Let’s Be Cops is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

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

Last week these rightsholders were joined by luxury brand owner Richemont, which successfully obtained orders to block sites selling counterfeit products. The outcome of that particular case had delayed decisions in other blocking applications, including one put forward by the record labels. Today the High Court ended its hiatus by processing a new injunction.

The application was made by record labels 1967, Dramatico Entertainment, Infectious Music, Liberation Music, Simco Limited, Sony Music and Universal Music. The labels represented themselves plus the BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) and PPL (Phonographic Performance Ltd) which together account for around 99% of all music legally available in the UK today.

Through their legal action the labels hoped to disrupt the activities of sites and services they believe to be enabling and facilitating the unlawful distribution of their copyright works. In this case the key targets were the 21 torrent sites listed below:

(1) bittorrent.am, (2) btdigg.org, (3) btloft.com, (4) bts.to, (5) limetorrents.com, (6) nowtorrents.com, (7) picktorrent.com, (8) seedpeer.me, (9) torlock.com, (10) torrentbit.net, (11) torrentdb.li, (12) torrentdownload.ws, (13) torrentexpress.net, (14) torrentfunk.com, (15) torrentproject.com, (16) torrentroom.com, (17) torrents.net, (18) torrentus.eu, (19) torrentz.cd, (20) torrentzap.com and (21) vitorrent.org.

As usual the UK’s leading Internet service providers – Sky, Virgin, TalkTalk, BT and EE – were named as defendants in the case. The ISPs neither consented to nor opposed the application but participated in order to negotiate the wording of any order granted.

In his ruling Justice Arnold noted that the sites listed in the application function in a broadly similar way to The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, sites that are already subjected to blocking orders. Perhaps surprisingly, efforts by some of the sites to cooperate with rightsholders meant little to the Court.

“All of [the sites] go to considerable lengths to facilitate and promote the downloading of torrent files, and hence infringing content, by their users,” Justice Arnold wrote.

“Although a few of the Target Websites pay lipservice to copyright protection, in reality they all flout it. Although a few of the Target Websites claim not to, they all have control over which torrent files they index.”

Also of interest is that Court didn’t differentiate between sites that allow users to upload torrents, those that store them, or those that simply harvest links to torrents hosted elsewhere.

“Thirteen of the Target Websites (bittorrent.am, btdigg.org, btloft.com, nowtorrents.com, picktorrent.com, torrentdb.li, torrentdownload.ws, torrentexpress.net, torrentproject.com, torrentroom.com, torrentus.eu, torrentz.cd and vitorrent.org) do not permit uploads of torrent files by users, but gather all their links to torrent files using ‘crawling’ technology. No torrent files are stored on these websites’ own servers,” Justice Arnold explained.

“Nevertheless, the way in which the torrent files (or rather the links thereto) are presented, and the underlying technology, is essentially the same as in the cases of the other Target Websites.”

The Judge also touched on the efficacy of website blockades, citing comScore data which suggests that, on average, the number of UK visitors to already blocked BitTorrent sites has declined by 87%.

“No doubt some of these users are using circumvention measures which are not reflected in the comScore data, but for the reasons given elsewhere it seems clear that not all users do this,” Justice Arnold wrote.

Speaking with TF the BPI said that the 21 sites had been selected for blocking on the basis that they are amongst the most infringing sites available in the UK today. BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor said that having them rendered inaccessible would help both the music industry and consumers.

“Illegal sites dupe consumers and deny artists a fair reward for their work. The online black market stifles investment in new British music, holds back the growth of innovative legal services like Spotify and destroys jobs across Britain’s vital creative sector,” Taylor said.

“Sites such as these also commonly distribute viruses, malware and other unsafe or inappropriate content. These blocks will not only make the internet a safer place for music fans, they will help make sure there is more great British music in years to come.”

Finally, and mirroring a decision made in the Richemont case, Justice Arnold said that Internet subscribers affected by the block will be given the ability to apply to the High Court to discharge or vary the orders. Furthermore, when blocked site information pages are viewed by ISP subscribers in future, additional information will have to be displayed including details of the parties who obtained the block.

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

Countering, Australians have complained fiercely about being treated as second-class consumers, with products often appearing months after their debut in other territories. There are signs that entertainment companies are beginning to listen, but piracy will probably be a difficult habit to break in the short term.

A new study published today claims that not only are the numbers of pirates increasing, but they’re also pirating more frequently.

Commissioned by the IP Awareness Foundation which counts the MPA, Foxtel and other key industry players among its members, the study found that 29% of Aussie adults aged between 18-64 are regular or occasional pirates, up from 25% last year.

The anonymous study also reveals some interesting trends as teens progress towards adulthood. In the 12 to 13 year-old group active pirates made up 14% of respondents but just a year later this doubles. Among 14 to 15 year-olds, active pirates increased to 29%.

By the ages of 16 and 17 this figure had grown even further to 36%.

It’s clear that the industry would like to have the older generation influence its children to download less or not at all and the study suggests that parental influence carries the most weight with teens.

Overall, 67% of respondents said it is their parents who provide the most guidance on how to behave online, with 19% citing schools and teachers. Interestingly, just 7% mentioned peers as an influence with 1% or less mentioning the government.

However, while parents appear to carry the most influence, the perils of illegal downloading aren’t at the top of their concerns. Not releasing personal details online was the most discussed topic, followed by virus and malware, unsuitable (18+) websites and care over financial details.

Although the topic of illegal downloading was last on the list overall, those who don’t pirate said their parents discussed the subject more than those who pirate regularly.

Whether the parental discussions over malware paid off isn’t clear, but 63% of teen pirates said they were aware that ads on pirate sites could contain malicious software. But while aware of the risks, most had experienced no problems, with just 13% claiming an infection when downloading movies or TV shows or clicking ads on a pirate site.

Perhaps of most interest is the finding that teen pirates engage in legal media consumption habits at similar or improved levels to their illegal ones. Furthermore, teens who don’t pirate appear to consume less content legally than their pirating counterparts.

For instance, while around 35% of active downloaders obtain a movie from the Internet at least once each month without paying, 38% also rent a movie or TV show legally. Among non-pirates, this figure is just 27%.

Equally, while 37% of pirates admit to illegally streaming content at least once a month, 69% pay to see movies at the cinema. Among the non-pirates, the figure is just 49%.

The findings also show that pirates are more engaged when it comes to consuming legal media online digitally. Some 46% of teen pirates said they download movies and TV shows from services such as iTunes each month while among non-pirates the figure is just 29%.

In respect of finding illegal content, just two main methods are cited by the teen respondents. A total of 59% said they go directly to their favorite sites to find movies and TV shows, while 22% said they used a search engine such as Google or Bing.

The study concludes by suggesting that anti-piracy education should be focused on the younger generation, to educate children before they reach 13 years-old when peer pressure kicks in and parents have less involvement.

A good balance might also be to work out how to get non-pirating teens as involved in buying legal content as their pirating counterparts.

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

The event, which needs little introduction, saw the iCloud accounts of many prominent female celebrities accessed illegally and their personal (in many cases intimately so) photographs leaked online. The FBI are investigating and for the leakers this probably isn’t going to end well.

But for the users of 4chan this leak, which was rumored to have begun on the board itself, was the gift that just kept on giving. Excited users quickly came up with a portmanteau based on ‘happening’ plus ‘fapping’ and The Fappening was born, a prelude to taking the Internet by storm.

While the event itself appears to be dying down, the leak and the worldwide attention it bestowed on 4chan may have prompted a surprise decision by the site’s operator. Whether the leak was directly responsible will become clear in due course (we’ve reached out to the site for a response), but sometime yesterday 4chan introduced a DMCA policy.

The policy registers a DMCA agent for 4chan, which helps to afford the site safe harbor protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Although not yet listed in the numerical section of Copyright.gov, the designated agent will now become the point of contact for copyright complaints and DMCA notices when content owners believe that their ownership rights have been violated on 4chan.

While most US-based user-generated content websites should not entertain operating without safe harbor, the way 4chan is set up provides a unique scenario in respect of infringing content being posted by its users.

“Threads expire and are pruned by 4chan’s software at a relatively high rate. Since most boards are limited to eleven or sixteen pages, content is usually available for only a few hours or days before it is removed,” the site’s FAQ explains.

4chan’s Chris Poole (‘moot’) previously told the Washington Post his deletion policy was both a necessarily evil and a plus to the site.

“It’s one of the few sites that has no memory. It’s forgotten the next day,” he said.

Despite the board’s userbase being notoriously rebellious, the deletion policy appears to work well. To date Google’s Transparency Report lists takedowns for just 706 URLs.

“I don’t have resources like YouTube to deal with $1 billion lawsuit with Viacom,” Poole said in 2012. “Don’t store what you absolutely don’t need. People are pre-disposed to wanting to store everything.”

Of course, it’s not only companies such as Viacom on the warpath. Yesterday a spokesman for Jennifer Lawrence said that the authorities had been contacted and anyone found posting ‘stolen’ photos of the actress online would be prosecuted.

While the scope of that action isn’t entirely clear, many of the leaked photos were ‘selfies’ to which Lawrence has first shout on copyright. They’re still being posted on hundreds if not thousands of Internet sites even today, so having a DMCA policy in place will help those sites avoid liability, even if in 4chan’s case the images are only present for a few hours.

In the meantime, sites such as The Pirate Bay who care substantially less about copyright law than 4chan does today are continuing to spread the full currently-available ‘Fappening’ archives at a rapid rate. Statistics collected by TorrentFreak suggest that the packs have been downloaded well over a million times.

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

Instead of pure head-on attacks against websites, their finances are being undermined through deals with advertisers and their sites blocked online. Rather than attempting to batter ISPs into submission through the courts, partnerships are sought instead. And when it comes to the end user, it’s largely education and more education.

In Australia the debate is familiar. On top of a legal framework to have websites blocked at network level, rightsholders are now seeking friendly cooperation from ISPs in order to deliver a message to subscribers that content should be purchased, not pirated.

The debate is well underway with the government seeking input from interested parties. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been putting pressure on rightsholders to ramp up their game in respect of pricing and availability too, which is definitely a step in the right direction.

But yesterday, during a televised interview with Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News, Turnbull made comments that transport the debate back many years, raising the specter of tough punitive action to send an anti-piracy message.

At first things started as expected, with the Minister telling Sky that people need to be educated. He raised the usual shoplifting and stealing analogies, noting that taking content from supermarkets is no different from downloading content online.

Then, after outlining New Zealand’s “three strikes” system, he noted that if content owners are suffering losses, then it should be them who foot the bill for any introduced anti-piracy measures. Content owners aside, few would disagree there.

Turnbull also noted that disconnections for persistently pirating Internet users would be met with a lot of resistance so were probably off the table, but then the bombshell.

“Rightsholders are not keen on taking people to court, because it doesn’t look good, because it’s bad publicity. What happens if the person you sue is a single mother, what happens if it’s a teenager, what happens if it’s a retiree on a low income?” Turnbull said.

“The bottom line is though, rightsholders are going to have to be tactical about who they take to court, who they want to sue.”

Education, it seems, only goes so far in Turnbull’s eyes. In addition there will need to be punishments for those who don’t get the message and that in turn will help to solve the problem.

“What you do is that when you raise awareness of this, and as people recognize that there is a risk that they will be sued, and have to pay for what they have stolen, then the level of infringement and theft will decline,” the Minister said.

So who should the rightsholders “strategically” target?

“It is absolutely critical that rightsholders…are prepared to actually roll their sleeves up and take on individuals. They have got to be prepared to sue people. Sue moms and dads and students who are stealing their content. They can’t expect everybody else to do that for them,” Turnbull said.

This kind of aggression from a key Minister in this debate is bound to raise alarm bells. As rightholders head down the cooperation and education route, here is a clear sign that the government thinks that yet more legal action against the public will solve the problem.

It won’t, and ISPs such as iiNet almost certainly won’t like the sound of this either. Whether this will hurt cooperation moving forward remains to be seen, but it’s likely to paint a picture of a government and an industry holding up new carrots, but keeping the same old tired stick in reserve, just in case.

The whole interview can be seen here.

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

On one hand, you have the copyright industry, now content thinking it won the war against the net generation – or net generations by now (plural). File-sharing has stopped growing, the copyright industry observes, and controlled streaming is growing exponentially. New technology has produced a better offering that outcompeted the inferior pirate alternatives, and in the end, people wanted to do the legal thing, the copyright industry argues.

But this is very far from the truth. The only true part of it is that the number of people sharing culture and knowledge is no longer growing exponentially, but that’s because the habit is saturated. One-third of young people in the US and Europe today share culture – in violation of the copyright monopoly – daily or almost-daily. A phenomenon can’t keep growing exponentially forever in a finite population: eventually, everybody’s doing it, and that’s the point we have arrived at now.

Apart from that, it is true that the copyright industry has produced better offerings: Pandora, Netflix, and HBO streaming. But so have the people who manufacture their copies without a license. The Pirate Bay is ten years old; almost as old as Microsoft’s Windows XP, to put it in context. (Anybody remember Microsoft?) Yet, despite HBO’s successful and profitable subscription model, record numbers of us get our latest fix of Game of Thrones delivered automatically directly to our desktop the instant it is available, courtesy of RSS torrenting and EZTV, or your own favorite supplier.

And if we don’t like torrenting, but actually like streaming? Turns out that the pirate equivalents of the commercial offerings far surpass the simplicity, accessibility, and ease of use of the copyright industry’s technology – and that’s not even going into selection and absence of laughingly stupid “not available in your country” messages. From Popcorn Time to Zona, the happy amateur sharers are miles and leagues ahead of the copyright industry. The technology that the copyright industry claims “already has won the war” for that obsolete industry? Well, it turns out that the net generation could use the same technology to build a lot better services still. Teens today make absolutely no distinction whether services are “legal” or not; they just grab stuff from where it’s easiest.

In this environment, people on the other side – the people manufacturing unlicensed copies of knowledge and culture, and sharing those copies in turn – have also taken a victory for granted. We’re getting our Game of Thrones, we’re getting our movies and porn as we always have, what’s the big deal? The Pirate Bay team was sentenced in a mock trial five years ago to largely no effect whatsoever (except for those poor individuals), the site itself is still up, and new great services for manufacturing our own copies of knowledge and culture are appearing by the month. Why bother fighting? This is long over, right?

Not so fast. SOPA and ACTA was just two years ago, in 2012. They were struck back, but their obfuscated spawn are already appearing. We’ve seen and heard the acronyms TPP, TTIP, CISP, CETA, and others. The copyright industry keeps working, it just does so out of the sunlight.

In the end, this is about the power of narratives, the greatest power anybody has ever had. And the copyright industry isn’t giving it up without a fight.

The file-sharing wars are far from over. There may be a bit of silence on the fronts at the moment. Enjoy it, and prepare for what’s coming.

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

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation spin-off owns various major newspapers and also has a significant stake in Foxtel, the Australian pay television network which airs the heavily pirated Game of Thrones series.

News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson says its a thorn in the side of the company that hundreds of thousands of Australians pirate the popular TV-show, instead of buying a Foxtel subscription. With the piracy numbers increasing year-after-year it’s now time for action, and Thomson believes that Google should step up its efforts.

“For a company to have a sophisticated algorithm that knows ­exactly where you are and what you’re doing and maintains ignorance on piracy is an untenable contradiction,” Thomson said in an interview with The Australian.

Thomson notes that Google could easily demote links to pirate sites in their search results, and eventually remove these sites altogether. Implementing these anti-piracy algorithms would be a significant step to address the ongoing piracy problems.

“There’s no doubt that search giants need to be held to account. It’s obvious that it is illegal content or content accessed illegally,” Thomson says.

Thomson is backed by Foxtel chief executive Richard Freudenstein, who sees no excuses for the rising piracy rates now that they’ve made the show available in a timely manner.

“We made Game of Thrones available at a good price on Foxtel Play and yet it was still heavily illegally downloaded. The longer this goes on the more people don’t seem to think of it as theft which is what it is,” Freudenstein says.

The good price Foxtel’s boss is referring to is roughly $500 USD to access the fourth season of Game of Thrones, or $50 USD per episode. Needless to say, this is still rather expensive for the average teenager.

Thus far Google has taken some steps to address the piracy issue, but the search giant refuses to remove entire domains from its search results without proper takedown notices.

Contrary to Foxtel and News Corp, Google previously advised the Australian Government not to implement draconian ant-piracy legislation. According to Google piracy is mostly an availability and pricing problem, which is best tackled with innovation instead of legislation.

“We believe there is significant, credible evidence emerging that online piracy is primarily an availability and pricing problem. We would encourage the Government to promote new business models and a free marketplace for legal purchasing of content,” Google noted.

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

This argument has gathered serious momentum in Australia during the past few years, with local consumers regularly criticizing international TV and movie companies for shipping products Down Under months after release and then charging unrealistic prices.

But in a recent opinion piece, the principal analyst at local music royalty collection outfit APRA AMCOS disputed whether the arrival of services like Spotify that give consumers what they want, have actually done anything to reduce piracy rates.

“Music’s had everything everybody now wants for television shows, such as Game of Thrones, for a couple of years: availability, access and a reasonable price. But the piracy issue still has not been solved,” Andrew Harris wrote.

“In fact, results last month from our ongoing national research show that music piracy levels – just as they were almost two years ago – still sit at around the same level as that of movies and television shows.”

Noting that Spotify offers content in Australia at the moment it’s released around the world and does so at one of the best prices, Harris arrives at a familiar conclusion.

“We’ve heard it all before. No matter how loud the minority might shout it in anger as the answer, it’s impossible to compete with free.”

Unsurprisingly that notion doesn’t sit well with Spotify, a company that was designed from the ground up to compete with piracy.

Responding to Harris’s assertions in Australian Financial Review, Spotify Australia and New Zealand chief Kate Vale said that the company’s experiences told a different story.

“We do believe that access, availability and price does contribute and is the answer and we have proven this in other markets across Europe and particularly in Sweden where we have seen a 30 per cent reduction in piracy since we launched about six years ago,” Vale said.

Cracking Sweden was undoubtedly a major feat given the country’s long association with Internet piracy and Vale believes that Spotify now has the right formula to attract the most aggressive file-sharers – and make money from them.

“If you look at the main audience that is on Spotify, a lot of them are former pirates. There are teenagers who have potentially never paid for their music before, and probably never will,” she said.

“If we can get them on to a service that is free but legal, and they are contributing through our advertising on that free tier, then it is giving money back into the industry that they are just never going to get before.”

The ad-supported tier of Spotify is undoubtedly a great incentive to get people to try the service. Globally the company says that it converts around a quarter of free users to premium subscribers but Australia actually tops that with 31%, suggesting that Aussies are happier than most to part with their hard-earned cash in exchange for a good product.

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

It’s now possible to emulate classic games on both iOS and Android devices, some via official apps and others via less authorized routes. Traditionally iOS has been the less flexible route due to the need for users to jailbreak their devices but in recent months the latest version of a Game Boy emulator has been tearing things up by allowing direct installation, no hacks needed.

GBA4iOS works very well indeed. The no-jailbreak installation on iPhone or iPad is achieved by exploiting a loophole in Apple’s Developer Enterprise Program and once in situ the user has access to countless games, accessible via an inbuilt browser and third party ROM sites. The latest version even has Dropbox integration.

The emulator is the brainchild of high-school student Riley Testut who back in February reported that the latest version of the software alone had achieved more than one million downloads. Now, however, the 18-year-old has the might of Nintendo of America to deal with.

Up until a few hours ago GBA4iOS was hosted on Github, but now the gaming giant’s legal team has hit the code sharing website with a takedown for the popular emulator.

“We represent Nintendo of America Inc. (“Nintendo”) in copyright matters. Certain material posted on the web site located at www.gba4iosapp.com infringes copyrights owned by Nintendo. GitHub, Inc. is identified as the internet service provider for this web site and IP Address 192.30.252.153. This notice is provided pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC § 512,” the notice begins.

“Nintendo requests that GitHub, Inc. disable public access to the web site at www.gba4iosapp.com. This web site hosts a downloadable mobile application for iOS that provides users with access to unauthorized and illegal copies of Nintendo’s copyright-protected video games in violation of Nintendo’s exclusive rights.”

Nintendo signs off with a note that it would appreciate Github’s “expeditious removal” of all infringing content. Somewhat immediately, Github complied.

Riley Testus reports that while the emulator will continue to work, at least for now there will be no new downloads.

The teenager, who is very open with his identity online and is currently on an internship with Bottle Rocket Apps, has a new version with multi-player support in the pipeline but this action from Nintendo is bound to cast a huge shadow over that release.

Fighting it out with one of the world’s largest games companies at such a tender age is unlikely to end well, so if people have a copy of the software, archiving it now might be a wise decision. It could be the last one ever.

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

NPD’s Senior Vice President, Industry Analysis, Russ Crupnick informs us that mobile music piracy through apps has outgrown traditional P2P file-sharing and direct downloads.

“In terms of the number of internet users doing a variety of music sharing activities, downloading from mobile apps is the most popular,” Crupnick tells TF.

The data comes from unpublished research, which was the first to include statistics on the usage of mobile apps to download music. Quite surprisingly, mobile piracy comes out on top right away.

It is estimated that in the United States 27 million people downloaded at least one music track via their mobile over the past year, mostly without permission. This trumps all other forms of online piracy. By comparison, 21 million people used traditional P2P sites such as The Pirate Bay to download music.

For other media types the results are different, but the findings signal an interesting trend.

According to NPD mobile apps are, as one would expect, most popular with younger consumers. There are a variety of reasons for the mobile piracy explosion, but the research firm believes that increased usage of smartphones and apps among Millennials is a major driver.

“My guess is there is an underground buzz network about music apps that is fueled by teens and Millennials,” Crupnick says.

NPD believes that it’s important for copyright holders and app platforms to work together to tackle this problem. While some people may know that these apps are unauthorized, the fact that they appear in iTunes or Google Play may give them an air of legitimacy.

“Lots of things on the web are free or ad-supported, including some entertainment content. I’m sure some users are quite aware that there is music that is not legally distributed on these apps, but others may not be as educated,” Crupnick tells us.

“If it’s on an app store, it must be ‘OK’. This is where the music industry and technology companies have an opportunity and maybe an obligation to work together to make sure consumers understand, and artists get compensated,” he adds.

These last comments appear to signal a new working territory for the music industry’s anti-piracy initiatives. Until now, there hasn’t been a major campaign against “infringing” apps, but this is bound to change in the near future.

Whether a crackdown on apps will be enough to counter the current mobile piracy trend has yet to be seen. In addition to pirate apps, several unauthorized MP3 indexes have also developed mobile versions, which will prove much harder to deal with.

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