Baidu Cloud Storage Site Ordered to Pay Damages For TV Show Piracy


China’s government is regularly accused of not doing enough to prevent piracy but court records show that there are many copyright cases under consideration.

A particularly interesting case that has now reached its conclusion featured Youku Tudou Inc., one of the country’s top online video platforms and Baidu Wangpan (Baidu Web Drive), a cloud-storage service operated by technology giant Baidu.

Filed by Youku, the lawsuit claimed that despite the company holding the rights to distribute the popular TV series ‘Eternal Love‘ online in China, copies of the show were being made available to the public after being uploaded to storage accounts on Baidu Wangpan. Youku says it sent numerous complaints to have the content removed but according to the company, the response was insufficient.

While Baidu did take some action, Youku was still able to find more than 11,000 Baidu Wangpan accounts offering episodes of the TV series for viewing without permission from the license holder, Caixin Global reports (paywall).

The lawsuit accused Baidu of not taking down infringing links quickly enough, failing to take action against the accounts of repeat infringers, and not installing technology to prevent the uploading, storage, and sharing of copyrighted material.

Baidu countered by stating that its users had uploaded the TV shows and as a result, the company should not be held liable for their actions. It further said that it had responded to Youku’s complaints and that Youku’s demand for 29 million yuan (US$4.14 million) in compensation was excessive.

Local reports cite the judge in the case weighing whether the response of Baidu was sufficient, noting that more than 60% of infringing links were indeed removed but other content remained online.

The balance was ultimately decided in favor of Youku, with the Beijing court ordering Baidu to compensate Youku to the tune of one million yuan (US$143,000) and 30,000 yuan ($4,300) in expenses.

Both parties have appealed the ruling.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.





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Piracy Streaming Giant ‘IndoXXI’ Quits to Support the Local Creative Industry


Earlier this week we reported that Indonesia’s Information and Communications Ministry has continued its crackdown on pirate sites.

The Government body has blocked more than 1,000 domain names since July. Streaming giant ‘IndoXXI,’ which is listed among the 25 most visited sites in the country, was the main target.

The site has been blocked by ISPs in Indonesia before and also appeared on Hollywood’s radar. Despite the mounting pressure, it always managed to come back through new domain names.

That was also the case this time around. However, behind the scenes, the continued complaints must have made an impact on its operators as the site has announced that it will stop offering pirated movies in the new year.

“Very hard but must be done. Thanks to our entire loyal audience. From January 1, 2020, we will stop serving movies on this website in order to support and advance the country’s creative industry. Hopefully, the future will be better,” the translated message reads.

The announcement will be viewed as good news for the entertainment industry. However, as is usually the case when large sites shut down, there will be many others ready to take its place. Taking away one site doesn’t necessarily eliminate the demand from the public.

In any case, the surprise decision is big news in Indonesia. The ‘indoxxi’ hashtag was trending on Twitter earlier and the story has been picked up by several major news outlets, including CNN Indonesia.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.





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Kodi at the Chaos Communication Congress


For the next few days the 36th Chaos Communication Congress, the largest hacker conference in Europe, is held in Leipzig, Germany. Organized by the Chaos Computer Club, it features a lot of tech related talks and assemblies.

Kodi will be represented by Sarbes, one of our Python developers. A talk about the project is scheduled at 3pm on the first day, at the ChaosZone (https://cfp.chaoszone.cz/36c3/talk/V83NXN/).

If you happen to be at the congress, Sarbes can be reached via our IRC channel (#kodi @freenode). Feel free to reach out to him to ask questions and/or to buy him a beer.

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BitTorrent Tokens: The Last Minute Christmas Gift, Now Extortionate on eBay


It’s December 25, 2019, so Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all the best to everyone from us here at TorrentFreak, wherever you may be and whatever you may be celebrating.

Sadly, for some of you today it won’t all be fun and games. Some will experience an awful sinking feeling, one prompted by the arrival of an unexpected guest bearing an equally unexpected Christmas card or, worse still, one accompanied by a Christmas gift, all beautifully wrapped with a little bow on top.

You won’t have prepared for this so panic will quickly set in. You’ll probably have a spare card you can quickly scribble on but no appropriate gift. This will cause acute embarrassment and raised blood pressure. Will a hastily prepared turkey sandwich or glass of wine suffice, or will something more substantial be required?

First of all, calm down. After assessing the value of the incoming gift, you can head off to Amazon to send an emailed gift card of roughly equivalent value. However, if your gift-bearer is a file-sharer, there is a more novel option.

As readers will be aware, earlier this year BitTorrent Inc. launched its BTT token. Reportedly, these could be earned in the new uTorrent client by seeding lots of content and then spent to obtain faster torrent downloads elsewhere. We couldn’t find much evidence of anyone earning much or getting faster transfers but since when did an emergency gift have to be useful?

The problem here, however, is that you need some BTT now – right now – so how can that be achieved without panic-seeding terabytes of content and hoping for the best?

Easy. Quickly log into eBay and buy some.

As the image above shows, it is possible to buy 45,000 BTT tokens in one go. Think about it – your guest brought only one gift, so they can’t fail to be impressed by the scale of your offering. Unless they get out a calculator and realize what a scam this is.

While the deodorant gift set, socks, wine, or chocolates you’re trying to balance out are probably worth much less than €89.99 (US$100.44), the BTT haul on offer here represents such poor value it’s an absolute joke, and not a very funny one either.

As the image below shows, at the time of writing BTT tokens are worth less than $0.0003 each.

…..which means that 45,000 of them are worth around $12.78 (€11.45). Clearly, this is a massive profit for the numerous people on eBay offering to sell them, even when factoring in your gift vulnerability situation on Christmas Day.

But there are other problems too. While it may look like the BTT are up for sale, what you’re actually buying is a “contract to mine” BTT. The issue here is that unlike bitcoin or similar cryptocurrencies, there is no mining involved with the BTT utility token. They cannot be mined.

The bottom line here is that while 45,000 BTT may sound like a lot – even at $12.78 for this huge amount – they currently aren’t a particularly useful commodity. According to even the most experienced users who seed massive amounts of content constantly, it’s hard if not impossible to earn BTT and downloads don’t run noticeably faster when people spend them either.

This is a mystery that even torrent experts have puzzled over for months but this week a tweet from BitTorrent Inc. inadvertently revealed the root of the problem. When the BTT-powered BitTorrent Speed project was announced, CEO of BitTorrent Inc. Justin Sun said that “more than 100 million users” would soon reap the benefits.

However, it seems that interest in BTT is so minimal that meeting up with other BTT-powered users in a swarm is extremely unlikely.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

This almost complete lack of interest in BTT may yet turn around but as Christmas presents go, this token won’t set hearts racing in 2019. So to avoid embarrassment today, you should’ve kept a few blank Christmas cards back, pre-wrapped several bottles of half-decent wine, while continually reminding yourself never to panic-buy gifts off eBay.

Especially ones you can’t return when you sober up.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.





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Dutch Filmworks Takes Quest to Identify Alleged Pirates to the Supreme Court


Piracy settlement letters have become a serious threat in countries all round the world.

Until now, Dutch Internet users have been spared from this practice but local movie distributor Dutch Filmworks would like that to change.

Two years ago the company received permission from the Dutch Data Protection Authority to track the IP-addresses of BitTorrent users who shared pirated movies.

However, that was only the first hurdle. The next step was to identify the subscribers behind the IP-addresses and Dutch Internet provider Ziggo didn’t want to share any customer data without a court order.

The case went to court, where the movie company requested the personal details of 377 account holders whose addresses were used to share a copy of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”.

This didn’t go as planned for Dutch FilmWorks. In February, the Central Netherlands Court denied the company’s request for data and last month the Court of Appeal reached the same conclusion.

Both courts concluded that Dutch Filmworks’ plans lacked transparency and it’s not clear what the movie company plans to do with the personal data it obtains. Dutch Filmworks said that it could either warn subscribers or request damages, but the criteria remain a guess.

It also remains unclear how large the proposed settlements will be. An initial figure of €150 per infringement was mentioned in the past, but this number could also be significantly higher.

The movie company is unhappy with both verdicts and told the Dutch newspaper NRC that it will take the matter to the Supreme Court. This means that the 377 account holders from ISP Ziggo remain at risk.

In theory, it’s not impossible to obtain an order compelling Dutch Internet providers to hand over personal details of accused pirates. However, the previous verdicts make it clear that Dutch Filmworks has to come with a concrete plan.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court must find a balance between the privacy rights of subscribers and Dutch Filmworks’ intellectual property rights. When there’s too much uncertainty for accused subscribers, their rights tend to weigh stronger.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.





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Hive-CM8 is Looking For Frozen 2 and Star Wars Screeners


At the end of the year, movie industry insiders traditionally receive the screener copies that are used to vote on the Oscars and other awards.

As is tradition, quite a few of these advance screeners will leak on various pirate sites. Last Christmas, the first screeners had yet to leak, but this year pirates got their presents early.

The first screener copy that leaked last week was ‘Uncut Gems,’ which was soon followed by ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire.’ This week ‘JoJo Rabbit’ followed, and just a few hours ago a copy of ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’ appeared online.

The movies came out via release groups EVO and Hive-CM8, which both have a track record of getting their hands on these screeners.

Hive-CM8 has drawn considerable attention in the past due to the timing and volume of its releases. Four years ago high-quality copies of some of the hottest Hollywood productions appeared online, with some titles even beating their official theatrical releases.

This sparked outrage from Hollywood and an unprecedented apology from Hive-CM8. Going forward, the group promised not to release any movies too early. And indeed, in the three years that followed, leaks came later and in lower numbers.

However, that doesn’t mean that the group plans to stay away from blockbuster titles entirely. In the notes that come with today’s release of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Hive-CM8 specifically fishes for some top titles.

“We are looking for frozen/star wars/1917/knives out. Who wants to be the hero that can get that for us?” the group writes.

While that may sound appealing to some people, it also shows that the group doesn’t have access to these screeners yet. This means that it’s very possible that they won’t leak at all.

Last year, Hive-CM8 called upon the public to help them get Creed 2, Destroyer, Mortal Engines, Frontrunner, Vox Lux, and Marven. However, of these screeners only Destroyer made it onto pirate sites.

Needless to say, there is quite a bit of risk involved with these leaks. People who share them through BitTorrent are already at risk, but the sources of these leaks are prime candidates for criminal investigations.

Despite changing its release schedule to accommodate Hollywood, Hive-CM8 shows no intention of halting its activities. It apparently has its security in order and mentions that protecting sources is its main goal.

“We will remove all kind of watermarks and digital tracers. If its not possible or suspicous security they wont get out, there is no need to do every title if its not secure enough, we dont want to burn a source [sic],” the group writes.

That said, Hollywood and enforcement agencies are certainly keeping a close eye.

Last year, the number of screener releases reached an all-time low with ‘just’ eight making their way to pirate sites. Thus far the count is at four this year.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.





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Crisis Looms as YouTube Faces Permanent Blocking by Russian ISPs


As the most popular video hosting platform on the Internet, YouTube is awash with both legal and unlicensed content. However, since the company is responsive to copyright complaints, it is largely protected by the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA.

The system is far from perfect and is nowhere near comprehensive. False positives, abusive copyright claims and the sheer volume of uploads make it almost impossible to police the platform to a standard acceptable to everyone. The same can be said of the Internet has a whole but with automated and manual takedown tools, YouTube does what it can.

One copyright holder that isn’t happy with YouTube’s efforts is Russian publishing giant Eksmo and its anti-piracy partner AZAPI, the Association for the Protection of Copyright in the Internet. It says the YouTube system “does not always work” so has decided to step up its efforts to protects its clients’ rights.

As a result, Eksmo recently filed a court case against YouTube and the video platform of local search giant Yandex, claiming that the sites offer pirated audio copies of the sci-fi novel ‘The Three-Body Problem’ by the Chinese author Liu Cixin.

The December complaint was initially rejected due to lack of evidence but on appeal, the Moscow City Court has now ruled that YouTube and Yandex.video must remove the content or face having it blocked by local ISPs. According to a report by local news outlet Vedomosti, the content in question still exists on both platforms.

According to a statement from the Moscow City Court published by TASS on Monday, it has now taken preliminary measures against both sites.

“The court ordered Yandex.video and YouTube to remove the link to the Cixin audiobook. As a security measure, the court imposed a block on this material on both hosting sites,” the press service said.

The Court spokesperson had no comment on the potential for YouTube or Yandex.video to be permanently blocked in Russia but it appears that AZAPI has plans for just that.

“We are ready to go to court using other books. If the complaints are satisfied, we can insist on the eternal blocking of Yandex.Video and YouTube in Russia,” AZAPI chief Maxim Ryabyko informs Vedomosti.

AZAPI represents the interests of Russia’s biggest publishers so the possibility for additional complaints is substantial. What remains unclear is the standard to which YouTube is being held. If the site receives a valid copyright complaint against a specific URL, it usually removes the content in a timely manner. However, that doesn’t necessarily prevent the same content from being uploaded again. At least from AZAPI’s perspective, this appears to be a case of repeat infringement.

“There were situations even when, after making a court ruling, we continued to find controversial copies on this platform,” Ryabyko says.

From the limited comments available, AZAPI seems to be demanding a “takedown, staydown” arrangement in response to its complaints, something which goes beyond Google’s responsibilities under the DMCA.

Whether AZAPI’s threats are ultimately designed to bring YouTube to the negotiating table is unclear but having the site blocked in Russia seems like the nuclear option, particularly when YouTube offers a number of special tools that may help to prevent further infringement.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.





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Indonesian Government Continues Whac-A-Mole Against Local Streaming Piracy Giant


With millions of views per day, ‘IndoXX1’ is of one the largest pirate sites on the Internet.

In the West, the site doesn’t ring a bell with most people. In Indonesia, however, it is among the top 25 most visited websites in the country, only beaten by Google, YouTube, and a few others.

The site’s popularity didn’t go unnoticed by Hollywood. Earlier this year the MPA listed the site in its yearly overview of notorious pirate sites submitted to the US Trade Representative.

“Indo 21” has emerged as the main brand for piracy in Bahasa throughout Indonesia and Malaysia. One of the related sites, indoxx1.center, has a local ranking of 40 in Indonesia according to SimilarWeb data with 23.85 million monthly visits in August 2019,” MPA wrote.

Today this information is already outdated. While IndoXX1 remains the most visited pirate brand in the country, it continuously relocates in order to evade local blocking efforts.

Most recently the portal was available through domains including idxx1.cam, indoxx1.art, and indoxx1.kim. However, a few days ago, Indonesia’s Information and Communications Ministry (Kominfo) stepped in to block these domains.

Kominfo’s actions coincide with the release of a new survey, commissioned by the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP), which shows that streaming piracy is rampant in Indonesia.

According to the study, 63% of Indonesians have accessed streaming piracy websites or torrent sites. In addition, 29% of consumers use set-top boxes that can stream pirated video content, with indoXXI(Lite) being the most popular app by far.

This isn’t the first time Kominfo has taken action against IndoXX1. Other domains have been banned previously as part of a national anti-piracy effort. In fact, the Government organization has blocked more than 1,000 domain names since July.

Revealing the gravity of the situation, Kompas reports that these anti-piracy efforts can also count on the support of the national police.

While it’s clear that the authorities are taking the piracy problem seriously, it seems rather hard to curtail. On social media, many people are pointing out alternatives and, when we checked, indoXXI mirrors or copies were indeed available.

Many of the site’s users don’t really seem impressed by yet another blockade, and a meme illustrating the ineffectiveness of the measures has been viewed over a dozen million times in a few days.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Since blocking isn’t 100% effective, to say the least, it may also be worth looking at other means to address the piracy problem. At the supply end, for example. That’s where help from the Government may also be welcome.

Local news site Coconuts reports that Indonesia’s largest Internet provider Telkomsel currently blocks its subscribers from accessing Netflix. The state-owned ISP officially bans Netflix on censorship grounds, but some believe there may be financial reasons as well, as the company has ties to a local streaming service.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.





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Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 12/23/19


This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

Joker 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 (10) Joker 8.8 / trailer
2 (2) Ad Astra 6.9 / trailer
3 (…) JoJo Rabbit 8.1 / trailer
4 (1) 6 Underground 6.2 / trailer
5 (…) Zombieland Double Tap 7.1 / trailer
6 (3) Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood 7.9 / trailer
7 (…) The Lighthouse 8.2 / trailer
8 (5) Rambo: Last Blood 6.6 / trailer
9 (…) The Aeronauts 6.6 / trailer
10 (7) Gemini Man 5.7 / trailer

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.





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Copyright Troll Back in Federal Court After it Fails to ‘Save Judicial Resources’


Last week we reported that Strike 3 Holdings, the most active copyright litigant in the US, had stopped filing new lawsuits in federal courts.

A few days later we found out that the adult entertainment company hadn’t really halted its efforts. Instead, it had moved to a Florida state court where it targeted dozens of alleged copyright infringers at once.

This maneuver is controversial. Copyright cases are a matter of federal law and generally don’t belong in state courts. However, Strike 3 filed their cases as a complaint for “a pure bill discovery.”

This means that, instead of filing a copyright complaint, it asked the court to allow it to request subpoenas against ISPs to identify the alleged pirates. That information can then ‘possibly’ be used to file a federal case. Or it can be used to directly demand settlements from alleged infringers.

The advantage of the latter option is that Strike 3 can target dozens if not hundreds of alleged pirates in a single case. This saves tens of thousands of dollars in filing fees, as many federal courts only allow one defendant per case.

The move to state courts has prompted objections from various copyright attorneys. They argue that these cases don’t belong in state court and, as we highlighted a few days ago, the general belief is that Strike 3 is taking this route to save money.

The company itself sees things differently. Just days after we pointed out the lack of action in federal courts, the company filed a handful of new cases. However, these come with a twist.

The new cases we spotted specifically target IP-addresses that are associated with subscribers who objected to Strike 3’s state court shortcut. The timing, which coincides with our reporting, is interesting, and so are Strike 3’s arguments.

In the new complaints, the company states that it took its cases to state court to save “judicial resources” at the federal court. That the same move also saves tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs for the company itself isn’t mentioned.

“In an effort to conserve Federal judicial resources, Strike 3 originally moved to discover Defendant’s identity utilizing a state court procedure in Florida where Strike 3’s infringement detection servers are located,” Strike 3 writes (pdf).

“Defendant objected asserting that the action is more properly litigated in the federal court of his or her domicile. Because Plaintiff is amenable to litigating the matter in either forum, this suit was initiated,” the company adds.

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Strike 3’s suggestion that it merely wanted to help bring down the caseload at the federal court is something many skeptics will doubt. Whether it’s true or not, it does reveal that the company didn’t intend to file federal cases against all defendants.

After all, that would ultimately result in the same caseload for the federal court.

In other words, the plan was to reveal the identity of alleged pirates through the state court without filing a copyright case. The company could then use that information to extract settlements from these defendants, for a fraction of the time and costs at the federal court.

But apparently the costs reduction is just a by-product. The real goal here, according to Strike 3, was to conserve federal judicial resources.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.





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