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Hackers Hit Anti-Pirates to Avenge Sub-Site Takedown

After their beloved subtitle site was taken down by an anti-piracy outfit working on behalf of US media companies, hackers responded rapidly – they defaced the anti-piracy site and inserted links to torrents hosted on Mininova. The subtitle site is already back in business – the anti-piracy site is not.

LegendasLegendas.TV is a popular Brazilian site offering subtitles for movies and TV shows, so that non-English speakers can enjoy them too. The site appears to offer a useful service for Brazilians, since it can take months or years for shows to appear there in their native Portuguese (if at all), but that didn’t stop it from gaining powerful anti-piracy enemies.

On February 1st, after action by Brazil’s IFPI and MPA-affiliated Antipirataria Association Cinema and Música (APCM), the Legendas.TV site was taken down. APCM, which represents the interests of Universal, Warner, SonyBMG, Disney, Paramount, Fox and others, managed to force the site offline after threatening SoftLayer, the datacenter where the website was hosted.

According to Legendas.TV admins, although APCM issued a DMCA complaint, it was incorrectly formatted. APCM did not demand the removal of specific items (as is usual under the DMCA) but instead demanded that access to the entire server was terminated.

“In order to prevent misuse of our Terms of Service,” said SoftLayer in an email to Legendas.TV, “we have blocked access to the IP associated with the abuse report and request that this site be removed from our network.” The datacenter then blocked external access to the site.

“The APCM confirms that it requested withdrawal of the site Legendas TV network of computers worldwide,” said the group in a statement. “It is important to emphasize that the action was taken because its users were violating copyright. When a user makes the unauthorized copy of an audiovisual work available, it hurts everyone who worked in the production chain: producers, authors, actors, actresses, camera operators, scriptwriters, directors, marketing staff, production studio workers and translators etc.”

The reaction from angry fans was immediate. On Monday, hackers took over the APCM site and defaced it. Popups on the site said “Live For Downloads” – when clicked, visitors were redirected to downloads on Mininova.

APCM announced it was “taking all measures” to get its site back online, including “all other measures deemed appropriate,” but the site is still non-operational, four days after the attack.

The administrators of Legendas have created a temporary site where they explain why the site went down along with plans of a return online. After raising the necessary funds, the site will migrate to a new datacenter, maybe in The Netherlands or Sweden – and possibly with help from The Pirate Bay.

In contrast to the anti-piracy site which remains inoperable, already a new ‘lite’ version of Legendas.TV is back online, but it won’t stop there.

“We are returning with the full site this week, stronger than ever,” said a Legendas.TV administrator in a statement.

Earlier in 2009, APCM launched a campaign that claimed that subtitles from Legendas.TV were being used in commercially pirated DVDs, which were later sold on the streets. Legendas.TV vigorously denied this.

InSUBs, another Brazilian subtitling site, has also been taken offline.

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  • ahem

    See what ive been talking about?

    You f*ck with the best, you go down like the rest.

    Its a very simple concept, we will not be stopped no matter what, and if you wish to challenge it, you will be destroyed.

    Choose your battles wisely.

  • Spanky69

    Another victory for the file sharer :)

  • Jaikii

    HAHAH, they got their own site defaced and taken down.

    Great job Hackers you’ve made that APCM look pathetic!

  • http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

    Nice post and I see two pro file sharers comments… now we gotto wait for the morons from the other camp who come screaming and saying “see? all pirates are dirty hackers”
    sadly, the ‘normal’ media will eat their biased views… personally, I think its fantastic to show the world exactly how badly out gunned these anti pirate organizations are… all money and bullies, no real brains.

  • anon

    Custom made subtitles are NOT illegal. Fucking APCM

  • KTM EXCF 250

    Nice!!

  • dfx

    I hope they can make sure that the APCM site never comes back up! They earned this.

    /die in a fire music/recording industry execs

  • Anonymous

    Internet provider companies who supply bandwidth/hosting to RIAA, MPAA, IFPI and the like are traitors. They should get the same fate.

  • Ad

    The moral here, as always, is don’t f#$k with the internet. It will always screw you back, with interest.

  • United Hackers Association

    HERE is a message for anti p2p

    We are united piracy and hacking.
    We are united in the facet of human kind to stand up to the corporate greed and continued medling in our lives.

    Know this. ANYONE messing with we the people of the net will suffer , and no corporate laws , no corporate abilities can withstand this.

    For we are legion in number.

    YOU can add to your storey that while i was offline yesterday, BELL canada email servers suffered an outage as well.

    Instead fo fighting each other do you remember this phrase.

    Hackers of the world UNITE.

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  • Anonymous

    Dunno if this is really a victory. If that organization is already trying to criminalize them by claiming commercial pirates use their subtitles too, now the’ve found a good point about how evil and criminal those guys are.Main stream media will interpret it that way for sure.
    Beside that it’s just ridiculous that their host took down the whole site without giving them any chance to at least comply with the DMCA.

  • Anonymous

    i lold

    I would also like to point out that the argument that their subtitles were being used in commercialy sold pirate DVDs is silly. By this reasoning, legally sold DVDs should be illegal, because pirate DVDs can be made from them…

  • airstrike

    One little thing i’d like to point out for those who haven’t been following related news in Brazil very closely. Broadcasters such as fox and universal take the subtitles created by groups like InSUBs and use them for their own broadcast, without requesting. They don’t change a single word, even when translating idiomatic expressions, which are usually loosely translated in a very subjective manner.

    There’s an article on this on the legendas.tv website (http://faq.legendas.tv/conteudo/legendas-piratas). It’s in portuguese, unfortunately, but there’s a video further down the article that compares fan created subs (in blue) with the broadcast (in yellow).

    I won’t even get into the an amount of work spent in translating all these shows in usually less than 24 hours, but while we don’t claim ownership over the original text in any way, they call us pirates for translating it yet they use our subtitles. Hypocrisy to say the least.

  • ken adams

    awesome! this should be the immediate action when sites like rlslog go down

  • Ash

    i USED TO BE a hacker to take down child porn websites but this is the first ive seen lol an anti piracy organisation taking down a subtitlers website lol. long comment cut short… nice job in retaliation guys well done…

  • anti-antipirata

    Pwned!!

  • Robert

    “Earlier in 2009, APCM launched a campaign that claimed that subtitles from Legendas.TV were being used in commercially pirated DVDs, which were later sold on the streets. Legendas.TV vigorously denied this.”

    No. In fact, UNIVERSAL, FOX and TNT is USING legendas.tv subtitles!

  • grawss

    Step 1. Create a movie.
    Step 2. Sell movie to as many people as possible.
    Step 3. Years later, pay someone to create subtitles for this near-forgotten movie so other nationalities can enjoy it.

    So let me get this straight: These nazis are trying to take down websites which make them money using their own time and resources to do it?

    Wow.

  • hdm

    Fuderoso!!!!! Parabéns por continuar na ativa! Esse pessoal da APCM é patético! Hasta la vitoria siempre!!!!

  • }{Bucky O’Hare}{

    Take that! ROTFLOL! Too funny! The antipirate site is down still after 4 days , and Legendas.TV is already back up and teaming with Pirate-Bay. They should do this every time a site is threatened. Can you say PWNED!!!!!

    Shit United Hackers Association: Now i got to go watch hackers, Great flick.

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  • jolly

    *raises middle finger and salutes*

  • Xong Lee

    Everytime a site like this is taken down by anti-piracy orgs, many others debut. Its like Napster, they can destroy a brand eventually, but the idea, the mp3 in this example, will never die. They should give up and try profit by other ways. Sponsor Hulu or similars, whatever. Or simply go to hell! ;-)

  • paulonline

    legendas.tv is the best source for portuguese subtitles. the most watched series like 24 lost heroes etc have their subs ready just a few hours later.

  • arr matie

    Sharing is caring!

  • Smumdax

    Following their logic, Drug Dealers use Dodge Caravan for traffic…
    … Let’s take down Dodge, becausr their trucks are being used illegaly!!

    I don’t understand how custom made subtitles are illegal. The pirated movie might be, but the subtitle in itself is not, just like the DVD-R used to burn the movie isn’t… or is it??

  • Kevin

    Hackers / File Sharers / Scene members, all should unite against this common enemy. We need to stick together and give it to these anti-P2P pricks. Relentlessly.

  • well done

    wtg!!!
    More of this sort of thing should be done.
    Fight fire with fire.
    Hit them where it hurts.

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  • Luis Angola

    Hi Guys, i do use legendas.tv to get subs for my favority tv shows, thats not right taking them down, whem in AFRICA will i get the chance to watch P.B. H. K.R. or any other if not by *.torrents an sub’s sites, well hackers did id right…

  • Anonymity

    That moron “Ahem” needs to stop talking like he’s a pro. Just FYI, the real “Best” would never post such an idiotic and blatant statement to a forum in response. They would make themselves heard otherwise.

    Fucking moron.

  • kmi187

    @13 airstrike : Personally I do my fair share of translating english subs to dutch for a similar site. So it’s fair to say I have a pretty good idea what kind of work goes into this. Having just finished watching that video, I have to say, that’s just wrong. They are 99.9% identical. Guess I wouldn’t mind that much if they’d just didn’t do their best to piss everyone off all the time.

    They just got served and rightfully so, hat’s off to whoever pulled it off.

  • MarcusVR

    The APCM site (http://www.apcm.org.br) is still down, hehehe!

    MarcusVR (Legendas.TV legender)

  • 7SeVeN7

    if the hackers are are reading this or following these comments;

    my hats off to you guy`s you did the right thing!

    an when their web site is back up
    kick them in the nuts again an and have links re directing them to TPB or mininova!!

  • Botonov

    “According to Legendas.TV admins, although APCM issued a DMCA complaint, it was incorrectly formatted. APCM did not demand the removal of specific items (as is usual under the DMCA) but instead demanded that access to the entire server was terminated.”

    I don’t think that means that it was incorrectly formatted. Just search for example for rojadirecta in Google and you will see how Google banned the entire domain Rojadirecta.com because of a DMCA complaint. Of course Rojadirecta launched Rojadirecta.org so it appears as first result when searching for rojadirecta

  • lol

    shame f*ckers

  • lol

    stupid govt didnt think that thru

  • Voor

    Hmm..why are revolutiontt, torrent damage and iptorrents down all day today? Takedown requests too? kind of odd to see all of them down at the same time…

  • cmd

    Go hackers! Keep it up. Maybe they’ll realize they can’t continue like this sooner or later.

  • Matrox

    Legendas.TV
    FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    We need them……
    Let´s win this fight…..

  • Dude

    I didn’t know making subtitles is illegal…

  • Neverhood

    Once again shows that pirates are just under served costumers.

  • SadistiX

    don’t fuck with the net

  • Jess

    LMAO!

    Good jobs guys! You mess with the bull, you get the horns!!

  • miami

    Omg. I heard it at [millionaire friends com], where celebrities, pro athletes and wealthy singles mingle. Many wealthy people are talking about it there. …

  • enygmata

    very nice post man.

    go hackers! :P

  • kyle747

    ….And so the long road to total war begins.

  • http://www.10ch.org/ www.10ch.org

    Are we really legion in number? If that is so, then let this be:
    Pirates of the World, Unite!

  • http://www.10ch.org/ www.10ch.org

    So, what does LinuxTracker think of the RIAA and MPAA? Is LinuxTracker likelier to lean to side with the RIAA and MPAA or lean to side with The Pirate Bay?

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  • paulonline

    you must read and watch this
    http://faq.legendas.tv/conteudo/legendas-piratas

    the companies use the subs made by legendas.tv on their original dvd!

    who is the pirate now?

  • Anonymous

    Hacked by Chinese!!!

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  • Zedd

    Hey there,
    I’ll translate whats on the manifesto about FOX, TNT and UNIVERSAL stealing subtitles from legendas.tv (original link: http://faq.legendas.tv/conteudo/legendas-piratas )

    ”
    Pirate subtitles
    Fan made subtitles are a huge sucess over the internet for allowing thousands of fans to enjoy their favorite series mere hours after an episode has been broadcasted in the US (and as of globalization, noone wants to be left behind). So, because of that, ocasionally the bigshots from the cultural industry, instead of offering a better service and investing money in making better subtitles, go witch hunting for these fans.
    Alleged motive? “Piracy”, the most common falacy in a country were the laws of copyright, besides outdated, are pointed to by specialists as one of the most restrictive and obscure in the world.

    So far, no news – this subject being heavily discussed throughout the years. The news is that now fans, besides being repressed by their free, colaborative work, now are also having their work stolen by those who accuse them in the first place.

    At the beginning of 2009, a banner showcased in the Legendas.tv site denounced that fan made subtitles were being comercially used (hence being called “pirate subltitles”, in a clear inversion of roles):

    FOX TNT UNIVERSAL
    Sistematically COPY subtitles made by us!
    The companies -make- copy our subtitles, show them on TV, in the official DVD and we are the pirates! ;)
    “What was that story about piracy being using other people’s work as a mean for profit?”

    There was great repercussion and a lot of people wanted proof on what motivated this claims; something that is presented here. (NOTE: the author means a video showing a clear comparison between the fan made, published on legendas.tv, subtitle and the official one, broadcasted on the first episode of “Lipstick Jungle”, added to the official DVD release in Brazil).
    ”
    —
    NOTE: The text goes on giving information on how translators proceed to create subitles, which techniques are used to ‘shrink’ the phrases as to fit on screen, the textual and contextual changes, and so forth. These is a basis which gives strong power to the argument that it’s very unlikely that two subtitles are made exactly the same (sometimes even copying mistakes).

    I’m sorry if my english is kind of laggy, I’m not an experienced translator ;)

  • kevin

    I HAVE TOR!

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  • Zedd

    I wonder why my comment was supressed?! oO
    I had the official report of Legendas.tv about them media corps stealing their subs translated to english, that’s all.

  • Gustavo

    save us! The Brazil is under a dictatorship of taxes!
    As you watch the best live series, the Brazilians waiting years to buy the series, reaching 20% cost of the minimum wage.

  • HardShua

    Why are they still trying to go against all the worldwide?Downloading movies and everything on the internet should be legal!
    They are just spending money trying to terminate, what is unstoppable!

  • rur42

    Is this site also under attack? Has been very iffy for the past few days.

  • Lucas

    What the brazilian goverment should have really concerned about they don’t. Fuck off APCM!

  • mininova

    i love miniova, thanks

  • billy_bob

    some anonymous person above mentions:

    “legally sold DVDs should be illegal, because pirate DVDs can be made from them…”

    I think this is one of the best arguements I’ve come across lately.

    Next group to get harrassed should strike up a Class Action Lawsuit against the Recording and Movie Industries on this point alone.

    Awesome!

  • billy_bob

    Also -

    The best way for the Music and Movie Industries to stop Piracy for good is to stop releasing content.

    This would do 2 things:

    1 – the obvious from above [cut back on the piracy].
    2 – The public audiences would not be subjected to remake after remake after remake of a title or song.

    Then they [the Music/ Movie Industries] could take all of that saved revenue and pay someone with an actual brain to come up wiht good and original content. Get back to quality not quantity.

    Then I’d be more inclined to buy new media more often.

  • pior

    APCM is doing another crap things in brazil, and theres also a corrupt politic called eduardo azeredo, who want to make brazilian swallow some shit laws anti-piracy. i bet that this f*”"* bastard have pirate products in home, as well all his family and the crap people at APCM.
    long live shared information!

  • Anonymous

    LMFAO!

    What are these fucktards going to try next? Banning English lessons, on the basis that the knowledge gained could be used to enjoy pirated shows?

    For the love of God, somebody give these muppets a freaking clue!

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