on third-party forums went unanswered too.

“Hi guys, any one know what’s happened tonight? Facebook page gone,” a user asked.

A disappearing Facebook page in any ‘pirate’ setting is rarely a good sign. Many IPTV ‘companies’ use the social platform to interact with existing customers and generate new sales. When a page is deleted, many providers can do neither and that’s hardly compatible with good business.

But while the Facebook page may have been deleted, that didn’t happen before the owner of BulkyIPTV and other ‘Bulky’ branded services (including a hosting company and sites that sold other ‘unofficial’ TV products) had made a post detailing why there are problems. A post shared with TF by a member revealed all.

“Hi all. Today I was arrested. Everything has been shut down,” it read.

“They took everything – phone, laptop, PC and cash, as well as other stuff to gather evidence against me. I’m sorry it has come to this but i’m looking at a stretch inside.”

The Facebook post

The person, who is a regular poster to the Bulky Facebook page, has a name and credentials that match the WHOIS details on various ‘Bulky’ domains, plus matching photos posted elsewhere on social media, signed off with a note saying: “I’m not one to bullshit.”

With no announcement yet from the police, it’s unclear where the arrest took place but TF sources indicate the site owner is from the Derbyshire region of the UK. That was relatively easy to confirm using a number of publicly available sources.

Perhaps surprisingly, there appears to have been zero effort to stay anonymous online. The operator’s real name can be found across his business ventures ‘helpfully’ accompanied by detailed postings not only on Facebook but also Twitter and various image storage sites.

TorrentFreak’s requests for comment from the operator of the service remain unanswered.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPtYIUeDhYw&w=560&h=315]

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





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Several TVAddons Domains Transferred to Canadian Lawfirm


The last couple of months have been the most chaotic on record for the booming Kodi third-party addon scene. After years of largely interrupted service, a single lawsuit changed the entire landscape.

Last month, TF broke the news that third-party Kodi add-on ZemTV and the TVAddons library were being sued in a federal court in Texas. The fallout was something to behold.

Within days the ‘pirate’ Kodi community found itself in turmoil. Several high-profile Kodi addons took the decision to shut down and even TVAddons itself went dark without explanation.

At the time, unsubstantiated rumors suggested that TVAddons’ disappearance could be attributed to some coincidental site maintenance. However, with around 40 million regular users built up over a number of years, a disappearing Facebook page, and complete radio silence during alleged “routine maintenance,” something was clearly wrong.

It would’ve taken just a couple of minutes to put a ‘maintenance’ notice on the site but one didn’t appear back in June, and one hasn’t appeared since. Behind the scenes,
however, things have been shifting.

In addition to wiping the DNS entries of TVAddons.ag, on at least another couple of occasions the domain has been quietly updated. The image below shows how it used to look.

TVAddons historical domain WHOIS

PrivacyDotLink refers to a service offered by Cayman Islands-based registry Uniregistry. Instead of displaying the real name and address of the domain owner (in this case the person behind TVAddons.ag), the registry replaces the information with details of its own.

The privacy service is used for many reasons, but it’s not hard to see why it’s of particular use to sites in the ‘pirate’ sector.

While some of the changes to the TVAddons domain during the past five weeks or so haven’t been obvious, this morning we observed the biggest change yet. As seen in the image below, its ownership details are no longer obscured by the privacy service.

TVAddons new domain WHOIS

What stands out here is the name Daniel Drapeau. On closer inspection, this gentleman turns out to be a Canada-based lawyer who was admitted to the Quebec Bar in 1991.

“A passion for IP and a 20 year track record, servicing corporations and individuals alike in a wide variety of industries, including industrial equipment, consumer products, publishing, food & beverage, fashion and arts,” Drapeau’s Linkedin page reads.

“His forte is the strategic use of IP rights and litigation to achieve his clients’ goals, whether they be protective, aggressive or defensive. Specialties: Expeditive remedies, including injunctions and seizure orders.”

The other fresh detail in the WHOIS is an address – 600, de Maisonneuve West, Montreal (Quebec) H3A 3J2. It’s a perfect match for the premises of DrapeauLex, a law firm launched by Drapeau in 2012.

Only adding to the intrigue is the fact that other domains operated by TVAddons both recently and historically have also been transferred to the lawfirm.

XMBCHUB.com, which was the domain used by TVAddons before making the switch several years ago, was transferred yesterday. The same can be said about Offshoregit.com, the domain used by TVAddons to distribute Kodi addons.

While there are a few explanations for a lawyer’s name appearing on the TVAddons domains, none of them are yet supported by legal documentation filed in the United States. As of this morning, the Dish Network case docket had received no additional updates. No notice of action in Canada has been made public.

Nevertheless, as a past president of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada’s anti-counterfeiting committee, Drapeau is certainly an interesting character in the IP space. As noted in a 2009 article by Professor of Law Michael Geist, Drapeau “urged the government to adopt a system of notice-and-takedown.”

Interestingly, Drapeau also worked at law firm Smart & Biggar, where former colleague Jean-Sébastien Dupont recently went on to represent Canadian broadcasters in Wesley (Mtlfreetv.com) v. Bell Canada, the big Kodi-addon piracy case currently underway in Canada.

At this stage, it’s unclear who Drapeau is working for in the TVAddons case. It’s possible that he’s working for Dish and this is a step towards the domains being handed over to the broadcaster as part of a settlement deal with TVAddons. That being said, the XBMChub and Offshoregit domains weren’t mentioned in the Dish lawsuit so something else might be underway.

TorrentFreak reached out to Drapeau for comment and clarification, but at the time of publication, we had received no response.

Dan Drapeau talks Intellectual Property from DrapeauLex on Vimeo.

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





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Steal This Show S03E05: ‘Hacking The System’


stslogo180If you enjoy this episode, consider becoming a patron and getting involved with the show. Check out Steal This Show’s Patreon campaign: support us and get all kinds of fantastic benefits!

In this episode, we meet two Dangerous Internet Hackers from 2600 and the radio show Off The Hook, to discuss how hacking became so important to politics — from Russians messing with elections to Volkswagen lying about emissions.

We also check in on Chelsea Manning and the Cablegate leaks, and look at the role hacking has as part of a future political resistance. Plus: when entities like The Pirate Bay are able to launch a meaningful assault on the centuries-old edifice of copyright, has the establishment woken up to the power of hackers to shape our culture?

—

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: Robert Barat and Rob Vincent

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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Game of Thrones Premiere Ignites Annual Piracy Bonanza


Yesterday, the first episode of Game of Thrones’ seventh season made its way onto the Internet. Like every year, this generated quite a bit of activity on various torrent sites.

People from all over the world virtually gathered around the various pirated copies of the show, with the first torrents appearing within minutes of the official broadcast and dozens of others soon after.

At the time of writing, more than 130,000 people are actively sharing one of the three most-popular torrents.

Part of this unofficial audience prefers piracy over a paid subscription. However, the fact that pirate copies are available before the official release in many countries doesn’t help either.

The most-shared torrent at the moment, with tens of thousands of peers, is a 772.3 MB rip from TBS uploaded by the ettv distribution group. Like every year, the total number of downloads is eventually expected to run to several million per episode.

Tracker stats for Game.of.Thrones.S07E01.WEB.h264-TBS[ettv]

Regarding the piracy numbers, Game of Thrones still beats every other TV-show by a landslide. That said, it’s worth noting that torrent activity has leveled off somewhat.

The last swarm record, when over a quarter million people were simultaneously sharing a single file, dates back two years. Based on the numbers we’ve seen thus far, it’s not likely to be broken anytime soon, if ever.

That doesn’t mean that the interest from pirates is waning. Not at all. Over the past two years, streaming sites and services have exploded, and Game of Thrones is topping the charts there as well.

TorrentFreak spoke to a source at one of the larger streaming portals who informed us that some episodes get up to a million views each. This morning, the Game of Thrones season premiere generated close to 20,000 views per hour on that site. And that’s just on a single platform.

This massive demand is also reflected in the “most viewed” lists on many streaming sites, where GoT often comes out on top. In fact, on Fmovies the first six seasons of the show were all among the most viewed titles this week, soon to be followed by season 7.

Most-viewed on FMovies during the past week

Since streaming has overtaken torrents in terms of popularity, it’s safe to say that the majority of all Game of Thrones piracy is generated there as well.

In a way, pirate streaming sites and set-top boxes provide an even bigger threat to HBO’s hit series. They are generally easier and more convenient to use, which significantly broadens the audience.

Streaming aside, a lot of the mainstream attention remains directed at torrents. Over in India, for example, local broadcaster Hotstar launched a massive billboard campaign called “Torrents Morghulis,” which translated means “torrents must die.”

Ironically, however, Indians had access to pirated Game of Thrones copies before the official premiere. When it finally became available on Hotstar the service crashed, something which also happened with Foxtel in Australia and HBO in several other countries.

Perhaps these broadcasters should consider peer-to-peer assisted streaming next time, we’ve heard it works quite well.

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

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





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Village Roadshow Invests $1.5m in Anti-Piracy Technology Company


Aussie entertainment giant Village Roadshow is front-and-center of Australia’s fight against Intenet piracy.

Co-Executive Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer Graham Burke can often be found bemoaning rampant piracy Down Under, but today it’s his equal at Village Roadshow making the headlines.

Robert G Kirby’s presence at Village Roadshow dates back to the 1980s, but now both he and the company are making a significant outside investment in patented streaming technology. It aims to help in the fight against piracy while offering benefits in other areas of innovation.

The deal centers around the Linius Video Virtualisation Engine, an intriguing system patented by Australia-based Linius Technologies that allows the content of a video stream to be heavily modified live and on-the-fly, between its source and destination.

Linius explains that in the current marketplace, video files are static and not so different from an “old can of film”. People who want to watch online content press play on their devices and a message is sent to the datacenter holding the video. It’s then streamed to the user as-is and very little can be done with it on the way.

With its system, Linius says it places a “ghost” file on the user’s device which calls the data and recompiles it on the fly on the device itself. Instead of being a complete file at all times during transit, it only becomes a video when it’s on the device.

This means that the data is “manageable and malleable,” making it possible to add, delete and splice parts to make custom content, even going as far as “inserting new business rules” and other tech innovations, including payment gateways and security features.

One of the obvious applications is granting broadcasters the ability to personalize advertising on a per-user basis, but Linius says there is also the potential to enhance search engine monetization.

The attractive part for Village Roadshow, however, appears to center around the claim that since the physical video file never appears on the device, it cannot be saved, transferred or broadcast, only watched by the person who purchased the rights to the virtual video.

The company offers few further details publicly, but Village Roadshow is clearly keen to invest, since “there’s no file to steal.”

This morning, Linius announced a $1 million private placement of ordinary shares to Village Roadshow Ltd, accompanied by a $500,000 private placement to Kirby family interests.

“We have followed the Linius story closely and are delighted to back the business with direct investment. We can see many applications for the technology across the video industry,” Robert Kirby said in a statement.

“Village Roadshow has long been a leading voice in tackling global piracy. We are particularly interested in the anti-piracy solutions that Linius is developing and are actively working together with Linius to introduce its technology to industry leaders in the hope of reducing global piracy.”

In May, Linius announced a collaboration with IBM to promote the Video Virtualisation Engine, including building onto the IBM’s Bluemix cloud platform, to IBM’s network of corporate clients.

“I feel Linius could be a game changer in the world of video, from personalized advertising to search and security,” said Anthone Withers, Head of Software as a Service, IBM.

“We’re now actively working with Linius to identify and market the technology to target customers.”

Linius Overview from Linius Technologies on Vimeo.

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





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LibreELEC USB-SD Creator v1.3



LibreELEC USB-SD Creator v1.3 is released with support for Brazilian Portuguese and Chinese localisations and minor improvements to existing translations. It also adds audible feedback on completion of image download and image writing, and corrects visual sorting for releases with x.x.x.x numbering. The Asturian localisation has been tweaked to show an Asturian (not Spanish) flag icon. If you would like to see a localisation added in a future release please visit the LibreELEC team page on Transifex to request it and contribute the translated text strings. Requesting a new localisation does not automatically translate it! NB: Transifex currently shows missing and incomplete...



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Just How Risky is Internet Piracy in 2017?


The world’s largest entertainment companies in the spheres of music, movies, and gaming would jump for joy if the Internet piracy phenomenon came to a crashing halt tomorrow. (Spoiler: it won’t)

As a result, large sums of money are expended every day in an effort to keep unlawful distribution under control. Over the years there have been many strategies and several of these have involved targeting end users.

The world is a very big place and the tackling of piracy differs from region to region, but what most consumers of unauthorized media want to know is whether they’re putting themselves at risk.

The short answer is that no matter where people are, there is always some level of risk attached to obtaining and using pirate content. The long answer is more nuanced.

BitTorrent and other P2P protocols

By its very nature, using BitTorrent to access copyrighted content comes with a risk. Since downloaders are also distributors and their IP addresses are necessarily public, torrent users are extremely easy to track. In fact, with a minimum of equipment, any determined rightsholder is able spot and potentially uncover the identity of a file-sharer.

But while basic BitTorrent sharing gets a 0/10 for privacy, that’s a bit like saying that a speeding car gets 0/10 for stealth. Like the speeding car, anyone can see the pirating torrent user, but the big question is whether there’s anyone around who intends to do anything about it.

The big surprise in 2017 is that users are still statistically unlikely to face any consequences.

In the United States, for example, where copyright trolling can be a serious issue for those who get caught up in the net, the problem still only affects a tiny, tiny proportion of pirates. A one percent risk of getting snared would be overstating the risk but these are still odds that any gambler would be happy to take.

Surprisingly, pirates are also less likely to encounter a simple friendly warning than they were last year too. The “Six Strikes” Copyright Alerts System operated by the MPAA and RIAA, that set out to advise large volumes of pirates using notices sent via their ISPs, was discontinued in January. Those behind it gave in, for reasons unknown.

This means that millions of torrent users – despite exposing their IP addresses in public while sharing copyrighted content – are doing so without significant problems. Nevertheless, large numbers are also taking precautions, by using anonymization technologies including VPNs.

That’s not to say that their actions are legal – they’re not – but outside the few thousand people caught up in trolls’ nets each year, the vast and overwhelming majority of torrent users (which number well over 100 million) are pirating with impunity.

In the UK, not even trolling is a problem anymore. After a few flurries that seemed to drag on longer than they should, copyright trolls appear to have left the country for more lucrative shores. No cases have gone through the courts in recent times which means that UK users are torrenting pretty much whatever they like, with no legal problems whatsoever.

It’s important to note though, that their actions aren’t going unnoticed. Unlike the United States, the UK has a warning system in place. This means that a few thousand customers of a handful of ISPs are receiving notices each month informing them that their piratey behavior has been monitored by an entertainment company.

Currently, however, there are no punishments for those who are ‘caught’, even when they’re accused of pirating on a number of occasions. At least so far, it seems that the plan is to worry pirates into submission and in some cases that will probably work. Nevertheless, things can easily change when records are being kept on this scale.

Germany aside (which is overrun with copyright trolling activity), a handful of other European countries have also endured relatively small troll problems (Finland, Sweden, Denmark) but overall, file-sharers go about their business as usual across the continent. There are no big projects in any country aiming to punish large numbers of BitTorrent users and only France has an active warning notice program.

Canada and Australia have also had relatively small problems with copyright trolls (the former also has a fairly toothless ISP warning system) but neither country is considered a particularly ‘dangerous’ place to share files using BitTorrent. Like the United States, UK, and Europe, the chances of getting prosecuted for infringement are very small indeed.

Why such little enforcement?

There are a number of reasons for the apparent lack of interest in BitTorrent users but a few bubble up to the top. Firstly, there’s the question of resources required to tackle millions of users. Obviously, some scare tactics could be deployed by hitting a few people hard, but it feels like most companies have moved beyond that thinking.

That’s partly due to the more recent tendency of entertainment groups and governments to take a broader view of infringement, hitting it at its source by strangling funds to pirate sites, hitting their advertisers, blocking their websites, and attempting to forge voluntary anti-piracy schemes with search engines.

It’s also worth noting that huge numbers of people are routinely protecting themselves with VPN-like technology, which allows them to move around the Internet with much improved levels of privacy. Just recently, anti-piracy outfit Rightscorp partly blamed this for falling revenues.

Importantly, however, the nature of infringement has been changing for some time too.

A few years ago, most people were getting their movies and music from torrent sites but now they’re more likely to be obtaining their fix from a streaming source. Accessing the top blockbusters via a streaming site (perhaps via Kodi) is for the most part untraceable, as is grabbing music from one of the hundreds of MP3 portals around today.

But as recent news revealed, why bother with ‘pirate’ sites when people can simply rip music from sites like YouTube?

So-called stream-ripping is now blamed for huge swathes of piracy and as a result, torrent sites get far fewer mentions from anti-piracy groups than they did before.

While still a thorn in their side, it wouldn’t be a stretch to presume that torrent sites are no longer considered the primary problem they once were, at least in respect of music. Now, the ‘Value Gap‘ is more of a headache.

So, in a nutshell, the millions of people obtaining and sharing copyrighted content using BitTorrent are still taking some risks in every major country, and those need to be carefully weighed.

The activity is illegal almost everywhere, punishable in both civil and criminal courts, and has the potential to land people with big fines and even a jail sentence, if the scale of sharing is big enough.

In truth, however, the chances of the man in the street getting caught are so slim that many people don’t give the risks a second thought. That said, even people who drive 10mph over the limit get caught once in a while, so those that want to keep a clean sheet online often get a VPN and reduce the risks to almost 0%.

For people who stream, life is much less complicated. Streaming movies, TV shows or music from an illicit source is untraceable by any regular means, which up to now has made it almost 100% safe. Notably, there hasn’t been a single prosecution of a user who streamed infringing content anywhere in the world. In the EU it is illegal though, so something might happen in future, potentially…..possibly…..at some point….maybe.

And here’s the thing. While this is the general position today, the ‘market’ is volatile and has the ability to change quickly. A case could get filed in the US or UK next week, each targeting 50,000 BitTorrent users for downloading something that came out months ago. Nobody knows for sure so perhaps the best analogy is the one drummed into kids during high-school sex education classes.

People shouldn’t put themselves at risk at all but if they really must, they should take precautions. If they don’t, they could easily be the unlucky one and that is nearly always miserable.

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





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Pirate Sites Ordered to Pay $1 Million in Damages to ABS-CBN


ABS-CBN, the largest media and entertainment company in the Philippines, has booked another victory in the United States.

This week a federal court in Florida signed a default judgment against 19 websites that offered links to copyright infringing streams of ABS-CBN owned movies.

The lawsuit in question was filed in April and targets cinesilip.net, pinoychannel.co, pinoy-hd.com, and several other streaming portals that specialize in Philippine content. These sites also attract visitors from other countries, including the United States, where they target people of Philippine origin.

“Defendants’ entire Internet-based website businesses amount to nothing more than illegal operations established and operated in order to infringe the intellectual property rights of ABS-CBN and others,” the company wrote in its original complaint.

Despite facing hefty damages, none of the defendants turned up in court. This prompted ABS-CBN to file for a default judgment which was granted this week.

In his verdict, US District Judge Robert Scola Jr orders the 19 websites to pay $1 million in damages each. These damages are not for copyright infringement, as one would expect, but for violating ABS-CBN’s trademark. In addition, four of the defendants received an additional $30,000 in copyright infringement damages on top.

The media giant initially suggested that it would request the maximum of $2 million in trademark infringement damages per site, but has opted go “only” for half.

Part of the order

ABS-CBN’s most recent win follows a pattern of similar verdicts in recent months. The company has managed to score dozens of millions in damages from a wide variety of streaming sites with relative ease.

In addition to the millions of dollars that were awarded, Judge Scola also signed off on a permanent injunction to sign over the websites’ domain names to the media giant.

The question remains, of course, whether the company will ever see a penny in return. Most of the defendants remain unknown and even if they’re identified, most won’t have an extra million lying around.

To increase the chance of seeing something of monetary value in return, ABS-CBN also requested an injunction against the advertisers of several pirate sites in its latest lawsuit. If granted, this would allow the company to claim the pending advertising payouts. However, no such injunction was requested in the current case.

—

A copy of the default judgement is available abs-default, and a list of all the defendants is available below.

cinesilip.net
pinoychanneltv.me
pinoytambayantv.me
pinoytambayanreplay.net
drembed.com
embeds.me
fullpinoymovies.com
lambingan.ph
magtvna.com
pinoye.com
pinoyteleserye.org
pinoytvnetwork.net
pinoytopmovies.info
teleserye.me
watchpinaytv.com
wildpinoy.net
pinoy-hd.com
pinoytvreplay.ws
pinoychannel.co
wowpinoytambayan.ws
pinoytelebyuwers.se

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





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GoMovies Moves to GoStream.is and Evades Google ‘Ban’


Pirate video streaming sites are booming. Their relative ease of use through on-demand viewing makes them a viable alternative to P2P file-sharing, which traditionally dominated the piracy arena.

The popular movie streaming sites GoMovies, formerly known as 123movies, is one of the most-used streaming sites. While it’s built a steady userbase of millions of users over the past year, the site’s home keeps changing.

The latest move came this week. Going forward, the site will be active from GoStream.is, operating from the Icelandic gostream.is domain name.

While the site hasn’t officially commented on the reason for the move, on Twitter a site representative mentioned a Google ‘penalty’ as the main driver behind the recent change.

Penalized

When we looked at the issue more closely, we found that it’s not so much a penalty, but rather a response to a DMCA takedown request.

Earlier this week the site’s homepage was removed from Google’s search engine following a takedown notice from Warner Bros. This made it harder for users to find the site through Google, as various knockoffs were ranked higher in the search results for the “Gomovies” keyword.

In addition to relocating to a new domain name, the site has also changed the look of its homepage. Instead of a page filled with the most popular movies and TV-shows, it now lists a basic search box.

New GoMovies homepage

The homepage change is likely a response to Google’s search engine removal as well. The previous GoMovies domain was targeted by Warner Bros. because it listed a link to a pirated movie, but such links are no longer present on the new homepage.

That said, users who prefer the old look can still access it with a single click, which is prominently mentioned on the site.

Despite the domain name change, the GoMovies brand hasn’t changed. The logo and all other references to the site’s name remain intact. Confusingly, people who search for GoMovies on Google still won’t see the Gostream.is URL in the top results, but perhaps that will change in the future.

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