Under development at Github, SportsDevil’s aim is to present its tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of users with links to external video sources via a convenient interface, covering everything from live NFL, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey and motorsports, combat sports such as UFC and boxing, plus football and soccer from both sides of the Atlantic.

This week, however, SportsDevil’s reign on Github was brought to an end following action from UK-based anti-piracy group Federation Against Copyright Theft. While FACT is closely affiliated with Hollywood studios, it also represents the rights of major sports broadcasters and rightsholders including The Premier League, British Sky Broadcasting Ltd and BT Sport.

In its takedown notice, FACT explains what SportsDevil does and why it should be taken down.

“The files found at the following locations facilitate linking to sites known to provide access to streams of infringing content. The sites are subsequently scraped for links to various broadcasts including those whose copyrights belong to FACT members,” the group explains.

In addition to the ZIP files for the project, FACT targeted 47 configuration files enabling SportsDevil to pull links to content from sites such as FirstRowSports, Wiziwig.tv and Cricfree, a site that was targeted by PIPCU earlier this year.

TorrentFreak contacted FACT about the takedown and asked if this was the first piece of software to be taken down by the group.

“This is not the first time and with development of technology, we don’t anticipate it will be the last,” FACT told TF.

We also put it to FACT that although it’s pretty clear what SportDevil is designed to do, the tool itself is often far removed from actual infringing content and could be several steps down the linking chain. Does that present issues?

“That’s the point of what we’re doing. The tool is creating alternative ways of accessing content, and we view that as a likely offense,” FACT said.

Also of interest is the formatting of FACT’s takedown notice, which references neither UK law where its members are based nor US law where Github is located.

“Our takedown notices are modeled on DMCA notices. In this particular case, they were adapted to comply with Github DMCA policy,” FACT confirmed.

It’s worth noting that Github recently updated its takedown processes to give projects more time to ‘fix’ any issues following a DMCA complaint but it appears SportsDevil’s creators didn’t take up that opportunity.

TF spoke with an expert on this type of software who told us that while its removal from Github will be a setback, it won’t mean the end of the tool.

“If an addon’s repository is removed from GitHub, the addon author loses the ability to push further updates to the addon, so unless users install the author’s new repository (which they would have to do manually) further automated updates won’t take place,” he explained.

Finally, we asked FACT if it intends to target more software tools in future.

“Where we see a threat to our members’ content, we’ll continue to seek appropriate ways of dealing with it,” FACT conclude.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Their case involves former members of now-defunct file-sharing links forum Dancing Jesus. The site was taken down in 2011 following an investigation carried out by the BPI and IFPI, with assistance from the US Department of Homeland Security.

Two people were arrested by City of London Police, the owner of the site and the forum’s top uploader. Homeland Security assisted UK police by seizing a Dancing Jesus server hosted in the United States.

The trial, which began on October 6, took place at Newcastle Crown Court. One defendant, site owner and admin Kane Robinson of South Shields, had already pleaded guilty to illegally distributing music back in January 2014.

Richard Graham, the site’s alleged top uploader, went into the trial with a “not guilty” plea, but after evidence was presented in court earlier this week the Leicestershire man changed his plea to guilty.

“The guilty verdict confirms that posting illegal online links to music is a criminal offense which economically harms musicians and the labels that support them,” said David Wood, Director of BPI’s Copyright Protection Unit.

“Pre-release piracy, in particular, robs musicians of artistic control, leaving them with no say in when and how their music – which has taken blood, sweat and tears to produce – is released.

The case is significant in a number of ways, not least the scale of online infringement connected to the pair’s guilty plea. Add in the fact that Dancing Jesus was particularly well-known as a venue to obtain pre-release content and this becomes the most important UK music industry case since the failed 2010 prosecution of the infamous OiNK BitTorrent tracker.

Graham and Robinson will be sentenced under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Their fate will be determined by Judge Sherwin early next month.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Aside from the efforts of the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), one of the recurring themes is the decision by the Hollywood-backed Federation Against Copyright Theft to privately prosecute high-profile cases themselves.

The most notable case, that involving SurfTheChannel’s Anton Vickerman, resulted in a four-year jail sentence, one that’s cited in cease and desist notices regularly served on file-sharing site admins in the UK. More recently, FACT took the decision to initiate a private prosecution against Philip Danks, a West-Midlands based man known for camming and distributing Fast and Furious 6 while it was still in cinemas.

It now appears that following FACT’s lead, the BPI will also take a privately investigated and prosecuted case to criminal trial this month.

The case involves the now-defunct file-sharing forum known as Dancing Jesus. The site was taken down in 2011 following a investigation carried out by the BPI and IFPI, with assistance from the US Department of Homeland Security.

At the time two people were arrested by City of London Police – the site’s alleged administrator and an individual said to be one of the site’s top uploaders. Homeland Security assisted with the case by seizing Dancing Jesus’s server in the United States.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, the BPI confirmed that the trial is going ahead in October.

“A trial is scheduled to take place at Newcastle Crown Court this month regarding the illegal distribution of music via an internet forum site called Dancing Jesus,” a spokesperson said.

“It is a private prosecution being brought by the BPI following an initial joint investigation by BPI and the IFPI, with assistance from the US Department of Homeland Security. One defendant in the case has already pleaded guilty to illegally distributing music and will be sentenced at the end of the trial.”

While the precise details of the case will come out at trial, Dancing Jesus was perhaps best known for providing links to pre-release music content. TorrentFreak contacted the site’s former admin for comment but at the time of publication we’ve yet to receive a response.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

PIPCU, as its more commonly known, has been involved in the closure of dozens of domains, the closure of several sites, and the arrests of individuals up and down the country.

Until now PIPCU’s most visible partners, at least in terms of enforcement in the Internet space, have been the Federation Against Copyright Theft (movies and TV) and the BPI (music). However, there are now signs that sites offering pirated ebooks are part of PIPCU’s strategy.

Like many movie, music, sports and proxy fans have in recent months, this week visitors to the ebook site OnRead.com were confronted with the ominous PIPCU “seized” notice.

“You have tried to access a website that is under criminal investigation by the UK Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU). This site is being investigated for online copyright infringement,” the page reads.

The signs suggest that OnRead knew something was coming. After regular and often daily tweets of new literature appearing on the site, on September 2 the account fell silent.

TorrentFreak asked City of London Police for specifics on the site’s closure, including whether the domain seizure and shutdown had been carried out together with The Publishers Association, a known PIPCU partner.

“As part of Operation Creative PIPCU is working closely with the Publishers Association, as well as FACT, IFPI and BPI to disrupt copyright infringing websites. Since the launch of the operation several illegal film, music and publishing sites have been suspended,” a PIPCU spokesperson said.

While it seems more than likely that OnRead was operating without licenses recognized by UK publishers, an archive of the domain reveals that the site’s operators tried to claim that in at least one jurisdiction the site had operated legally.

“All materials presented on this site are available for the distribution over the Internet in accordance with the license of the Russian Organization for multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS) and intended for personal use only. Further distribution, resale or broadcasting is strictly prohibited,” the recent archive reads.

ROMS was a Russian collective rights management organization that attracted public attention in 2006 when notorious music download site, AllofMP3, insisted it operated legally under ROMS’ remit to collect and distribute statutory royalty payments as allowed under Russian law. In 2007, AllofMP3 closed down for good.

While the legal claims made by OnRead are fuzzy and by now years out of date, additional notes do warn users that they have “no right to download any files from the site if this violates the law of his country.”

It’s clear that PIPCU and quite probably The Publishers Association felt that OnRead was not in compliance with UK law. As a result the site’s domain, registered with InternetBS, is now in police hands.

In 2007, ZML.com, a site that offered movies to US customers, also tried to claim ROMS protection. That domain is now under the control of ICE and Homeland Security after being seized in the very first wave of Operation in Our Sites.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

While the MPAA softens its approach and becomes friendly on its home turf, FACT – a unit funded by Hollywood – is acting as a proxy overseas in the United Kingdom.

Later this year FACT will take another private prosecution to a criminal court in the UK. According to a press release issued yesterday, five men will face charges that they coordinated to action the unauthorized online distribution of recently released films.

Other than noting that the men were arrested in 2013, FACT provided no other details and due to legal reasons declined further comment. However, TorrentFreak has been able to confirm the following.

Following an investigation into the “sourcing and supply” of pirated films on the Internet, February last year FACT and police from the economic crime unit targeted four addresses in the West Midlands.

Four men, then aged 20, 22, 23 and 31, were arrested on suspicion of offenses committed under the Copyright Act, but exactly who they were was never made public.

However, TF discovered that the men were members of a pair of P2P movie release groups known as 26K and RemixHD, a former admin of UnleashTheNet (the site run by busted US-based release group IMAGiNE) and an individual from torrent site The Resistance.

The image below shows the final movie releases of RemixHD, the last taking place on January 29, 2013. The raids took place on February 1, 2013.

FACT now report that five men, one more than originally reported, will face charges at Wolverhampton Crown Court later this year. While men from the two release groups are set to appear, it is unclear whether the former torrent site admins are still in the frame, although it is possible that FACT are referring to them collectively as a release group.

Aside from the fact that this will be the first time that a release group case has ever gone to court in the UK, the case is notable in two other respects.

Firstly, FACT – not the police – are prosecuting the case. Second, nowhere does FACT mention that the five will face charges of copyright infringement – it appears that the main charge now is conspiracy to defraud.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Take Action initiative, which has been in place since 2006, is funded by UK film distributors via the Film Distributors’ Association (FDA). In addition to funding educational campaigns and school resources on copyright, the project also provides night-vision goggles for catching potential pirates in the act.

In a new bulletin FACT and FDA report that nine members of staff from Cineworld, Odeon and Vue cinemas have become the latest to be commended for disrupting unauthorized movie recording in the UK.

“FDA is delighted to recognize the on-going vigilance of our colleagues in cinema exhibition across the UK,” said FDA Chief Executive Mark Batey.

“They are at the frontline of the fight against film theft, and a vital part of our programme to make the UK as secure a market in which to release movies as possible.”

In addition to general recognition, the individuals pictured above were presented with certificates and unspecified cash rewards. Although not quantified by FACT this time around, in the past rewards have varied, from up to £700 per person in 2012 down to £500 per person in 2013.

FACT reports that the nine individuals were involved in seven ‘incidents’, all of which were attended by the police. In five incidents the alleged cammers accepted police cautions, with one incident leading to an arrest.

The latest statistics are down on figures last reported by FACT, both in terms of overall incidents and people being rewarded. During the reporting period April 2013 to December 2013, a dozen alleged cammers of major movies were spotted in UK cinemas resulting in five arrests but no prosecutions. A total of 15 cinema workers picked up rewards.

It’s noteworthy, however, that apprehending those who record movies and then illegally distribute copies online doesn’t have to start and end in the cinema. FACT’s recent private prosecution of a man who recorded Fast and Furious 6 led to a prison sentence of almost three years, even though he managed to record the movie without being spotted. FACT are quick to recount this cautionary tale.

“As the recent sentencing of Philip Danks to a 33 month custodial sentence demonstrates, the illegal recording of films is a serious crime which carries serious consequences, both for the perpetrators and the industry they violate,” said FACT Director General Kieron Sharp.

The latest camming figures reported by FACT vary enormously from events six years ago. Documents previously obtained by TorrentFreak revealed that in 2008 there were 50 camming incidents in UK cinemas, with police attending on just two occasions. One resulted in a couple receiving official cautions but in the majority of cases people observed camming simply left the building.

It’s unclear whether today’s lower figures indicate a growing reluctance to test out the patience of both FACT and the police. However, even for those who do get away with the initial recording, recent events show that subsequently uploading that content to the Internet has the potential to elicit a big response.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The unit employs a wide range of strategies, from writing to domain registrars and threatening them, to working with advertisers in order to strangle the revenues of ‘pirate’ sites.

PIPCU also relies on old-fashioned police work to deal with sites that fail to heed their warnings to tow the line. This has resulted in several arrests in the UK and the closure of dozens of domains, torrent site proxies in particular.

With key partner the Federation Against Copyright Theft and its members including the Premier League and BSkyB, piracy of TV-destined content has become an area of interest to PIPCU, particularly that involving live sports.

Early Monday, more than 200 miles away from their London base, officers from PIPCU arrested a man in Manchester in the north of England. Police say the 27-year-old is believed to have operated a series of websites which offered access to subscription-only TV services.

PIPCU say that the domains were sports-focused, so given the premium pay TV landscape in the UK it seems probable that they infringed the rights of BSkyB and possibly the Premier League. Police are yet to confirm the details.

While there are no figures available on site visitor numbers, police are using the term “industrial” to explain the size of the operation they shut down yesterday. A reported 12 computer servers streaming global sports were reportedly seized and their operator taken to a local police station for questioning.

“Today’s operation is the unit’s third arrest in relation to online streaming and sends out a strong message that we are homing in on those who knowingly commit or facilitate online copyright infringement,” said PIPCU chief DCI Danny Medlycott last evening.

“Not only is there a significant loss to industry with this particular operation but it is also unfair that millions of people work hard to be able to afford to pay for their subscription-only TV services when others cheat the system.”

PIPCU have not released the names of the sites in question so it’s impossible to assess their significance at this point. However, police are often quick to seize the domains of sites they close down so it’s expected that signs of that will begin to surface during the next few days enabling a more detailed assessment of the shutdown.

As pointed out by DCI Medlycott, yesterday’s arrest is the third involving a streaming site operator in the UK. Although the sites were not revealed by police at the time, TorrentFreak previously revealed that the operator of BoxingGuru.co.uk, boxingguru.eu, boxingguru.tv and nutjob.eu was arrested during April in the north of England.

In May, PIPCU had the domain of the Cricfree.tv streaming portal suspended but its operator was able to bring the site back under a new domain.

Yesterday’s arrest appears to be PIPCU’s first since the arrest of a UK-based torrent site proxy operator in early August.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Doctor Who Media (DWM) was a site created in 2010 and during the ensuing four and a half years it amassed around 25,000 dedicated members.

A source close to the site told TF that since nothing like it existed officially, DWM’s core focus was to provide a central location and community for everything in the “Whoniverse”, from reconstructions of missing episodes to the latest episodes, and whatever lay between.

But yesterday, following a visit by representatives from the BBC and Federation Against Copyright Theft, the site’s operator took the decision to shut down the site for good.

“I had a knock at the door and a couple of guys were there. One from FACT and one from BBCWW [BBC Worldwide]. The FACT guy basically explained what the issue was, said that he was there to give a cease and desist and wanted the domain transferred,” the site’s operator informs TorrentFreak.

With threats of executing an official search warrant and taking the matter to court if terms could not be reached, there was never any question of embarking on a losing battle. With the user database secured, an agreement was quickly reached to close down the site and transfer the domain.

Interestingly, however, the domain name will not be going to FACT as is usually the case. Doctor Who Media’s operator told TF that it will be transferred to the BBC as there are trademark issues involved.

“DWM may have been a major factor of my life for the past few years, but I wasn’t going to let it ruin me, so I agreed, signed, the guy wrote down his mobile number in case there were any issues and then they went. They were about as nice as you could expect given the situation. It’s only a job after all,” he concludes.

The tip about the site’s shutdown came from a DWM user who told TF that he’ll be sad to see its doors close for the final time.

“I can’t speak for others but having that content available really helped raise my interest level in Doctor Who. Often times, having watched stuff there led to me purchasing the exact same content on iTunes as well as all the various other content available for Doctor Who,” he explained.

And now, all eyes turn to the season premiere tonight. As of yesterday, all but the final episode of the brand new season had leaked to file-sharing sites, although it’s worth pointing out that Doctor Who Media refused to carry any of that content.

Will the leaks have a positive or negative impact on viewing figures? There’s only a few hours to find out, but it’s doubtful the BBC will be weeping following tonight’s episode.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

After pleading guilty, this week Wolverhampton Crown Court sentenced him to an unprecedented 33 months in prison.

The Federation Against Copyright Theft are no doubt extremely pleased with this result. After their successful private prosecution, the Hollywood-affiliated anti-piracy group is now able to place Danks’ head on a metaphorical pike, a clear warning to other would-be cammers. But just how difficult was this operation?

There’s often a lot of mystery attached to the investigations process in a case like this. How are individuals like Danks tracked and found? Have FACT placed spies deep into file-sharing sites? Are the authorities sniffing traffic and breaking pirates’ VPN encryption?

Or are they spending half an hour with Google and getting most of it handed to them on a plate? In Danks’ case, that appears to be exactly what happened.

Something that many millions of people use online is a nickname, and Danks was no exception. His online alias in the torrenting scene was TheCod3r, and as shown below it is clearly visible in the release title.

The idea behind aliases is that they provide a way to mask a real name. Military uses aside, adopting an alternative communications identity was something popularized in the 70s with the advent of Citizens Band radio. The practice continues online today, with many people forced to adopt one to register with various services.

However, what many in the file-sharing scene forget is that while aliases on a torrent site might be useful, they become as identifying as a real name when used elsewhere in ‘regular’ life. The screenshot below shows one of Danks’ first huge mistakes.

Clicking that link on dating site Plenty of Fish (POF) reveals a whole range of information about a person who, at the very least, uses the same online nickname as Danks. There’s no conclusive proof that it’s the same person, but several pieces of information begin to build a picture.

In his POF profile, Danks reveals his city as being Willenhall, a small town situated in an area known locally as the Black Country. What FACT would’ve known soon after the movie leaked online was which cinema it had been recorded in. That turned out to be a Showcase cinema, just a few minutes up the road from Willenhall in the town of Walsall.

Also revealed on Danks’ POF profile is his full name and age. When you have that, plus a town, you can often find a person’s address on the UK’s Electoral Register.

It’s also trivial to find social networking pages. Not only do pictures on Danks’ POF profile match those on his Facebook page, he also has a revealing movie item listed in his interests section.

Of course, none of this in itself is enough to build a decent case, but when you have the police on board as FACT did, things can be sped up somewhat. On May 23, 2013 Danks was raided and then, just two days later, he did something quite astonishing.

Posting on his Facebook page, the then 24-year-old took to his Facebook account (he has two) to mock the makers of Fast and Furious 6.

“Seven billion people and I was the first. F*** you Universal Pictures,” he wrote.

Also amazing was Danks’ apparent disregard for the predicament he was in. On May 10, 2013, Danks again took to Facebook, this time to advertise that he was selling copies of movies including Robocop and Captain America.

This continued distribution of copyrighted material particularly aggravated the Court at his sentencing hearing this week, with Danks’ behavior being described as “bold, arrogant and cocksure offending.”

While the list of events above clearly shows a catalog of errors that some might even find amusing, the desire of many pirates to utilize the same nickname across many sites is a common one employed by some of the biggest in the game.

Once these and other similar indicators migrate across into real-life identities and activities (and the ever-present Facebook account of course), joining the dots is not difficult – especially for the police and outfits like FACT. And once that happens, no amount of VPN encryption of lack of logging is going to put the genie back in the bottle.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

On May 23 at 07:30, five unmarked cars containing 10 police officers and representatives from the Federation Against Copyright Theft tried to apprehend the man at this former address. That error was quickly corrected and within minutes three cars, four detectives and two FACT officers had made it to the correct location.

The police were looking for Philip Danks, a man from Walsall in the West Midlands. Their information was that the then 24-year-old had cammed Fast and Furious 6 at the local Showcase cinema before uploading it to the Internet.

“I was detained for 3 hrs 12 minutes, out of that I was questioned for approximately 40 minutes,” Danks told TorrentFreak at the time. “One police officer and two FACT officers conducted the interview. The police officer sat back and let FACT do all the questioning, so FACT were running the show.”

Danks was eventually released, but in September police were back, this time arresting both his sister and her former boyfriend. New allegations were made, this time in respect of the unauthorized camming and uploading of the movie ‘Epic’.

In March this year Danks told TF that the police weren’t going to take any action against him. However, after previously keeping us updated, Danks went quiet. Today his fate has been revealed.

Following a hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court, Danks was sentenced to 33 months in prison for recording, uploading and also selling physical copies of Fast and Furious 6.

In Court it was claimed that Danks’ uploading of Fast 6 resulted in more than 700,000 downloads costing Universal Pictures and the wider industry millions of pounds in losses.

It appears that Danks was also very easy to trace. When he contacted TF last year his email address betrayed his online nickname – ‘TheCod3r’ – a handle that is now easily linked to a KickassTorrents upload of the same movie. FACT say it was this username that led them to Danks.

Comments left by TheCod3r on KickassTorrents

While 33 months is no doubt an extremely harsh sentence, there were important aggravating factors. FACT report that following his arrest in 2013, Danks continued to both sell and distribute illegal copies of movies. He was assisted with uploading by Michael Bell, his sister’s former boyfriend. The Court sentenced Bell to a 12 month community order with 120 hours unpaid work.

Both pleaded guilty to committing offenses under the Fraud Act 2006 and the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. 

Kieron Sharp, Director General of FACT said that his organization is grateful to West Midlands Police for their assistance in bringing Danks and Bell to justice.

“This is an important case and an important sentence. Danks was responsible for recording, uploading and distributing the film and was clearly unconcerned at the time about the consequences of his actions, perhaps believing that the internet gave him anonymity. We at FACT have shown that we will find and identify people committing criminal offenses and ensure that they are properly dealt with through the courts,” Sharp said.

The MPAA’s Chris Marcich said that holding pirates to account is vital if the creative industries are to flourish alongside the development of legal services.

“It is important that those making money on the back of other people’s hard work and creativity, paying nothing back into the creative economy, are held accountable and we welcome today’s verdict,” Marcich said.

“This is one important element of the wider strategy to tackle this issue which also includes educating consumers about legitimate online sources of content through schemes like Creative Content UK, working with advertiser and payment processors to cut off the revenue streams pirate sites rely on and blocking illegal sites through the courts.”

Yet again FACT have another very big headline under their belt which will prove useful in their quest to deter those contemplating a similar course of action to Danks. As previously noted, camming on its own is not considered an offense, but couple it with distribution and selling copies for profit and things can get very serious indeed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.