YTS is the most-visited torrent site on the Internet. With millions of daily visitors, it even beats the legendary Pirate Bay.
The site ‘unofficially’ took over the YTS brand when the original group threw in the towel in 2015. Since then, it has amassed a rather impressive user base. However, that growth didn’t go unnoticed by copyright holders.
The movie industry sees the popular torrent site as one of the main piracy threats and last year YTS became the target of three different copyright infringement lawsuits in the US.
These cases were not filed by the big law firms that represent Hollywood’s major movie studios. Instead, they were filed by a single attorney from Hawaii, Kerry Culpepper, who works for Millennium Films and several of its daughter companies.
With these lawsuits, the filmmakers hoped to take the site offline and recoup damages. That can be an extremely difficult endeavor, especially when a site operator resides abroad, but part of this mission has now been achieved.
In the case filed on behalf of Wicked Nevada LLC, known for the thriller “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile“, the filmmakers agreed to a consent judgment with Senthil Vijay Segaran, the suspected operator of YTS.
The original complaint referred to the operator as a John Doe. However, this was later updated to name Segaran as the person in charge. Segaran was also the person who previously agreed to remove several torrents linking to Millenium Films’ movies from YTS.
In the consent judgment, signed a few days ago, Segaran denies liability for copyright infringements. However, he confirms that he is the ‘John Doe’ described in the complaint and admits that people used YTS to share pirated content.
“Senthil Vijay Segaran denies liability but acknowledges that he is Defendant JOHN DOE dba YTS as identified in the original complaint and concedes that one or more third parties uploaded the torrent file of Plaintiff’s motion picture to the website YTS.LT,” the judgment reads.
Segaran specifically admits that “his website YTS.LT provided links for distributing the torrent file under the file name ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile (2019) [WEBRip] [720p] [YTS.AM]’.”
According to the consent judgment, which is signed by both parties, the operator didn’t upload the ‘Wicked’ torrent to the site. Who did, remains unmentioned.
Although Segaran denies liability, he did agree to pay $150,000 in damages, which also happens to be the maximum amount of statutory damages for copyright infringement.
“A Money Judgment is awarded in favor of Plaintiff Wicked Nevada, LLC against Defendant Senthil Vijay Segaran in the amount of $150,000 for damages,” the consent judgment reads.
The judgment was signed by US District Judge Susan Oki Mollway. In addition to the damages amount, it also includes a permanent injunction. This prevents YTS’s operator from distributing and/or promoting torrent files that point to Wicked Nevada’s film.
A damages judgment against the operator of the largest torrent site in the world is a major achievement. Although more people could manage the site, several Millenium Films movies are no longer listed on the platform.
That said, the site remains up and running. And as long as Wicked Nevada’s movie is not listed, YTS.lt doesn’t violate the permanent injunction.
The two remaining lawsuits against YTS, by the makers of movies including Hellboy, Singularity, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and Hunter Killer, remain ongoing. However, given that they are handled by the same attorney based on a nearly identical complaint, we may see similar consent judgments there as well.
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TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the stipulated consent judgment between Wicked Nevada and Senthil Vijay Segaran, signed by United States District Judge Susan Oki Mollway, which is available here (pdf).
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/money-feat.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2020-01-02 16:09:552020-01-02 16:09:55Torrent Site YTS ‘Settles’ Piracy Lawsuit with Movie Company but Stays Online
The Canadian Government is no stranger to having its copyright policies critiqued.
The US Trade Representative, for example, has repeatedly placed its northern neighbor on a “watch list” because it fails to properly deter piracy.
While Canada has made several changes to its copyright regime in recent years, many rightsholders are not satisfied. Through political pressure from foreign governments, they hope to urge the country to address what they see as problematic issues.
This doesn’t only take place through the US Government – the European Commission is chiming in as well. Repeating many of the points that were previously highlighted by the USTR, the Commission summarized its main complaints in a report on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in
third countries
“The Canadian IPR system still features certain shortcomings. Despite recent positive developments, a number of issues remain to be addressed, in particular in copyright and related rights as well as in enforcement,” the European Commission writes.
One of the highlighted problems is Canada’s fair dealing rules, which add educational use to the list of copyright infringement exceptions. According to the EU Commission, the language used in the law is too broad, damaging the rights of educational publishers.
“Broad exceptions in copyright law are applied in a way that appears to be detrimental to right holders. EU stakeholders are particularly concerned about the fair dealing exception for educational purposes and the exception for non-commercial user-generated content,” the Commission writes.
The same issue was previously pointed out by the US Government. That’s also true for the second problem, Canada’s lack of a takedown procedure to ensure that infringing content is removed by online service providers.
Canada previously implemented a “notice-and-notice” scheme. This only requires services to alert infringing parties, but it should ideally be complemented with a takedown requirement, the Commission notes.
“Stakeholders indicate that the ‘notice and notice’ regime for online copyright infringements, which came into effect in January 2015, still needs to be supplemented by a ‘notice and take down’ requirement, as well as by other measures to encourage all players to address online infringements in an effective way,” the Commission writes.
“There is currently no requirement for the internet service provider (ISP) or the user to take down infringing material and the only way to enforce a takedown is via the courts,” it adds.
The repeated use of the term “stakeholder” shows that the Commission heavily relies on input from copyright holders. While this is common, it may not be the most balanced approach.
Finally, the Commission also points out that many pirate websites are still hosted in Canada. This is a concern, it writes, as rightsholders are not able to request an injunction to have websites blocked by ISPs.
That last complaint is outdated, as Canada’s Federal Court recently issued the country’s first website blocking order. This is likely because copyright holders already submitted their complaints before that happened.
All in all the complaints are nothing new for Canada’s Government so whether they will make an impact has yet to be seen. The country previously wasn’t very impressed by “one-sided” foreign complaints on its copyright policies.
Canada is working on an update of its copyright law. Earlier this year, the Government’s Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology clearly rejected a non-judicial site-blocking regime, while it advised keeping the current safe harbor policy intact.
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A copy of the European Commission’s Report on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries is available here (pdf).
The Federation Against Copyright Theft, or FACT as it’s more commonly known, has developed a reputation for cracking down on mostly video-based piracy in the UK.
During its recent history, FACT has worked on behalf of the Premier League, Sky, and BT Sport, among others. FACT’s activities in this respect have been fairly broad, from tackling IPTV providers and sellers, creators and distributors of Kodi add-ons, to bringing prosecutions against pub landlords who show live football without an appropriate license.
Recently, however, it appears that FACT has struck up a partnership with H&B Administration LLP, a company closely connected to controversial copyright-trolling activities in the UK.
Given FACT’s traditional modus operandi, of not targeting end-users but going after suppliers and facilitators, the pairing comes as a surprise, to say the least. We recently contacted FACT with a request for comment on the partnership but we received no response.
News of the partnership was made public in a filing to the UK’s Companies House, which reveals that FACT Worldwide Ltd became a member of H&B Administration LLP on September 11, 2019.
The addition of FACT means that the LLP now has four officers – the (in)famous Robert Croucher, FACT Worldwide Ltd, Hatton & Berkeley Management Ltd, and TCYK LLC – the company behind the Robert Redford movie, The Company You Keep.
H&B previously targeted UK Internet subscribers demanding cash settlements on behalf of TCYK while making various grand anti-piracy announcements that never lived up to their billing. On November 5, 2019, Companies House described H&B Administration LLP as a “dormant company”.
While FACT didn’t respond to our request for comment, Hatton and Berkeley founder Robert Croucher previously told us that the purpose of H&B Administration LLP is to provide an “insured and administrative wrapper” to mitigate risk when suing pirates.
“I can say that these type of proceedings [cases against alleged infringers] are to be wrapped with an insurance policy hereon providing a level of risk mitigation to rights holders seeking reparation for damages sought at trial,” Croucher said.
Quite why FACT has decided to get into bed with H&B remains open to question but if Croucher’s explanation still stands, limiting risk during litigation is a potential plus for the company.
FACT CEO Kieron Sharp is now listed on H&B’s website as part of the team there conducting “civil and criminal enforcement.” Given FACT’s client base of well-known companies such as the Premier League, Sky and BT Sport – all of which have plenty of funds available for their own litigation, even if a case or two went wrong – the news of the partnership with H&B is indeed curious.
That being said, FACT Worldwide’s latest set of accounts may indicate a need for financial caution.
To the year ended December 31, 2018, FACT Worldwide’s revenues were £1,343,310, resulting in a gross profit of £201,907. However, after administrative expenses were deducted, the company made an operating loss of £393,115.
The accounts also reveal that on May 1, 2019, the company underwent a financial restructuring. A company called Global Due Diligence Limited, which gave FACT Worldwide a loan of £1,428,500, repayable in 4.5 years’ time, also acquired 70% of FACT Worldwide’s share capital.
The big remaining question is whether the image of FACT as a strictly professional targeter of piracy facilitators will be blended or indeed confused with H&B’s less palatable penchant for targeting the man in the street, and whether public perceptions of the parties will be adjusted to suit.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/facepalm-featured.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2020-01-01 20:07:552020-01-01 20:07:55FACT Partner Up With UK Copyright Troll Outfit
Early 2010, the online piracy ecosystem looked entirely different from what it does today.
IPTV and pirate streaming boxes had yet to reach the masses. Limewire was still the preferred piracy app for millions, while torrent sites such as BTJunkie, isoHunt and Mininova were dominating in terms of traffic.
Today, Limewire is a distant memory and the aforementioned torrent sites have all gone. Many other things have changed too. In this article, we will highlight some of the most pivotal events of the past ten years.
Bear in mind that this is by no means an exhaustive overview. It does, however, show that much has changed over the past ten years.
2010
The decade started with positive news for Alan Ellis, the operator of the defunct private music tracker OiNK. The jury returned a unanimous not guilty verdict and Ellis walked free.
Not much later the final verdict in The Pirate Bay case was revealed. The Swedish Court of Appeal sentenced Peter Sunde to eight months in prison, Fredrik Neij received a 10-month sentence, and Carl Lundström four months. Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm did not appear but was later sentenced to a year in prison.
Later that year there was bad news for Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a mother of four, who lost her case against the RIAA. Following a re-trial, Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay $1.5 million for 24 songs she shared via Kazaa. This verdict was appealed and eventually reduced to $222,000 by the Appeals Court.
In October a US federal court also sided with the RIAA in its battle against the Gnutella-based download client LimeWire. The world’s most popular file-sharing application shut down soon after.
In November 2010, the US Government launched “Operation in Our Sites,” through which it seized several domain names of alleged pirate sites including torrent search engine Torrent-Finder. Years later, the DoJ also dropped its case against the torrent search engine and returned the domain name.
Another domain that was targeted by the feds was from Ninjavideo. This eventually resulted in several criminal indictments. Operation In Our Sites continued throughout the rest of the decade, taking down millions of domain names, mostly related to counterfeiting.
2010 also marked the start of the so-called ‘copyright-trolling’ lawsuits against alleged BitTorrent users in the US, which are still ongoing today. The first lawsuits, including one from the makers of The Hurt locker, targeted tens of thousands of people at once.
2011
After pressure from the entertainment industries, Google started to censor piracy-related keywords from its instant and autocomplete services. Keywords such as “The Pirate Bay” and “RapidShare” were excluded. This marked the start of a series of anti-piracy initiatives, including downranking of pirate domains in search results.
In March, President Obama’s “IP Czar” Victoria Espinel laid the foundations for PIPA and SOPA, calling on Congress to make changes in order to make it easier to clamp down on copyright infringement. Both bills were heavily protested in the months that followed.
Europe witnessed one of the largest piracy-related busts in history. The popular movie streaming portal Kino.to was shut down and a dozen people connected to the site were arrested.
Richard O’Dwyer, the then 23-year-old UK-based administrator of TVShack was arrested by police. In the year that followed, the admin successfully fought off an extradition request from the U.S.
Megaupload released the Megaupload song, where superstar artists including P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg, and Kanye West promoted the site.
The new year started, with the historic SOPA and PIPA protests that carried over from 2011. Eventually, both bills were defeated.
News headlines were also dominated by the Megaupload raid and the indictment against the “Mega Conspiracy.” The criminal investigation disrupted the file-hosting business and today, Kim Dotcom and several former colleagues still await the final decision regarding possible extradition to the US.
BTjunkie, one of the largest BitTorrent indexes at the time, decided to shut down voluntarily. A combination of legal actions against fellow file-sharing sites and time-consuming projects was cited as reasons for the drastic decision.
The founder of NinjaVideo, one of the first domains to be targeted in the ongoing Operation in Our Sites campaign, was sentenced for conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement. Hana Beshara, was sentenced to 22 months in prison. Several other accomplices received lesser sentences.
The Pirate Bay made dozens of headlines as well. The infamous BitTorrent site removed torrents for popular releases and moved to the .SE domain name to avoid a possible US domain name seizure, which never came.
The Pirate Bay was also blocked by UK ISPs following a High Court order. Nonetheless, the site saw a huge increase in traffic.
2013
The Motion Picture Association won its piracy lawsuit against file-hosting site Hotfile, which agreed to pay a $80 million settlement. However, this figure mostly served to impress and scare the public, as both parties settled the matter for ‘only’ $4 million behind closed doors.
Kim Dotcom launched Mega as the successor to the defunct Megaupload. Mega billed itself as “The Privacy Company” and remains popular today despite the fact that its founder cut ties with the file-hosting service.
The MPAA and RIAA, helped by five major Internet providers in the United States, launched their “six-strikes” Copyright Alert System. After five or six warnings ISPs could take a variety of repressive measures to deter pirates. The system eventually shut down four years later.
Netflix revealed that piracy is more than a competitor. The company’s then Vice President of Content Acquisition revealed that they keep an eye on what’s popular on file-sharing platforms to determine what TV-series to buy. This apparently worked well, as Netflix also mentioned that it was killing BitTorrent traffic.
Torrent search engine isoHunt settled its legal battle with the MPAA for $110 million. The site’s owner, Gary Fung, decided to throw in the towel after fighting Hollywood for several years. Soon after the shutdown a copycat site appeared, which took over many of the site’s regular visitors.
Law firm Prenda was caught uploading their own torrents to The Pirate Bay, creating a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirated downloads. The accusation was first published here on TorrentFreak, based on input from the Pirate Bay. This would later turn into a criminal case.
2014
A new app named Popcorn Time became an instant hit by offering BitTorrent-powered streaming inside an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface. After being chased by lawyers, developers shut it down after a few weeks, saying that they wanted to move on with their lives. By then the app had been forked by others, which took over distribution and continued to develop the project.
The Pirate Bay was pulled offline after Swedish police raided a data center near Stockholm. The police confiscated dozens of servers which many believed to belong to the notorious torrent site. Cryptic teasers aside, The Pirate Bay remained offline for nearly two months but later denied that police took anything useful.
The music and movie industries and several of the UK’s leading ISPs agreed on a deal to tackle Internet piracy. The arrangement would see the BPI and MPA monitoring people sharing files illegally and the ISPs sending them “escalating” warning letters. It would take until 2017 before the first warnings were sent out.
Sony was hacked, revealing all sorts of inside scoops from the company. Among other things, leaked documents revealed in detail how Hollywood planned to take on piracy in the years to come. Several unreleased Sony movies also ended up on pirate sites.
2015
Popular TV-torrent distribution group EZTV shut down. After losing key domain names and data in a hostile takeover, EZTV founder NovaKing called it quits. The group’s retirement marked the end of an era in which the EZTV brand became synonymous with TV-torrents. Today, the brand still persists, but it’s a copycat that is not affiliated with the original group.
The first four episodes of the new Game of Thrones season leaked online a day before the official premiere. The leak triggered a download spree but the real piracy boom came a few weeks later when Game of Thrones set the all-time swarm record with 258,131 people simultaneously sharing a single torrent of the season finale. That record still stands today.
The Stockholm District Court ordered the seizure of both thepiratebay.se and piratebay.se domains, arguing that they were linked to copyright crimes. Responding to the decision, the torrent site started rotating to a bunch of new domains, including thepiratebay.GS, LA, VG, AM, MN and GD.
After being one of Hollywood’s biggest arch-rivals, YTS/YIFY signed an unprecedented agreement with the movie industry. Instead of going to trial, the MPAA signed a deal with YIFY’s operator, ending a multi-million dollar lawsuit before it really got started. The YTS/YIFY name is still out there today, but any sites carrying it have nothing to do with the original.
A federal jury ruled that Internet provider Cox Communications was responsible for the copyright infringements of its subscribers. The ISP was found guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered to pay music publisher BMG Rights Management $25 million in damages. This was the start of several similar piracy liability lawsuits.
On and before Christmas, high-quality screener copies of some of the hottest Hollywood productions appeared online. Some titles, including The Hateful Eight, even appeared before their official theatrical release. Hive-CM8, the group that was responsible for these leaks, later apologized.
Torrentz.eu, one of the world’s largest torrent sites, announced “farewell” to its millions of users. The meta-search engine, which hosted no torrents of its own but linked to other sites including The Pirate Bay, decided to cease its operations. Soon after, the unaffiliated Torrentz2.eu jumped in to fill the gap.
After months of domain hopping, The Pirate Bay moved back to its original .org domain. The torrent site moved away from it years earlier to avoid a possible seizure, but instead, all alternative domains were either seized or suspended.
The private music tracker What.cd, arguably the world’s most comprehensive library of digital music, shut down. The site went offline after several of its servers were raided by French military police. The local music industry group SACEM later confirmed that the law enforcement efforts were part of a criminal investigation.
Two principals of the copyright-trolling Prenda law firm were arrested by the feds. The duo were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, and perjury. As mentioned earlier, The Pirate Bay played a key role in the case.
A new report from piracy tracking firm MUSO revealed that the piracy landscape continued to evolve. There was a clear shift from torrents to direct download and streaming sites. Interestingly, traffic to private trackers remained relatively stable.
Pirate streaming boxes and the Kodi media player software began making headlines. In the UK, police carried out raids targetting several resellers. Concerned about piracy, the Kodi team announced legal action against those who use its name to promote infringing activity. Soon after, Kodi itself was banned by Amazon over piracy concerns.
2017
Torrent site ExtraTorrent shut down ‘voluntarily.’ The abrupt decision was announced in a brief message posted on the site’s homepage and came as a complete surprise to many friends and foes. ExtraTorrent’s distribution groups ettv and EtHD remained active and launched their own website.
Several prominent entertainment industry organizations launched the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a huge anti-piracy coalition featuring not only MPAA members, but companies like Amazon, Netflix, CBS, HBO, and the BBC. In the years that followed, the group filed several lawsuits against pirate streaming box vendors including TickBox and Set-TV.
YouTube-MP3, the world’s leading YouTube-ripping site at the time, agreed to shut down and hand over its domain to the RIAA. A private settlement agreement, including an undisclosed payment, put an end to the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by several major record labels a year earlier.
Mininova, once the biggest torrent site on the Internet, decided to shut down. The site had lost nearly all of its traffic after a Dutch court ordered it to remove all copyright infringing torrents in 2009.
The Pirate Bay started using the computer resources of its visitors to mine Monero coins. This resulted in a heated debate. Supporters saw it as a novel way to generate revenue and an opportunity to replace ads, while opponents went out of their way to block the mining script.
Sci-Hub, often referred to as the “Pirate Bay of Science,” lost two court battles. Following a $15 million defeat against Elsevier, the American Chemical Society won a default judgment of $4.8 million in copyright damages. Despite the verdicts, the site remains widely accessible today.
The streaming piracy threat really became apparent when the Motion Picture Association described illegal streaming devices as “Piracy 3.0.” These devices offer a Netflix-like experience to consumers, but without rightsholders getting paid.
Kodi add-on repository TVAddons disappeared. It later became clear that the site’s founder was being sued in the US and Canada. The US lawsuit filed by Dish Networks was settled but the Canadian action remains ongoing.
After the initial disappearance, TVAddons returned with a more curated site.
2018
Demonoid went offline. During the summer the site started to suffer downtime and later on it vanished completely. The site’s owner, Deimos also went missing around the same time. A few months later we heard that Deimos had passed away.
Nintendo filed a complaint at a federal court in Arizona, accusing LoveROMS.com and LoveRETRO.co of massive copyright and trademark infringement. The operators, a married couple, eventually agreed to a $12 million settlement in favor of the game developer.
The ad-free and privacy-focused torrent site “SkyTorrents” became a victim of its own success. With millions of pageviews per day, the site was too expensive to manage, leaving the operator with no other option than to shut it down.
Terrarium TV – one of the most-loved ‘pirate’ applications for Android – ceased operating for good. Developer NitroXenon later informed TorrentFreak that, if required, he’d give up user data to the authorities.
The copyright trolling epidemic remained ongoing, but there is pushback as well. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reached a verdict in Cobbler Nevada v. Gonzales. The Court ruled that identifying the registered subscriber of an IP-address by itself is not enough to argue that this person is also the infringer. The order also affected several other cases.
2019
A group of former Demonoid staffers launched a new torrent site to keep the legacy of founder Deimos alive. While the original Demonoid is not coming back, the new site aims to offer a new home to those who miss the defunct torrent tracker.
As detailed just a few days ago, 2019 also saw numerous enforcement actions and shutdowns against pirate sites and services. The most prominent, including those targeted at Xtream Codes, Openload, Gears Reloaded, Cotomovies, and Vader are detailed here. These actions also show an increased focus on streaming sites and apps, including IPTV.
Two attorneys behind the controversial ‘copyright trolling’ law firm Prenda were found guilty. They were the masterminds behind the fraudulent scheme that extracted settlements from alleged pirates. They repeatedly lied to the court and operated a pirate honeypot.
Disney launched its new streaming platform which immediately gained millions of subscribers. While more legal platforms may sound positive, there are also concerns that more fragmentation will do little to curb piracy. Instead, people may be tempted to return to unauthorized sites and tools, as they can’t or don’t want to sign up for a handful of subscription services.
At the and of a decade where the piracy masses moved from direct downloading and torrents to streaming-based tools, none other than The Pirate Bay appears to have jumped on the streaming bandwagon as well. The notorious torrent site now links to the new streaming service Baystream, which allows people to stream videos directly in the browser.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/worldfea.png2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2020-01-01 10:06:562020-01-01 10:06:56Piracy Highlights of The Decade: From Limewire to IPTV
Every year we publish around 800 articles here at TorrentFreak, all of them covering copyright, piracy, privacy and closely related issues.
Over the course of 2019, many have detailed the efforts of content companies and their anti-piracy partners who have filed lawsuits, copyright complaints, and DMCA-type takedown notices to have content removed from allegedly-infringing sites.
In many cases those legal efforts were warranted but there have been some obvious screw-ups too.
Time and again, anti-piracy companies have overstepped the mark, attempting to have legitimate content removed. And, yet again, TorrentFreak.com has also been targeted by companies, their bots, or even individuals who simply can’t tell the difference between pirated content and legitimate news and informational pieces.
In previous years we’ve received erroneous complaints from the likes of Amazon, Electronic Arts, Disney, Entertainment One, Vertigo Films, Magnolia Pictures, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and even BBC Worldwide. This year we can add more.
According to Google’s Transparency Report, in 2019 Google received a further 11 DMCA takedown notices targeting our domain, sent on behalf of Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, and sundry others. All of them were completely bogus.
In January, we were accused of infringing the rights of Dreamworks, among others, after simply mentioning that a DVD Screener copy of the movie Green Book was the 9th most popular movie downloaded using BitTorrent during the first week of 2019.
In March, a complaint sent on behalf of Columbia Pictures told Google that an archive page referencing Boss Baby downloads (dating back to 2016) was somehow infringing their rights.
In April we were the dubious recipient of two complaints, both from the Estonian Organization for Copyright Protection. The first claimed that we were offering the CBS movie Five Feet Apart, simply because we have a content tag on the site mentioning torrent site YTS.
The second claimed we’d somehow helped to distribute the Finnish movie The Eternal Road after publishing a list of the top 10 most popular torrent sites of 2016.
After a whole month of peace, Google received yet another bogus complaint about TF in June, this time from Japanese Korean company ‘유니콘미디어” stating that we were offering the Illumination/Universal Pictures title The Secret Life of Pets for download. We were not.
In July we received two complaints, both on behalf of Sony Pictures. The first because we referenced the movie Inferno and the second because we did the same for the movie Breathe.
The complaint filed against us in August was even more absurd than the others. Fourteen years ago, back in 2005 when TorrentFreak was in its formative years, we published a list of public domain movies that are not only free but also legal to download and share.
However, according to a complaint filed by movie company Vertigo Releasing, that article included pirate links to the 2019 movie ‘The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil’. Why? We have no idea but there were a total of five public domain movies in that list that included either the word ‘cop’ or ‘devil’ in their titles.
A DMCA notice filed with Google in October set pulses racing. According to an adult content creator called ‘LittleSubGirl’, our 2018 article explaining how Netflix was dominating Internet traffic infringed her copyrights. It’s really not the kind of dominating we had in mind when the piece was written, honest.
In November a shockingly broad notice was sent to Google targeting not only us but Facebook, Beatport, TrustPilot, RottenTomatoes and a swathe of others. It claimed that we were offering John Wick 3 for download but was immediately flagged by Google as suspect.
“We believe that an impostor or someone else abusing the process submitted this request. We report it here for the sake of completeness and to provide a view into one kind of abuse of the DMCA process,” the company advised.
Finally, December brought yet another complaint from a company that can’t tell the difference between a news report detailing the most popular titles being shared on BitTorrent and a pirate site offering links to the same.
Grand total: 11 DMCA complaints filed in 2019, all of them completely bogus.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/facepalm-featured.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2020-01-01 00:06:062020-01-01 00:06:06All DMCA Notices Filed Against TorrentFreak in 2019 Were Bogus
Every year we write over 800 articles here at TorrentFreak, and some are more popular than others.
On the brink of the new year, we look back at 2019 by going over the 19 most read news items of the year.
All in all, it was quite a controversial year once again. There were some very prominent enforcement actions and shutdowns, with Xtream Codes, Openload, Gears Reloaded, CotoMovies, Vaders and many others being targeted.
In addition, there was a lot of interest in leaks as well, especially those of Avengers: Endgame and screeners of the TV-shows American Gods, The 100, Bless This Mess, and Knightfall.
Police in Italy announced a huge anti-piracy operation against the company operating popular IPTV service management system Xtream Codes. Searches were conducted in several countries including Italy, the Netherlands, France and Bulgaria, in a claimed effort to dismantle the company’s entire infrastructure.
Just hours after Avengers: Endgame premiered in China, a cammed copy appeared online. Data reviewed by TorrentFreak revealed that the movie was initially shared by exclusively China-based torrent users, but it soon spread all over the world.
YouTube sensation and founder of ‘pirate’ IPTV Gears Reloaded ‘OMI IN A HELLCAT’ said he was raided by the FBI who “took everything”, including his huge car collection. According to him, the FBI are investigating a variety of issues including the IPTV service, tax filings, and money laundering.
Openload, one of the largest file-hosting sites on the Internet, agreed to shut down its service. Openload.co and several related domains, including Streamango, were taken over by global anti-piracy coalition ACE.
The international law enforcement action against Xtream Codes and what appear to be several entities using its services, turned out to be a complex affair.
Reddit banned its popular /r/mmastreams sub-Reddit. Following numerous copyright infringement complaints, the 165,000 member community must now find a new home. After a controversial Twitter outburst, some believed that an ex-UFC fighter should shoulder part of the blame.
Popular movie piracy app CotoMovies shut down following legal pressure. The app’s developer issued an apology to filmmakers while urging former users to switch to legal services instead. CotoMovies further stated that it would transfer user data to the copyright holders.
Unreleased episodes of several high-profile TV-shows including American Gods, The 100, Bless This Mess, and Knightfall leaked online. The leaks came from promotional screeners, some of which carried revealing watermarks.
RARBG began adding what first appear to be .exe files to their torrents. Considering that these executables are often linked to malware, some people started to panic.
In addition to traditional magnet links, many Pirate Bay titles started to feature a streaming button, which allows users to stream movies and TV shows directly in the browser on a new site called BayStream.
When Disney’s exclusive streaming service launched millions of users signed up. However, others went to pirate sites instead. For some, this is the only way to watch the highly anticipated Mandalorian series.
1337x.to, one of the world’s most popular torrent sites, was blocked by anti-malware company MalwareBytes. The tool claimed that 1337x is engaged in “fraud” and that it tries to steal people’s information or credit card details.”
A developer going by the handle ‘Urban Guacamole’ launched Torrent-Paradise, a torrent index that is powered with IPFS. Short for InterPlanetary File System, IPFS is a decentralized network where users make files available among each other.
Vader, one of the leading providers of pirate IPTV services, shut down. The service insisted that no customer information would fall into the wrong hands. It was later revealed that the platform was targeted by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.
The massively popular manga comic scanlation platform Manga Rock announced its pending shutdown. The site’s operators say that they now realize how much damage piracy does. They are committed to relaunching as an authorized service, MR Comics, in the near future.
The Pirate Bay ditched its old and mostly unreadable Onion domain for something more recognizable and potentially more permanent. The switch was reported to TorrentFreak after Pirate Bay proxy sites noticed extended downtime on the old domain.
Netflix released Bandersnatch. The latest installment of the Black Mirror series was interactive, allowing viewers to make choices. One of the big questions is whether the format poses a big challenge for pirates to replicate.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/fireworksnewyear.png2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-12-31 14:04:592019-12-31 14:04:59TorrentFreak’s 19 Most Read Articles of 2019
In 2017, the newly formed anti-piracy group Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) announced its presence to the world. Headed up by the traditional studios of the MPA plus Netflix and Amazon, the coalition also featured dozens of global movie and TV show giants.
The clear aim of ACE is to tackle video piracy on a global scale by pooling resources, finances, and knowledge. At least publicly, the coalition had a relatively slow start but as projects came to fruition, sites and platforms associated with piracy began to fall.
Some legal battles were conducted publicly through US courts (Omniverse, SetTV) but many others were settled quietly behind the scenes, without any official announcements. But perhaps the most dramatic, such as the takedowns of major IPTV player Vaders and file-hosting platforms Openload and Streamango, began silently, never went to trial, and were only confirmed when big cash settlements were revealed.
But of course, cash wasn’t the only thing ACE demanded from these players. In numerous cases so far (1,2,3,4,5), ‘pirate’ platforms were also compelled to hand over their domain names to the MPA. However, instead of lying dormant, ACE now uses them to deliver a short message to former users, declaring that platforms have been shut down due to copyright infringement.
A few seconds later visitors are then diverted to ACE’s anti-piracy portal, a place where movies and TV shows can’t be found. Instead, pro-copyright messages are presented with every click alongside details of previous ACE successes, shutdowns, and some (but certainly not all) ACE domain seizures.
Despite plenty of smaller domain seizures, traffic to Alliance4Creativity.com was minimal right up until September 2019 but then things took off in a big way. SimilarWeb stats reveal that at the start of the month the site had around 10,000 monthly visits.
At the start of October, however, visits had skyrocketed to around 620,000 per month, an increase of more than 6000%.
While this increase is impressive in its own right, by the start of November ACE’s website was receiving 2.3 million monthly visits, around 23,000% up on September’s traffic. Leading pirate sites aside, many illicit platforms never reach this number of eyeballs.
Given that the Openload/Streamango shutdown took place on October 31, it seems likely that the majority of the traffic to ACE’s site comes from former users of the defunct file-hosting platforms.
Whether the figures will continue to rise when SimilarWeb’s stats update remains a question, however. It’s possible that all traffic is yet to be accounted for but as a negative, former Openload and Streamango users are unlikely to keep revisiting the domains now that they know that ACE is in control.
TorrentFreak approached ACE for comment on its increasingly ‘popular’ website, which is now delivering its anti-piracy message while being largely fueled by traffic from seized ‘pirate’ domains. Unfortunately, an ACE spokesperson declined on the group’s behalf.
In the background, however, more seizures are taking place. TF has discovered that in recent weeks ACE quietly took over the domains of another pair of allegedly-infringing sites, Jailbrokenfirestick.com and Jailbrokefiretv.com. In common with other smaller seizures, no official announcements were made but nevertheless, will still add to the Alliance’s growing website traffic.
Finally, there’s a strong chance that ACE will be analyzing the traffic hitting these former ‘pirate’ domains that they now own. While that data isn’t likely to be particularly useful from a direct litigation perspective, it will certainly prove of interest to the global anti-piracy alliance.
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.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/1577721780_worldfea.png2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-12-30 18:02:582019-12-30 18:02:58Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 12/30/19
For years on end, entertainment industry insiders have regularly portrayed Australia as a piracy-ridden country.
To see if this is indeed the case, the Government conducts annual consumer surveys to study local piracy habits. In recent years, this has revealed a steady decline in piracy.
The latest online copyright infringement report, released by the Department of Communications and the Arts this week, suggests that there’s been a steady decrease in the number of people who consume music, movies, and TV shows illegally. This follows the trend that was revealed in earlier reports.
According to the Government, 16% of the population can be classified as pirates. This is a drastic drop compared to last year when a similar study found that 32% were pirates. In 2015, when the first survey was taken, the number was even higher at 43%.
These are indeed impressive numbers. However, this doesn’t translate directly to more revenue for the entertainment industries. In fact, in many cases revenue appears to be down, based on the survey data.
For example, the total spend on music dropped from $88.34 in 2018 to $70.01 in 2019. This is the lowest amount since 2015 when the survey started. The drop is mostly caused by fewer concert and merchandise sales as well as physical music purchases.
Although piracy has seemingly plummeted, the percentage of Australians who spend money on music remains unchanged at 46%.
A similar decline in revenue is visible for games and movies. For both categories, consumers spend less than in previous years, despite the dropping piracy rates. The only category where spending is up is TV, which saw a big spike in 2019, as shown below.
If anything, the survey makes it clear that less piracy doesn’t automatically translate to higher spending. In fact, those who pirate and buy tend to spend much more on average, compared to those who only purchase content 100% legally.
The report found that people who consume everything legally spend $42 on average per three months. Their counterparts, who pirate and buy, spend more than twice as much, $84. in the same period.
This finding is consistent with previous research indicating that “hybrid” consumers (who pirate and buy) are bringing in the most money, probably because they are the most content-hungry consumers.
Another noteworthy finding deals with pirate site blockades, which are increasingly ordered by Australian courts. These are meant to decrease piracy, which the report appears to back up.
Of all respondents, only 7% say they will bypass a blocked site if they encounter one. The vast majority, 58%, will simply give up. This suggests that pirate site blocking is extremely effective, but is it?
Looking closer at the data we see that the 7% number comes from the entire survey. This means that the responses also include the answers from the 84% who don’t pirate to begin with. These people obviously have no intention to circumvent the blockades.
Finally, the report shows that those who say they will circumvent blockades see VPN services as the ideal tool. Of all respondents, 44% mentioned VPNs, which is up from 30% last year.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/computerkeyboardfeat.png2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-12-30 08:01:562019-12-30 08:01:56Australian Piracy Rates Drop, But So Does Spending
For as long as there have been torrent sites, streaming platforms, ‘pirate’ apps, download sites, services, and any variation thereof, there have been lawsuits attempting to hinder, paralyze, or shut them down.
It’s hardly breaking news to state that defending such legal action can be a punishing affair, not just emotionally but financially too. Usually brought by powerful entertainment companies and broadcasters, anyone tackling the above needs not only a steely disposition but also the deepest of deep pockets.
As a result, people facing lawsuits for operating such platforms have regularly run fundraisers, invariably claiming that they need huge sums of money to battle what are frequently depicted as marauding copyright bullies intent on destroying the free Internet.
While in some cases that might be at least partially true, many rely on the same language as their aggressors in an effort to rally the masses to part with their cash. In some cases people have a reasonable argument. In others they do not.
Nevertheless, these situations are always interesting, particularly when one factors in the response from the public.
Platforms that have always provided a free service, for example, are often considered more worthy of a donation when it comes to fighting ‘Goliath’. The same can be said of those who operated in a perceived gray area, such as unblocking platforms that have never offered any copyright works, or dual-use open-source projects.
Indeed, one rarely needs to be in receipt of a law degree to assess a platform and decide whether the litigation at hand is warranted or a true case of bullying that warrants a bit of moral and financial support. Equally, spotting the most ridiculous of ’causes’ shouldn’t be hard for anyone.
For example, take the matter of iStreamItAll that is currently trying to raise $10,000 via a GoFundMe campaign to battle Hollywood and the US Government.
“We need all the help we can to fight Hollywood, and the federal charges brought upon one of the owners Darryl Polo. Any help would be appreciated and will go towards our legal defense,” it reads.
Ignoring the not insignificant fact that the defendants have already pleaded guilty, $10,000 won’t go anywhere in a case like this. It would take perhaps several hundred thousand dollars to fight in any meaningful way but it would be money down the drain – people do not easily win cases like this in the US. That’s why there are others that are aiming higher – a lot higher.
A couple of months ago we reported on the case of Boom Media, a full-blown pirate IPTV reselling business that is now being sued by DISH Networks in the United States. Boom Media is asking for $250,000 in donations to get things started in what is being portrayed as a battle to prevent DISH getting its hands on subscriber data.
If the broadcaster does get what it wants (and to be fair this seems likely) that could mean subscribers to the service receiving demands for cash settlements. This, of course, is somewhat akin to copyright-trolling, with low-level users being pursued for thousands of dollars to make supposed lawsuits go away.
That’s why the response to this plea for donations was of particular interest. Even when scouring the usual ‘pirate’ haunts, discussions, forums and chats, finding a supporting voice for the fundraiser is particularly hard.
The general consensus seems to be that this was a business that has never shared a single penny of its profits with its users yet is now asking for donations to fight off a lawsuit on the basis that doing so will prevent subscribers’ details ending up on the desks of DISH lawyers. The irony, particularly when viewed in the light of copyright trolls’ actions in general, is not difficult to spot.
Companies like Boom Media knew very well what they were doing. They knew the consequences of running a pirate IPTV service or selling access to one. Lawsuits like this one should’ve been expected, prepared for, with litigation costs factored in as a cost of doing business. You know, like regular properly-run businesses do every day.
That the costs of keeping user data safe should now fall to the users of those services, some of whom will have had no idea that Boom wasn’t legitimate, is as offensive to users as the copyright holders complaining about their activities. But for other users, who knew they were buying into a cheap “black market” service (Boom’s own words), there should be zero surprises that this was a potential outcome.
Paying the company’s legal fees, which will then get swallowed up by lawyers in a case that cannot be reasonably won, is the choice of the donor. But the fact is that these fundraisers rarely raise any notable funds and in every case – every case – donors get absolutely nothing back, not even a free subscription in the million to once chance the service reappears offering the same thing.
This isn’t really about fighting for freedom, for the Internet, or helping David beat an evil Goliath, it’s about supporting people who knew from the start that what they were doing was illegal and now want yet more money to bail them out of a hole. And from the dozens of posts we’ve read on the topic, pirates everywhere know that and do not appreciate it.
All pirates have their causes, from the lowly “media is too expensive” to the militant “sticking it to the man”. But funding a for-profit ‘pirate’ LLC’s fight against a for-profit broadcaster which is also an LLC is clearly not on most pirates’ agendas.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/money-feat.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-12-29 22:00:532019-12-29 22:00:53Funding a Pirate Business’s Lawsuit is Mostly Unpopular With Pirates
YTS is the most-visited torrent site on the Internet. With millions of daily visitors, it even beats the legendary Pirate Bay.
The Canadian Government is no stranger to having its copyright policies critiqued.
The repeated use of the term “stakeholder” shows that the Commission heavily relies on input from copyright holders. While this is common, it may not be the most balanced approach.
Early 2010, the online piracy ecosystem looked entirely different from what it does today. 
Every year we write over 800 articles here at TorrentFreak, and some are more popular than others. 
This week we have three newcomers in our chart.
For years on end, entertainment industry insiders have regularly portrayed Australia as a piracy-ridden country.
For as long as there have been torrent sites, streaming platforms, ‘pirate’ apps, download sites, services, and any variation thereof, there have been lawsuits attempting to hinder, paralyze, or shut them down.
