By their very nature, it is rare for torrent sites to stay online for more than a few years.

While there are a few notable exceptions that have bucked the trend, most come and go, having wilted under significant legal or financial pressures.

After being founded in 2005, TNTVillage, which for years was Italy’s most popular torrent site, was one of the unusual ones. Hated by local anti-piracy groups but loved by fans, the site aimed to draw attention to restrictive copyright law but also attempted to act ethically by not releasing new content quickly after release.

In September 2018, the site was targeted by a lawsuit with site owner Luigi Di Liberto revealing that his home had been searched by authorities. Now, according to the Italian Publishers Association and anti-piracy group FAPAV, the Court of Milan has “ordered the cessation of TNT Village’s file sharing activities, fully endorsing the rights holders’ requests.”

According to the groups, TNTVillage made available more than 134,000 titles available to the public, including movies, TV shows, anime, software, and books.

“It is a great result,” says Ricardo Franco Levi, President of the Italian Publishers Association (AIE)

“The court fully accepts our position. One million users, through the activity and structure of TNT Village, have illegally and massively shared contents of publishers protected by Copyright: there is nothing ethical about behavior contrary to the law and damaging the rights as these.

“Was this the most famous pirate house on the Italian web? We will do everything to counter not only this but all alternative forms of piracy.”

While the ruling is a considerable win for the groups after all these years campaigning against TNTVillage, there will be no simultaneous shutdown of Italy’s largest torrent site. In fact, the site itself stole the groups’ thunder in September, when an announcement revealed it would shut itself down.

“Unfortunately due to [owner] Di Liberto’s decision, not attributable to our will and with extreme regret, we inform you that the site and the forum are closed,” the announcement read.

However, given the anti-copyright stance of the site’s now-former operator, the site’s parting shot is of particular interest. Instead of deleting everything and disappearing into the shadows, the announcement added a file for download, noting that “if you are a geek, you may be interested in downloading THIS.”

The file bears the hallmarks of a site dump, which interested parties may be able to use to resurrect the infamous but now-defunct torrent platform. This hasn’t gone unnoticed to FAPAV, which is promising action if problems arise.

While celebrating the legal victory and noting the importance of continuing the fight against piracy, FAPAV General Secretary Federico Bagnoli Rossi warns that anti-piracy groups will be on the lookout for anyone seeking to clone the platform.

“In the meantime, our Federation together with AIE is continuing to verify that the portal database is not repurposed on other sites. Otherwise we will evaluate whether to proceed by legal means also against new possible platforms,” Rossi says.

“We are pleased with how this activity is progressing and we will certainly not lower our guard.”

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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In 2014, the application known as Popcorn Time burst onto the scene to transform the BitTorrent landscape.

Instead of accessing torrent files from indexing platforms such as The Pirate Bay to download them in a comparatively boring regular client, users were given a beautiful, Netflix-style, all-in-one solution.

Very quickly, Popcorn Time became a smash-hit sensation but it also attracted movie and TV show companies determined to shut it down. While some success was booked on this front, Popcorn Time’s open-source nature meant that it could be replicated by enthusiasts, such as those who ultimately ended up operating from PopcornTime.sh.

While there are other variants, Reddit’s /r/popcorntime considers the .sh domain as offering the ‘official’ version of PopcornTime and the site was previously linked from the official Github repository. As the image below shows, the website and associated services attached to the app via the .sh domain were working just fine on November 3, 2019.

The situation today, however, is very much different. PopcornTime.sh and all the sub-domains which allow its app to work as intended have been rendered inaccessible.

According to WHOIS data, late on Monday the domain was updated. It isn’t due to expire for another year but its domain status is currently listed as “clientHold”, which can signal bad news.

‘ClientHold’ status is set by the domain registrar, 101domain.com in this case, and informs the registry not to activate the DNS for PopcornTime.sh. As a result, the website in question has been rendered inaccessible.

“This status code tells your domain’s registry to not activate your domain in the DNS and as a consequence, it will not resolve,” ICANN’s official advice reads. “It is an uncommon status that is usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion.”

We have been unable to officially confirm why PopcornTime.sh has been given this treatment but in the past, clientHold status has proven problematic for domains and has sometimes signaled legal issues. Information received earlier today adds at least some weight to that theory.

This afternoon we received an email from the folks at InternetProtocol.co who, citing anonymous police sources, claim that the site’s operator may (and that’s a pretty big ‘may’) have been arrested in Tunisia.

The publication also posted an image that supposedly shows items confiscated as evidence as part of a “raid” carried out in “cooperation with some international copyright organization.”

Unable to confirm the allegations from any other source and given its worldwide position on anti-piracy enforcement, TorrentFreak contacted the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment seeking confirmation or indeed denial that it was involved in this alleged and as-yet unconfirmed action.

We were told by their spokesperson that at this point in time, he wasn’t able to provide us with any information.

Although the moderators of the official PopcornTime sub on Reddit claim to have no direct connection with the software distributed and maintained from the .sh domain, TorrentFreak requested comments from all of them. At the time of publication, however, we were yet to hear back.

Whether the domain issue will be solved in time is unclear but that seems largely reliant on whether the information about a supposed arrest in North Africa holds up as credible.

Similar action in that region is extremely rare, perhaps unheard of as far as popular applications go, so there will be a waiting game for the full picture to emerge, if it ever does. Last year, PopcornTime.sh was targeted by movie companies seeking the identity of its operator but what ultimately became of that remains unclear.

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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This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw 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:

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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Authorities in Brazil have periodically attempted to disrupt piracy in the region, including actions such as ‘Operation Copyright‘ that targeted a large private torrent site in January.

Last Friday, however, it became clear that a much more ambitious operation had begun. Codenamed ‘Operation 404’ after the HTTP error of the same name, the action was announced by Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security.

During an early press conference detailing progress thus far, the Secretariat of Integrated Operations (Seopi) revealed that “136 websites and 100 applications” had already been suspended alongside the execution of 30 search and seizure warrants.

“After four months of investigation, it can be said that the action is a milestone for piracy in the country, which causes various damages to society,” said Alesandro Barreto, coordinator of Seopi’s Cyber ​​Operations Laboratory.

“I don’t know of another operation that has blocked so many apps and websites in one day. This is a very clear message and that the judicial police, through the integrated operation with Seopi, will act against this crime that cannot be tolerated.”

The authorities did not release the names of any websites or applications targeted nor specifically detail what “suspension” means in the context of any specific case. Suspensions can take many forms, from serious ones (raids and equipment confiscations, for example) through to ones that have a more limited long-term impact, such as blocking or domain seizures.

Details are fairly scarce but TF learned that a site known locally as Megacine announced that it had decided to close down following the operation. A notice now displayed on the football-focused site Futemax indicates that it is being blocked but is still online.

The Ministry of Justice states that at least in some instances it had worked with authorities in France, the United States and Canada to suspend domains, arrange “de-indexing from search engines” while suspending profile pages on social networks.

The operation is said to be receiving support from local anti-piracy groups including ANCINE (National Film Agency) and the National Council for the Fight Against Piracy (CNCP). Additionally, the US Embassy in Brazil, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the US Department of Justice have reportedly played roles.

While the early figures presented (136 websites and 100 applications suspended) were already significant, local media reports suggest that the number is increasing fairly rapidly.

Globo reports that 210 sites involved in the unlawful distribution of movies, TV shows and live TV have been targeted, in addition to the initial 100 apps that provide access to “illegal content streaming”.

Raids have been carried out in 12 states in Brazil and in six states, at least eight people have been arrested. Details include:

• Warrant executed against a 33-year-old for the unlicensed distribution of TV signals (no arrest)
• Warrant executed against an individual suspected of “stealing” a TV operator’s signals. Computer seized but no arrest
• A 63-year-old man was arrested in São Paulo under suspicion of operating a website that broadcast TV channels in return for a US$7.50 per month subscription fee

Penalties for operating piracy sites or services in Brazil can reach four years in prison, more if other criminal aspects such as money laundering are involved.

According to the Ministry of Justice, up to 20 million households in Brazil access pirated content via the Internet but many citizens are said to have a poor understanding of which services are legitimate and which ones are not.

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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This year the RIAA has discovered DMCA subpoenas as a useful enforcement tool against alleged pirate sites.

The music industry group has repeatedly obtained these subpoenas against Cloudflare, ordering the CDN provider to hand over the personal details of its customers.

The latest target is Wi.to, a file-hosting site that specializes in music. In fact, that’s the only content that can be shared on the platform. However, like any user-generated content platform, people abuse it by sharing pirated files as well.

This didn’t sit well with the RIAA which, armed with three URLs of infringing music as evidence, sent a subpoena to Cloudflare. The music group specifically asked for the physical address, IP address, e-mail address, payment information, account updates, and other info of the customer connected to Wi.to.

This is the same boilerplate language we’ve seen in similar requests that were made in the past, which Cloudflare generally complies with. While the RIAA doesn’t specify what it intends to do with the information, it will generally be used to enforce the copyrights of its members.

To hear the other side of the story we reached out to the operator of Wi.to, Sergey, who resides in Estonia. He was informed about the RIAA’s subpoena last week but doesn’t feel directly threatened.

“We are not criminals,” Sergey says.

“Wi.to is a service that makes it easy to publish music files DJs have created themselves. It’s true that the service is sometimes abused. But that’s something the users do. Also, services like Soundcloud or Dropbox are abused as well.”

Sergey says that, as an Estonian, the DMCA doesn’t apply to him, however, the site does process abuse complaints. In response to these notices, infringing files are regularly removed.

This is where things get interesting. The RIAA subpoena identifies three of these infringing music tracks. However, when we checked these URLs we found out that all three files are still online, including this Harleys in Hawaii track by Katy Perry.

According to Sergey, the RIAA never asked for these files to be removed.

“The RIAA hasn’t even contacted me and it looks to me like they’re acting arbitrarily. They deliberately want to get everything out of the way they can’t make money from,” Sergey tells us.

Wi.to’s operator believes that the RIAA is overreacting. If they see any infringing files they should file an abuse complaint instead of going to court to request personal details through a third party company, while keeping the infringing files unaddressed.

To Cloudflare, the RIAA wrote that any disclosed information will only be used to protect the copyrights of its members. However, sending an abuse complaint seems to be a more direct and effective way to do so.

Intriguingly, the RIAA has asked Google to remove these three URLs from its search engine. However, these requests were pointless, for now, as the tracks were not indexed by the search engine.

TorrentFreak reached out to the RIAA to find out what the purpose of the DMCA subpoenas is, but the organization prefers not to comment. Thus far, these efforts have had mixed results, but Wi.to isn’t planning to change its course.

As outsiders, we can’t judge how Wi.to processes its abuse complaints. We did notice, however, that the site has a “pendejo” link in the footer, pointing to the Narcos theme song by Rodrigo Amarante, without permission.

According to Sergey, this was a birthday present for one of his colleagues, which will be removed in due course or sooner, if an abuse notice comes in.

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A copy of RIAA’s subpoena to Cloudflare is available here (pdf).

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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