Yesterday the contenders for the 2020 Oscars were announced.

‘Joker’ emerged as the main favorite with eleven nominations, closely followed by ‘1917’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ with ten each.

While Hollywood was buzzing with excitement over the news, a screener copy of another Oscar favorite – ‘Little Women’ – began spreading across pirate sites.

Pirated screeners are nothing new. Every year copies of popular films that are solely intended for private awards screenings end up in public. These releases are typically well secured, but release groups such as EVO and Hive-CM8 find their way around the protections.

One trend that we observed over recent years, however, is that fewer screener leaks were being posted online. Back in 2007, 29 screeners of nominees (81%) had leaked when the winners were announced. In 2019, this number was down to seven (23%).

Last year was an all-time low, which appeared to be good news for Hollywood. However, the downward trend hasn’t continued. During the current season, ten screener copies have already made their way onto pirate sites, of which eight received an Oscar nomination.

With several weeks still to go until the awards ceremony, this number will likely go up. To give an indication, in both 2018 and 2019 three pirated screeners came out after mid-January.

It’s worth noting though that the number of screener leaks itself doesn’t say much about security or enforcement efforts. In fact, the changing movie industry, where online streaming platforms are gaining dominance, could be the prime reason for a decline in these leaks.

Screeners are generally only released if there is no higher quality leak out already. Since pirated WEBRips and WEB-DLs generally come out soon after a movie premieres on a streaming service, screeners are less relevant.

To give an example, ‘The Irishman’ was widely available on pirate sites just hours after it premiered on Netflix. This trend is also what we see in the data from pirate screener watcher Andy Baio.

Of all the major Oscar contenders, only four are not yet available in high-quality formats on pirate sites. These are ‘1917,’ ‘Just Mercy,’ ‘Richard Jewell,’ and ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’.

As in previous years, release group Hive-CM8 is responsible for the bulk of the leaked screeners. And if we believe their latest release notes, they are not done yet. The group is openly calling for sources who have access to more screeners, including the latest Star Wars film.

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A complete list of the screeners that have leaked thus far:

– Uncut Gems (12/16/2019) by EVO
– Portrait of a Lady on Fire (12/16/2019) by EVO
– Jojo Rabbit (12/21/2019) by Hive-CM8
– A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (12/23/2019) by Hive-CM8
– Knives Out (12/25/2019) by Hive-CM8
– Ford v Ferrari (12/29/2019) by Hive-CM8
– Frozen 2 (01/02/2019) by Hive-CM8
– Harriet (01/04/2019) by Hive-CM8
– Bombshell (01/09/2019) by Hive-CM8
– Little Woman (01/13/2019) by Hive-CM8

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Online piracy is an issue that affects many industries and indie game development is certainly no exception.

Some developers see piracy as an evil that needs to be rooted out as soon as possible. However, others are more open to some of the motivations behind it and are willing to experiment.

Game developer Shota Bobokhidze, aka ‘ShotX,’ falls in the latter category. The indie developer from Tiblisi, Georgia, runs his one-man company ShotX Studio which just released a new shooter game titled ‘Danger Gazers.’

The release is available on Steam where it currently sells at $9.99. While that’s not an extremely steep price, ShotX realizes the average game fan may not have the financial means to try out all the new titles that come out every month.

This prompted the developer to release a special edition targeting the pirate community. It’s something he already planned to do with the game Kontrakt in 2018, but that idea was canned after The Pirate Bay kept returning server errors.

This time he was more successful. Late last week the torrent made its way onto The Pirate Bay, carrying a special message from the creator.

“This is the latest DRM-free version of Danger Gazers (1.1.0), there’s no catch here, no Steam only features, just the fully functional game,” ShotX writes on The Pirate Bay.

The game can be downloaded for free, no strings attached. The developer’s only request is that people consider buying it if they like what they see, or to support the project in any other way. The same message was later repeated on Reddit where ShotX highlighted his release.

Ironically, the developer’s first post on Reddit was removed, presumably because the moderators assumed it was a pirated version. However, that’s certainly not the case.

This is not the first time that a game developer has plugged his work on a pirate site, but it remains a rarity. To find out more about ShotX’s motivations, we decided to reach out for some additional comments.

The developer informs us that he is all too familiar with piracy. He grew up in a situation where piracy was often the only option to get new software. Today he also sees the other side of the story, as he relies on sales to make a living. However, he still understands that not everyone can easily buy his work.

“The decision to release a torrent came along with the memories of my time spent with pirated software,” ShotX says.

“I remember that I didn’t feel any guilt at all as there was simply no other choice for me at that moment, moreover, had I known that there were other options I could have supported developers with, I’d have done all I could without a second thought.”

Releasing the game on The Pirate Bay allows people to try it out for free. This comes with the added advantage of free exposure, which is welcome too, as it’s becoming harder and harder for new games to get noticed.

ShotX says that this certainly wasn’t a planned PR campaign. He just wanted to get the word out and give the free torrent a chance. That said, he does believe that piracy can have a positive exposure impact, which was also the case here.

“It wouldn’t have been effective if it was a planned PR move to get people to buy the product. It was just a kind act that I was lucky enough to get noticed. I’m sure it would have been apparent if it wasn’t so,” he says.

ShotX’s approach worked well. The Reddit post promoting the official torrent reached a broad audience. This resulted in a lot of free downloads but also motivated people to buy the game and spread the word.

“The response so far was amazing,” ShotX says. While he didn’t expect anything in return, the free release actually resulted in a significant revenue boost.

“There was a noticeable boost in sales, some kind individuals even donated twice as much and most importantly all the rest supported me in their own ways by sharing my game and respecting my decision,” the developer adds.

The developer didn’t promote the torrent on his social media or on his official site, as he specifically wanted to reach out to the pirate community. Given the results, this was quite successful.

This shows that some ‘pirates’ are definitely willing to pay under the rights conditions but it doesn’t mean that this is easily repeatable. If all indie developers started releasing torrents it would no longer be something special and could become harder to get noticed once again.

In this case, however, it clearly paid off.

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This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil 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.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(2)	Joker	8.8 / trailer
2	(1)	Maleficent: Mistress of Evil	6.8 / trailer
3	(…)	Countdown	7.2 / trailer
4	(3)	Frozen 2 (DVDScr)	7.2 / trailer
5	(5)	Black and Blue	5.9 / trailer
6	(10)	Ford v Ferrari (DVDScr)	8.3 / trailer
7	(8)	Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood	7.9 / trailer
8	(…)	Bombshell	6.7 / trailer
9	(7)	Ad Astra	6.9 / trailer
10	(9)	The Addams Family	5.8 / trailer

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American satellite and broadcast provider Dish Network has fought several legal battles against alleged pirate streaming tools in recent years.

The company filed a lawsuit against the people behind TVAddons, for example. More recently the company went after multiple pirate streaming sites and IPTV reseller Boom Media.

In addition to using well-established legal options, the company is also thinking ahead. That became clear this week when we spotted a new patent application from Dish, which envisions a blockchain-based anti-piracy system.

According to the company, piracy has become increasingly problematic. It’s not just limited to dedicated pirate sites but also plagues legitimate platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, it notes.

“The distribution of infringed material on content sharing platforms such as Facebook and YouTube has grown rapidly,” Dish writes in its patent application.

“For example, viewers can easily find links to live sporting events, hosted on someone’s Facebook account, find the newest episodes of their favorite series on YouTube or Dailymotion or even join groups like `mobile movies` on Telegram..,” the company adds.

Dish writes that “millennials” and the “next generation” are increasingly turning their backs on the traditional bundle service system, opting for less-costly alternatives instead. These cheaper alternatives include the consumption of unlicensed content on legitimate services.

While most large companies have their own anti-piracy solutions, these often have shortcomings, such as requiring rightsholders to actively search for pirated content. While a few large outfits use hash recognition to automatically detect content, those systems are often proprietary and not freely available.

The new patent application envisions a technology that is supposed to be superior. While it can’t really be used to stop pirate sites, it proposes a blockchain-based anti-piracy system that legitimate services can use to check whether the content is published with permission, or not.

“The inventors have conceived and reduced to practice a software and/or hardware facility that can be used by content owners to assert ownership of content so that copyright friendly websites and services can take action against copyright piracy effectively, efficiently and is scalable,” Dish writes.

“The facility makes available to all content owners watermarking/fingerprinting technology so an identifier can be embedded in the content. The facility utilizes blockchain technology to add information related to each unique identifier in a database and allows an authorized user (e.g., the owner) to update the information through a blockchain transaction.”

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There are several practical implementations possible, but it’s clear that Dish is in favor of a widely available system that sites and services can use to determine whether content is authorized. The watermark or fingerprint-based system should interact with a blockchain to verify ownership details.

Without a practical implementation, it’s hard to determine whether this approach will succeed or not. However, blockchain-based copyright management itself is not a new idea, as others have proposed this as well. The same is true for watermarking and fingerprinting.

It’s interesting to see that Dish is actively pursuing an alternative anti-piracy approach. Time will tell if it comes to fruition, and if so, how effective it will be. One thing’s almost guaranteed though, there will be plenty of attempts by pirates to get around it.

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A copy of the patent application titled “Content anti-piracy management system and method” is available here (pdf).

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During the early years, The Pirate Bay promoted an ‘official’ clothing store, which sold t-shirts and hoodies for reasonable prices.

This site has since disappeared, but it’s not hard to find Pirate Bay-themed clothing elsewhere. Dozens of vendors have copied the iconic logo to sell cheap merchandise to fans.

However, when the Switzerland-based fashion brand Vetements joined in with their own variant last year, they upped the ante.

Experts regard Vetements as one of the 10 hottest fashion brands at the moment, which means that it can only be afforded by the happy few. That’s also the case for their Pirate Bay clothing.

The company started by selling a fashionable hoodie for just under $900 and it currently has a whole range of Pirate Bay clothing, including a €550 t-shirt and €540 shorts. The top item, however, must be the comfortable hacker hoodie dress, which currently goes for €980.

“Channelling the theme of a digital dystopia, the piece has a print of ‘The Pirate Bay’ — one of the biggest services for torrenting digital content,” Vetements explains, noting that it pairs well with some sneakers.

Vetements seem to understand that their clothing is overpriced, but as long as it sells they have little to complain about. What they may not be happy with though, is that counterfeiters are using their Pirate Bay design to create cheap knock-offs.

Apparently, the Pirate Bay hoodie was hot enough to be ripped off, as people have been openly requesting cheaper replicas online. This demand was filled by several ‘unauthorized’ vendors including the well-known rep-store Reon District, which now sells a ‘pirated’ Pirate Bay hoodie for a fraction of the price.

These ‘copyright-infringing’ Pirate Bay hoodies come in different qualities and prices. The Reon one is still not cheap, selling at €130, but does it match up to the original quality? At TorrentFreak, we are in no position to review it, but luckily someone else took up the challenge.

Reddit user ‘plexor666’ posted the findings in the FashionReps subreddit, a community of hundreds of thousands of knock-off enthusiasts. The detailed side-by-side comparison shows that the copy is pretty decent, but not perfect. The wash tag, for example, has a plastic feel and the wrong font.

Whether these differences are worth €750 is up for debate. However, based on two reviews, including one from the Redditor above, it’s a pretty good copy. Only the ‘thick’ cords may need a replacement.

“Reon’s hoodie is amazing, nobody will call it out. Only thing that really bothers me are the thick cords on the hood. Looks really shitty I will look for a replacement,” plexor666 writes.

These open discussions are quite common in the subreddit, as opposed to /r/piracy which is under heavy pressure from rightsholders. Counterfeiting is not new for Vetements either. That said, they might not appreciate their Pirate Bay gear being pirated.

It’s hard to see what’s next, but at this point, it wouldn’t surprise us if Vetements sued Reon over their ‘pirated’ hoodie. Or perhaps it may be more fitting if they try to have the domain seized, or blocked by ISPs. True Pirate Bay style.

And perhaps The Pirate Bay can then take action against Vetements for copying its logo without permission?

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