In order to control what kind of information its citizens have access to online, Russia operates an Internet ‘blacklist’.

Known locally as FGIS (Unified Register of Prohibited Information), the database contains the domains of thousands of sites containing anything from extremist material to pirated copies of movies and TV shows.

Major online technology platforms are expected to interface with FGIS to ensure they receive up-to-date information on which sites are forbidden in Russia. In the case of search engines, the database provides details on which sites should be removed from search results.

After failing to connect its systems to the FGIS and deindexing sites as required, last December Google was fined by Russian authorities. That was followed by threats from local telecoms watch Roscomnadzor early 2019 that the US-based company could be fined again for non-compliance, as well as facing a potential block itself.

In February 2019 it was reported that Google was finally playing ball and everything was running more smoothly. However, that appears not have been the case. According to an announcement published this week by Roscomnadzor, Google has been fined again.

“The company has not complied with the requirements of the law..[..]..by excluding from search results links to Internet resources with illegal information, access to which is restricted in Russia,” Roscomndazor said.

“The control event recorded that Google carries out selective filtering of search results – more than a third of the links from a single registry of prohibited information are still preserved in its search results.”

Explaining that Google has been told repeatedly of the legal requirements in Russia, the watchdog revealed that the fine handed down was 700,000 rubles – just US$11,098 – a drop in the ocean as far as Google is concerned.

Digital rights group Roscomsvoboda reports that in April 2019, Google had removed 80% of the specified banned content from its search results. However, data covering the period ending May, for which the fine was levied, showed that removal levels had fallen to 67.5%.

Last month, when Google learned that it was in line for another fine after a warning from Roscomnadzor, the company expressed surprise.

“We have not changed anything. A couple of months ago we agreed that we will not connect to the registry of banned sites and will not blindly delete anything, but consider requests to delete content, and where it meets the requirements, we remove content from the Russian service,” a spokesperson said.

“We do not understand why Roscomnadzor is talking about a new case or where they get these figures from.”

Whether Google will eventually connect to the FGIS isn’t clear. It currently receives a daily list of sites to be blocked and acts on those as it sees fit. Only time will tell whether that will be enough for Roscomndazor moving forward.

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

Source link

Every day, millions of Internet users obtain movies, music, TV shows, and other content from peer-to-peer networks, mainly BitTorrent.

The only ways to reach these users to stop or correct their behavior is via aggressive and controversial lawsuits or infringement notifications sent via ISPs. Both options are unpopular with pirates but the latter is clearly the softer option, especially when that allows rightsholders to turn a negative into a plus.

In 2014, rightsholders and several ISPs in the UK agreed terms on what would be known as VCAP – the Voluntary Copyright Alert Program.

Entertainment companies, for their part, would monitor file-sharing networks for infringement, logging pirates’ IP addresses as they went. These would be tracked back to ISPs who agreed to forward warning emails to subscriber accounts linked to the alleged piracy, without compromising customers’ privacy.

As part of the broader government-funded Creative Content UK (CCUK) initiative, the notices would be firm in tone but would also direct alleged pirates to a portal where they could learn more about why they had received the notice and where legitimate content could be obtained.

The accompanying educational program was expected to launch in the summer of 2015 but there was little immediate fanfare. By December that year, things did get on the move but a year later, no notices had yet been sent out by participating ISPs – BT, Virgin Media, Sky, and TalkTalk.

A month or so later, that position changed with an announcement that notices were imminent. Soon after, the first news of notices appearing in the wild began to emerge online. However, official updates on the number of notices being sent out failed to emerge, so it was difficult to report on the effectiveness or otherwise of the scheme.

Nevertheless, in December 2018 the government committed a further £2 million (on top of its original £3.5m investment) to the “Get it Right” anti-piracy campaign, as it had became known. The calculation was that increased sales as a result of reduced piracy would bring in additional taxes.

Like the rest of the data connected to the progress of the scheme, additional sales tax figures have not been made public. However, in February 2019 there was a breakthrough of sorts.

During an anti-piracy conference in France, a director of music group BPI quietly revealed that roughly a million notices had been sent out since the launch of the program. Since the beginning of the entire campaign, piracy had apparently dropped by 26%.

How much of that claimed decrease can be attributed to the wider campaign or the infringement notices specifically still isn’t known. However, TorrentFreak can today confirm that VCAP, the Voluntary Copyright Alert Program, has come to an end.

After receiving independent information from two sources this week, we approached the coordinators of the program for official confirmation, which was provided by CCUK last night.

“Having encouraged increased awareness of the value of genuine content and of its many legally available sources, in turn resulting in reduced infringing behavior, the Get it Right campaign is now moving to its next phase,” a spokesperson for the CCUK Get it Right education campaign told TF.

“The educational emails sent by ISPs upon detection of infringing file-sharing activity have served their purpose and are ceasing, with the focus instead increasing the broader engagement with fans based around their passion for music, TV, film and all other kinds of creative content.”

TorrentFreak is informed that during the notice sending stage, ISPs sent most notifications on behalf of the MPA, with the BPI trailing quite a way behind. That would make sense since much of the infringing content shared using BitTorrent is movies and TV shows. Music is still shared via the protocol but consumer habits have changed significantly since the program began and there are now more convenient options for consumers.

The decision to terminate the notification program was taken several months ago and information suggests that there was no requirement for ISPs to send out additional notices starting July 2019 after CCUK terminated the agreement.

We understand that a new phase of the Get it Right campaign is set to begin shortly so when we have more information from official sources, we’ll provide an update. In the meantime, we’re informed by third-party sources that the future focus will be on broader advertising and social media campaigns.

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

Source link

Those familiar with the copyright-trolling landscape against alleged file-sharers in the UK will be familiar with the names Golden Eye (International) and Mircom.

The companies have a track record of targeting Internet subscribers in the UK (1,2,3,4) with demands for cash settlements to make supposed (but non-existent) court cases disappear.

The companies have been quiet for years but back in February attempted to resurrect their pay-up-or-else scheme at the High Court. Neither firm was presented as copyright holders in their Norwich Pharmacal order application. Instead, they aimed to represent 16 pornographic movie company partners.

The crux of the application was that ISP Virgin Media should disclose the subscriber details behind allegedly-infringing IP addresses said to have downloaded the pornographic movies. The number of addresses isn’t clear but the claim that “no more than 5000 IP addresses per fortnight” would be requested from Virgin Media (and no more than 500 letters per week would be sent to subscribers) hints at the scale.

A High Court judgment published Wednesday reveals that Virgin Media put up a considerable fight to have the order denied, which is quite a novelty considering how compliant some ISPs have been in the face of similar cases.

Douglas Campbell QC, sitting as High Court Judge, indicated that Virgin’s submissions had been very useful since the points raised by the company would probably have been raised by the subscribers, had they been a party to the proceedings.

The judgment traverses a complex web of privacy and data protection matters, including those related to the GDPR. While important considerations, little of that appears to have mattered. Ultimately, it’s evidence that the companies simply failed to get their acts together.

Submissions by Virgin pointed out that evidence presented by Mr Becker (Golden Eye) and Mr Hoffman (Mircom) fell short, to say the least. To begin, the IP address list (crucial for the application to proceed) hadn’t been presented as evidence in the application.

“Mr Hoffmann’s witness statement is dated 26th February 2018,” the Judge responded.

“In paragraph 1 he explains that Mircom seeks disclosure ‘of the names and addresses of the subscribers associated with the IP addresses listed in a spreadsheet attached as Exhibit 1’. But there was no Exhibit 1.”

A terrible start. But there were further problems too.

“In a witness statement dated 26 June 2018, Mr Wagner [solicitor for the applicants] purported to exhibit a spreadsheet marked ‘MWH1’, described as a spreadsheet setting out the IP addresses of subscribers for the period 27 February to the dates shown on the spreadsheet,” the Judge continued.

“This cannot be the same as Mr Hoffmann’s own intended Exhibit 1 since it post-dates Mr Hoffmann’s witness statement. Further this exhibit does not even set out any IP addresses, merely information including an ‘infringement ID’ which appears to be date-related.

“In any event even exhibit MWH1 is not what is sought. Mircom actually seeks the names and addresses of a spreadsheet which was sent to Virgin by email on 7 June 2019. This spreadsheet is not in evidence, nor is there any explanation of how it was produced.”

Claims by Golden Eye and Mircom that these were just “technical” issues were dismissed by the Judge, who explained the errors and omissions as “fundamental”.

Evidence provided by the applicants’ supposed “experts” was lacking too. Mircom relied on an expert technical report by a Dr Sarre which supported the claimed effectiveness of infringement tracking software called “FileWatchBT. That report was reportedly “commissioned by telephone” on April 1, 2010.

“I do not accept that I should simply assume that a 9 year old expert report remains up to date, particularly one given in the field of computer software,” the Judge commented, noting that the report also lacked the required “statement of truth” to comply with civil procedure rules.

There were also problems with Fieser’s statement, not least the claim that the software was used to identify the infringements in Exhibit 1, which of course wasn’t presented in evidence.

According to the Judge, the evidence relied upon by Golden Eye, provided by a Mr Paige, was somehow “even worse”. It certainly reads that way.

“There is no statement of truth; no clarity as to what his instructions were; his evidence refers to static IP addresses, not dynamic ones; and his evidence appears to relate to a software program called ‘Observer’,” the Judge complained.

“Yet Mr Fieser gave a statement (also unsupported by a Statement of Truth) dated 1st December 2017 in which he seemed to think the software mentioned in Mr Paige’s report was called ‘International IP Tracker’.

“Virgin also drew my attention (without comment by the Applicants) to evidence from Ms Griffin, Senior Legal Counsel of Virgin, suggesting that Mr Paige was a former detective who was arrested and dismissed after receiving a controlled substance.”

In response to these shortcomings, Golden Eye and Mircom requested permission to replace their ‘expert’ evidence. Douglas Campbell QC denied the request, noting that the defects were “fundamental”.

At this point it’s clear that the application for disclosure was already in disarray but the Judge still took time to address other points that will be of interest to readers, not least the claim by Virgin Media that the applicants were part of a “money-making scheme” or “shakedown”.

The Judge said that in order to satisfy himself that the application was genuine, he’d need to know more about how IP addresses (obtained by Golden Eye and Mircom as a result of their earlier claims) had actually been used.

It transpires that following an earlier application, Mircom wrote to 749 people demanding settlement. Just 76 admitted fault, 15 settled without admitting liability, and zero cases were taken to court. That raised questions about what happened to the tens of thousands of subscribers identified following previous orders and what their responses had been.

“This is not something which the Applicants’ current evidence addresses, nor is it information which they have offered to supply, hence this is a further reason why I refuse the applications sought,” the Judge added.

The full judgment is available here.

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

Source link

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Hellboy 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	(3)	Hellboy	5.3 / trailer
2	(2)	Alita: Battle Angel	7.5 / trailer
3	(1)	Shazam!	7.3 / trailer
4	(…)	Lying and Stealing	4.9 / trailer
5	(…)	Point Blank	5.7 / trailer
6	(4)	Shaft	6.4 / trailer
7	(6)	Dumbo	6.5 / trailer
8	(…)	Missing link	6.4 / trailer
9	(7)	Captain Marvel	7.1 / trailer
10	(8)	Escape Plan: The Extractors	4.5 / trailer

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

Source link

Popular CDN and DDoS protection service Cloudflare has come under a lot of pressure from copyright holders in recent years.

The company offers its services to millions of sites, including some of the world’s leading pirate sites.

Many rightsholders are not happy with this. They accuse Cloudflare of facilitating copyright infringement by continuing to provide access to these platforms. At the same time, they call out the CDN service for masking the true hosting locations of these ‘bad actors’.

Cloudflare’s activities have also triggered some lawsuits. Just last week, we reported that an Italian court ordered the company to terminate the accounts of several pirate sites. In the U.S. there’s an ongoing copyright infringement case as well, which brought more bad news for the company a few days ago.

The case in question wasn’t filed by any of the major entertainment industry players, but by two manufacturers and wholesalers of wedding dresses. Not a typical “piracy” lawsuit, but it’s a copyright case that could have broad effects.

In a complaint filed at a federal court in California last year, Mon Cheri Bridals and Maggie Sottero Designs argued that even after multiple warnings, Cloudflare fails to terminate sites operated by counterfeit vendors. This makes Cloudflare liable for the associated copyright infringements, they said.

Cloudflare responded to the allegations and in April it filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. The company said that the rightsholders failed to state a proper claim, as the takedown notices were not proof of infringement, among other things. In addition, the notices were not formatted properly. 

“Plaintiffs characterize their notifications as ‘credible’ without stating any facts that demonstrate their credibility. In any event, defective notifications, like those the plaintiffs sent to Cloudflare, cannot support any claim of actual knowledge,” Cloudflare argued.

According to Cloudflare, the notifications “may or may not be true”. Without a court determining whether they are accurate or not, the company says they don’t “convey actual knowledge of infringement.” As such, the company doesn’t believe it can be held liable.

District Judge Vince Chhabria disagrees, however. In an order signed a few days ago he denies the motion to dismiss. According to the Judge, the allegations and claims made by the wedding dress manufacturers are sufficient at this stage of the case.

“Cloudflare’s main argument – that contributory liability cannot be based on a defendant’s knowledge of infringing conduct and continued material contribution to it – is wrong,” Judge Chhabria writes.

“Allegations that Cloudflare knew its customer-websites displayed infringing material and continued to provide those websites with faster load times and concealed identities are sufficient to state a claim,” he adds.

Cloudflare also pointed out other deficiencies in the notices, and stressed that it’s not a hosting provider, but these comments were countered too. At this stage of the case, it’s enough to show that Cloudflare was aware of the alleged infringements, the Court notes.

“The notices allegedly sent by the plaintiffs gave Cloudflare specific information, including a link to the offending website and a link to the underlying copyrighted material, to plausibly allege that Cloudflare had actual knowledge of the infringing activity,” Judge Chhabria writes.

The denial of Cloudflare’s motion to dismiss means that the case will move forward. While the case has nothing to do with traditional pirate sites, any rulings could spill over, which means that other copyright holders will watch this case closely.

Mon Cheri Bridals and Maggie Sottero ultimately hope to recoup damages for the losses they’ve suffered as well preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to stop all infringing activity.

Cloudflare, for its part, will argue that it’s not actively participating in any infringing activity and that it merely has a role as a third-party intermediary, which is not liable for the alleged infringing activities of its customers.

—

A copy of District Judge Vince Chhabria’s order 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.

Source link