Apart from the ISP blockade in the UK, Solarmovie hasn’t run into any significant trouble. However, that changed yesterday when the site’s owner found out that someone had stolen the Solarmovie.tl domain name.

An unknown ‘hacker’ gained access to the name.com registrar where the domain was held and quickly transferred it to another registrar. How this could have happened is a mystery to Solarmovie admin Chris, who notes that they used a secure password.

“We have no idea how the registrar was accessed. The account had a 10 character long randomly generated password,” Chris informs TorrentFreak.

“I wonder why the name.com registrar didn’t send a confirmation link to the account’s primary email when it was changed. Registrars shouldn’t allow changes to login details in such an easy way without triple checking against swindlers,” he adds.

The Solarmovie.tl domain was transferred to EuroDNS and the registrant name changed to Gabriel Vasilica of HAVARD THABO LLP. The stolen domain now redirects to Solarmovie.ag, which initially displayed a “coming soon” landing page, but is now hosting a copy of the Solarmovie website.

The ‘fake’ Solarmovie has put up a notification informing visitors that the .AG domain is the site’s new home.

The ‘real’ Solarmovie, meanwhile, has reverted back to its old Solarmovie.so domain where it remains accessible as usual. They hope that the registrar can help them get the old domain back. Time will tell whether that’s possible.

“Currently we are talking to our registrar about possible measures we can take to have the domain returned. As for now, we revert back to solarmovie.so domain,” Chris says.

While it’s unclear who’s behind the domain hijack there are several signs that it’s the same person who stole the 1Channel.ch domain, which later became Vodly.to. For example, both vodly.to and solarmovie.ag use the same IDs for the Newrelic stats service.

Whoever’s behind the stolen domains and however they pulled it off, other streaming sites should be warned.

Update: Solarmovie’s Twitter account was hijacked briefly as well, but has been restored an hour ago.

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

This week a new High Court ruling went into effect ordering BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk to block access to the popular torrent site YIFY-Torrents, as well as streaming portals PrimeWire, Vodly, WatchFreeMovies and Project Free TV.

The major UK Internet providers have stopped defending themselves against entertainment industry requests, making it a mere formality for copyright holders to have a torrent or similar site blocked by order of the High Court.

Talking to TorrentFreak Virgin Media confirmed the latest additions.

“We obey court orders when addressed to the company,” Virgin’s Gareth Mead said, noting that the streaming sites SolarMovie and Tubeplus will also be blocked next month.

The total number of websites blocked on copyright grounds is 33, not counting proxies and other alternative domains. This list includes all the 10 most visited torrent sites including The Pirate Bay, and is expected to expand further in the weeks and months to come.

Whether the measures will be successful in preventing people from downloading and watching “pirated” content entirely has yet to be seen. These are still hundreds of alternative sites still available, as well as many proxies that provide access to blocked sites via a detour.

The entertainment industries, however, are confident that their actions will not be in vain. The movie studios and record labels will continue to press site owners to take down their services, and will submit complaints to the High Court for those that fail to comply.

“All of the sites in recent actions have been asked to comply with UK and international law and have refused to do so,” a FACT spokesman told TorrentFreak in response to the recent blocking orders.

“We have made it clear that we will seek action against sites that continue to provide unremitting mass access to infringing content following due legal process,” the Hollywood group said.

And so the Whack-a-Mole continues.

—

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

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.

Operators of streaming portals have not only been trying to come to terms with having their domains hijacked, but also the discovery that ‘rogue’ sites are operating which are identical copies of their own.

While this is causing obvious problems, TorrentFreak is informed that there is another serious situation developing behind the scenes. At the same time as streaming portals are being cloned, file-hosting sites are also being copied and passed off as the real thing.

Three separate site owners directed us to look at Vodly.to, a site that is currently trying to pass itself off as LetMeWatchThis / 1Channel. If we click on any movie link we are directed to a download page which lists many well known file-hosting sites as sources. The problem is that while they all look like the real deal, many are in fact cloned and faked sites.

For example, MovShare.me was a site created on July 1 2013 and is a blatant copy of the correct site MovShare.net, a five-year-old domain. Novamov.me was also created on July 1 2013 and is a direct ripoff of Novamov.com, a site established in 2008. Nowvideo.ws is also a fake, created at the end of June this year and a clone of NowVideo.eu.

But perhaps the most recognizable is the copying of Putlocker. The correct domain, Putlocker.com, is ranked the 307 most popular site in the world. However, Vodly.to is promoting Putlocker.ws, a clone passing itself off as the real thing.

Most worryingly, the fake site is pulling in a lot of traffic. From an early August standing start the site is now eating into the official site’s lead as the Alexa chart below illustrates.

If the clones weren’t bad enough, things took a turn for the worse when TorrentFreak was contacted by the owner of a large file-hosting site who informed us he’d essentially been blackmailed by the operators of hijacked streaming links domains.

“We have received countless emails from the hijacker blackmailing us into paying them a large sum of money in order for our hosting site to remain allowed on their hijacked site,” the admin informed us.

TorrentFreak has seen the emails in question and they do indeed demand cash in exchange for remaining indexed.

The approach, we are told, causes not only problems but a moral dilemma. While it would be easy to tell an insignificant player to go away, these hijacked sites are generating an awful lot of traffic.

“A large percentage of traffic from these 1Channel clones comes from the hijacked site, Vodly. In fact we get almost 10x more traffic from the hijacked site than the real one,” the admin explained.

The question now is how admins will react to the demands. Will they pay the money in the hope of maintaining their traffic, or tell their tormentors where to go and potentially lose much more?

Only time will tell, but what we’re definitely seeing here is the unauthorized streaming sector being turned into a messy ghetto where little is what it seems. How long users will put up with that is definitely something to watch.

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

In a nutshell, some time ago LetMeWatchThis changed its name to 1Channel. Then more recently it changed back again after the 1Channel domain was hijacked. After more shenanigans the site changed its domain to PrimeWire.ag and then this week, reportedly changed to Vodly.to

After receiving lots of emails on the topic, mostly asking which is the real site, we have now unraveled the mystery. We can confirm that of the domains currently operating, PrimeWire.ag and LetMeWatchThis.ch are ‘real’ and the others should all be disregarded as either dead or fake.

So what on earth has been going on?

On Friday, TorrentFreak managed to get in touch with the admin of the real sites who told us a quite astonishing story of how his domains were stolen from under his nose – not once, not twice, but an amazing three times.

It all started off a year ago when the site was operating from LetMeWatchThis.com, a domain that was hijacked and now diverts to WatchFreeMovies.com, a clone site presumably operated by the hijackers.

Then in May, after the site had moved to the replacement 1Channel.ch, that domain was also hijacked. LetMeWatchThis.ch, yet another replacement, suffered the same fate. This week PrimeWire.ag, the latest substitute domain, was hijacked too but is now back in safe hands.

So is poor security on the admin’s side to blame here or are there other factors at play? Apparently, domain name registrars are very easy to fool if you know how.

“The state of domain registrars is simply terrible,” the PrimeWire admin explains.

“We have had three domains hijacked from three separate registrars in the past two years. Every single registrar was given very specific instructions to prevent these hijackings, however every single one simply handed over the domain based on badly doctored ‘proof’, completely disregarding the warning given to them in regards to scenarios exactly like this.”

So how exactly are the registrars being convinced to hand over domains to impostors?

“This is actually a scary thing, since you can pretty much gain control (at least temporarily) of any domain you choose by pretending to be the owner of the domain,” our admin reveals.

“You don’t have to have access to any emails, passwords, or any other credentials. You simply grab the information from the WHOIS, write a letter with an attached photo-shopped ID with the same name, send it from a random email address, and the domain will be handed to you fairly quickly.”

So what can be done to avoid having your domain taken?

“Domains with no WHOIS at all (.to .so, etc) or protected WHOIS would probably do the trick, however after seeing how registrars just hand over domains without warning to random people, I wouldn’t bet on this 100% either,” the admin says.

“I think the best thing to do is build a strong community on the site, which cannot be stolen, and they will always keep the site alive no matter how many name changes it goes though,” he concludes.

So finally, the wrap up users of the sites have been waiting for:

LetMeWatchThis.com – Hijacked in 2012, still hijacked – AVOID
LetMeWatchThis.ch – Hijacked in 2013, now retrieved – BACK IN SAFE HANDS
1Channel.ch – Hijacked in 2013, now frozen – FROZEN
Vodly.to – Owned by hijackers – AVOID

PrimeWire.ag – Hijacked in 2013, now retrieved – BACK IN SAFE HANDS (Official site)

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

These sites, which in appearance are not dissimilar to YouTube, provide links to all the latest movies and TV shows. This content, usually held on 3rd party file-hosting services, is then displayed in a window, accessible at the touch of the button. No need to download the whole thing before viewing and no wait times.

But for reasons that are not entirely clear, some of the leading sites in this field – which at times have been among the most popular sites on the Internet – have been involved in activity that has undermined confidence in their services and damaged their rankings.

The problem appears to be that they have rivals, enemies who are prepared to hack their domain names, hijack their sites and pass themselves off as the real thing.

The biggest disaster by far involves the famous 1Channel.ch. This site, which grew out of the LetMeWatchThis this domain, was apparently hacked back in May. 1Channel then pointed to a fake site which looked almost identical, which left the original site owner to revert back to the original LetMeWatchThis domain.

Then in June, LetMeWatchThis went down without explanation, only to reappear a few days later with a new domain – PrimeWire.ag. If you’re keeping up by this point you’re doing well – hold tight.

Now, just two months later, PrimeWire.ag is redirecting to a brand new domain – Vodly.to. There’s a notice on the front page as follows:

But there’s a problem. If 1Channel.ch was hijacked earlier this year and became a fake site, why would the owners of Vodly.to associate themselves with it? Why would they say that 1Channel.ch, PrimeWire.ag and now Vodly.to are one and the same? Why is there no mention of LetMeWatchThis.ch, a hugely popular domain that preceded 1Channel in its first incarnation, PrimeWire.ag in its second and it still online at this very moment?

Perhaps the most important question is this: are these all the same sites? The short answer to that is ‘No’.

Earlier this year the admin of LetMeWatchThis showed TorrentFreak a detail present on his site which enabled us to confirm he was the admin after 1Channel.ch was hijacked. That feature was also present on PrimeWire.ag which led us to feel moderately comfortable (entire server/backup takeover excepted) that PrimeWire was in fact the new name for LetMeWatchThis.

But now, if one goes to PrimeWire.ag (which diverts to the new name of Vodly.to) that feature is not present, which suggests that Vodly.to is probably a whole new site and nothing to do with the sites it claims to succeed. In the meantime the Twitter account for PrimeWire is advising people to use LetMeWatchThis.ch again.

So in summary…..no, let’s not even go there. This entire episode is a disaster from start to finish which has caused more uncertainty and doubt than any anti-piracy campaign could hope to achieve. There are countless users online wondering whether these sites are some sort of trap or have been set up for malicious purposes. Very few people know the answer to that question and those that do are not responding to their mails…..

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

Nevertheless, that learning curve will always be a step too far for some and that’s why sites like YouTube have become so popular. Everyone knows how a search box works and recognizing a ‘play’ button is simple, even for those who last used one on a cassette deck.

As YouTube has grown to become the number one streaming venue online, other sites have been blossoming in the background. Less likely to carry user home videos but extremely likely to link to the latest Hollywood blockbusters, sites like Movie4K (formerly Movie2K) and Primetime.ag (formally LetMeWatchThis) are pulling in millions of visitors every day. They are simple to use and deliver content immediately, so it’s little wonder they are so popular.

With BitTorrent, users are sharing content with others, which is the activity that gets a small minority in trouble with copyright holders. With streaming, no such problem exists. A user downloads video directly from a server and no third parties can see what is going on. No lawsuits, zero hassle. But just because people can’t see what goes on, does it necessarily follow that the activity is legal?

“As the law stands today, you can not say it is illegal,” admits Henrik Pontén from Swedish anti-piracy group Rättighetsalliansen (Rights Alliance).

Pontén says the effect on rightsholders is the same as if people actually download the content and likens the streaming of content to benefiting from other people’s crimes. However, there are clear problems from an enforcement perspective. In addition to users being safe from the law, streaming sites are often located overseas which complicates matters further still.

Justice Minister Beatrice Ask told P3 that the government has its eye on the problem but admitted nothing is in the legislative pipeline to deal with it.

“This is something that has come about in recent years and of course we’re following it very carefully. But it is also difficult for the law to keep pace with change all the time. It’s not only a Swedish problem but an international one and there is a big discussion about it,” the minister said. “We have no planned legislative changes going on today, but we are following what is happening and the discussion.”

In March, fresh calls were made to Congress in the United States to upgrade streaming from a misdemeanor to a felony. Earlier efforts stalled along with the doomed SOPA legislation.

In the UK, three recent cases involving streaming highlight the range of measures available to rightsholders.

The first, against UK resident Richard O’Dwyer, resulted in an amicable solution after an extradition battle was fought over his former site, TVShack. The second involved the harsh criminal punishments handed down to the admin of SurftheChannel.

More recently the site Movie2K (now Movie4K) was blocked by ISPs following High Court action initiated by the MPA. This, says Henrik Pontén, is where the battle could end up.

“If these perpetrators are using vast resources to hide, going abroad to hide their identities, then we have to ask the question – what should we do? It has been tested in other countries and it has a good effect.”

“There is a desire to say something to those who commit these kinds of acts – you’re driving the trend towards blocking,” Pontén concludes.

The latest example of that in the UK was revealed late last week when the Premier League approached ISPs to block Firstrow1. A few hours later TorrentFreak received a message from Pirate Reverse, one of the leading proxy operators.

“We saw your recent article about the Premier League trying to censor firstrow1.eu so we created firstrowproxy.com,” the email read.

And so it continues………

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

However, in recent years bandwidth has become more easily available at the right price and as a result streaming sites of all kinds have flourished. One only has to look at YouTube for the Internet’s best example.

But in the backwaters of the Internet less official sites have been flourishing. Streaming portals offering all of the latest movies and TV shows have grown from a niche experience into one enjoyed by millions of people everyday.

One of the biggest sites around is 1Channel.ch. The site is used by millions of people every week – probably every day – but most of its users have no idea of the site’s recent history. If they did, they may not feel so comfortable visiting the domain.

Early May, 1Channel.ch (which at the time was also known under its former name of LetMeWatchThis.ch) disappeared from the Internet without warning.

“We are having some issues with the 1channel.ch domain, please use letmewatchthis.ch domain in the mean time,” the site announced.

Behind the scenes all was not well.

“The [1Channel.ch] domain was hijacked from our registrar with a combination of falsified documents and a major security exploit in the registrar’s control panel, that allowed attackers to access any account in their system without a password,” the admin of the site told TorrentFreak.

From this point, 1Channel.ch – which is still running today – became a cloned site using a hijacked domain. Browsing through the site’s forums it’s clear that sections of the site are missing or have been removed while other errors persist. Obviously things are still not working properly for the domain’s new ‘owners’.

With no chance of getting the domain back, the real site was forced to revert to LetMeWatchThis.ch exclusively. As can be seen from the Alexa stats below, the hijackers are doing very well indeed.

On the other hand, the real site – LetMeWatchThis – has taken quite a hit. The site’s global rank with Alexa is now 5,527 while the fake is enjoying its status as the world’s 347th most popular site.

The woes don’t stop there. Anyone attempting to do a Google search for LetMeWatchThis draws a complete blank. Not only is the site completely absent from at least the first 10 pages of results, an even worse problem soon becomes apparent.

The first result for the domain is a link to 1Channel.ch, the hijacked site. What follows are results for perhaps a dozen or so other sites trying to pass themselves off as LetMeWatchThis with varying degrees of success. Some are very convincing indeed and most would easily fool a casual user.

So, faced with hijackers, clones, fakes and damn, damn pirates, LetMeWatchThis has decided to make a clean break to end all the confusion with a complete renaming of the site to PrimeWire.ag.

“We have switched to the new domain name to differentiate ourselves from all the clone sites out there,” the admin told TorrentFreak. “We would like to ask our fans not to use 1channel.ch as it is potentially spreading malware and collecting users personal log in information.”

Whether 1Channel is doing either of those things is a matter for debate, but it seems clear that so far its users either don’t know or don’t care about the hijacking situation. The site is doing very well and appears to have momentum that won’t be held back anytime soon. After all, going to the police for help is hardly an option.

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

After Movie2k disappeared earlier this week, with all its mysteries, LetMeWatchThis.ch has become unreachable as well today.

There is no official explanation for the downtime yet but the DNS servers don’t appear to be responding anywhere in the world.

The site disappeared roughly 12 hours ago for most people.

LetMeWatchThis’ former sister domain 1channel.ch is still up and running but the owner previously warned users not to use that because it’s compromised.

When we receive more information this article will be updated.

Update: Letmewatchthis came back online for most people after nearly 24 hours of downtime.

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

Last Friday we posted an update on a problem being faced by 1Channel.ch, a site that’s also known by its former name of LetMeWatchThis.ch.

Both domains used to direct to one site but last week the 1Channel.ch domain stopped working.

“We are having some issues with the 1channel.ch domain, please use letmewatchthis.ch domain in the mean time,” the site said.

Now a more serious problem has raised its head.

The 1Channel.ch domain is now working again and appears to display the correct LetMeWatchThis.ch site. However, on closer inspection it appears that 1Channel.ch now redirects to a clone of LetMeWatchThis, not the real site.

In a further indication that something is wrong, 1Channel’s forum section is not only out of date but whole sections are missing. LetMeWatchThis on the other hand appears to be working just fine.

“Do NOT use 1channel.ch domain, it has been compromised,” warn the operators of LetMeWatchThis.ch.

So, in summary – LetMeWatchThis.ch is now the real site and 1Channel.ch should be considered a fake/clone until further notice – logging in there should be avoided.

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

1Channel.ch is one of the most popular streaming portals on the Internet. The site is ranked the 293rd most-visited website according to Alexa with millions of pageviews every single day.

However, over the past 24/36 hours, things haven’t been going to plan.

The site usually operates from the Swiss-based 1Channel.ch domain but for the past day at least and at the time of writing it remains completely non-functional.

The site’s operator has given no detailed explanation for the outage in response to our request for comment, but did offer the following announcement.

“We are having some issues with the 1channel.ch domain, please use letmewatchthis.ch domain in the mean time,” the site said.

LetMeWatchThis was the site’s former name, a brand which still appears on the site today.

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