However, just a month before Kino.to was dismantled, Austrian ISP ‘UPC’ was served with a preliminary injunction ordering it to block subscriber access to the site. The order had been obtained by the Hollywood-affiliated anti-piracy group VAP but it was called into doubt by the ISP. This led to the Austrian Supreme Court referring the matter to the European Court of Justice.

Earlier this year the ECJ handed down its widely publicized decision which stated that yes, in reasonable circumstances, pirate sites can indeed be blocked by European ISPs.

On the back of this ruling, VAP subsequently wrote to several local ISPs (UPC, 3, Tele2 and A1) demanding blockades of Movie4K.to and Kinox.to, a site that took over from Kino.to. This would become the test case on which all future blockades would be built.

When this formal request for the ISPs to block the sites was rejected, in August VAP sued the providers. And now, after more than three years of wrangling, VAP have finally got their way.

In a ruling handed down yesterday by the Commercial Court of Vienna, UPC, 3, Tele2 and A1 were ordered to block Movie4K and Kinox with immediate effect. According to Der Standard, UPC and A1 placed blocks on the sites within hours, with 3 and Tele2 expected to comply with the injunction today.

But while another important hurdle has now been overcome, there is some way to go before VAP will have achieved everything they initially set out to do. At issue now is how far the ISPs will have to go in order to comply with the court order. It’s understood that VAP requires DNS and IP address blocking at a minimum, but whether the ISPs intend to comply with that standard remains to be seen.

It’s important for VAP, and other anti-piracy groups waiting in the wings, that these technical steps are workable going forward. Both VAP and the IFPI have lists of sites they would like blocked in the same way as Movie4K and Kinox have been, so it’s crucial to them that blockades aren’t easily circumvented.

Once this issue has been dealt with, in the next few months it’s likely that attention will turn to legal action being planned by the IFPI. The recording group has taken on the task of having torrent sites blocked in Austria, starting off with The Pirate Bay, isoHunt.to, 1337x.to and H33t.to.

IFPI is expected to sue several ISPs in the hope that local courts will treat torrent sites in the same way as they have streaming services. Once that’s been achieved – and at this stage it seems likely – expect long lists of additional domains to be submitted to the courts.

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

Instead they decided to target ISPs, companies that are responsive to legal threats in most corners of the world. In time, court orders rendered The Pirate Bay and similar sites blocked, but not for long. Proxy sites enabling access to the world’s largest torrent indexes soon began to thrive, but their time would also come.

The biggest proxy battle anywhere on the planet is taking place in the UK, a country where it’s become almost a formality to have sites blocked at the ISP level. Today we can report that yet another silent round of blockades are being put in place.

One of the main targets is PirateProxy, an extremely popular proxy service that’s particularly well known in the UK. The site was previously accessible at PirateProxy.net but moved to a new domain earlier in the year after its domain was blocked.

The site switched to PirateProxy.in during April and successfully maintained its traffic. As can be seen from the Alexa chart below, PirateProxy is the 125th most popular domain in the entire country, an impressive feat for a site that offers nothing but a Pirate Bay block workaround.

Notable too is the site’s placing in Ireland, where The Pirate Bay is also blocked by ISPs. As of this morning PirateProxy was the country’s 131st most-popular domain.

However, visitors to the site through the major UK ISPs are now beginning to see the familiar “domain blocked” message. The example from Virgin Media, which confirms the existence of a court order, is shown below.

Also under attack are the various proxy services available through Come.in, a portal which facilitates access to a wide range of torrent and other similar sites blocked by numerous European ISPs.

In addition to sundry others, at the moment the site’s PirateBay, KickassTorrents, ExtraTorrent, YTS/YIFY, TorrentReactor, BitSnoop and 1337x proxies are being subjected to UK blockades.

This is the second time this year that multiple Come.in proxies have been targeted by rightsholders. Back in June its EZTV and YTS proxies were blocked in the UK but were re-established by the site’s operators who vowed to keep putting up new services to maintain service.

While blocking proxies continues to be a key weapon of choice, proxies with UK-based operators have greater concerns. As reported in August, City of London police’s PIPCU unit arrested the operator of Immunicity and several other proxies.

According to a police response to a Freedom of Information request obtained by TorrentFreak, he now stands accused of a wide range of crimes including breaches of the Serious Crime Act 2007, Possession of Articles for Use in Fraud, Making or Supplying Articles for use in Frauds and money laundering.

While plenty of proxies still exist (including several which rotate at the bottom of The Pirate Bay homepage under ‘proxy’), others aren’t doing so well.

Visitors to sites including TorrentProxies, Torrenticity, FenopyReverse, FirstRowProxy, GetPirate, H33tUnblock, KatProxy, LivePirate, Metricity, ProxyCentral, KickassUnblock and YifyProxy are greeted with a message from PIPCU that the domains are under police investigation.

Finally, and despite efforts by the BBC to have all VPN users labeled as pirates, use of such services to evade blockades and enable geo-unblocking continues.

The BPI, PirateProxy and Come.in were not immediately available for comments but we’ll update this report when they arrive.

Update: The operator of PirateProxy informs us that a new domain is up and operational at PirateProxy.bz

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

What transpired was an attack from two directions. The first involved VAP, the anti-piracy association of the Austrian film and video industry. The second was launched by the local branch of IFPI, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

In late July, VAP wrote to UPC, Drei, Tele2 and A1 with a request for the ISPs to block ThePirateBay.se plus streaming sites Movie4K.to and Kinox.to. Days later in a letter dated August 4, the IFPI asked five local ISPs to block access to four torrent sites – ThePirateBay,se, isoHunt.to, 1337x.to and H33t.to.

Unfortunately for VAP and the IFPI, the ISPs were going to need more than just a letter to begin censoring the Internet. By mid August, with their deadlines expired, none had initiated blockades. That led to threats of lawsuits from both anti-piracy groups.

With August now drawing to a close, VAP has made good on its word. CEO Werner Müller confirmed to German media that his organization has now sued four Austrian ISPs. Müller would not be drawn on their names, but DerStandard spoke with UPC and A1 who both confirmed receiving letters.

“[The decision on blocking] should be left to the judgment of a judge, since in a specific case the rights of Internet users and the movie / music industry can be weighed more,” said A1 spokeswoman Livia Dandrea-Böhm. “We will now take a position in the time allowed by the court. Thereafter, the judge has to decide.”

Of further interest is VAP’s decision to exclude The Pirate Bay from their legal action and only sue for blockades against kinox.to and movie4k.to. There are suggestions that this could prove an easier legal route for VAP as the local Supreme Court is already familiar with the operations of Kinox and Movie4K, sites similar in structure to the now defunct Kino.to, the site which originally prompted calls for blocks in Austria.

However, The Pirate Bay will not escape so easily. The IFPI will tackle the infamous torrent site alongside others including isoHunt.to, 1337x.to and H33t.to. The music group is expected to sue several ISPs to force a blockade, although papers are still being drawn up.

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

VAP, the anti-piracy association of the Austrian film and video industry, wrote to several local ISPs – UPC, Drei, Tele2 and A1 – demanding a blockade of three domains – ThePirateBay.se, Movie4K.to and Kinox.to.

Just days later the IFPI signaled its intention to join the fray. In a letter dated August 4 and sent to five local ISPs, the music group set a deadline of less than two weeks for the service providers to block subscriber access to ThePirateBay,se, isoHunt.to, 1337x.to and H33t.to.

After the VAP letter came talks between the anti-piracy outfit and the ISPs, but a deadline of August 14 expired last week with no blocking having taken place. While the courts have confirmed that in certain circumstances service providers can be required to block errant sites, it appears that the ISPs don’t want to take action based on mere requests from rightsholders.

“We continue to believe that the decision to block websites or other Internet content should lie with the courts and legislators,” UPC told Austrian news outlet Future Zone.

“We have sympathy for rightsholders and we are in full support of the creative industries. However, we offer our customers access to the Internet and have no obligation or right to choose which content is accessed.”

Faced with blocking requests around Europe, most if not all ISPs have required a court order in order to restrict access to ‘pirate’ sites. Given this history, UPC’s reluctance comes as no surprise to VAP. Managing Director Werner Müller admitted last week that it was always unlikely that the ISPs would act without being legally required to do so. That means legal action, and VAP are ready for it.

“There will soon be a lawsuit concerning blocking against two websites – kinox.to and movie4k.to – against four major domestic Internet providers,” Müller says. “The lawsuits are prepared and are waiting almost only on their delivery.”

And, according to comments made by IFPI CEO Franz Medwenitsch, the music industry won’t be far behind.

“As of today there has been no response from the service providers so we had our attorney begin the preparations for legal action,” Medwenitsch confirms.

These web-blocking cases being brought against Austrian ISPs are of particular importance as they represent the first to take place following the March 27 ruling of the European Court of Justice. How that ruling is interpreted will be closely watched by rightsholders across the continent.

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

The ruling was prompted by a movie distributor case originating in Austria, so it comes as no surprise that local record companies are now seeking to make the most of it.

Earlier this week the local branch of the IFPI wrote to local ISPs with a demands that they block The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 1337x and H33t within days. While the development was welcomed by many pro-copyright entities, among many in the Internet community the feeling persists that site blocking amounts to censorship.

Now, IFPI Austria CEO Franz Medwenitsch has countered with his opinion, explaining that the term “Internet blocking” is both misleading and controversial, and that web blockades cannot be considered a restriction of free speech.

“Barring is misleading and downright polemical. No one wants to deny access to the Internet!” the IFPI chief explains.

“[Our action is] therefore isolated to prevent access to specific websites that offer illegal content and massively engage in copyright infringement. This is a legitimate means of legal protection, the Austrian Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union have justified it.”

In his FutureZone piece, Medwenitsch discusses critics’ perception that blocking websites interferes with fundamental rights such as freedom of information.

“Blocking access to illegal sites is explicitly compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights,” he contends, adding that comments to the contrary cannot be equated with the those shared by “the people of Europe.”

“According to a GfK survey last year, 83 percent of those surveyed in Austria alone – equivalent to more than six million people – held the opinion that artists have a right to their intellectual property and to be paid for the use of their works,” Medwenitsch notes.

But just as it’s clear that the blocking of websites has many opponents on fundamental rights grounds, the notion that blockades amount to censorship is an even more thorny issue. Medwenitsch does not share those feelings.

“Censorship is the suppression of free speech and everyone who lives in a democratic society categorically rejects censorship,” the IFPI chief says.

“But what has freedom of expression got to do with generating advertising revenues by illegally offering tens of thousands of movies and music recordings on the Internet with disregard for creators and artists? And yet the freedom of the author to determine the use of their works themselves is trampled!”

Medwenitsch says that individual freedoms have their limits and must be brought to an end when they begin to limit the freedoms of others. In other words, people can have free access to sites while those operating them aren’t infringing on the rights of the recording industry.

Finally, Medwenitsch criticizes those who accuse the industry of concentrating on blocking sites like The Pirate Bay while failing to adapt their business models. The industry has indeed adapted, the IFPI chief insists, but unauthorized services inhibit growth and need to be dealt with.

“The fact is the digital music services on the Internet today carry 37 million songs. There are 230 digital platforms in Europe – in Austria there are 40 – and the European user numbers have already reached 100 million,” he explains.

“The development of the digital market will take a long time due to the inhibiting factors of illegal offerings. Therefore, on the one hand we will investment in new platforms, and on the other hand, take measures against illegal sites.”

It remains unclear whether site blocking is having any effect on the availability of infringing content or the numbers of people consuming it. Safe to say, no group has yet put their head above the parapet and presented sales figures to clearly show that is the case.

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

The police started by sending warning letters to site owners, asking them to go legit or shut down. Late last year this was followed by a campaign targeted at domain registrars, asking them to suspend the domain names of several “illegal” sites.

Yesterday police started out another round of anti-piracy actions targeted at sites that offer access to pirated content.

Among the new targets is Immunicity, a general proxy server that was set up as a censorship circumvention tool.

The police action against Immunicity is concerning as the service merely allows users to route their traffic through a proxy network, much like other anonimizing services such as TOR and VPNs do. The service itself doesn’t host or link to infringing content.

In addition in Immunicity the Pirate Bay proxy Piratereverse.info and KickassTorrents proxies Kickassunblock.info and Katunblock.com were taken down as well. The same happened with movie2kproxy.com, h33tunblock.info and several other sites. The DNS entries of the domains have all been replaced and now point at a PIPCU IP-address which displays a warning banner.

PIPCU has not yet confirmed the nature of the takedowns but at the time of writing the most likely explanation is that the U.S. based registrar suspended the sites in question.

Based on letters that were sent out to registrars previously, the police accuse proxy services and sites of running a criminal operation. While no court order has been obtained, PIPCU claims to have launched an investigation into the sites and has asked the domain registrar to cooperate.

“The owners of the aforementioned domains are suspected to be involved in the criminal distribution of copyrighted material either directly or indirectly and are liable to prosecution under UK law for the following offences: Conspiracy to Defraud, Offences under the Fraud Act 2006, Copyright, Design & Patents Act 1988,” PIPCU states.

“Should a conviction be brought for the above offences, UK courts may impose sentences of imprisonment and/or fines. PIPCU has criminal and civil powers in UK law to seize money, belongings and any property in connection with these offences.”

It’s important to note that with the previous requests the City of London Police did not present a court order or other warrant. However, it turns out that police letterhead is sometimes enough to throw due process concerns overboard.

TorrentFreak has asked PIPCU for a comment on the most recent actions, but we have yet to hear back.

Update: TorrentFreak has received new information suggesting that PIPCU managed to take control of the domains without the involvement of eNom. We will present more details when we are allowed to share it in public.

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

The case, which centered around the now-defunct movie site Kino.to, concluded with both courts agreeing that provided any action is both balanced and proportional, Internet service providers could be forced to block copyright-infringing websites.

Taking that decision and running with it, the IFPI in Austria has now written to the country’s largest Internet service providers with demands that they block several of the world’s largest torrent sites.

In a letter dated today, five ISPs were given less than two weeks to block subscriber access to ThePirateBay,se, isoHunt.to, 1337x.to and H33t.to.

IFPI says the sites are “internationally known piracy portals” which have already been blocked in UK, Belgium, Ireland, Finland and Denmark.

The music industry group, which protects the rights of the world’s largest recording labels, notes that its blocking request is reasonable given that the sites’ engage in the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material for profit.

“The foundation for website-blocking in Austria was created following a four year process involving the European Court of Justice,” IFPI’s Franz Medwenitsch added in a statement.

“The sites are all internationally known, structurally-infringing BitTorrent portals. Of course, we do not want to have access to the Internet itself blocked, only access to these four sites.”

The ISPs have been given until August 14 to implement the blockades, but whether they will have any effect remains to be seen. The Pirate Bay, the world’s most-blocked torrent site, recently informed TF that despite years of blockages, its traffic has doubled overall.

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

The blocks are somewhat effective, at least in preventing subscribers from accessing the domains directly. However, that doesn’t mean that the sites are completely inaccessible.

With every site that is added to the blocklist several reverse proxies are launched. These proxy sites give people access to the blocked sites and effectively bypass the restrictions put in place by the court.

The copyright holders who demanded the blockades are well aware of these workarounds and continue to ask ISPs to expand their blocking efforts.

This weekend the ISPs quietly added several torrent site proxies to their blocklists. TorrentFreak was able to confirm that Virgin Media and Sky are now blocking access to YTS proxy ytsre.come.in as well as the EZTV equivalent on come.in.

Interestingly, the other torrent site proxies, including ones for the Pirate Bay and Kickass, are still accessible.

Whether these measures will be effective has yet to be seen. The Come.in homepage is still accessible and the team behind the site has already replaced the blocked domains with new ones.

“We just set up new proxies and will be watching for any upcoming measures from ISPs,” Come.in’s Nick tells TorrentFreak.

“We monitor such issues on a regular basis. Most of the time we can create new proxies only after current ones are blocked. Come.in visitors should know that we always publish fresh proxy addresses on our homepage,” he adds.

And so the whack-a-mole continues, with copyright holders adding new domains to the blocklists, and site owners hopping from domain to domain.

As with previous additions the newly blocked domains are covered by the High Court order, which provides the movie studios with the option to continually update the list of infringing domains. A Virgin Media spokesperson clarified that no additions are made by the ISP itself.

“We are only blocking those sites we are required to block by the court order,” we were told. “As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media supports the clear, legal framework put in place to protect against copyright infringement and we continue to comply with court orders specifically addressed to the company.”

While the recent additions are permitted under the High Court order, these changes are being made in secret without any form of public oversight, which means that we don’t know precisely how many proxies were added. The full list of blocked domains also remains unknown.

TorrentFreak reached out to both copyright holders and ISPs, but thus far they have refused to make the full scope of their blocking efforts public. It’s unlikely that this will change in the near future.

—

The full list of domains (that we know of) currently blocked in the UK is as follows:

Main sites: Megashare, Viooz, Watch32, Zmovie, Solarmovie, Tubeplus, Primewire, Vodly, Watchfreemovies, Project-Free TV, Yify-Torrents, 1337x, Bitsnoop, Extratorrent, Monova, Torrentcrazy, Torrentdownloads, Torrentreactor, Torrentz, Ambp3, Beemp3, Bomb-mp3, Eemp3world, Filecrop, Filestube, Mp3juices, Mp3lemon, Mp3raid, Mp3skull, Newalbumreleases, Rapidlibrary, EZTV, FirstRowSports, Download4all, Movie2K, KickAssTorrents, Fenopy, H33T and The Pirate Bay.

Proxies: Ytsre.come.in, Eztv.come.in, Fp.kleisauke.nl, Fenopy.5gg.biz, H33tunblock.info, H33t.uk.to, H33tproxy.co, H33tmirror.co, Katunblock.com, Katproxy.com, Kat.dashitz.com, Kat.kleisauke.nl, Katmirror.com, Kat.5gg.biz, Kickassunblock.info, Kickassproxy.info, Pirateproxy.net, Proxybay.net, Malaysiabay.org, Piratereverse.info, Pirateproxy.net, Campeche.zapto.org, Tpb.rubenstadman.com, Piratebay.interflective.com, Dashitz.com, Tpb.evrl.com

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

This week a new High Court ruling orders BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk to block access to Megashare, Viooz, Watch32 and Zmovie.

Through the sites users can stream Hollywood movies directly, or via links to third-party sites such as Vidspace or Videohub. Viooz is the largest of the quartet and is listed among the 500 most visited sites in the UK.

The ruling comes after Hollywood studios filed a complaint that remained uncontested by the ISPs. Because the ISPs have given up on defending their position in court, it is now a mere formality for copyright holders to have a pirate site banned.

Represented by FACT and the Motion Picture Association, several major movie studios decided to ask for the blockades after their inquiries to the owners of the sites remained unanswered.

“FACT and the Motion Picture Association (MPA) wrote to four websites asking them to stop infringing creative content. Collectively, these sites provide access to an enormous collection of films with no permission from the copyright owners. FACT, supported by the MPA, therefore took this court action,” FACT told TF.

The court order, which has yet to be made public, is believed to be similar to the orders against Firstrow, Solarmovie and Tubeplus which were handed down last year.

In that verdict the Court clarified that even when a website uses external “hosts” for the infringing content, the linking sites could still be guilty of making content available.

“Even where the content could be accessed from the host sites, the Websites make it much easier for members of the public to find what they want. Viewed from the perspective of the user, the Websites do in a very real sense make the content available to the public,” Justice Arnold wrote.

Virgin Media confirmed that their received the court order which they will implement in the near future. “We obey court orders when addressed to the company.” spokesperson Emma Hutchinson told us.

The MPA told Recombu that the new Megashare, Viooz, Watch32 and Zmovie blockades are expected to go into effect this week. Speaking with TorrentFreak, FACT says that the aim is to steer more people towards legal options, if those are available.

“The growth of the legal online market is held back by illegitimate sites,” a FACT spokesperson told TF.

“We want an internet that works for everyone, where the creative property of artists and creators is protected along with the privacy and security of all users. The internet must be a place for investment, innovation and creativity and today’s verdict represents a step towards realizing this,” FACT concludes.

Whether the present blocks will be more than a drop in the ocean has yet to be seen. There are many other streaming portals that are still available, which means that the movie studios will probably be back in court later this year.

—-

The full list of sites that are currently blocked in the UK is as follows:

Megashare, Viooz, Watch32, Zmovie, Solarmovie, Tubeplus, Primewire, Vodly, Watchfreemovies, Project-Free TV, Yify-Torrents, 1337x, Bitsnoop, Extratorrent, Monova, Torrentcrazy, Torrentdownloads, Torrentreactor, Torrentz, Ambp3, Beemp3, Bomb-mp3, Eemp3world, Filecrop, Filestube, Mp3juices, Mp3lemon, Mp3raid, Mp3skull, Newalbumreleases, Rapidlibrary, EZTV, FirstRowSports, Download4all, Movie2K, KickAssTorrents, Fenopy, H33T and The Pirate Bay.

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

The dispute dates back to last year when Universal Music discovered a torrent of Robin Thicke’s album ‘Blurred Lines’ being made available on popular torrent site H33T. After complaints failed to get the torrent removed, Universal took their case to court and eventually obtained a interim injunction against H33T’s German-based domain registrar, Key-Systems. In order to comply with the court order the company disabled H33T’s DNS entries, taking the entire site offline.

A ruling published this week by the Regional Court of Saarbrücken (pdf) clarified that considering infringement by H33T was “obvious”, Key-Systems could indeed be held liable for their customer’s infringing activities if they fail to take action after becoming aware of a problem.

In comments to TF, Key-Systems lawyer Volker Greimann said that the ruling “made no legal sense” and could have “dire consequences for the kind of services German registrars can provide.”

Now lawyers for Universal Music are firing back and disputing Greimann’s assessment of the ruling.

“Mr. Greimann states, the judgment ‘makes no legal sense’ and would threaten the whole business of Registrars. This is not true,” lawyer Miro Bruess from Rasch Legal informs TorrentFreak. “First off, the judgment not only makes sense legally, but also follows common sense.”

Bruess says that Key-Systems was both financially and technically involved in H33T, as well as being aware of the alleged infringement being carried out.

“After our [infringement] notice, Key-Systems had positive knowledge that a copyright infringement was happening on H33T,” Bruess explains.

“[Key-Systems] asked their reseller and the registrant (whom TorrentFreak calls ‘Shelby’, who claimed he would step forward in court but later decided against this) but neither of them took action to stop the infringements,” he adds.

Bruess says at this point it became “quite clear” that as “the only party involved who could stop the infringement”, Key-Systems needed to take action. That involved Key-Systems effectively disabling the whole domain, but Bruess says that was not his company’s request. They had only one requirement – to disable access to a single URL.

“In essence, Rasch Legal had not asked Key-Systems to close down h33t.com, but to stop one single torrent from being communicated to the public through h33t and h33t’s tracker,” he explains.

“This can be compared to a notice and takedown request. Most courts around the world agree that ISPs have to react to a notice and takedown request and if they don’t, they become liable. This is exactly what happened here.”

Key-Systems say they intend have the ruling overturned but in the meantime the stated aim of Universal Music appears to have failed, as the album Blurred Lines is still available via the H33T.to website. However, it would be naive to think that Universal would go to all this trouble for a single URL takedown – it can be safely presumed they had bigger goals in mind right from the start.

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