TorrentFreak

The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

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  • Police Arrest Fugitive Suspect in Kino.to Piracy Ring

    This summer raids and arrests in several European countries took out several prominent websites. Aside from the main target, movie streaming links portal Kino.to, the raids also affected several file-hosting sites including Duckload.com. Initially one person escaped the wrath of the police, but the authorities now report that after a five-month search they have arrested the fugitive, who they claim was also connected to two of the Kino.to replacements that sprung up recently.

  • Internet Doomsday: Wrongs and Rights of Copyright Fortune Telling

    As the war of words over PROTECT IP and SOPA ignites the Internet, the MPAA has issued a reminder that “opponents” of past copyright laws have been wrong before. But while some fears over 1998′s DMCA and 2005′s Grokster ruling didn’t come to pass, some things are absolutely guaranteed. If the entertainment industries don’t get their way – or even if they do – they’ll be back for more. Again and again.

  • Injured Movie Pirate Drops Lawsuit Against MPAA

    Earlier this year convicted movie cammer Timothy Epifan filed a lawsuit against Somerset County police and the MPAA for arresting him with deadly force and breaking his leg. The case is still ongoing, but Epifan has struck a deal with the Hollywood group meaning that the MPAA has been dropped from the lawsuit.

  • Major Usenet Provider Shuts Down Following Court Order

    News-Service.com, one of the leading Usenet providers with many prominent resellers, has terminated its services with immediate effect. The shutdown is the direct and unavoidable outcome of a two-year battle with Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN, which was eventually decided against the Usenet provider. News-Service announced that it will appeal the decision “out of principle” as it threatens the entire 30-year-old Usenet community.

  • BPI and MPA Demand UK Pirate Bay Blockade

    Following the High Court ruling ordering UK ISP BT to block Usenet indexing site Newzbin2, it was only a matter of time before that momentum was capitalized upon by the movie and music industries. Today a coalition of companies led by the BPI demanded that BT also block The Pirate Bay, either voluntarily or by consenting to a court order.

  • Piracy is NOT Theft: Problems of a Nonsense Metaphor

    When talking about piracy the entertainment industry and politicians often use the term “theft.” This is a huge problem according to the Swedish sociologist of law Stefan Larsson. In his thesis “Metaphors and Norms – Understanding Copyright Law in a Digital Society,” he explains that these metaphors are in part keeping the wide gap between people’s norms and the law intact.

  • Newzbin2: BT Have Started To Censor Us

    UK Internet service provider BT didn’t need the flexibility of a full 14 days to begin their censorship of Usenet indexing site Newzbin2. According to an administrator at the site the court-ordered blockade has already begun, with subscribers to the ISP getting an “Error – site blocked” message when they try to access.

  • Piracy May Boost Sales, Judge Concludes

    A Spanish judge came to an interesting conclusion in a case dealing with a seller of pirated copies. According to the judge the defendant doesn’t have to pay compensation to the rightsholders because it is not possible to determine to what extent piracy actually decreases sales. On the contrary, the judge suggests that piracy may even boost sales.

  • Video: Judge Savagely Beats His Daughter For Illegal Downloads

    Downloading copyright material without the permission of rightsholders is often portrayed as a heinous crime and treated as such by many judges across the United States. But what is an appropriate punishment for this apparently increasingly wicked act? Multi-million dollar fines? Jail? For one sixteen year-old girl using file-sharing software KaZaA, it was a savage beating, delivered by the leather belt of her father, Judge William Adams. And it was all caught on camera.

  • MPAA Lashes Out Against Rogue Cyberlockers

    An internal MPAA fact-sheet obtained by TorrentFreak shows that the movie industry is preparing a full-frontal attack on the business model of what they call “rogue cyberlockers”. The document summarizes how these file-hosting sites offer affiliates cash in return for signing up new premium members. According to the MPAA these practices facilitate mass-copyright infringement.

  • Guilty Verdict in Record-Breaking Swedish File-Sharing Case

    A guilty verdict has been handed down in Sweden’s largest-ever personal file-sharing trial. The 58-year-old female defendant avoided a jail sentence for sharing more than 45,000 songs online but now faces probation, a fine equivalent to 50 days pay, plus the costs of her defense. Pirate Party leader Anna Troberg described the verdict as “tragic”.

  • Major Book Publisher Files Mass-BitTorrent Lawsuit

    John Wiley and Sons, one of the world’s largest book publishers, have sued 27 BitTorrent users at a federal court in New York. The publisher claims that the defendants have shared copies of its “For Dummies” books without permission, and demands compensation. After several movie studios started filing lawsuits against BitTorrent users last year, Wiley is the first book publisher to take this kind of action.

  • After Newzbin2 Win, MPA Takes Down Another Usenet Service

    Although the ink is barely dry on the order forcing ISP BT to block the Newzbin2 Usenet indexing site, the MPA isn’t wasting its momentum. Through its UK proxy the Federation Against Copyright Theft, Hollywood has taken another Usenet indexing site offline, and for its owner the situation doesn’t look good.

  • Macropathy vs. The Swarm

    The current fight between the old and the new — characterized by file sharing, the Arabian Spring, the Occupy swarm, the success of the Pirate Parties, etc — goes way beyond a few laws on the surface. It goes right down to the heart of our views on what kind of society we desire.

  • The Death Of Anti-Piracy Companies And Copyright Trolls

    The potential effects of both PROTECT IP and the E-PARASITES legislations have been the subject of intense speculation in recent times. One side insists they will damage piracy and little else, opponents say they will only succeed in killing the Internet. But there are other potential casualties in all this – the poor anti-piracy companies and their copyright troll allies.

  • Busted Pirate Movie Site Primed For Grand 1.5 Million Euro Rebirth

    An illicit streaming movie site that was busted during a massive anti-piracy operation earlier this year is set to surprise Hollywood with a grand comeback. Following the huge police operation to shutdown Kino.to, an agreement was reached to put the site into the hands of new owners. The secret deal, worth a cool 1.5 million euros, is in its final stages.

  • ISP Boss Brands Copyright Trolls “Scum”, Vows To Stop Them

    The chief executive of a leading Australian ISP says his company will almost certainly invest a huge sum of money to stop their customers being targeted by so-called copyright trolls. John Linton of Exetel has branded those attempting to blackmail his subscribers as “scum” and says that his company would almost certainly make changes to their systems to bring the trolls’ activities to an end.

  • MPAA Lists “Notorious” Pirate Sites To U.S. Government

    The MPAA has submitted a new list of “notorious websites” to the Office of the US Trade Representative, sites that are all in danger of becoming the target of planned U.S. legislation. The list contains the most-visited torrent sites including The Pirate Bay, file-hosting and linking sites such as MegaUpload, and Russia’s Facebook equivalent, VKontakte. Interestingly, file-hosting service RapidShare is absent from the filing.

  • BitTorrent and Netflix Dominate America’s Internet Traffic

    New data published by the Canadian broadband management company Sandvine reveals that on the average day Netflix and BitTorrent are responsible for 40 percent of all Internet traffic in North America. During peak hours Netflix accounts for a third of all download traffic, while BitTorrent is credited for nearly half of all upload traffic during the busiest time of the day.

  • Two More NinjaVideo Admins Plead Guilty

    Two more staffers from the now-defunct NinjaVideo streaming movie portal have pleaded guilty for their roles in helping to the run the site. Ninja’s uploader supervisor and the site’s so-called “head of security” both face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. An arrest warrant for a key uploader located in Greece has also been issued.

  • Finnish ISP Ordered To Block The Pirate Bay

    The Helsinki District Court has ordered the Finnish ISP Elisa to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay. The ISP has to block the domain names and IP-addresses of the world’s most-visited torrent site before the end of next month or face a 100,000 euro fine. Elisa described the court order as vague and ineffective, and has announced that it will appeal the decision.

  • UK ISP BT Given 14 Days To Block Newzbin2

    Following a High Court ruling in July, UK Internet service provider BT now has just 14 days to carry out a full subscriber access block of Usenet indexing site Newzbin2. While the ruling will be seen as a victory for the major Hollywood studios behind the action, BT will have to pick up the bill for enforcing the block. The blocking order is flexible in order to reduce the effect of any countermeasures employed by Newzbin2.

  • Pirate Bay Founders “Should Be Denied” Supreme Court Hearing

    Sweden’s Prosecutor General believes that the founders of The Pirate Bay have already had enough opportunities to prove their innocence. The defendants want to take their case all the way to the Supreme Court but the Prosecutor says that there is no reason to prolong proceedings. Site co-founder Peter Sunde tells TorrentFreak there are still complex issues to be dealt with and that the Supreme Court is the perfect venue.

  • Exposed Copyright Trolls Dump Mass-BitTorrent Lawsuits

    A few weeks ago TorrentFreak unraveled a tangled web of copyright trolls who had sued hundreds of BitTorrent users under the name MCGIP. The article revealed the tight connections between the various parties involved in the scheme and the mistakes they made. Interestingly enough, soon after these findings were published MCGIP dropped their lawsuits for reasons unknown.

  • Married BitTorrent Admins Charged in Billion Dollar Piracy Case

    After anti-piracy investigators somehow managed to obtain a full copy of their site logs several years ago, a married couple behind the now defunct Interfilm BitTorrent tracker have finally been charged for their role in running the site. The Moscow pair face claims they cost movie companies a staggering $1.25 billion. Fines and possible jail sentences of up to six years await them.

  • Government Concludes Investigation Following Anti-Piracy Data Breach

    The French authority responsible for ensuring that data privacy law is applied to the handling of personal data has concluded its investigation into anti-piracy company Trident Media Guard. Earlier this year vulnerabilities caused TMG’s site to leak private data linked to the country’s Hadopi “3 strikes” operations. But while the anti-piracy outfit has now been given a clean bill of health, the spotlight has now fallen on rightsholders.

  • Piracy and Copyright Challenges in 1841 Mirror Those of Today

    Technology has come a long way since 1841, but the copyright debate at the time was strikingly similar to what we’re witnessing today. 170 years ago a new copyright bill was being discussed in the United Kingdom, one that would extend the rights of book authors to sixty years after their death. While some favored the plan, some feared that this lengthy “copyright monopoly” would only succeed in increasing piracy,

  • Watch Out MAFIAA, Antibiotics Don’t Work On Viral Pirates

    PROTECT-IP, the Digital Economy Act, site blocking, domain seizures and 3 strikes regimes. The list of techniques used to thwart online file-sharing seems to grow every month. But how effective are they really? The overuse of these anti-piracy medications is breeding new strains of powerful file-sharers, resistant to even the most powerful of digital antibiotics.

  • German Pirate Party Riding the Wave of Success

    This week the German Pirate Party reached an impressive milestone as it hit double digits in the polls for the national elections. With one in ten Germans embracing the ideas of the young party, the Pirates are on course to gain serious influence in one of the world’s major political arenas.

  • The Pirate Bay Users Long for Anonymity

    New data from the largest ever survey among file-sharers shows that the majority of users on The Pirate Bay value their anonymity online, but only a relatively small group take measures to guarantee their privacy. The use of VPNs and proxies is most common among North American and African users, while people from Central and South America care the least about appearing anonymous online.

  • BitTorrent Throttling Internet Providers Exposed

    Data published by the Google-backed Measurement Lab gives a unique insight into the BitTorrent throttling practices of ISPs all over the world. It reveals that Comcast was slowing down nearly half of all BitTorrent traffic in the U.S. early 2008, but only 3% last year. In Canada, Rogers has the worst track record as it systematically throttles more than three-quarters of all BitTorrent traffic.

  • Security Flaw Links BitTorrent Users to Skype Accounts

    Researchers have uncovered a major security flaw which allows outsiders to link a Skype account to a user’s download activity on BitTorrent. The exploit works without the knowledge of the victims and also allows outsiders to see the travel patterns of Skype users. The vulnerability opens the door for scammers to blackmail or defraud Internet users, the researchers say, and thus far Skype has shown no interest in releasing a fix.

  • Free Justin Bieber! (Why Streaming Shouldn’t be a Felony)

    U.S. authorities have demanded the extradition of Justin Bieber, the Canadian singer who turned blatant copyright infringements into a profitable career. The teen star is accused of streaming unauthorized songs to millions of people without compensating the copyright holders and now faces a 5 year prison sentence.

  • ‘Copyright Trolls’ Unite to Prevent Downfall of BitTorrent Lawsuits

    A pivotal case that could mean the end of many mass-BitTorrent lawsuits is currently ongoing in a Virginia federal court. Labeling the pay-up-or-else scheme as a “shake down,” the judge wants to know why he should allow copyright holders to massively coerce people into paying huge cash settlements. Realizing the importance of the case, a fellow anti-piracy law firm has now joined in to protect its livelihood.

  • TVShack Admin Eyes Court Hearing After US Extradition Blow

    A judicial review of the extradition arrangements between the United States and United Kingdom has concluded that the procedures are not biased in favor of the United States. The announcement is not only bad news for alleged Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon but also for Richard O’Dywer, the former operator of the TVShack linking website. He is now pinning his hopes on a November court hearing.

  • Google Boots FrostWire From Android Market, But Why?

    Without any explanation Google has suspended the FrostWire file-sharing application from the Android market. The timing of the removal is both remarkable and unfortunate. Google’s decision follows the news that FrostWire had settled its dispute with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over privacy concerns.

  • File-Sharing Admins Jailed For Linking To Copyright Works

    The administrators of two file-sharing sites have been sentenced to fines and a year in jail for linking to copyright works. Breaking a long run of operators being acquitted for similar activities, a Spanish court decided that the act of linking constituted a for-profit “public communication”. The lawyer for one of the defendants has denounced the decision, saying that it can only be understood in “political terms”.

  • Google-Backed File-Sharing Empire Cancels NASDAQ IPO

    With more than 2 billion page views a month and nearly 300 million active users of its BitTorrent-powered download client, Xunlei is without doubt the largest player in the file-sharing space. In an attempt to capitalize on this position the Chinese company, which is partly owned by Google, set its sights on a NASDAQ listing. However, due to copyright concerns and economic headwinds, this plan has now been canceled.

  • Record-Breaking File-Sharing Trial Heard in Sweden

    Today, a court in Sweden has heard the case against a woman accused of sharing 45,000 music tracks online. Even in the home of The Pirate Bay the sheer scale is a record-breaker, and the prosecution has already hinted at a jail sentence. The defense, however, will be hoping for a much better outcome. Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge was there to see it all.

  • DRM Needs To Be Banned Because It’s Toxic

    With the European Greens’ adoption of the Pirate perspective on the copyright monopoly, I have received a few questions from entrepreneurs, the copyright industry lobby, and libertarians why we want to ban Digital Restrictions Management. It’s a good question that deserves a good answer.

  • Anti-Piracy Outfit Tries to Erase History

    Anti-piracy outfit AiPlex Software made the news last year when their boss was quoted in the press admitting that his company launched DDoS attacks against several torrent sites. This confession resulted in an avalanche of negative PR and several retributive attacks from Anonymous. Today, a year later, AiPlex are attempting to erase these events from history by asking bloggers to take down their reports.

  • High Court “Reserves Judgment” at Newzbin2 Blocking Hearing

    The parties were back in the High Court Friday in the continuing case of the MPA against UK ISP BT. The latter was previously ordered to block subscriber access to Usenet indexing site Newzbin2 on copyright infringement grounds, but yesterday an objection by a Newzbin2 and BT user was added into the mix. Question is, what effect will it have?

  • Jail Sentence for Pirate Bay Co-Founder Made Final

    The Stockholm District Court sentence against Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm was finalized today after he failed to appear at the Court of Appeal. Svartholm, also known as Anakata online, did not appear at the appeal trial last year because he was hospitalized in Cambodia and later went missing. The Court of Appeal has now decided to finalize the initial verdict of one year jail time and a fine of $1.1 million.

  • Newzbin2 User “Bullied” By Hollywood After High Court Blocking Challenge

    Today, UK ISP BT and representatives from the MPA will appear at the High Court to thrash out the final stage of the ground-breaking web-blocking case against Newzbin2. But in a surprise last-minute move, a David and Goliath battle seems to be on the cards. A Newzbin2 user has stepped up to defend his site by intervening in the blocking process, and is reportedly already being bullied by his Hollywood opponents with threats of bankruptcy.

  • Scammers Try To Trick Cash From Surprised ‘File-Sharers’

    With hundreds of thousands of warnings already sent out, chances are that soon most French Internet users will know someone who has received one. Unsurprisingly, scammers are now riding the wave of publicity and uncertainty by sending out fake Hadopi emails which trick users into requesting more information about their ‘infringements’ which cost them money.

  • Undercover Cops and Politicians Escape BitTorrent Lawsuits

    Court papers filed in one of the mass-lawsuits against BitTorrent users reveal some interesting facts. In an attempt to justify suing dozens of people at once, the attorney claims that this is a practical issue. Apparently the copyright holder has decided to throw out a lot of cases, because the defendants have died, are political or public figures, employed by the army, or part of a covert police operation.

  • Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of All Time

    Netflix recently published a list of the ten most rented movies of all time. This got us thinking; what are the most downloaded movies on BitTorrent? Today we present the full chart of the top ten most pirated movies transferred via the now ubiquitous protocol, a list headed by Avatar.

  • Media Chiefs Want BitTorrent Removed From Home Entertainment Player

    Leading figures in the music and movie industries have rallied against the manufacturer of a home entertainment hub. The Freebox server-based system from a French ISP provides Blu-Ray, games and home network playback of media, but the included torrent client has drawn the ire of music and movie bosses, who are now demanding that the feature is removed.

  • “Going BitTorrent” Settles FrostWire’s FTC Charges

    The popular file-sharing application FrostWire has settled its dispute with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC accused FrostWire of disregarding the privacy of its users, by not making it clear enough that their files are publicly shared when downloads are finished. By turning FrostWire into a BitTorrent-only client the company was able to swiftly settle the charges and avoid a lengthy court battle.

  • Anti-Piracy Company Pirates Deus Ex in Controversial Experiment

    A young anti-piracy outfit say they conducted a most unusual experiment a few weeks ago. According to the founder of Vigilant Defender, the company took a leaked copy of Deus Ex Human Revolution, modified its code and re-uploaded it to torrent sites. Users downloading the copy got to enjoy the first few levels of the game but were then thrown into a controversial experiment.

  • Patent Violation Lawsuit Against BitTorrent / uTorrent Dropped

    Millions of BitTorrent users can breathe a sigh of relief today. The patent lawsuit against BitTorrent Inc., the makers of uTorrent and the BitTorrent Mainline client, has been dropped. Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network voluntarily dismissed the case against BitTorrent Inc., which it orginally accused of violating a file-sharing related patent.

  • Dramatic Footage Shows Raid on Pirates Blamed For Hollywood Movie Boycott

    A release group blamed for a Hollywood boycott of all early release movies in Hungary has been raided by the authorities. Dramatic footage shows armed and masked police raiding home addresses and a datacenter said to be connected to CiNEDUB, a release group which provided worldwide high-profile cam releases. Hidden panels for hard drives, a shotgun, evidence of cocaine use and piles of money complete the Hollywood-style video.

  • Music Copyright Police Ruin Artists’ Gigs (and Coconut Curry)

    This year alone more than 50 small restaurants, pubs and bars have been sued by the U.S. royalty collectors agency BMI for playing (live) music without a license. Many more received friendly visits from BMI lawyers urging them to pay their copyright dues, or else. This backward situation does not only affect the owners of these establishments, artists are losing gigs as well because of these public performance license shakedowns.

  • Eureka! Ditching DRM Decreases Piracy

    A new paper to be published in the upcoming issue of Marketing Science shows that removing DRM from music leads to a decrease in piracy. Or phrased differently, DRM appears to be an incentive for people to pirate music instead of buying it. The researchers from Rice and Duke University used analytical modelling to come to this seemingly common sense conclusion.

  • Which VPN Service Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously?

    Last month it became apparent that not all VPN providers live up to their marketing after an alleged member of Lulzsec was tracked down after using a supposedly anonymous service from HideMyAss. We wanted to know which VPN providers take privacy extremely seriously so we asked many of the leading providers two very straightforward questions. Their responses will be of interest to anyone concerned with anonymity issues.

  • European Greens Want to Legalize File-Sharing, Ban DRM

    The European Greens have released a landmark position paper that should guide their policies on copyright in the digital era. The overall theme is a reduction of the copyright monopoly to the benefit of consumers. Among other things the Greens want to legalize file-sharing for personal use, ban DRM entirely and restrict the copyright term to five years.

  • RapidShare Fights for “The Cloud” in Washington

    It’s common knowledge that the entertainment industry is lobbying extensively in Washington to get tougher copyright laws adopted. In a counter-move the file-hosting company RapidShare has hired lobbyists of its own. TorrentFreak got a chance to talk to RapidShare’s general counsel Daniel Raimer, to find out what their main motives are and how open Washington is to their message.

  • VPN Providers Mull ‘Fraudster’ Database In Wake of Lulzec Fiasco

    Last month it became clear that an alleged Lulzsec member who had carried out attacks on various organizations including Sony and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, had used an ‘anonymous’ VPN service supplied by HideMyAss. According to documents obtained by TorrentFreak, VPN providers worried by the bad publicity are now considering data sharing to combat ‘fraudsters’.

  • The Pirate Bay Adds Domain to Bypass Court Order

    Showing how futile Internet censorship can be, The Pirate Bay has registered a new domain name to allow Belgian users to access the site and bypass a recent court order. For just a few dollars, The Pirate Bay should now be fully accessible in the future, and the site has already started redirecting Belgian users to their new home.

  • Newzbin2 Team Up With The Pirate Bay To Defeat Site Blocking

    Usenet indexing site Newzbin2, who are no strangers to the issue of court-ordered website blocking, have made an interesting addition to the software tool they released last month. From today their anti-censorship client now includes a feature to bypass DNS blocking not only on Newzbin2, but on the world’s most famous torrent site, The Pirate Bay.

  • Digital Monopolies A Bigger Threat Than Piracy, Says Miramax CEO

    Miramax CEO Mike Lang and Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos gave a keynote talk at the MIPCOM conference. The two discussed the challenges they face in the continuously changing digital world. Both agreed that piracy is not much of an issue as long as you give consumers what they want. Digital monopolies, such as Apple’s dominance in the music industry, are a far bigger threat.

  • Belgian ISPs Ordered To Block The Pirate Bay

    A court has overturned a 2010 ruling which said that blocking The Pirate Bay at the ISP level was “disproportionate”. The Antwerp Court of Appeal sided with the Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation in their quest to force two ISPs to block subscriber access to the world’s most famous torrent site. Belgacom and Telenet must now implement a DNS blockade of the site within 14 days or face fines.

  • Private Anti-Piracy Investigator Spills The Beans

    All around the world Hollywood is influencing politics and law enforcement, mainly through local anti-piracy groups. Aside from lobbying, they also employ private investigators to track down and bust copyright infringers. Today, one of them spills the beans. Gavin “Tex” Warren reveals how he was instructed to boost statistics, link piracy to drug trafficking, and manipulate the police in order to secure more interest for the war on piracy.

  • Return Of The High Court And Low Court

    If we have learned anything from the wars over the copyright monopoly, it is that the high court and low court have returned. Being equal before the law is a key cornerstone of our society that people don’t even pretend is reality anymore.

  • Music Royalty Collectors Accused of Copyfraud

    German music royalty collecting agency GEMA has once again stepped up to enforce their strict copyright regime. But this time they picked the wrong target. The group mistakenly demanded money from the nonprofit organization Musikpiraten for publishing five Creative Commons licensed tracks. Musikpiraten is baffled by the false claim and is considering filing a complaint for copyfraud.

  • Politician Violates His Own Two-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan

    A few days ago Siegfried Kauder, Chairman of the Legal Committee of the German Parliament, announced a plan to introduce a two-strikes model for persistent pirates. After two warnings, Internet users would lose their Internet access to protect the interests of copyright holders. However, it now turns out that the politician himself might be the first to be disconnected as his website features copyrighted photos that were lifted without permission.

  • Mass BitTorrent Lawsuits Set To Plague Australia

    After reaching more than 3.6 million targeted individuals in Germany, in excess of 200,000 in the United States and having planted the seeds of further extortion-like activities in Canada, Australia is the next target for the file-sharing settlement lawyers. According to a report from one of the country’s leading ISPs, thousands of Australians will soon be receiving pay-up-or-else letters for allegedly sharing movies using BitTorrent.

  • Record-Breaking BitTorrent Lawsuit Decimated

    Voltage Pictures, the makers of The Hurt Locker, have voluntarily dismissed around 90% of the defendants from their record-breaking lawsuit against alleged file-sharers. More than 2,300 Does remain in the suit and are currently unidentified, but several others have now been named. Read on to find out which IP addresses remain in, which are out, and who has been named.

  • Major Usenet Provider Ordered to Remove All Infringing Content

    Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has won its landmark court case against News-Service.com, one of the leading Usenet providers. The Amsterdam court ruled that the Usenet provider, which offers its network to Binverse and Usenext among others, has to delete all infringing content from its servers. This decision is similar to the one that effectively shut down the BitTorrent site Mininova, and it could mean the end of one of the leading providers of Usenet access.

  • TalkTalk’s P2P Throttling Kills OnLive Games

    The popular cloud gaming service OnLive has been active in the U.S. for more than a year, and last week it launched in the U.K. OnLive works by rendering and storing games on remote servers, which are then streamed to users’ computers or TVs. It appears though, that not all ISPs were prepared for the launch as P2P throttling systems also make it impossible to play OnLive games.

  • NHL’s Montreal Canadiens Accused of Pirating The Hurt Locker

    Last month it became clear that having developed their pay-up-or-else file-sharing settlement scheme in the United States, the makers of the Hurt Locker had moved north. In their new phase of targeting Canadian IP addresses for cash settlements, Voltage Pictures have included an interesting target in their latest batch – the Montreal Canadiens hockey team.

  • Music Piracy Continues to Decline Thanks to Spotify

    A new report looking into online music consumption habits shows that since 2009 the number of people who pirate music has dropped by 25 percent in Sweden. The sharp decrease coincides with a massive interest for the music streaming service Spotify. One of the main reasons why people switch to legal services is the wider range of material they can find there.

  • Payment Provider Hands Over Name of Torrent Site Owner

    After being threatened with a lawsuit by the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy outfit BREIN, a Dutch payment provider has handed over the personal details of a torrent site owner. The anti-piracy group is targeting payment providers in order to reveal the identity of site owners, as the information owners give to hosting companies is often false.

  • They’re Back – Porn Outfit Sues UK Citizens For Illegal File-Sharing

    After the ACS:Law debacle, one might think that potential claimants would be deterred from taking legal action against alleged file-sharers in the UK, or at least learned lessons. Alas, no. His Honour Judge Birss QC, the judge who brought ACS:Law’s scheme to its knees, now has to deal with three cases filed on behalf of a UK porn outfit who, in common with the doomed law firm, tried to back out at the last minute.

  • 98% of BitTorrent Users In Copyright Shakedown Filed in Wrong Jurisdiction

    After a major copyright settlement case featuring The Expendables was found to be fatally flawed last month, United States Copyright Group and client Nu Image dropped the case. Now, sidestepping an uncooperative judge in Columbia, the team are hoping to get more joy from one of his counterparts in Maryland, but they still haven’t learned their lesson. Tests by TorrentFreak reveal that 98% of 4,165 potential defendants in the case are being sued in the wrong jurisdiction.

  • UK Movie Cammer ‘SilentNinja’ Pleads Guilty

    A 32-year-old man from Salisbury, England, pleaded guilty to several movie piracy related charges last Friday. The man, going by the nickname SilentNinja, admitted to camming several movies at a local cinema as well as distributing films that ended up on The Pirate Bay.

  • Vuze Brings BitTorrent to Your TV, and Thousands of Other Devices

    The Vuze team has announced that their software now integrates with thousands of external devices. The popular BitTorrent client has added support for DLNA devices, which means compatibility with products from 245 of the top global electronics brands including many of the latest TVs. Vuze made the news public just hours after its main competitor uTorrent set the first steps to device integration.

  • NinjaVideo Founder Faces Jail Time Following Guilty Plea

    Little over a year after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started “Operation In Our Sites,” the authorities have announced their first conviction. Yesterday, the first site owner targeted by the operation pleaded guilty. The 23-year old Matthew Smith, admitted to conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement charges for his role in the video streaming and download site NinjaVideo.

  • $10 Music Piracy Fine: A Fair Deal Or Just Another Cheap Trick?

    Following a report yesterday that an anti-piracy company has been sending out emails asking that people pay a $10 fine after allegedly being caught sharing copyright material, we decided to take a closer look. Isn’t this tiny fine a good idea? Isn’t paying $10 literally 300 times better than paying $3000 to other companies in the same area?

  • Pirate Service Makes Textbook Rentals Last Forever

    The ever-rising costs of textbooks is an unavoidable nightmare for many students and hot-topic to those who see the system as corrupt. Now, a site with a mission to dismantle what they say amounts to a publishing monopoly has come up with another solution to bring cheap and free textbooks to students. The publishers are going to hate it but the site doesn’t care. They insist that it’s students that are being abused by publishers, not the other way round.

  • EZTV Goes Down In Preparation For Big Return

    EZTV is arguably one of the largest BitTorrent communities, so any downtime immediately leads to all kinds of horror stories about raids and seizures. This is especially true when the downtime coincides with the start of the new TV-season. However, the site’s users can rest assured as the site will make a comeback soon after its hardware issues are out of the way.

  • uTorrent Adds Android, iOS, PS3 and Xbox Integration

    The latest alpha release of uTorrent now supports integration with a variety of devices including the iPhone, iPad, PS3, Xbox 360 and Android hardware. This allows users to quickly sync downloaded content to these devices. Additional capability to convert videos and audio to playable files will become available later, but only to users of the upcoming paid version of the BitTorrent client.

  • Movie Institute Feels Pain Of IP Address-Only Piracy ‘Evidence’

    The Swedish Film Institute (SFI) is in the middle of a crisis after an anti-piracy company revealed that it had tracked several leaked movies on The Pirate Bay back to its servers. Desperate to deflect the accusations, today the SFI made a long statement. It turned out to be a perfect illustration that allegations of piracy based on an IP address and nothing else, simply must be backed up by something more solid.

  • Italy Proposes Draconian One-Strike Anti-Piracy Law

    In recent years Italy has taken several far-reaching measures to thwart online piracy, including a nationwide block of The Pirate Bay and BTjunkie. Building forth on this tough stance, lawmakers are now proposing several new measures that will put Internet users at risk of losing their connection after one alleged infringement. Even worse, these copyright complaints can be sent by anyone, not just the copyright holder in question.

  • Newzbin2 Offers Anti-Blocking Tech To BitTorrent Sites, Releases OS X Version

    Last week, Usenet indexer Newzbin2 delivered on their promise of delivering a mechanism to circumvent the court-ordered blocking measures set to hit their site in the weeks to come. After releasing a second version of their encryption software in just three days and an OSX version in under a week, the site’s operators now say they are prepared to adapt their client to help other blocked sites stay online.

  • Press Starts to Doubt Anti-Piracy Propaganda Machine

    The anti-piracy lobby group AFACT just championed a study which claims that nearly all of the popular files on BitTorrent point to infringing material. Although the study in question is probably not far off, the press-release of the anti-piracy group has been met with more doubt than ever before. Slowly journalists are starting to reflect on the ongoing propaganda stream from anti-piracy outfits, and some are even brave enough to call them out on it.

  • File-Sharing Protest Bomb Threat Video Lands Teenager in Court

    A teenager who appears to have taken his protest against an anti-piracy law a little too far will find himself in court tomorrow. The 18-year-old allegedly posted a video on YouTube protesting the legislation just passed by New Zealand. In it he claimed that websites would be hacked and that explosives had been planted in government buildings.

  • Pirate Bay Founder Fails To Appear At Court of Appeal Hearing

    The mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm deepened today. After failing to turn up for 2010′s hearing to appeal his 2009 conviction for criminal copyright infringement, the court decided he would be dealt with at a later date. Today, however, Svartholm failed to appear at the Court of Appeal.

  • Girls Are Not Into The Pirate Bay, Or BitTorrent

    The Cybernorms research group at Sweden’s Lund University partnered with The Pirate Bay earlier this year to carry out the largest survey among file-sharers in history. 75,000 people from all over the world participated in the study, and today the researchers revealed some of the initial results. Girls don’t fancy The Pirate Bay, most pirates download movies, and they are increasingly worried about their anonymity.

  • Pirate Party Enters Berlin Parliament After Historic Election Win

    For the first time in history a Pirate Party has managed to enter a state parliament. With an estimated 9 percent of the total vote the Pirate Party exceeded the 5% floor needed to enter the Berlin parliament with several seats. For the international Pirate Party movement this is the second major success after the European elections of 2009.

  • Tomorrow, Pirates Write History Again

    Tomorrow, Sunday, the German Pirate Party is expected to be voted into Parliament in Berlin. This is the second time the nascent political movement will be felt worldwide — the first being in 2009, when the Swedish party took seats in the European Parliament.

  • Appeals Court Reinstates $675,000 File-Sharing Decision Against Joel Tenenbaum

    The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the earlier decision of a U.S. District Court in the long-running file-sharing case between Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Boston student Joel Tenenbaum. The appeal court ruled that District Court should not have considered constitutional matters. Instead, it could have reduced the amount of damages awarded and given Sony a chance to request a new trial.

  • uTorrent Keeps BitTorrent Lead, BitComet Fades Away

    Fresh data on the market share of BitTorrent clients shows that uTorrent remains the client of choice for most BitTorrent users in the West. A sample of more than half a million unique peers further shows that Transmission is gaining ground, while the once so popular BitComet client slowly fades away.

  • Anti-Piracy Group Will Sue Pay Processors If They Don’t Name Site Admins

    Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group BREIN says it will pursue a similar strategy to its counterparts in the United States and UK by pressuring payment processors like PayPal to stop doing business with file-sharing sites. But BREIN says the processors must go further. Either they can voluntarily hand over the names of the admins behind the site accounts, or they will go to court and sue them into submission.

  • RapidShare Lobbies Lawmakers Against PROTECT IP Act

    Earlier this year U.S. lawmakers proposed a draconian anti-piracy legislation known as the PROTECT IP Act. When the proposal becomes law, U.S. authorities and copyright holders will have the power to seize domains, block websites and censor search engines to prevent copyright infringements. But file-hosting service RapidShare have a lot to lose by its introduction and are now spending a great deal of money countering the views of pro-copyright lobbyists.

  • Happy Birthday Pirate Bay, You’ve Just Turned 8 Years Old Today

    It’s one of the longest existences in the entire file-sharing space and bar none it has been the most eventful. We’re talking about the life of The Pirate Bay, the world’s most resilient BitTorrent site. Today the site celebrates its 8th birthday, a massive achievement which may not ever be bettered in terms of longevity, sheer volume of members and material distributed.

  • Canadian Police Issue File-Sharing Scam Letters Fraud Warning

    Canadian authorities are warning Internet users to be vigilant following the emergence of a file-sharing settlement scam operation. West Vancouver police, who have now issued an official fraud warning, say that seniors have been receiving letters claiming they have been caught downloading a range of porn titles. Unsurprisingly, the letters come with an offer to settle for thousands of dollars.

  • MovieX BitTorrent Tracker Founders Escape Jail Time

    Two brothers from Brisbane, Australia who operated the popular private BitTorrent tracker MovieX have barely escaped a jail sentence. The two were arrested late 2008 for facilitating copyright infringement and both pleaded guilty. Speaking to TorrentFreak, one of the sentenced brothers says he regrets his wrongdoings, but also wants to refute many of the false claims that are currently being spread by the media.

  • Newzbin2 Release Encrypted Client To Defeat Website Blocking

    The operators of Usenet indexing site Newzbin2 have introduced measures to circumvent court-ordered web-blocking measures designed to render the site inoperable in the UK. Site staff aren’t revealing how the stand-alone software client works but some basic network packet analysis shows that it defeats ISP BT’s Cleanfeed censorship system by using a handful of techniques including encryption.

  • How The FBI Caught an Actor Uploading Movie Screeners To Pirate Bay

    In April 2011, the FBI raided the apartment of a Screen Actor’s Guild member suspected of uploading several pre-release screeners of Hollywood blockbusters to The Pirate Bay. The man, an actor, has now agreed to plead guilty and potentially faces three years in prison. There were claims he could’ve been connected to a release group but as his amateurish online actions show, nothing could be further from the truth.

  • Reports: Feds Bust IMAGiNE Movie Release Group

    According to reports, movie release group IMAGiNE have been busted and their private BitTorrent tracker taken offline. The leader of release group EP1C, who declared war on IMAGiNE earlier in the year, told TorrentFreak that nine individuals were arrested following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement “joint operation.”

  • Hotfile Sues Warner Bros. For Copyright Fraud and Abuse

    The Florida-based file-hosting service Hotfile has sued Warner Bros. for fraud and abuse. Hotfile accuses the movie studio of systematically abusing its anti-piracy tool by taking down hundreds of titles they don’t hold the copyrights to, including open source software. Among other things, Hotfile is looking for damages to compensate the company for the losses they suffered.

  • Anti-Piracy Lobby Misleads Aussie Press for Three-Strikes Campaign

    Undeterred by a stream of negative PR from recent Wikileaks revelations, the anti-piracy lobby machine once again scored favorable headlines in Australia today. In its push to get ISPs onboard for a three-strikes system to warn copyright infringers, lobby group IPAF released a study that reveals how immensely effective this would be. However, the entire press release is a cheap marketing trick with mispresented research results that actually prove the opposite.

  • Lawyer Fined For Defying Judge and Sending Subpoenas to ISPs

    A prominent lawyer involved in the ever-growing pay-up-or-else anti-filesharing schemes in the United States has been admonished and punished by a judge. Evan Stone had asked the whether he could contact ISPs in order to discover the identities of alleged file-sharers, but the court said he’d have to wait. Stone ignored the court but was ultimately found out, which resulted in him picking up a $10,000 fine.

  • I Don’t Care About Your Profits, And It Enrages Me That You Think I Should

    Every time changes to the copyright monopoly are considered, the profits of major entertainment industry companies are at the center of the discussion. Even the people who fiercely defend the right to share information freely are going to extreme lengths to argue that this will not hurt the revenues of the copyright industry. But why are these profits even relevant? Why should we care about the profits of these companies?

  • Pirate Party Launches ‘Facebook’ For Movies

    In what will be seen as an escalation of their ‘Linking is Not a Crime’ campaign, the Czech arm of the Pirate Party is backing another file-sharing related startup. The project, described as a ‘Facebook’ for movies, is the fourth sharing site launched by Pirates in less than two months. Along with the launch comes an open invitation, should it ever be needed, for The Pirate Bay to take refuge in the country.

  • NinjaVideo Admins and Uploaders Indicted By Grand Jury

    Five people connected to the video streaming and download site NinjaVideo have been indicted by a grand jury on copyright infringement and conspiracy charges. All will stand trial in a U.S. District Court. The authorities hold the defendants responsible for providing access to unauthorized movies and TV-shows between 2008 and 2010, which allegedly earned the site more than $500,000.

  • Indie Game Devs Post Pirated Game on The Pirate Bay

    A few weeks ago the highly anticipated game No Time To Explain was officially released. Since the beginning of the year the indie game developers worked day and night to complete it, so it must have been quite a shock to see a pirated copy appearing on The Pirate Bay shortly after the release. Or perhaps not? Could it be that this blatant act of piracy is in fact a clever promotional move?

  • YouTube’s Content-ID Piracy Filter Wreaks Havoc

    YouTube describes its Content-ID anti-piracy filter as a state-of-the-art technology, but those who look closely can see that in some cases it creates a huge mess. The system invites swindlers to claim copyright on other people’s videos and make money off them through ads. It automatically assigns thousands of videos to people who don’t hold the copyrights, and its take-down process appears to be hugely biased towards copyright holders.

  • Pirate Bay Movie Leaks Traced Back To Swedish Film Institute

    After several Swedish movies ended up on The Pirate Bay, an anti-piracy tracking company says it has found the source of the leaks. But in surprise twist, rather than pointing the finger at the usual suspects, the company says the movies came from a most unlikely location – the servers of the Swedish Film Institute.

  • Judge Decimates BitTorrent Lawsuit With Common Sense Ruling

    In an ongoing BitTorrent lawsuit of particular interest, in which the plaintiff’s lawyer has already refused to comply with a court order demanding to know how much money is being made from settlements, a judge has now dismissed all but one of the defendants. This welcome news for more than 5,000 John Does is further augmented by a wave of criticism from the presiding judge who clearly understands “copyright-troll” style lawsuits.

  • Database Of U.S. Internet Pirates Will Be Decentralized

    Starting in a few months, millions of online ‘pirates’ will be monitored as part of an agreement between the MPAA, RIAA and all major U.S. Internet providers. Alleged infringers will be notified about their misbehavior, and repeat offenders will eventually be punished. Thus far the details on the operation have been very slim, but TorrentFreak has learned that unlike in France, the U.S. database of Internet pirates will be decentralized.

  • Russian Minister: YouTube and Google Should Be Shut Down For Copyright Infringement

    A recently leaked confidential diplomatic cable has revealed that not only is the United States government unhappy with the level of intellectual property rights enforcement carried out by Russia, but also that the reverse is true. Russia’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development said that not only do U.S. sites continue to offer pirated Russian movies, but that YouTube and Google should be shut down for not respecting local laws.

  • Lawyer Refuses to Tell Court How Profitable BitTorrent Settlements Are

    Last month a lawyer was ordered by a judge to reveal how much money he has received from threatening to sue alleged BitTorrent users. The lawyer, Ira M. Siegel, missed the court’s deadline and even then failed to answer fully as required. After describing the EFF as a group wanting “freedom from the tyranny of having to pay for content,” his eventual response began with a surprising attack on an anti-copyright troll blogger.

  • Wikileaks: ICE / IFPI Infiltrate Pirate Topsites

    A diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks reveals that entertainment industry groups and law enforcement combined their efforts to infiltrate Warez Scene topsites. One of the strategies they discuss during a 2009 meeting is to have an informant leak music before the official release date, to gain trust of the site’s operator and gain access to the highly secured Scene servers.

  • BitTorrent Crushes iTunes in Apple Inspired Ads

    Most people are familiar with Apple’s Mac vs. PC advertising campaign that ran from 2006 to 2010. However, there’s a BitTorrent spin-off to this series of ads that, until today, hasn’t seen the light of day. Produced a few years ago for BitTorrent Inc, the BitTorrent vs. iTunes campaign shows BitTorrent’s superiority of Apple’s iTunes store.

  • Anti-Piracy Outfit Recruits Microsoft Director To Work On Mission Impossible

    Music Industry Piracy Investigations has recruited a prominent figure to become the next General Manager of their organization. MIPI will be hoping that when ex-Microsoft director of intellectual property Vanessa Hutley starts work in a few days time, she’ll be more optimistic of winning the piracy fight than she was in 2008. Back then Hutley declared that it would “never” be possible to stop people obtaining pirated media from file-sharing sites.

  • Google Reports “Considerable Progress” In Fight Against Piracy

    Last year, Google announced that it would begin censoring piracy-related terms from its Autocomplete and Instant services. Under intense pressure from United States music and movie companies, Google is continuing to take measures against piracy. Their latest report on the issue reveals that they have made “considerable progress” against online infringement and that they will deepen their efforts during the months to come.

  • FBI / IFPI Teach How To Bust Private Torrent Sites

    A diplomatic cable recently published by Wikileaks reveals how the U.S. Government has spent $125,000 to educate Ukraine’s police officers on Internet piracy. Among other things, experts from the FBI and IFPI taught 30 of Ukraine’s top cyber-crime officers how to bust private torrent sites. Whether the investment will pay off is doubtful though, as some police officers said that they have no Internet connection at their workplace.

  • Pirate Bay User Heavily Fined For Sharing Single Album

    Following a police investigation and raid, a man who shared just one album using BitTorrent has been fined and ordered to pay a settlement to rights holders. The 34-year-old, who made his upload using The Pirate Bay, will have to sacrifice ten days’ worth of his salary and pay a total of around 900 euros so that rightsholders don’t take him to court.

  • Anti-Piracy Lawyers Retreat, Drop Another Mass BitTorrent Lawsuit

    The United States Copyright Group (USCG) has dropped another mass-lawsuit they filed earlier against 1,951 BitTorrent users. The dismissal comes just a week after the lawyers dismissed their ‘The Expendables’ case and suggests they are retreating. The question is, however, whether this signals the end of trouble for the defendants or whether the lawyers will re-file their cases in smaller batches.

  • Hunt For Student File-Sharers Thwarted By Data Privacy Ruling

    Copyright holders and anti-piracy companies have been dealt a blow in their attempts to monitor and track down student file-sharers in Norway. Following a decision by the Data Inspectorate, universities will not be allowed to spy on the online activities of their students and data gathered for network maintenance purposes will kept well away from rightsholders and lawyers.

  • World’s First BitTorrent Certified Digital TV Launches

    The world’s first Digital TV with ‘BitTorrent inside’ will be presented to the public tomorrow at the IFA trade show for consumer electronics in Berlin. The TV is manufactured by Vestel and uses technology from BitTorrent Inc. that allows consumers to find, download and play their favorite digital media directly on their television.

  • Who Needs LimeWire? Open Source Groovejaar’s In Town

    Just as quickly as one file-sharing solution bites the dust, another steps in to take its place. In the wake of LimeWire’s demise we take a look at Groovejaar, a downloading software client which takes the only real weakness of streaming music service Grooveshark and turns it into its strength – fully downloadable high-quality MP3s in an instant.

  • BitTorrent Grandma Was Wrongfully Accused, Lawyer Admits

    A 70-year-old retired widow from San Francisco who was accused of sharing a porn movie on BitTorrent has seen the case against her dropped. The woman, who went to the press after being threatened by a notorious anti-piracy law firm, was told that they targeted her by mistake. In what appears to be an attempt at diverting attention away from the damaging and embarrassing truth, the law firm claims it has now found the ‘real’ infringer.

  • Court Acquits 15-Year-Old Schoolboy File-Sharer

    A schoolboy sent to trial for sharing movies on two BitTorrent sites has been acquitted by a court. The 15-year-old, who said he only ever intended to download and not distribute, was cleared of all charges following a hearing. However, as is so often the case in copyright issues, the story won’t end here.

  • Hotfile Ordered To Share User Data With The MPAA

    In their ongoing battle with the MPAA, the Florida-based file-hosting service Hotfile has suffered a major loss. A federal court has ordered Hotfile to disclose user data, the identities and revenues of their top affiliates, and financial information on the company itself. District Court Judge Adalberto Jordan argued that the MPAA needs this info to prove that Hotfile is promoting and profiting from copyright infringement.

  • Bayfiles: The Pirate Bay Founders Launch File-Hosting Site

    The Pirate Bay founders have launched a new file-sharing platform today. After leaving the world famous torrent site, two of the original founders are now back with a one-click file-hosting service called Bayfiles. Although Hollywood wont be cheering them on, unlike The Pirate Bay the new service is dedicated to respecting copyrights while offering its users a great platform to store and share files.

  • Movie Studio Takes Unprecedented Proactive Action To Stop Piracy

    A film studio is taking extreme steps to try and stop its latest movie from being pirated online. Reliance Entertainment has obtained a court order which restrains thousands of ISPs and websites from making available their film Bodyguard, a move which the company believes will reduce piracy by 60%. A similar but less broad effort last month is reported to have cut file-sharing by 40%.

  • Is Copyright Only For the Big Guys?

    Over the last two weeks, two interesting copyright-related stories have appeared in online news reports. Both involve big media companies and small users, but not in the way we usually expect. In both instances, the large media companies “pirated” content instead of the users, and they seem to get away with it. This begs the question; is copyright only for the Big Guys?

  • Top 10 Largest File-Sharing Sites

    BitTorrent is no longer the dominant player when it comes to file-sharing on the Internet. The five largest English language websites dedicated to swapping files are all related to centralized file-hosting services, also known as cyberlockers. The Pirate Bay and Torrentz are the only BitTorrent sites that managed to secure a spot in the top 10.

  • Anti-Piracy Lawyers Sue Dead Person

    When tens of thousands of people are sued for alleged copyright infringement all at once, there are bound to be some unfortunate targets and plenty of collateral damage. Earlier this year an adult movie studio sued a blind man and now the makers of The Hurt Locker have taken it one step further – by sending their lawyers after a dead person.

  • YouTube Downloader Site Sued By World’s Biggest Music Labels

    The world’s largest recording labels have joined forces in Japan to sue a site which enables users to download material from YouTube. Universal, EMI, Sony, Warner and more than 25 other labels are seeking almost $3 million in damages and the closure of TubeFire, a site which converts the streaming-only experience of YouTube into music and videos to be enjoyed on any device, anytime.

  • The Expendables Makers Dismiss Massive BitTorrent Lawsuit

    The ever-growing avalanche of lawsuits against BitTorrent users in the United States may have reached a turning point. The makers of The Expendables have voluntarily dismissed their case against 23,322 alleged BitTorrent users who they accused of illegally downloading and sharing their film. This means that the once-largest BitTorrent lawsuit ever is finally over, and it could signal the beginning of the end for the entire scheme.

  • Evidence Against BitTorrent Users Slammed In Court

    The U.S. Copyright Group has sued more than 100,000 alleged BitTorrent users since last year. But, a recent filing in a U.S. class action lawsuit filed against the group shows that these cases may be built on shoddy evidence. It cites a German court ruling where the company responsible for providing the evidence could not prove that defendants actually shared any files. In addition there was evidence of a pirate honeypot.

  • MP3tunes Wins in Landmark ‘Cloud Piracy’ Case Against EMI

    The music storage locker service MP3tunes has scored a big win in its lengthy battle against EMI. U.S. District Judge William Pauley ruled that MP3tunes did not promote copyright infringement and that the service qualifies for “safe harbor” protection under the DMCA. The landmark verdict is good news for other cloud storage services offered by Dropbox, Grooveshark and Amazon.

  • RIAA Appeals Following Latest Jamie Thomas File-Sharing Ruling

    In July a federal court slashed the verdict in the infamous RIAA v Jamie Thomas file-sharing case from $1.5 million to ‘just’ $54,000. The RIAA were said to be unhappy with the verdict and now just a month later they have confirmed their appeal. The music industry group are appealing on three grounds. If successful the case could go to a third trial.

  • Resources and Addons To Make BitTorrent Magnet Life Easier

    While most BitTorrent users are happy to carry out their hobby with just a client and their favorite torrent site, there are ways to enhance that basic experience. Today we take a look at some online resources and lesser-known addons and extensions that make using BitTorrent Magnet links that little bit more easy and accessible.

  • Fox’s 8-Day Delay on Hulu Triggers Piracy Surge

    It’s been a week since Fox stopped offering free access to its TV-shows the day after they air on television. The TV-studio took this drastic step in the hope of getting more people to watch their shows live and thus make more revenue. TV-viewers, however, are outraged by the decision and have massively turned to pirated sources to watch their favorite shows.

  • Nobody Asked For A Refrigerator Fee

    I live in Stockholm, Sweden. A hundred years ago, one of the largest employers in the city was a company named Stockholm Ice. Their business was as straightforward as it was necessary: help keep perishable food edible for longer by distributing cold in a portable format.

  • The Failed Battle To Stop The World’s First Camcorder Pirates

    Despite many crackdowns over the years, camcorder piracy is still alive and bringing the latest blockbusters to the masses. What is perhaps less well-known is that this is not a new phenomenon. There are documented instances of camming dating back to just after World War I. Cammers in 1920 were as cunning as their modern-day counterparts and had to contend with surprisingly sophisticated anti-piracy measures.

  • German Pirate Party On Course to Election Win

    With the elections for the Berlin state parliament just four weeks away, the German Pirate Party is on course to an impressive election win. A recent poll shows that support for the Pirate Party is growing, and with 4.5 percent of the votes the pirates are getting close to the minimum 5 percent needed to enter parliament with several seats.

  • Anti-Piracy Bill Set To Cost Taxpayers $47m To 2016

    PROTECT IP, the U.S. government’s legislation to target individuals and domains connected with allegations of copyright infringement, is set to cost millions of dollars to enforce. According to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, PROTECT IP – which is designed to benefit US-based entertainment companies – will cost the taxpayer a cool $47m between 2012 and 2016.

  • RIAA Targets YouTube Over Leaked Britney Spears Concert

    As part of an investigation the RIAA has filed a declaration at a federal court in California to obtain the personal details of one of YouTube’s users. Through the legal action against YouTube, the RIAA hopes to find out more about the person who uploaded a recording of Britney Spears’ concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas a few weeks ago.

  • ‘Facebook’ Malware Now Spreads Using BitTorrent, But Don’t Panic

    A computer worm originally targeted at members of social networks has been updated to spread using BitTorrent. Known as Koobface, the malware uses compromised computers to build a peer-to-peer botnet and was originally spread via Facebook messages that linked to its code. Now its developers have given it the ability to obtain and distribute its payload using BitTorrent. But don’t panic…..

  • Large ISPs Profit From BitTorrent Traffic, Study Finds

    A new report published by Northwestern University and Telefónica Research discovered some BitTorrent trends worth sharing. During a 2-year period the researchers monitored an unprecedented sample of 500,000 people in 169 countries. Aside from showing that BitTorrent users download more and more data, the report also finds that large ISPs including Comcast are actually making money off BitTorrent traffic.

  • uTorrent Breaks 100 Million Monthly Users

    BitTorrent Inc. just confirmed to TorrentFreak that their popular uTorrent client has just broken the magical milestone of 100 million active monthly users. This makes uTorrent the most used BitTorrent client around, and it also shows that BitTorrent as a means to download has become more mainstream than ever before.

  • Economic Crisis Fuels Will They, Won’t They, Piracy Debate

    Last weekend, in response to a discussion surrounding a GigaOm article mentioning piracy, TorrentFreak published an opinion piece in which we argued that giving dissenting voices a say enriches debate. Today, Alex Swartsel of the MPAA responded to us and Techdirt (who had a different angle on the same GigaOm story) in a new article posted on the movie industry’s blog. Reality, it seems, can be a confusing concept.

  • Free Textbooks For Students Will Break Greedy Monopoly

    With a new college year just around the corner, students will be expected to dig deep to pay for all the latest textbooks to accompany their chosen course. These books are not only crucial but also very expensive, a situation that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the administrator of a textbook-focused torrent site. His plan is to break up a publishing monopoly and educate the masses, regardless of how deep their pockets are.

  • MPAA Lobbies For Wall Street Reform

    It is no secret that the MPAA and RIAA spend millions in Washington to guarantee that their anti-piracy interests are secured. However, it turns out that not all the lobbying dollars go to secure the well-being of workers in the entertainment industry. The MPAA has also spent significant funds on the implementation of a Wall Street reform law, one that was proposed by the new MPAA CEO Chris Dodd when he was senator.

  • ISP CEO Slams Copyright Law and Outdated Business Models

    As New Zealand braces itself following the introduction of a 3 strikes-style scheme for dealing with online copyright infringement, the CEO of one of the country’s largest ISPs has slammed the legislation. TelstraClear chief Allan Freeth says that punishing consumers isn’t the answer and that business models requiring new legislation in order to function are flawed and need to be changed.

  • Let the MPAA Speak, There’s Nothing To Be Scared Of

    This week GigaOm’s NewTeeVee published a piece pointing out that in harsh economic climates people may decide to download movies for free instead of going to the theater or viewing them via VOD. The MPAA weren’t happy with the article, to the point where they managed to get GigaOm’s permission to publish a retaliatory guest post. Some didn’t like that, but I say: “Well done GigaOm!”

  • Canadian Politician Starts Movie Torrent Site

    A few months ago 21-year old Travis McCrea participated in the Canadian federal elections as candidate for the Pirate Party in Vancouver Centre. Aside from his political ambitions, McCrea also described himself as an entrepreneur. As with his political views, his business ventures are also focused on file-sharing related ideas, and most recently he started a torrent site to promote the distribution of movies.

  • Apple’s iTunes Sued By Artist for Pirating Music

    Apple’s iTunes is being sued by Korvel Sutton, a member of the former rap group Pretty Boy Gangsters. The lawsuit filed at the U.S. District Court in California lists ten compilation albums being sold through iTunes that include copyrighted tracks from Pretty Boy Gangsters. All tracks are being sold without Sutton’s permission and to date he has received no compensation or royalties.

  • New and Old RIAA CEOs Agree: “We’re Beating Piracy”

    Mitch Bainwol held the position of chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America for eight years but will now take up a new role in the automotive business. His successor will be current RIAA president Cary Sherman, who sounds remarkably upbeat on the issue of defeating online piracy, something that has eluded the recording industry group for more than a decade.

  • U.S. Anti-Piracy Police Kept Secret From The Public

    Last month the MPAA and RIAA made a deal with all the major Internet providers in the United States to systematically hunt down file-sharers. The new “Copyright Alerts” system will directly affect millions of Internet users, but thus far the participating parties have refused to disclose which monitoring company will act as anti-piracy detectives. It’s time for the big reveal.

  • New Zealand 3 Strikes Begins But Pirate Sabotage Is In The Air

    Today marks the start of P2P network monitoring for New Zealand’s “3 strikes” anti-filesharing legislation. As the government is criticized for not launching their official information resource until next week, a Reddit user claims to be using a government network to share Miley Cyrus movies. As an ISP account holder itself, will the government get hit with the 3 strikes ban-hammer?

  • Data Centers Crippled By BitTorrent ‘Broadcast-Storm’

    Following the example of OpenBitTorrent, another major BitTorrent tracker has now abandoned the resource-intensive TCP protocol. 1337x switched to a UDP-only tracker a few days ago after several hosting providers kicked the tracker out for the “broadcast storm” that resulted from the millions of connections BitTorrent users were making.

  • Anti-Piracy Lawyers Accuse Blind Man of Downloading Porn

    As the mass-lawsuits against BitTorrent users in the United States drag on, detail on the collateral damage this extortion-like scheme is costing becomes clear. It is likely that thousands of people have been wrongfully accused of sharing copyrighted material, yet they see no other option than to pay up. One of the cases that stands out is that of a Californian man who’s incapable of watching the adult film he is accused of sharing because he is legally blind.

  • Government To Block Sharing Sites, But Music Biz Must Cut Prices

    As the phenomena of blocking file-sharing sites continues to spread around the world, the government of Indonesia is tackling the issue from two directions. Alongside an announcement confirming that ISP blocks will be put in place against some of the most popular file-hosting services, record labels are also being told they need to reduce prices in order to deter piracy.

  • UK Report Shows Futility Of US Anti-Piracy Law

    Last week, UK communications regulator OFCOM published a report which came to the conclusion that blocking ‘pirate’ websites would not be effective. The report contained a number of sensitive government redactions which were easily removed, effectively providing a comprehensive guide to bypass web blocking measures. Since the US government wants to adopt the same technical measures via the PROTECT IP Act, they too will be rendered ineffective using the same methods.

  • 200,000 BitTorrent Users Sued In The United States

    The avalanche of mass-lawsuits in the United States that target BitTorrent users has reached a new milestone. Since last year, more than 200,000 people have been sued for allegedly sharing copyrighted material online, and this number continues to expand at a rapid pace. Added up, the potential profit from the so-called pay-up-or-else scheme runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

  • And When Even The Death Penalty Doesn’t Deter Copying — What Then?

    This week has seen some disturbing news. British Telecom has been sued into censoring Newzbin2, and domain seizures in the United States were motivated and justified by the flabbergasting “they can have free speech in another country if they like”. In the United Kingdom, it appears that legislation to deny people basic communication and fundamental rights still move ahead. In France, the first innocent victims of such schemes are just appearing.

  • Super 8 Screener Leaks – With Howard Stern’s Name All Over It

    A high-quality copy of the Steven Spielberg movie ‘Super 8′ has turned up online and is spreading like wildfire. While it is hardly unusual for preview copy DVD screeners to become available in this way, it is unusual for them to carry watermarks which appear to identify the source of the leak. Come Monday morning, Howard Stern might have some questions to answer.

  • Are You Guilty If Pirates Use Your Internet? Lawyer Says NO

    Every month thousands of people are sued for allegedly sharing copyrighted material on BitTorrent. Many of the accused claim to be innocent, and point their finger at someone else who may have used their Internet connection to share the file. But does this mean they’re off the hook? Lawyer Nicholas Ranallo believes so.

  • Are You Guilty If Pirates Use Your Internet? Lawyer Says YES

    Every month thousands of people are sued for allegedly sharing copyrighted material on BitTorrent. Many of the accused claim to be innocent, and point their finger at someone else who may have used their Internet connection to share the file. But does this mean they’re off the hook? Lawyer Marc Randazza believes not.

  • A Lonely Place for Dying A Smash-Hit On BitTorrent

    Early July the BitTorrent-powered VODO distribution network delivered one of its most important releases to date. Just one month later and A Lonely Place For Dying hasn’t disappointed. Not only has it just broken the one million download barrier but the title has been the best-seeded movie on BitTorrent worldwide for several weeks.

  • Domain Seizures Do Not Violate Free Speech, U.S. Court Rules

    A U.S. federal court has ruled that the domain seizure of sports streaming site Rojadirecta does not violate the First Amendment, and has refused to hand the domain back to its Spanish owner. The order stands in conflict with previous Supreme Court rulings and doesn’t deliver much hope to other website owners who operate under U.S. controlled domain names.

  • Hollywood Studios Sued For Pirating A Movie Script

    Best-selling book author Joe Quirk is suing Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures because they allegedly ripped off the story from one of his books for their upcoming action movie Premium Rush. The author claims that the entire plot and several scenes were purposely copied from his book The Ultimate Rush, and he demands damages as well as a boycott of the film’s premiere.

  • UK Govt. Censors Concerns of Erroneous Piracy Allegations

    Yesterday the UK government announced that following a report from regulator OFCOM, plans to block alleged copyright-infringing websites would be dropped. However, there was a second report where OFCOM detailed ways of keeping the costs of Digital Economy Act infringement appeals down. The document carried the usual redactions but TorrentFreak has put on its X-ray vision for your viewing pleasure.

  • Game Piracy Linked To Critic’s Review Scores

    A new study by researchers from Copenhagen Business School and the University of Waterloo explores the magnitude of game piracy on public BitTorrent trackers. The researchers tracked 173 new game releases over a three-month period and found that these were downloaded by 12.7 million unique peers. They further show that the number of downloads on BitTorrent can be predicted by the scores of game reviewers.

  • UK Government Abandons File-Sharing Website Blocking Plans

    Plans to block websites alleged to facilitate copyright infringement are to be dropped by the UK government. The announcement was made by Business secretary Vince Cable following a review by communications regulator OFCOM which found that blocking provisions in the Digital Economy Act would not be effective. Nevertheless, website blocking will be attempted, just by other means.

  • Bullying Anti-Piracy Lawyers Fined and Suspended

    A pair of lawyers who were responsible for the introduction of so-called Speculative Invoicing into the UK have been fined and banned from practising for 3 months. Davenport Lyons partner David Gore and former partner Brian Miller will each have to pay a £20,000 fine and interim costs of £150,000.

  • 23,238 Alleged ‘Expendables’ Downloaders Walk Free

    What was once touted as the biggest file-sharing lawsuit in history has now been decimated following a decision from the U.S. District Court of Columbia. Judge Robert Wilkins ruled that well over 99 percent of the original 23,322 alleged infringers can not be chased down by the makers of The Expendables because they fall outside of the court’s jurisdiction.

  • Censorship Fail Reveals Big Music ISP Spying Plan

    Previously confidential documents detailing Universal Music’s meetings with the former UK government over the Digital Economy Act are revealing a whole lot more than the pair intended. Blacked-out sections now uncovered show that Universal believed that ISPs could spy on their users and hand over information to rightsholders in order for them to sue.

  • Torrent Sites Get “Restraining Order” From Indian High Court

    In an attempt to prevent pirates from downloading their latest movie Singham, Reliance Entertainment came up with a rather unconventional anti-piracy strategy. The company managed to obtain a so-called John Doe order from the Indian High Court, which they are now sending to various torrent sites that could potentially link to a pirated version of the movie.

  • XtremeSpeeds BitTorrent Admin Busted

    The administrator of a growing private BitTorrent tracker is reporting that he has been raided by the authorities. The admin of XtremeSpeeds says that he was questioned on suspicion of being involved with leading P2P release group IMAGiNE. While the investigation is underway, XtremeSpeeds will remain offline.

  • Diglo: Social Networking For Avid File-Sharers

    Have you ever wanted to share terabytes of data in public, or just a few gigabytes with a select group of friends? With Diglo you can, totally free. The site is a mashup between a social network, a file-hosting site and a media search engine, allowing its users to share, search and download files all in one place.

  • Fox Will Boost U.S. TV-Show Piracy

    Starting in two weeks, Fox will no longer offer free access to its TV-shows the day after they air on television. For TV-fans the decision to limit the availability of these show is a step backward, and all the signs indicate that TV-show piracy will once again surge in the United States. But whether Fox will care much about this piracy increase remains to be seen.

  • Hollywood Forces UK ISP To Block Newzbin Usenet Site

    Following a hearing in London’s High Court, leading UK ISP BT will be forced to block subscriber access to Usenet indexing site Newzbin2. Under the banner of the MPA, the leading Hollywood studios successfully argued that by letting the site continue unabated their interests would be severely damaged. The decision, the first of its kind in the UK, increases the pressure on other ISPs.

  • Anti-Piracy Lawyers Rip Off Work From Competitor

    Anti-piracy lawyer John Steele is without doubt one of the most active proponents of the pay-up-or-else settlement scheme in the United States. In less than a year he filed more than 80 mass-lawsuits for his clients, targeting thousands of alleged BitTorrent users. Nevertheless it appears that Steele himself can be awarded the pirate label, since he’s blatantly ripped of the work of a competitor.

  • Hotfile to Sue Warner Bros. For Abusing Its Anti-Piracy Tool

    The Florida-based file-hosting service Hotfile intends to file a lawsuit against Warner Bros. for abusing its anti-piracy tool. Hotfile claims that Warner Bros. deleted files from the file-hosting service to which it didn’t hold the copyrights. In addition, the movie studio allegedly deleted files from Hotfile without verifying the contents.

  • Former Google CIO: LimeWire Pirates Were iTunes’ Best Customers

    Delivering his keynote address at this week’s annual CA Expo in Sydney, former Google CIO Douglas C Merrill added to the growing belief that punishing and demonizing file-sharers is a bad idea. Merrill, who after his Google stint joined EMI records, revealed that his profiling research at the label found that LimeWire pirates were iTunes’ biggest customers.

  • MPAA Afraid To Disclose ‘Secret’ Anti-Piracy Strategies

    In their ongoing battle with file-hosting service Hotfile, five MPAA studios have asked the court to disallow Hotfile access to information on their anti-piracy strategies. While drawing an analogy between copyright infringement and drug trafficking, the MPAA studios ask the court to handle their anti-piracy documents as trade secrets to prevent ‘pirates’ from getting even more sophisticated than they already are.

  • It Was Never About The Money, Stupid

    Two reports on the copyright monopoly have caught my attention this week. The first expresses angry disbelief at the fact that people will still pirate to a large extent, even if the price per copy is under one dollar. The other is a deep research report into why people ignore the copyright monopoly. Short answer: because it is human nature to share.

  • “Appalling” $1.5m File-Sharing Verdict Slashed To $54,000

    A federal court has slashed the verdict in an infamous file-sharing case from $1.5 million to ‘just’ $54,000. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis branded an earlier jury decision in favor of the RIAA and against Jammie Thomas-Rasset as “appalling.” Judge Davis has now overruled a jury three times in this case. The RIAA are reportedly unhappy with the verdict and are considering their options.

  • Anti-Piracy Lawyers Find Cheaper Way To Identify BitTorrent Users

    Since 2010 close to 200,000 people in the U.S. have been sued for sharing movies via BitTorrent. For the copyright holders and lawyers these cases are already highly profitable. However, some are testing a new and potentially more effective tactic to pursue alleged copyright infringers which could signal the beginning of a new avalanche of settlements.

  • Judge: Pirate Party Name-Ban Decision Stands

    Back in March the Russian Justice Ministry turned down the Pirate Party’s attempt to officially register. The decision was made because the authorities feel that the word ‘pirate’ could be connected with criminal acts. Now a Moscow judge has backed that decision, leading the party to decide on a new name.

  • Artists Share 50,000 Free Music Albums on BitTorrent

    With more than 300,000 tracks and 50,000 albums published since its inception, the music publishing website Jamendo holds one the greatest libraries of free music online. A great success story that is in part powered by BitTorrent. From the start the site embraced P2P downloads to save resources and because artists and fans appreciated it.

  • Music Piracy Row Escalates Between Label and Magazine

    A London-based music label and a German music magazine are having an escalating high-profile row over two leaked albums. Ninja Tunes have publicly accused Backspin magazine of leaking promos sent to them earlier this month, accusations the magazine aggressively denies. So who leaked what and when? TorrentFreak takes a look.

  • 15 Year-Old Boy Faces File-Sharing Prosecution

    A 15 year-old from Sweden is facing prosecution after sharing copyright files online. The boy was deemed to have shared movies owned by so-far unnamed “international” film companies. While his alleged actions are clearly illegal, this kind of legal action against a teenager makes little sense and is a PR failure ready to happen.

  • Google Helps Italians to Unblock Their Favorite Torrent Site

    Last week the Italian authorities moved against the general purpose proxy site proxyitalia.com because it could be used by Italians to access BTjunkie and The Pirate Bay. Their goal was to prevent Italians from secretly accessing these torrent sites, but this plan backfired. BTjunkie’s owner quickly launched a new proxy, one that will be much harder to crack. This time the Italian authorities have to censor Google’s App Engine to stop it.

  • Church of God Sues Sony Pictures and Comcast for Copyright Infringement

    The ‘religious’ comedy Salvation Boulevard premiered in movie theaters last Friday, but not everyone appreciates the film’s humor. The Church of God has sued Sony Pictures, IFC Films and Comcast for infringing the copyright of the church’s logo, and is praying to stop the film’s distribution. In addition the church demands financial compensation for the substantial and irreparable harm the infringements have caused.

  • High Court Judge Threatened Over Pirate Bay Injunction

    A High Court judge who handed down an injunction in 2009 ordering an ISP to block The Pirate Bay says he was threatened by “cyber-terrorists” over his decision. Mr Justice Charlton claims that hackers threatened to steal his credit card details, plant child porn on his computer, and send call girls to his home along with mountains of pizza.

  • Indie Labels Lose Patience and Sue LimeWire For Millions

    An organization which claims to protect the rights of Indie labels across 25 different countries is squeezing what is left of LimeWire for millions of dollars. Merlin BV, which represents more than 12,000 indie labels worldwide, is suing LimeWire and owner Mark Gorton after the company failed to pay compensation following its May 2011 out-of-court settlement with the RIAA.

  • ISP Refuses To Block The Pirate Bay

    Previously, representatives from the Finnish music industry filed a lawsuit against Elisa, one of the country’s largest ISPs, demanding that it should block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay. In a reply filed at the district court, Elisa has refused to comply, describing the blocking demands as “unreasonable.”

  • Italy Censors Proxy That Bypasses BTjunkie and Pirate Bay Block

    Italy is taking its crusade against BitTorrent sites to an unprecedented level. The authorities have moved against the general purpose proxy site proxyitalia.com because it could be used by Italians to access BTjunkie and The Pirate Bay. Following this logic they will also have to censor thousands of other proxy sites and ban all VPN services, or shut down the Internet entirely.

  • uTorrent To Launch a Paid Version

    The uTorrent team is working on a paid version of the leading BitTorrent client that will enable users to convert videos and transfer files to external devices. Branded uTorrent Plus, the extended uTorrent client will be be released to the public this coming fall. uTorrent’s parent company BitTorrent Inc. hopes the Plus version will bring in some extra revenue, but considering the target audience it is expected to ‘suffer’ from piracy as well.

  • 70 Year-Old Grandma Threatened Over BitTorrent Download

    As the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits continue to pile up in U.S. courts, more stories of what appear to be wrongfully accused persons hit mainstream media. A 70 year-old retired widow from San Francisco falls into this category. The grandma was recently ‘caught’ sharing porn on BitTorrent and was offered a $3,400 settlement, or the option to risk a $150,000 fine in a full court case.

  • Final Ruling Confirms ‘Pirate’ Sites Act Lawfully in Spain

    Lawyers defending a file-sharing site say a new legal victory provides final confirmation that sites providing links to copyright works act lawfully in Spain. In a complaint filed during 2009, SGAE claimed that Index-web.com violated its rights but in yet another blow to the music rights group and Spain’s Ley Sinde anti-filesharing law, this week a court disagreed.

  • France Tracks Down 18 Million File-Sharers

    Starting October last year French Internet users have been receiving letters as part of the three-strikes system built-in to the controversial Hadopi anti-piracy legislation. This week the agency responsible for the warnings gave out details on the scope of the operation. In the last 9 months 18 Million file-sharers were tracked, but due to limited capacity ‘only’ 470,000 warnings were sent out to first-time offenders.

  • Italian ISPs Sued For Ignoring BTjunkie Blockade

    A criminal investigation has been launched against two prominent Italian Internet providers because they allowed their customers to access the BitTorrent site BTjunkie. The ISPs are suspected of aiding and abetting online copyright infringement, after they ignored a court order to block subscriber access to the popular BitTorrent search engine.

  • As ISPs Mull Pact To Fight AFACT, Pirate Party Condemns ‘Extortion’

    Following an ultimatum set by AFACT, Australian ISPs have until the close of business today to comply with veiled threats from the big Hollywood studios to help them tackle online piracy, or else. As one ISP confirms it won’t respond to threats, another is trying to form a coalition to fend off the movie companies. Pirate Party Australia describes the moves by Hollywood as “extortion”.

  • Google’s Anti-Piracy Filter Is Quite Effective

    January this year Google started censoring various ‘piracy-related’ keywords from two widely-used search services. According to Google, the anti-piracy filter is an attempt to curb online copyright infringement. Although the actual search results are not affected, a look at the search volumes reveals that the number of people searching for the censored keywords has indeed dropped significantly.

  • TVShack: The Human Cost of Extradition, a Mother’s Story

    As part of Operation in Our Sites, in mid-2010 the US government seized the domain name of TVShack.net. The site was operated by 23-year-old UK-based student Richard O’Dwyer who is now subject to extradition proceedings. Today his mother speaks out, detailing the trauma the family is going through and asking that people help Richard by signing a petition in the hope that he can face justice at home, not thousands of miles away across the Atlantic.

  • Graduated Piracy Response Coming To Australia, Or Else

    Under the banner of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, the big Hollywood studios are flexing their muscles down-under. If the latest rhetoric is to be believed, the country’s ISPs have less than 48 hours to commit to talks on a graduated response system to tackle illicit downloads. Failure to comply, they warn, will result in yet more legal action of the type being suffered by iiNet.

  • ISPs, Academics and Citizens Oppose EU Anti-Piracy Legislation

    Today the European Commission published the responses to a public consultation on Europe’s anti-piracy directive IPRED. As expected, there is a huge divide between the copyright holders on the one hand, and Internet providers, academics and citizens on the other. The latter fiercely oppose the draconian measures that IPRED introduces, claiming it threatens basic human rights while stifling innovation.

  • File-Sharers Denied Official Religion Status in Sweden

    Since 2010 a group of self-confessed pirates have attempted to get their newly-founded religion accepted by the authorities. The Church of Kopimism, which currently has close to 1,000 members, hope that official recognition of their values would make them immune from prosecution. However, the Swedish authorities have denied the request for the second time in succession.

  • The Copyright Lobby Absolutely Loves Child Pornography

    “Child pornography is great,” the man said enthusiastically. “Politicians do not understand file sharing, but they understand child pornography, and they want to filter that to score points with the public. Once we get them to filter child pornography, we can get them to extend the block to file sharing.”

  • International Crisis Looms As Russians Pirate The Web Sheriff

    Everyone’s favorite anti-piracy outfit is facing a battle for its very identity today. Web Sheriff, the company best known for its softly-softly approach, has discovered that a company thousands of miles away is using the same name as them. But rather than send a cheeky takedown request as usual, Web Sheriff has launched an “intercontinental legal attack.” It’s the Cuban missile crisis all over again, but with sheriffs.

  • RIAA Starts Going After BitTorrent Sites

    For years BitTorrent sites have remained untouched by the RIAA’s legal battles, but recent court filings indicate that this may change. After settling their dispute with LimeWire earlier this year the RIAA is now targeting several BitTorrent indexers. The record industry group has filed a complaint at the U.S. District Court of Columbia and has obtained subpoenas to reveal the identities of individuals behind three large torrent sites.

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