Online advertising can be quite a nuisance. Flashy and noisy banners, or intrusive pop-ups, are a thorn in the side of many Internet users.

These type of ads are particularly popular on pirate sites, so it’s no surprise that their users are more likely to have an ad-blocker installed.

The increasing popularity of these ad-blocking tools hasn’t done the income of site owners any good and the trouble on this front is about to increase.

A few weeks ago Google announced that its Chrome browser will start blocking ‘annoying’ ads in the near future, by default. This applies to all ads that don’t fall within the “better ads standards,” including popups and sticky ads.

Since Chrome is the leading browser on many pirate sites, this is expected to have a serious effect on torrent sites and other pirate platforms. TorrentFreak spoke to the operator of one of the largest torrent sites, who’s sounding the alarm bell.

The owner, who prefers not to have his site mentioned, says that it’s already hard to earn enough money to pay for hardware and hosting to keep the site afloat. This, despite millions of regular visitors.

“The torrent site economy is in a bad state. Profits are very low. Profits are f*cked up compared to previous years,” the torrent site owner says.

At the moment, 40% of the site’s users already have an ad-blocker installed, but when Chrome joins in with its default filter, it’s going to get much worse. A third of all visitors to the torrent site in question use the Chrome browser, either through mobile or desktop.

“Chrome’s ad-blocker will kill torrent sites. If they don’t at least cover their costs, no one is going to use money out of his pocket to keep them alive. I won’t be able to do so at least,” the site owner says.

It’s too early to assess how broad Chrome’s ad filtering will be, but torrent site owners may have to look for cleaner ads. That’s easier said than done though, as it’s usually the lower tier advertisers that are willing to work with these sites and they often serve more annoying ads.

The torrent site owner we spoke with isn’t very optimistic about the future. While he’s tested alternative revenue sources, he sees advertising as the only viable option. And with Chrome lining up to target part of their advertising inventory, revenue may soon dwindle.

“I’ve tested all types of ads and affiliates that are safe to work with, and advertising is the only way to cover costs. Also, most services that you can make good money promoting don’t work with torrent sites,” the torrent site owner notes.

Just a few months ago popular torrent site TorrentHound decided to shut down, citing a lack in revenue as one of the main reasons. This is by no means an isolated incident. TorrentFreak spoke to other site owners who confirm that it’s becoming harder and harder to pay the bills through advertisements.

The operator of Torlock, for example, confirms that those who are in the business to make a profit are having a hard time.

“All in all it’s a tough time for torrent sites but those that do it for the money will have a far more difficult time in the current climate than those who do this as a hobby and as a passion. We do it for the love of it so it doesn’t really affect us as much,” Torlock’s operator says.

Still, there is plenty of interest from advertisers, some of whom are trying their best to circumvent ad-blockers.

“Every day we receive emails from willing advertisers wanting to work with us so the market is definitely still there and most of them have the technology in place to circumvent adblockers, including Chrome’s default one,” he adds.

Google’s decision to ship Chrome with a default ad-blocker appears to be self-serving in part. If users see less annoying ads, they are less likely to install a third-party ad-blocker which blocks more of Google’s own advertisements.

Inadvertently, however, they may have also announced their most effective anti-piracy strategy to date.

If pirate sites are unable to generate enough revenue through advertisements, there are few options left. In theory, they could start charging visitors money, but most pirates go to these sites to avoid paying.

Asking for voluntary donations is an option, but that’s unlikely to cover the all the costs.

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

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It’s common for anti-piracy groups to accuse torrent, streaming, and other download sites of not paying licensing fees. As a result, dozens have been sued over the years, often with catastrophic results for the platforms involved.

It is extremely rare, however, for a bone fide broadcasting company to simply declare that it won’t be paying artists, authors, and creators, for the content they provide. Amazingly, that’s the situation playing out in France with pay TV company Canal Plus.

Owned by giant Vivendi, Canal Plus has decided that its current deals with content providers are unfavorable to the company and wants to renegotiate them. In the meantime, tens of millions of euros in royalties owed to SACEM (Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music), SACD (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers), SCAM (The Civil Society of Multimedia Authors) and ADAGP (Society of Authors in the Graphic and Plastic Arts) are going unpaid.

The decision has caused outrage among the collecting societies, with SACEM (the group that caused the closure of What.CD and French torrent giant T411) deriding Canal Plus for denying artists what is rightfully theirs.

“We are receiving many calls from panic-stricken authors who are finding themselves without the wages due to them,” a spokesman from SACEM said. “Some of them will find themselves facing serious difficulties and how will they continue to create if they have not been paid?”

Hervé Rony, general manager of The Civil Society of Multimedia Authors (SCAM) directly attacked the TV provider.

“I’ve never seen such brutality. Never has another player in the audiovisual industry deployed such methods,” Rony said.

Even filmmakers are affected by the decision to withhold royalties, with the Association of Authors, Directors, Producers (L’ARP) noting that it was “deeply shocked” at what it describes as an act of “violence.”

Although a broad range of creators is affected, local media reports say that Canal Plus’ decision not to pay copyright fees will hit the music sector first, with today being the day that payments should have been made. As a result, SCAM is warning that it may not be able to meet its obligations for the fiscal year.

Telerama reports that Canal Plus is trying to negotiate an 80% discount worth tens of millions of euros to support its cost-cutting agenda, but those demands are meeting a wall of defiance among the collecting societies.

“We only discuss between people in good faith, when they have already settled what they owe and do not renege on contracts already signed,” Rony said. “Nobody wants the death of Canal Plus. But the prerequisite for any discussion is the resumption of payments.”

In comments made by SACEM yesterday, the copyright group indicated that beyond paying what it owes now, Canal Plus only has two options available, both involving the inside of a courtroom. The first would involve a lawsuit over breach of contract and the second would see it being sued for using copyright works without a license – piracy, effectively.

“In this case, we will seek penalties for infringement. They do not have much latitude,” SACEM said.

Several of the groups owed money by Canal Plus have published statements, with SACD, SACEM, SCAM, and ADAGP indicating they will be joining forces to tackle the broadcaster, who they accuse of undermining the right of creators to get paid.

“SACEM, along with the other authors’ societies, would have liked the constructive dialogue it had conducted over the last few weeks to have resulted in Canal Plus fulfilling its contractual obligations, but failing that, was obliged to take appropriate measures, including Judicial rights, so that the rights of its members are preserved,” SACEM wrote.

With a meeting between those affected scheduled for Friday, the suggestion that legal action is already underway has now been confirmed by Variety. Citing an industry source, the publication says that Canal Plus is being sued in the Paris High Court for around 50 million euros.

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

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The ever-present threat of online piracy remains a hot topic in Hollywood.

A lot has changed over the years. Piracy is arguably more mainstream now with easy to use streaming sites and tools, and site owners have become more skilled at evading various enforcement efforts.

Most sites have multiple domain names at their disposal, for example, as well as access to hosting facilities that are more responsive to complaints from rightsholders.

According to Hollywood’s MPAA, cross-border cooperation with various third-party intermediaries is required to curb piracy. The group has promoted this agenda for a while and is now reemphasizing the need for governments to facilitate these kinds of deals.

In a statement prepared for an upcoming meeting of WIPO’s Advisory Committee on Enforcement, MPAA’s Global Content Protection chief Dean Marks states that voluntary agreements are essential in their fight against piracy.

These agreements will help to adapt to the evolving piracy landscape, much quicker than copyright legislation can.

“Unlike laws and regulations, voluntary measures can quickly be adapted to address changing forms of online piracy. Such measures benefit not only rightsholders, but also internet intermediaries, service providers, governments and individual users of the internet,” Marks notes.

“Voluntary measures should therefore be encouraged by governments as an important means of addressing online copyright piracy,” he adds (pdf).

One of the problems, according to the Hollywood group, is that piracy sites are spreading their infrastructure all over the world. They may use a domain name in one country, hosting in a few others, and a CDN on top of all that.

This cross-border threat can often not be dealt with in a single country or by a single company. It requires cooperation from a wide variety of third-party intermediaries, including search engines and hosting providers.

“Clearly this new paradigm of infringement strains the foundational notion of territoriality of copyright law and increases the difficulty of effectively enforcing copyrights,” Marks writes.

“Hosting providers, domain name registries and registrars, CDNs, cloud storage services and even internet access providers and search engines all can serve a constructive role by adopting measures to prevent their platforms and services from being abused for copyright infringement.”

The MPAA has thus far struck two voluntary deals with the domain name registries Donuts and Radix. This allows the anti-piracy group to report infringing domain names, which may then be removed. Thus far this has resulted in 25 domain name suspensions, but the MPAA would like to broaden its scope and partner with more registries.

Hosting companies, CDNs such as Cloudflare, and search engines can also do more to curb copyright infringements. Ultimately this will be in their own interest, the MPAA says. These companies do not want to be associated with piracy or face tougher legislation when governments step in.

“…many companies do not wish to be associated with those engaged in illegal activities, including copyright pirates. Moreover, turning a blind eye to doing business with pirate websites can result in damaging repercussions.

“In the United States of America (USA), for example, intermediaries have been named as unindicted co-conspirators in criminal copyright prosecutions,” Marks notes.

MPAA’s Global Content Protection chief suggests a few ways governments can intervene. They could host hearings to facilitate cooperation, for example. Another option is to adopt laws or regulations that foster cooperation.

Finally, Marks notes that authorities can instruct law enforcement agencies to “work with” internet intermediaries and service providers to adopt voluntary anti-piracy measures, similar to the ones in place with City of London Police and its piracy watch list for advertisers.

Previously the MPAA has offered similar suggestions to the US Government. While this may have had some effect, many companies are still reluctant to jump on board.

Companies such as Google, CloudFlare and ICANN don’t believe they are required to proactively enforce against piracy on a broad scale, and it likely requires a massive push to change their perspective.

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

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In this episode, we meet Ryan Shea, co-founder of Blockstack. This ambitious project aims to create a new, decentralized Internet in which users, not Big Content, own their data and keep control of how their apps run.

We discuss why the internet needs re-decentralising, if and how to pull users away from reliance on monopoly platforms like Facebook and Google, and much more. Plus, Ryan and Jamie come up with a scheme for a blockchain-powered meme market! Read more