These submissions help to guide the U.S. Government’s position toward foreign countries when it comes to copyright enforcement. The RIAA’s report (odt) includes more than 50 alleged pirate sites, but it is the introduction that draws most attention.

Neil Turkewitz, RIAA Executive Vice President, informs the Government that some of the rogue websites, and their supporters, falsely argue that they aid freedom of speech and counter censorship.

Specifically, the RIAA describes The Pirate Bay and other pirate sites as an assault on our humanity, suggesting that the right to protect one’s copyrights trumps freedom of expression.

“Some observers continue to suggest that the protection of expression is a form of censorship or restriction on fundamental freedoms, and some pirate sites cloak themselves in the language of freedom to justify themselves—sites like The Pirate Bay…” Turkewitz writes.

“We must end this assault on our humanity and the misappropriation of fundamental human rights. If the protection of expression is itself a restriction on freedom of expression, then we have entered a metaphysical Wonderland that stands logic on its head, and undermines core, shared global values about personhood,” he adds.

The RIAA says it’s hopeful that the piracy threat can be addressed if society and legitimate companies stop doing business with these sites. To do so, the public must stop conflating anti-piracy measures with censorship.

“We may not be able to eradicate piracy—there will always be an isolated number of individuals or enterprises who are prepared to steal whatever they can, but we can—and must—stop providing moral cover by conflating copyright enforcement with censorship, or by misapplying notions of Internet freedom or permissionless innovation so that they extend to an embrace of lawlessness.”

In recent months copyright holders have often hammered on payment processors and advertising networks to stop doing business with pirate sites. The RIAA reiterates this in their USTR submission, but also points a finger at the ISPs, at least indirectly.

According to the RIAA, BitTorrent indexing sites make deals with hosting providers to pay lower fees if they have more traffic. While this is standard business for most ISPs, the industry group frames it as an indirect source of revenue for the pirate sites.

“Indexing services can, and usually do, generate revenue from one or more of the following: advertising, user donations and suspected arrangements with ISPs whereby reduced fees are offered in return for increased traffic on the sites. The particular financial model, structure and approach vary from site to site,” Turkewitz notes.

Finally, the RIAA admits that some torrent sites process DMCA takedown notices, but believes that this is only an attempt to “appear” legitimate. In reality the infringing content is re-uploaded almost instantly, so the problem remains.

“As a result, copyright owners are forced into an endless ‘cat and mouse’ game, which requires considerable resources to be devoted to chasing infringing content, only for that same infringing content to continually reappear,” the report reads.

Without specifying what, Turkewitz notes that torrent site owners have to do more if they really want to become legitimate services.

“It is imperative that BitTorrent site operators take reasonable measures to prevent the distribution of infringing torrents or links and to implement measures that would prevent the indexing of infringing torrents,” he writes.

In addition to torrent sites the submission also lists various cyberlockers, blogs and linking sites which allegedly deserve the label “notorious market.”

Below is the RIAA’s full list as it was reported to the USTR. These, and the other submissions will form the basis of the U.S. Government’s Special 301 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets, which is expected to come out later this year.

—

- vKontakte
- EX.UA
- The Pirate Bay
- KickAss.to
- Torrentz.eu
- Bitsnoop.com
- ExtraTorrent.cc
- Isohunt.to
- Zamunda
- Arena.bg
- Torrenthound.com
- Fenopy.se
- Monova.org
- Torrentreactor.net
- Sumotorrent.sx
- Seedpeer.me
- Torrentdownloads.me
- 4shared.com
- Uploaded.net
- Oboom.com
- Zippyshare.com
- Rapidgator.net
- Turbobit.net
- Ulozto.cz
- Sdílej.cz
- Hell Spy
- HellShare
- Warez-dk.org
- Freakshare.com
- Bitshare.com
- Letitbit.net
- 1fichier.com
- Filestube.to
- Music.so.com
- Verycd.com
- Gudanglagu.com
- Thedigitalpinoy.org
- Todaybit.com
- Chacha.vn
- Zing.vn
- Songs.to
- Boerse.to
- Mygully.com
- Wawa-mania.ec
- Bajui.com
- Goear.com
- Pordescargadirecta.com
- Exvagos.com
- Degraçaémaisgostoso.org
- Baixeturbo.org
- Hitsmp3.net
- Musicasparabaixar.org
- Sapodownloads.net
- Sonicomusica.com
- Jarochos.net
- Rnbexclusive.se
- Newalbumreleases.net

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

Two years later, however, the case collapsed and the men were free to go. Now, more than three years on, the FileSoup domain has been resurrected.

It’s a search engine / proxy, but not as we know it

The new site has no connections to the original owner, but there are several unique aspects to the relaunch of FileSoup that make for an interesting project.

On a basic level FileSoup acts as a meta-search engine variant. It covers four major torrent sites – The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents, Torrentz and ExtraTorrent – each selectable via a drop-down box. It also acts as a reverse proxy for these sites to unblock them in countries where they are inaccessible, the UK for example.

Improving on search results

But FileSoup is no ordinary proxy. Instead of simply mirroring the content it finds on sites such as KickassTorrents, it actually attempts to improve on the results by caching third party site indexes.

“Let’s say Kickass.to receives a [DMCA] notice and deletes the content. We are not simply proxying but also caching the site. This means we can provide the page content even if Kickass.to has deleted the URL due to a DMCA complaint,” FileSoup informs TorrentFreak.

So in theory (and given time to cache – the site is still getting off the ground), FileSoup should be able to provide access to content previously taken down from other sites it proxies. To see whether it’s anywhere near to that goal, we conducted a search for one of the most talked-about franchises of the year – Expendables.

The images below show the results from FileSoup and KickassTorrents for exactly the same search. FileSoup returned 139 results while KickAss returned 115. Also notable, aside from the inserted ads, is the prominence of highly-seeded Expendables 3 results in the top placed positions on FileSoup.

Other searches produced varied results but since FileSoup is just getting off the ground it will need more time to cache significant amounts of taken-down content. But what happens when FileSoup itself is subjected to takedown notices of its own?

“When FileSoup receives a DMCA abuse notice we create a new URL address for the same content. After that this URL lives till the next DMCA abuse notice,” the team explain.

The Necromancer – using Google DMCA notices bypass Google’s takedowns

The operators of FileSoup also addressed indirect search engine takedowns. Every week rightsholders force Google to remove torrent listings from its search results. For this problem FileSoup says it has a solution, and a controversial one it is too.

The team behind the site say they have developed a web crawler designed to pull the details of content subjected to DMCA notices from two sources – Google’s Transparency Report and the Chilling Effects Clearing House. From here the links are brought back to life.

“We created a technology that crawls DMCA notices and resurrects the torrent webpage under a different URL so it can appear in search results again. It was rather complicated to sharpen it, but eventually it works pretty well. We will use it on FileSoup.com for all the websites we proxy,” FileSoup explain.

“It will lead to a situation when KickaAss.FileSoup.com (for example) will have more pages indexed in Google than the original Kickass.to because we will revive pages banned by DMCA within Google search results. We call this technology the Necromancer.”

The idea of manipulating publicly available sources of copyright notices to reactivate access to infringing content is not new but this is the first time that a site has publicly admitted to putting theory into practice. Whether FileSoup will be able to pull this off remains to be seen, but if it does it could signal the biggest game of whac-a-mole yet.

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

TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the MPAA’s latest submission. The Hollywood group targets a wide variety of websites which they claim are promoting the illegal distribution of movies and TV-shows, with declining incomes and lost jobs in the movie industry as a result.

These sites and services not only threaten the movie industry, but according to the MPAA they also put consumers at risk through identity theft and by spreading malware.

“It is important to note that websites that traffic in infringing movies, television shows, and other copyrighted content do not harm only the rights holder. Malicious software or malware, which puts Internet users at risk of identity theft, fraud, and other ills, is increasingly becoming a source of revenue for pirate sites,” MPAA writes.

Below is an overview of the “notorious markets” the MPAA reported to the Government. The sites are listed in separate categories and each have a suspected location, as defined by the movie industry group.

Torrent Sites

BitTorrent remains the most popular P2P software as the global piracy icon, MPAA notes. The Pirate Bay poses one of the largest threats here. Based on data from Comscore, the MPAA says that TPB has about 40 million unique visitors per month, which appears to be a very low estimate.

“Thepiratebay.se (TPB) claims to be the largest BitTorrent website on the Internet with a global Alexa rank of 91, and a local rank of 72 in the U.S. Available in 35 languages, this website serves a wide audience with upwards of 43.5 million peers,” MPAA writes.

“TPB had 40,551,220 unique visitors in August 2014 according to comScore World Wide data. Traffic arrives on this website through multiple changing ccTLD domains and over 90 proxy websites that assist TPB to circumvent site blocking actions.”

For the first time the MPAA also lists YIFY/YTS in its overview of notorious markets. The MPAA describes YTS as one of the most popular release groups, and notes that these are used by the Popcorn Time streaming application.

“[Yts.re] facilitates the downloading of free copies of popular movies, and currently lists more than 5,000 high-quality movie torrents available to download for free,” MPAA writes.

“Additionally, the content on Yts.re supports desktop torrent streaming application ‘Popcorn Time’ which has an install base of 1.4 million devices and more than 100,000 active users in the United States alone.”

The full list of reported torrent sites is as follows:

- Kickass.to (Several locations)
- Thepiratebay.se (Sweden)
- Torrentz.eu (Germany/Luxembourg)
- Rutracker.org (Russia)
- Yts.re (Several locations)
-Extratorrent.cc (Ukraine)
-Xunlei.com (China)

The mention of Xunlei.com is interesting as the Chinese company signed an anti-piracy deal with the MPA earlier this year. However, according to the MPAA piracy is still rampant, and there is no evidence that Xunlei has fulfilled its obligations.

Direct Download and Streaming Cyberlockers

The second category of pirate sites reported by the MPAA are cyberlockers. The movie industry group points out that these sites generate million of dollars in revenue, citing the recently released report from Netnames.

Interestingly, the MPAA doesn’t include 4shared and Mega, the two services who discredited the report in question. As in previous submissions VKontakte, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, is also listed as a notorious market.

- VK.com (Russia)
- Uploaded.net (Netherlands)
- Rapidgator.net (Russia)
- Firedrive.com (New Zealand)
- Nowvideo.sx and the “Movshare Group” (Panama/Switzerland/Netherlands)
- Netload.in (Germany)

Linking Websites

The largest category in terms of reported sites represents linking websites. These sites don’t host the infringing material, but only link to it. The full list of linking sites is as follows.

- Free-tv-video-online.me (Canada)
- Movie4k.to (Romania)
- Primewire.ag (Estonia)
- Watchseries.lt (Switzerland)
- Putlocker.is (Switzerland)
- Solarmovie.is (Latvia)
- Megafilmeshd.net (Brazil)
- Filmesonlinegratis.net (Brazil)
- Watch32.com (Germany)
- Yyets.com (China)
- Cuevana.tv (Argentina)
- Viooz.ac (Estonia)
- Degraçaemaisgostoso.org (Brazil)
- Telona.org (Brazil)

The inclusion of Cuevana.tv is noteworthy as the website stopped offering direct links to infringing content earlier this year. Instead, it now direct people to its custom “Popcorn Time” equivalent “Storm.”

Finally, the MPAA lists one Usenet provider, the German based Usenext.com. This service was included because, unlike other providers, it allegedly heavily markets itself to P2P users.

Later this year the US Trade Representative will use the submissions of the MPAA and other parties to make up its final list of piracy havens. The U.S. Government will then alert the countries where these sites are operating from, hoping that local authorities take action.

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

One of the suggestions often made is the removal or demotion of pirate sites in search results. A lower ranking would lead fewer people to pirate sources and promoting legal sources would have a similar effect, rightsholders argue.

While Google already began changing the ranking of sites based on DMCA complaints in 2012, it announced more far-reaching demotion measures last week. According to Google the new alghorithm changes would “visibly” lower the search rankings of the most notorious pirate sites, and they were right.

TorrentFreak has spoken with various torrent site owners who confirm that traffic from Google has been severely impacted by the recent algorithm changes. “Earlier this week all search traffic dropped in half,” the Isohunt.to team told us.

The drop is illustrated by a day-to-day traffic comparison before and after the changes were implemented, as shown below. The graph shows a significant loss in traffic which Isohunt.to solely attributes to Google’s recent changes.

The downranking affects all sites that have a relatively high percentage of DMCA takedown requests. When Google users search for popular movie, music or software titles in combination with terms such as “download,” “watch” and “torrent”, these sites are demoted.

The new measures appear to be far more effective than previous search algorithm changes, and affect all major ‘pirate’ sites. Below is an overview of the SEO visibility of several large torrent sites in the UK and US, based on a list of 100 keywords.

The true impact varies from site to site, depending on how much it relies on Google traffic. Confirming their earlier stance, The Pirate Bay team told TorrentFreak that they are not really concerned about the changes as they have relatively little traffic from Google.

“That Google is putting our links lower is in a way a good thing for us. We’ll get more direct traffic when people don’t get the expected search result when using Google, since they will go directly to TPB,” they said.

To get an idea of how the search results have changed we monitored a few search phrases that were likely to be affected. The before and after comparisons, which are only three days apart, show that popular ‘pirate sites’ have indeed disappeared.

A search for “Breaking Bad torrent” previously featured Kickass.to, Torrentz.eu and Isohunt.com on top, but these have all disappeared. Interestingly, in some cases their place has been taken by other less popular torrent sites.

The top torrent sites have also vanished from a search for the movie The Social Network. “The Social Network download” no longer shows results from Kickass.to, ThePirateBay.se and Movie4k.to but shows the IMDb profile on top instead.

Searches for music tracks have changed as well. The phrase “Eminem lose yourself mp3″ no longer shows links to popular MP3 download sites such as MP3Skull.com, but points to legal sources and lesser known pirate sites.

The traffic data and search comparisons clearly show that Google’s latest downranking changes can have a severe impact on popular “pirate” sites. Ironically, the changes will also drive a lot of traffic to smaller unauthorized sources for the time being, but these will also be demoted as their takedown notice count increases.

Rinse and repeat.

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.

This section appears when searching for keywords related to large sites, including YouTube and Twitter, and lists links to popular parts of the site.

Last week TorrentFreak reported that The Pirate Bay had also been added to this list. This allowed people to use Google to search Pirate Bay pages, complete with a pirate-themed AutoComplete function.

While this unusual addition was the work of algorithms, it was bound to upset some entertainment industry groups. After all, many copyright holders have been asking to make sites such as The Pirate Bay less visible in the search results, and this change was doing the opposite.

This is how a search for The Pirate Bay looked like until yesterday, complete with a search box and prominent sitelinks.

Now, less than a week later the search bar no longer appears for Pirate Bay related content. Even more so, other prominent sitelinks which have been in place for more than a year are gone too.

Today, the only things left are a few rather small sitelinks under the site description, as shown below.

TorrentFreak has confirmed that the sitelinks features were removed for several torrent sites including Isohunt.to and Torrentz.eu. For Google, Twitter and other sites the new search box remains online.

The removal of the search box and prominent links appears to be intentional. TorrentFreak learned that Google was not happy with the unintended feature for The Pirate Bay, and must have felt the need to take action.

While the removal may be a well intended move to keep copyright holders pleased, it places Google in a difficult position. It could be argued that if the sitelinks features have been removed due to the “infringing” aspects of a site, why still keep the site in search results at all?

To find out more TorrentFreak contacted Google, but the company didn’t wish to comment on the recent changes. Google did stress that the placing of the sitelinks is determined automatically.

“Not every site will get the sitelinks search box; it’s determined automatically based on a number of factors. As always, we’ll keep working to improve the quality of our search results,” a Google spokesperson says.

The comment evades the issue at hand, but it appears that these factors were changed recently to exclude The Pirate Bay and other “pirate” sites.

For now, however, all Pirate Bay pages remain indexed as usual. In that regard the recent change is mostly interesting from a political perspective, as a possible result on the entertainment’s continuing pressure on the search engine.

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

Last month, however, dozens of these went offline when the operator of Immunicity and other related proxy services was arrested by City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit. He now faces several charges 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 it’s generally accepted that running a site like The Pirate Bay is likely to attract police attention, merely unblocking a domain was not thought to carry any such risk. After all, visitors to torrent sites are just that, it’s only later on that they make a decision to infringe or not.

In our earlier article we discussed some of the possible reasons why the police might view “pirate” proxies to be illegal. However, there are very good arguments that general purpose proxies, even ones that are expressly setup to bypass filtering (and are able to unblock sites such as Pirate Bay), remain on a decent legal footing.

One such site is being operated by Gareth, a developer and networking guru who grew so tired of creeping Internet censorship he began lobbying UK MPs on the topic, later moving on to assist with the creation of the Open Rights Group’s Blocked.org.uk.

After campaigning and documenting Internet censorship issues for some time, Gareth first heard of last month’s proxy arrest during a visit to the United States.

“I was at DefCon in Las Vegas when the news of the Immunicity arrest reached me and I realized that for all my volunteer work, my open source applications, operation of Tor relays, donations and letters to MPs to highlight/combat the issues with Internet censorship, it was not enough,” the developer told TorrentFreak.

“I felt that this issue has moved from a political / technical issue to one about personal liberty and Internet freedom. e.g. first they came for the ‘pirate proxies’, then the Tor operators, then the ISPs that don’t censor their customers. The slippery slope is becoming a scary precipice.”

Since his return to the UK, Gareth has been busy creating his own independent anti-censorship tool. He’s researched in detail what happened to Immunicity, taken legal advice, and is now offering what he hopes is an entirely legal solution to website filtering and subsequent over-blocking (1)(2).

“Unlike Immunicity et al I’m not specifically building a ‘Pirate Proxy’. Granted people might use this proxy to navigate to torrent websites but were I to sell a laptop on eBay that same person may use it for the same reasons so I see no difference,” he explains.

“In fact Section 44, subsection 2 of the Serious Crimes Act 2007 even states [that an individual] is not to be taken to have intended to encourage or assist the commission of an offense merely because such encouragement or assistance was a foreseeable consequence of his act.”

The result of Gareth’s labor is the anti-censorship service Routing Packets is Not a Crime (RPINAC). People who used Immunicity in the past should feel at home, since RPINAC also utilizes the ability of popular browsers to use Proxy Auto-Config (PAC) files.

In the space of a couple of minutes and with no specialist knowledge, users can easily create their own PAC files covering any blocked site they like. Once configured, their browser will silently unblock them.

Furthermore, each PAC file has its own dedicated URL on RPINAC’s servers which users can revisit in order to add additional URLs for unblocking. PAC ‘unblock’ files can also be shared among like-minded people.

“When someone creates a PAC file they are redirected to a /view/ endpoint e.g. https://routingpacketsisnotacrime.uk/view/b718ce9b276bc2f10af90fe1d5b33c0d. This URL is not ephemeral, you can email it, tweet it (there is a tweet button on the left hand side of the site) etc and it will provide the recipient with the exact same view.

“It’ll show which URLs are specified to be proxied, which have been detected as blocked (using the https://blocked.org.uk database) and if the author passed along the password (assuming the PAC was password protected) they can add or remove URLs too,” Gareth explains.

“Each view page also has a comments section, this could allow for a small collection of individuals to co-ordinate with a smaller subset of password possessing moderators to create a crowd sourced PAC file in an autonomous fashion. There is also a ‘Clone’ button allowing anybody to create their own copy of the PAC file with their own name, description and password if the PAC file they’ve received isn’t quite what they need.”

This user-generated element of the process is important. While dedicated ‘pirate’ proxy sites specifically unblock sites already deemed illegal by the UK courts (and can be deemed to be facilitating their ‘crimes’), RPINAC leaves the decision of which sites to unblock completely down to the user. And since no High Court injunction forbids any user from accessing a blocked domain, both service and user remain on the right side of the law.

In terms of use, RPINAC is unobtrusive, has no popups, promotions or advertising, and will not ask for payment or donations, a further important legal point.

“To avoid any accusations of fraud and to avoid any tax implications RPINAC will never ask for donations,” the dev explains. “The current platform is pre-paid for at least a year, the domain for 10. At a bare minimum PAC file serving and education for creating local proxies will continue indefinitely.”

Finally, Gareth notes that without free and open source software his anti-censorship platform wouldn’t have been possible. So, in return, he has plans to release the source code for the project under the GPL 3.0 license.

RoutingPacketsIsNotACrime can be found here and is compatible with Firefox, Chrome, Safari and IE. Additional information can be sourced here.

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

One way to prevent this from happening is by using SSL encryption. This is supported by more and more sites, and last year Google even went as far as encrypting all searches by default.

Most of the larger torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and Torrentz also offer SSL support. However, KickassTorrents is the first to force encryption. This means that everyone who visits the site will now be sending data over a secure https connection.

TorrentFreak spoke with the KickassTorrents team who told us that the new feature was implemented by popular demand.

“We’re just thinking about those people who will feel safer when they know all the data transferred between them and KAT is completely encrypted. People requested it, so we respond,” the KAT team informs TF.

SSL encryption will prevent one’s boss, school, or ISP from monitoring what pages are visited what data is sent or retrieved from the site. However, it’s still possible to see that the KickassTorrents domain was accessed, and how much time was spent there.

Also, it’s worth emphasizing that it doesn’t anonymize the visitor’s IP-addresses in any way, as a VPN or proxy might.

That said, enabling encryption is a good way for KickassTorrents to offer its users a little more security. On top of that, Google recently noted that it would prioritize SSL encrypted sites in its search results, something the site’s operators probably wont mind either.

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

Many news outlets reported yesterday that the first weekend’s takings represent a flop for the third in the Expendables franchise and, of course, those closest to Hollywood are pointing the figure firmly at piracy.

But on the ground, on some of the very sites accused of facilitating piracy of the action movie, there are signs which suggests that this leaked title is being treated somewhat differently to any that have gone before.

LimeTorrents

Noting that the site was named in a Lions Gate lawsuit, TF monitored for the presence of The Expendables 3 torrents on popular torrent site LimeTorrents. The result is shown in the image below.

While the site lists 14 torrents, not a single working Expendables 3 torrent appears in the search results. The three that do appear are sponsored links that do not lead to anything useful.

But while LimeTorrents are clearly doing all they can to comply with the terms of a lawsuit, other sites that have not been named by Lions Gate also appear to have been taking action.

KickassTorrents

KickassTorrents is the world’s second largest torrent site and the go-to place for many looking for fresh content. However, anyone searching for leaked Expendables 3 torrents will be going home disappointed. There are currently nine torrents returned in results, all of which are trailers. The leaked movie cannot be found.

It’s worth noting that like many of the leading torrent sites, Kickass removes torrents following copyright holder requests, so that goes someway to explaining why the Expendables 3 torrents have all disappeared. What is notable, however, is that no fresh ones seem to be reappearing as is usually the case.

Update: KickassTorrents sent us the following comment.

“We have a person dedicated to read all incoming DMCA requests carefully and process those which are formatted according to the DMCA requirements. At the same time this person ignored requests that are wrongly formatted.”

“We believe that most DMCA requests are automatically generated because we frequently receive requests to remove forum topics where a movie name specified in the title.”

RARBG

There’s a similar story over at RARBG, the site placed 10th in our Top Torrent Sites 2014 post. A search produces the two torrents shown in the screenshot below and as they clearly point out, these definitely ain’t The Expendables.

BitSnoop

The effect of these takedowns, whether from rightsholders or introduced on a voluntary basis, can also be seen on torrent sites that specialize in indexing torrents found elsewhere. BitSnoop, the 9th most popular torrent site online with an index of 23 million torrents, currently has none related to The Expendables 3.

Torrentz

Over at Torrentz, a meta-search engine that indexes content on other sites, we can see that just four torrents are returned following an Expendables 3 search, none of which are the movie in question.The links at the top are sponsored and don’t relate to torrents.

The note at the bottom reveals that 41 torrent links have been removed following DMCA notices and their euro equivalent. Again, no more torrents seem to be reappearing.

Google

While torrents disappearing and not reappearing within major torrent sites is quite unusual in itself, perhaps the most dramatic effect can be seen in Google search results.

As previously documented, Lions Gate has put in a herculean effort to have listings removed. This, combined with any torrent site self-censorship efforts, has resulted in a tiny number of usable entries in the first 20 pages of Google results for common searches such as ‘The Expendables 3 + download + torrent’.

Of course, more experienced downloaders and those who persevere through a few searches can still find torrents and other ways to watch the movie. Torrents still remain on The Pirate Bay too, but there are clear signs that the leak of this movie is being treated differently from any other in recent memory, and not only by those involved in its legal distribution either.

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

While FIFA has even gone as far as taking action against Twitter avatars, news today shows that its affiliates are also prepared to disrupt the activities of hundreds of sites and countless millions of Internet users if that means protecting their copyrights.

The development follows legal action initiated by Multi Screen Media PVT Ltd, a Sony Entertainment Television subsidiary in India. Earlier this year the company obtained a license from FIFA to broadcast the 2014 World Cup to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Of course, content is now being made available elsewhere without permission, so the company has decided to do something about that.

In a statement to the High Court in Delhi, counsel for Multi Screen Media explained that “various websites are indulging in hosting, streaming, providing access to” infringing content causing substantial loss of revenue not just for the company, but also to the government due to lost tax on TV subscription fees.

The list of ‘infringing’ sites supplied to the High Court is huge – 479 sites in all – and contains well known sharing sites including The Pirate Bay, torrent storage site Torrage, 1337x, Demonoid, and dozens of file-hosting sites.

Quite amazingly, however, the list also contains entirely legitimate sites including Google Docs, Google Video, Google URL shortener Goo.gl, and Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz. None escape the criticism of Sony or the High Court.

“Learned counsel for the plaintiff submits that many of the websites [in the list] are anonymous in nature and it is virtually impossible to locate the owners of such websites or contact details of such owners. It is further submitted that many of these Rogue Websites also hide behind domain privacy services offered by various domain name Registrars,” the judge wrote in his decision.

“[Websites] listed below, or any other website identified by the Plaintiff are restrained, from in any manner hosting, streaming, broadcasting, rebroadcasting, retransmitting, exhibiting, making available for viewing and downloading, providing access to and / or communicating to the public, displaying, uploading, modifying, publishing, updating and/or sharing (including to its subscribers and users), through the internet, in any manner whatsoever,” he continued.

With that Judge V. Kameswar Rao issued an order for the country’s ISPs to block the 479 sites in question – Google’s included – plus “such other websites that may subsequently be notified by the Plaintiff to be infringing of its exclusive rights.”

While the Judge granting a blocking order against Google is bad enough, one has to question how the company’s services ended up on the High Court application in the first place. That is the responsibility of local anti-piracy company Markscan, who compiled the list for Multi Screen Media. Markscan were featured in a TorrentFreak article last month when they sent dozens of erroneous takedown notices to Google, again on behalf of a Sony company.

“We want to assure you that we deploy technology, in addition to best efforts of our teams, to ensure that we do not impact legal content on yours, or any other website,” they told us at the time. Users of Google Docs, Goo.gl and Google Video may beg to differ.

While some local ISPs have already initiated blockades, Google told Indian news outlet Medianama that there had been “no interruption of our services mentioned in the order.”

The High Court order was issued June 23, alongside an instruction to distribute the summons to the defendant sites by July 22, 2014.

Update: MediaNama is reporting that it has obtained a copy of an updated court order that isn’t yet available on the Delhi High Court website. The update reveals blocking requests for 219 sites, down from the 472 in the original order. No Google websites are in the updated list but many torrent and other file-sharing sites remain.

Original List of 472 Sites to Be Blocked

1. cdn.playwire.com

2. embedupload.com

3. 1fichier.com

4. crocko.com

5. multiupload.nl

6. uppit.com

7. solidfiles.com

8. bayfiles.net

9. tusfiles.net

10. bitshare.com

11. muchshare.net

12. mega.co.nz

13. share-online.biz

14. sendspace.com

15. real4download.com

16. telugump3.biz

17. wapkafiles.com

18. telugumasthi.wapka.me

19. telugustar.net

20. myteluguwap.net

21. s1.myteluguwap.net

22. s2.myteluguwap.net

23. filestube.to

24. ul.to

25. mightyupload.com

26. uploaded.net

27. freakshare.com

28. putlocker.com

29. uploadable.ch

30. safelinking.net

31. ultramegabit.com

32. terafile.co

33. fileom.com

34. d01.megashares.com

35. dizzcloud.com

36. lumfile.com

37. fileparadox.in

38. nitrobits.com

39. filemonkey.in

40. fastshare.cz

41. keep2share.cc

42. k2s.cc

43. sharerepo.com

44. depositfiles.com

45. rapidshare.com

46. filerio.com

47. goo.gl

48. fcore.eu

49. anonfiles.com

50. adf.ly

51. megafiles.se

52. exashare.com

53. primeshare.tv

54. uploadc.com

55. epicshare.net

56. dwn.so

57. uploadhero.com

58. dfiles.eu

59. thefile.me

60. nosupload.com

61. uploadsat.com

62. shareflare.net

63. letitbit.net

64. filesfrog.net

65. unlimitzone.com

66. uploadrocket.net

67. secureupload.eu

68. hulkfile.eu

69. tusfiles.co.nz

70. filehoot.com

71. jumbofiles.com

72. usefile.com

73. clicktoview.org

74. 180upload.nl

75. hitfile.net

76. easybytez.com

77. crisshare.com

78. vip-file.com

79. ufile.eu

80. jheberg.net

81. dl.free.fr

82. 2shared.com

83. sharebeast.com

84. cramit.in

85. ryushare.com

86. teluguworld.asia

87. twap.in

88. vshare.eu

89. 108.59.3.225:182

90. megafilesfactory.com

91. 199.91.152.94

92. 205.196.121.39

93. 199.91.152.86

94. 199.91.154.157

95. 205.196.123.194

96. 205.196.123.8

97. 205.196.123.182

98. mhnwap.wapka.me

99. mhnwap.wapka.mobi

100. realitytelevisionportal.eu

101. dorabuzz.in

102. foncity.in

103. toonvideos.in

104. bestcartoon.wapka.mobi

105. wap.dorabuzz.in

106. playpanda.net

107. play44.net

108. shared.sx

109. mega-vids.com

110. promptfile.com

111. 4upfiles.com

112. filemoney.com

113. lemuploads.com

114. anysend.com

115. luckyshare.net

116. filedap.com

117. junocloud.me

118. filevice.com

119. v-vids.com

120. quickyshare.net

121. tumi.tv

122. mp4star.com

123. sockshare.ws

124. uploadcrazy.net

125. uploadboy.com

126. putlocker.ws

127. filenuke.net

128. docs.google.com

129. dotsemper.com

130. upload.com

131. cloudyvideos.com

132. v.youku.com

133. movzap.com

134. googlevideo.com

135. vertor.eu

136. dramautubes.com

137. nosvideo.com

138. vreer.com

139. vidxden.com

140. divxstage.eu

141. rapidvideo.tv

142. vidspot.net

143. freshvideo.net

144. vidbux.com

145. vidplay.net

146. vidup.me

147. video.tt

148. modovideo.com

149. youwatch.org

150. magnovideo.com

151. videobam.com

152. sharexvid.com

153. videoslasher.com

154. nowvideo.ch

155. donevideo.com

156. videozed.net

157. vidhog.com

158. vidzi.tv

159. streamin.to

160. thevideo.me

161. vidzbeez.com

162. divxpress.com

163. nubestream.com

164. divxstream.net

165. videobb.com

166. divxden.com

167. mixturecloud.com

168. divxstage.net

169. videowood.tv

170. hostingbulk.com

171. playit.pk

172. movpod.net

173. daclips.com

174. slickvid.com

175. videofun.me

176. video44.net

177. yucache.net

178. moevideos.net

179. videomega.tv

180. vidpaid.com

181. sharevid.org

182. zuzvideo.com

183. video.vidcrazy.net

184. videovalley.net

185. videoboxone.com

186. vidcrazy.net

187. vodu.ch

188. watchfreeinhd.com

189. veehd.com

190. movdivx.com

191. blip.tv

192. animeuploads.com

193. videohub.ws

194. hdwide.co

195. stormvid.co

196. neovid.me

197. hawkhd.me

198. streamland.cc

199. vidshark.ws

200. vidspace.cc

201. vids.bz

202. play.flashx.tv

203. videoweed.es

204. torrenthound.com

205. nowvideo.sx

206. limetorrents.com

207. novamov.com

208. torrentfunk.com

209. torrents.net

210. wapkafile.com

211. thepiratebay.org

212. torlock.com

213. movshare.net

214. unblockedpiratebay-proxy.com

215. thetorrent.org

216. torrentz.sx

217. thepiratebay.se.unblock.to

218. nowdownload.ch

219. sockshare.com

220. bittorrent.pm

221. uptobox.com

222. torrage.com

223. vidbux.com

224. muchshare.net

225. sumotorrent.sx

226. torrentdownload.ws

227. vidup.me

228. btmon.com

229. ryushare.com

230. uploadable.ch

231. thepiratebay.se

232. 1337x.to

233. video.tt

234. bthunter.org

235. tusfiles.net

236. 1337x.org

237. swankshare.com

238. 1337xproxy.in

239. torrentz.dj

240. torrentcrazy.ee

241. filesbomb.in

242. torrentz.is

243. torrentz.am

244. kickassunblock.net

245. torrent.tm

246. uploadboy.com

247. oc.o2.vc

248. ineedtorrent.net

249. torrenthoundproxy.com

250. torcache.kickassunblock.net

251. kickasstor.net

252. streamupload.org

253. arabloads.net

254. torrentsnet.come.in

255. torrentz.to

256. filesfrog.net

257. 3gparena.in

258. dl.free.fr

259. divxstage.eu

260. play.flashx.tv

261. download-abc.com

262. filmsmaza.com

263. glotorrents.com

264. coolmoviez.com

265. 62.210.201.55:81

266. fuckyourcrew.org

267. mimti1.moviesmobile.net

268. sandy1.moviesmobile.net

269. sandy3.moviesmobile.net

270. sandy4.moviesmobile.net

271. thepiratebay.mk

272. dev.torrentz.pro

273. uploaded.net

274. torrentmoviemafia.com

275. 1337x.pw

276. share1.moviesmobile.net

277. share2.moviesmobile.net

278. share3.moviesmobile.net

279. share4.moviesmobile.net

280. bayproxy.me

281. sarthaktv.in

282. p2p4ever.com

283. tny.cz

284. torrent-loco.com.ar

285. piraattilahti.org

286. punjabwap.com

287. torrent.ee

288. torrentz.asia

289. fromplay.org

290. proxybay.pw

291. vertor.com

292. katshore.org

293. nl.malaysiabay.org

294. demonoid.ph

295. kickasstorrents.come.in

296. putlocker.cz

297. proxybay.eu

298. vertor.eu

299. 3gparina.in

300. 89.248.162.148

301. fromplay.com

302. etorrent.co.kr

303. fun4buddy.com

304. livetvindian.com

305. ontohinbd.com

306. pc.rdxhd.com

307. seedpeer.me

308. ukcast.tv

309. ezcast.tv

310. xuscacamusca.se

311. crichd.in

312. 122.155.203.9

313. http://www.0dian8.com/

314. http://www.114nba.com/

315. http://360bo.com/

316. http://51live.com/

317. http://www.52waha.com/

318. http://bf.5xzb.com/

319. http://allsport-live.net/

320. http://www.antibookers.ru/

321. http://www.assistirtvonlineaovivo.tv/

322. http://atdhe.eu/

323. http://atdhe.so/

324. http://atdhe.xxx/

325. http://www.atdhe24.net/

326. http://www.azhibo.com/

327. http://barcelonastream.com/

328. http://www.coolsport.tv/schedule-coolsport-tv.html

329. http://www.tvole.com/

330. http://www.drakulastream.eu/

331. http://esportesaovivo.com/

332. http://www.feed2all.eu/type/football.html

333. http://gofirstrowuk.eu/

334. http://www.footballstreaming.info/

335. http://www.frombar.com/

336. http://www.futebolaovivo.net/inicio.php

337. http://www.online.futebolaovivogratis.org/

338. http://gooool.org/

339. http://www.rajangan.me/

340. http://www.hahasport.com/

341. http://hdzhibo.com/

342. http://neolive.net/

343. http://www.kanqiu.tv/

344. http://livesport4u.com/

345. http://livetv.sx/

346. http://meczelive.tv/

347. http://www.megatvonline.co/

348. http://tvonline.megavertvonline.net/live/

349. http://myp2p.pw/

350. http://nogomya.ch/

351. http://www.p2p-hd.com/

352. http://qmzhibo.com/

353. http://rntplayer.com/

354. http://www.rojadirecta.me/

355. http://www.seezb.net/

356. http://www.sport.net/

357. http://sport5online.com/

358. http://sportlemon.ge/

359. http://sportlemontv.eu/

360. http://sportlive.lt/

361. http://www.sportlv.info/

362. http://www.sportp2p.com/

363. http://www.stopstream.tv/

364. http://thefirstrow.biz/

365. http://www.feed4u.net/

366. http://www.time4tv.com/

367. http://torrent-tv.ru/

368. http://tvaovivogratis.net/

369. http://tvonlinexat.com/

370. http://www.usagoals.tv/

371. http://vipbox.net/

372. http://www.vipboxuk.co/

373. http://www.wasu.cn/

374. http://www.wiziwig.tv/

375. http://wszhibo.com/

376. http://www.look-tvs.com/

377. http://www.yaomtv.com.cn/

378. http://www.zhiboche.com/

379. http://zqnow.com/

380. http://www.24livestreamtv.com/brazil-2014-fifa-world-cup-football-
live-streaming-online-tv/

381. http://acefootball.eu/

382. http://al3ablive.info/

383. http://atdhe.ru/

384. http://atdhe.ge/

385. http://atdhe.sx/

386. http://atdhe.ws/

387. http://bongdatructuyen.info/

388. http://www.bongdatructuyen.vn/

389. http://bongdatv.net/

390. http://bongdaup.com/

391. http://www.majika.biz/

392. http://btvsports.com/

393. http://canalesdetv.com/

394. http://capodeportes.net/

395. http://www.catedralhd.tk/

396. http://www.cv55.eu/

397. http://desistreams.tv/

398. http://desportogratis.com/

399. http://dinozap.com/

400. http://drhtv.com.pl/

401. http://epctv.com/

402. http://zonasports.to/

403. http://fancylive.com/

404. http://feed2all.eu/

405. http://www.firstrows.eu/

406. http://firstrows.biz/

407. http://firstrowsports.ge/

408. http://footballhd.ru/

409. http://footdirect24.com/

410. http://freefootball.ws/

411. http://freehdspor.com/

412. http://freelivefussball.de/

413. http://freelivesport.eu/

414. http://fsicrew.info/

415. http://fussball-live-streams.com/

416. http://futbolarg.tv/

417. http://www.futbol-envivo.com/

418. http://futbolsinlimites.pw/

419. http://futebolaovivogratis.org/

420. http://goatd.net/

421. http://hdembed.com/

422. http://funkeysports.com/

423. http://hdsports.me/

424. http://www.hdstreams.tv/index.php

425. http://iraqgoals.in/

426. http://jokerplanete.com/

427. http://lesoleildelanuit.wf/

428. http://life-sport.org/

429. http://livesportv.com/

430. http://max-deportv.com/

431. http://megaviptv.net/

432. http://milloxtv.me/

433. http://myp2p.cm/

434. http://myp2p.ec/

435. http://newsoccertv.com/

436. http://nowwatchtvlive.com/

437. http://onlinemoviesportsandtv.com/

438. http://online–soccer.eu/

439. http://portugaldesportivo.com/

440. http://premier-league-live.net/

441. http://qxzhibo.com/

442. http://realtvsport.com/

443. http://real-tv-sport.com/

444. http://www.redzer.tv/

445. http://s247.tv/

446. http://sambasoccer.pw/

447. http://skysport.tv/

448. http://soccerembed.com/

449. http://soccertoall.net/

450. http://softsportstv.eu/

451. http://www.sportsbeech.tv/

452. http://sports-x.net/

453. http://sportz-hd.eu/

454. http://stadium-live.com/

455. http://stream-foot.tv/

456. http://streamhd.eu/

457. http://streamking.org/

458. http://todaytv.me/

459. http://www.tvonlinepc.eu/

460. http://totbet.net/

461. http://tructiepbongda.com/

462. http://tvembed.com/

463. http://tvembed.eu/

464. http://tv-link.in/

465. http://tv-porinternet.com/

466. http://tvsport24.info/

467. http://u-peak.me/

468. http://vipbox.co/

469. http://vipracing.co.in/

470. http://vtv4u.eu/

471. http://whoopwhoop.tv/

472. http://wiziwigfootball.com/

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