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.

Titled “Behind The Cyberlocker Door: A Report How Shadowy Cyberlockers Use Credit Card Companies to Make Millions,” the report attempts to detail the activities of some of the world’s most-visited hosting sites.

While it’s certainly an interesting read, the NetNames study provides a few surprises, not least the decision to include New Zealand-based cloud storage site Mega.co.nz. There can be no doubt that there are domains of dubious standing detailed in the report, but the inclusion of Mega stands out as especially odd.

Mega was without doubt the most-scrutinized file-hosting startup in history and as a result has had to comply fully with every detail of the law. And, unlike some of the other sites listed in the report, Mega isn’t hiding away behind shell companies and other obfuscation methods. It also complies fully with all takedown requests, to the point that it even took down its founder’s music, albeit following an erroneous request.

With these thoughts in mind, TorrentFreak alerted Mega to the report and asked how its inclusion amid the terminology used has been received at the company.

Grossly untrue and highly defamatory

“We consider the report grossly untrue and highly defamatory of Mega,” says Mega CEO Graham Gaylard.

“Mega is a privacy company that provides end-to-end encrypted cloud storage controlled by the customer. Mega totally refutes that it is a cyberlocker business as that term is defined and discussed in the report prepared by NetNames for the Digital Citizens Alliance.”

Gaylard also strongly refutes the implication in the report that as a “cyberlocker”, Mega is engaged in activities often associated with such sites.

“Mega is not a haven for piracy, does not distribute malware, and definitely does not engage in illegal activities,” Gaylard says. “Mega is running a legitimate business alongside other cloud storage providers in a highly competitive market.”

The Mega CEO told us that one of the perplexing things about the report is that none of the criteria set out by the report for “shadowy” sites is satisfied by Mega, yet the decision was still taken to include it.

Infringing content and best practices

One of the key issues is, of course, the existence of infringing content. All user-uploaded sites suffer from that problem, from YouTube to Facebook to Mega and thousands of sites in between. But, as Gaylard points out, it’s the way those sites handle the issue that counts.

“We are vigorous in complying with best practice legal take-down policies and do so very quickly. The reality though is that we receive a very low number of take-down requests because our aim is to have people use our services for privacy and security, not for sharing infringing content,” he explains.

“Mega acts very quickly to process any take-down requests in accordance with its Terms of Service and consistent with the requirements of the USA Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) process, the European Union Directive 2000/31/EC and New Zealand’s Copyright Act process. Mega operates with a very low rate of take-down requests; less than 0.1% of all files Mega stores.”

Affiliate schemes that encourage piracy

One of the other “rogue site” characteristics as outlined in the report is the existence of affiliate schemes designed to incentivize the uploading and sharing of infringing content. In respect of Mega, Gaylard rejects that assertion entirely.

“Mega’s affiliate program does not reward uploaders. There is no revenue sharing or credit for downloads or Pro purchases made by downloaders. The affiliate code cannot be embedded in a download link. It is designed to reward genuine referrers and the developers of apps who make our cloud storage platform more attractive,” he notes.

The PayPal factor

As detailed in many earlier reports (1,2,3), over the past few years PayPal has worked hard to seriously cut down on the business it conducts with companies in the file-sharing space.

Companies, Mega included, now have to obtain pre-approval from the payment processor in order to use its services. The suggestion in the report is that large “shadowy” sites aren’t able to use PayPal due to its strict acceptance criteria. Mega, however, has a good relationship with PayPal.

“Mega has been accepted by PayPal because we were able to show that we are a legitimate cloud storage site. Mega has a productive and respected relationship with PayPal, demonstrating the validity of Mega’s business,” Gaylard says.

Public apology and retraction – or else

Gaylard says that these are just some of the points that Mega finds unacceptable in the report. The CEO adds that at no point was the company contacted by NetNames or Digital Citizens Alliance for its input.

“It is unacceptable and disappointing that supposedly reputable organizations such as Digital Citizens and NetNames should see fit to attack Mega when it provides the user end to end encryption, security and privacy. They should be promoting efforts to make the Internet a safer and more trusted place. Protecting people’s privacy. That is Mega’s mission,” Gaylard says.

“We are requesting that Digital Citizens Alliance withdraw Mega from that report entirely and issue a public apology. If they do not then we will take further action,” he concludes.

TorrentFreak asked NetNames to comment on Mega’s displeasure and asked the company if it stands by its assertion that Mega is a “shadowy” cyberlocker. We received a response (although not directly to our questions) from David Price, NetNames’ head of piracy analysis.

“The NetNames report into cyberlocker operation is based on information taken from the websites of the thirty cyberlockers used for the research and our own investigation of this area, based on more than a decade of experience producing respected analysis exploring digital piracy and online distribution,” Price said.

That doesn’t sound like a retraction or an apology, so this developing dispute may have a way to go.

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

Through the court BREIN demanded that NSE delete all infringing content from its servers, and in 2011 the Court of Amsterdam sided with the copyright holders.

The Court argued that NSE willingly facilitated copyright infringement through its services. In its verdict the Court ruled that NSE had to remove all copyrighted content, and filter future posts for possible copyright infringements.

Responding to the verdict the Usenet provider said that it was economically unfeasible to filter all messages. The company therefore saw no other option than to shut down its services while the appeal was pending.

This week the Appeals Court ruled on the case overturning the previous verdict, setting a more positive precedent for Usenet providers and similar services.

The Court concluded that NSE does not facilitate copyright infringement as long as it maintains a procedure through which copyright holders can send unlimited takedown notices.

In addition, the Court decided that proactive filtering of copyrighted content is not required, as that conflicts with existing jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice.

“We are very pleased with this ruling,” NSE CEO Patrick Schreurs says. “The Court correctly states that a Usenet provider such as News-Service Europe can not be expected to proactively monitor the messages others place.”

The ruling this week is an interlocutory verdict. The Court still has to rule on how NSE’s notice and takedown procedure should operate. Afterwards, both BREIN and NSE still have the option to take the case to the Supreme Court.

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

The world’s largest recipient of these notices is Google and in the interests of transparency the company publishes a report detailing the requests it receives. But while the majority of the requests are processed without further issue, increasing numbers serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

Last year alone, Google discarded 21 million takedown requests, either because the claims were invalid or were duplicates of previously sent notices.

In 2014 the duplication problem appears to be getting worse, with even the BPI (who in all fairness are more accurate than most with their takedowns) sending large volumes of notices that contain high percentages of links that have already been taken down.

Across the Atlantic, Fox – which is the fifth all-time greatest sender of notices (28 million) – is also having difficulty remembering which URLs it has already asked to be erased. How Google can remember what takedowns Fox has already sent and why the studio cannot isn’t clear, but the high percentages in the refusal column suggests the numbers are significant.

That being said, these numbers should be put into perspective. The BPI has asked Google to take down more than 86 million URLs and Fox 28 million, so even many tens of thousands of duplicates are a relatively low percentage of the total. However, there is a far more depressing trend that suggests that some anti-piracy companies don’t check to see if the links they’re complaining about are actually infringing copyright at all.

The image below shows a selection of notices sent to Google this month by NBC, with a percentage of each rejected by Google. The reason for that is that they’re directed at isoHunt.com, a site that was shut down by NBC’s Hollywood allies last year. The links and the site itself simply do not exist.

Another instance, shown below, lists several TV and movie companies plus software companies Adobe and Lynda looking to take down URLs from another allegedly infringing site. Except this one, Hotfile.com, is not only dead, but was actually taken down by the studios themselves. For reference, these notices were sent four days ago and Hotfile closed down last December.

To see how prevalent this problem is we dug through the TorrentFreak archives to find sites that have been closed by copyright holders or the police in the last couple of years, to see if anti-piracy companies have updated their records.

Despite huge publicity, even now plenty of companies are wasting Google’s time with notices for content hosted on Megaupload, even though it has been closed for two and a half years. Just last month on the Usenet front, publisher Lynda targeted dead-since-last-year NZBsRus.

Also living in the past are the people at Viacom, who this month sent a flurry of notices asking for content to be removed from BTjunkie, a site that shut down 30 months ago in the wake of the Megaupload fiasco. Viacom are definitely not on their own though, as this link shows.

Finishing up, Warner Bros., whose UK-based anti-piracy group FACT shut down streaming site SurftheChannel in 2012 and helped to get its owner jailed, sent a notice to Google in March asking for it to remove links to The Big Bang Theory.

And Fox (shown earlier to be sending lots of duplicates), plus HBO, Evil Angel, NBC and Viacom are apparently still unaware that the UK Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit shut down Filecrop back in May.

Why this activity continues is anyone’s guess, but these takedowns either aren’t subjected to scrutiny or are deliberately passed with the knowledge that they’re invalid. Both options are causing unnecessary workloads for those employed to process them and putting money in the pockets of anti-piracy companies in return for zero effectiveness.

Some might argue that’s nothing new.

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

The two main players on this front are FACT, the Hollywood-affiliated Federation Against Copyright Theft and PIPCU, the City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Both have been very active recently, with the latter doing most of its work in the past 10 months or so.

While there are few big announcements from either group, a new UK government report now provides updated statistics from both. The numbers in the just-published IP Crime Highlight Report 2013/2014 show considerable activity, for FACT over the past 12 months and for PIPCU since September last year.

PIPCU

The headline figure from PIPCU indicates that the unit is currently investigating ‘IP Crime’ to the value of £28,869,991, which in the overall scheme of things doesn’t seem big by industry standards. Music sales alone were worth more than £1 billion in the UK during 2013 and it’s not unusual for the industry to claim piracy rates in excess of 90%.

Still, the police unit is not only about investigation, but also about disruption, and their aim to have the domains of infringing sites suspended has reportedly enjoyed some success. According to the new stats, since September 2013 PIPCU have had a hand in the suspension of 2,359 .co.uk domain names. It’s a significant number, no doubt, but the disruption one might expect from such broad action has certainly not been reflected in the press.

Other figures presented by the government relate to the execution of 15 search warrants. No further details have been provided but the action against a local streaming link site accounted for at least one of them.

The final piece of information from PIPCU relates to the current “follow the money” approach employed by anti-piracy groups worldwide. The unit claims to have suspended the ability of 19 websites to process payments, although no detail is given on the nature of the sites from where the processors backed out. PIPCU do work with PayPal, MasterCard and VISA, so it’s likely they’ll be somewhere in the chain.

FACT

Without doubt, FACT are the busiest ‘boots on the ground’ anti-piracy group in the UK and the most likely to trouble UK-based file-sharing site operators.

According to the report, in the past 12 months alone FACT has managed to close down 117 ‘pirate’ websites. No further details are provided but the group works on a number of levels, from scaring operators via email to physically arriving at their home addresses. When site operators have been brave enough to talk we have reported on a few instances here at TF, but in nothing like the numbers suggested in the report.

FACT also claim to have targeted people higher up the food chain in the past 12 months, after having a hand in the arrest of seven “alleged” release group members. The inclusion of the word ‘alleged’ suggests ongoing cases, but it’s certainly possible that FACT are referring to individuals arrested in the West Midlands last year.

In addition to having another 10 websites blocked by UK ISPs following action in the High Court, FACT secured the first ever UK conviction of an individual streaming live football matches over the Internet. The case involved the operators of a website called FreeLiveFooty, both of which were arrested in 2010 following complaints from the Premier League.

“FACT’s successes in the past year show the benefits of intelligence led, targeted actions against criminal websites and the people behind them,” FACT’s Eddy Leviten told TorrentFreak. “We also help to guide consumers to legitimate entertainment sources online, in cinemas and on TV.”

News-shy

While both PIPCU and FACT do make the occasional announcement on achievements, there is a tendency for them to work under the radar.

For example, while FACT has on occasion pressed the big publicity button, such as when they took the BBC along to the home of a file-sharing site operator, often the only reports to surface are the ones published here on TF with the assistance of FACT targets (for example 1,2,3,4,5)

PIPCU also tend not to shout too loudly or too often about their achievements, action against counterfeit domain names and other sundries aside. Again, word often reaches TF of attempted domain seizures or threatening letters way before the police make any announcement, if they ever do. Why they take this approach isn’t clear, but the fact that some attempts fail, such as recently with torrent index Torrentz, is certainly a motivator to keep things low-key.

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

Thus far details on the proposed system have been scarce, leading to the wildest assumptions and in some cases a core misunderstanding of how the process will work.

Earlier this week, for example, the CEO of a smaller UK Internet provider said that he will refuse to join the program as ISPs shouldn’t be compelled to monitor everything their customers do. Others fear that they may receive a warning for downloading an MP3 from a file-hosting site, or for streaming a copyrighted YouTube video.

All of the above have nothing to do with the proposed measures.

To clear up some of the confusion TorrentFreak spoke to a source closely involved in the Vcap system. We were informed that Vcap will be part of a larger campaign to inform the public about copyright issues. For this reason, the warnings, or alerts rather, will focus on educating people about how they can access content legally, much like the scheme currently operating in the U.S.

The four ISPs who are confirmed to be involved in Vcap are BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media, but other providers could join in at a later stage. Below we have summarized how the Vcap program is expected to work, including several new details.

What will be monitored?

According to information obtained by TorrentFreak the Vcap system will only apply to P2P file-sharing. In theory this means that the focus will be almost exclusively on BitTorrent, as other P2P networks have relatively low user bases.

Consequently, those who use Usenet providers or file-hosting services such as 4Shared, RapidShare and Hotfile are not at risk. The same is true for those who use streaming sites. In other words, the Vcap program only covers part of all online piracy.

Will all P2P file-sharers receive a warning?

TorrentFreak has learned that not all P2P file-sharers will receive a warning. The system will focus on people whose Internet accounts have been used to share copyrighted material more than once. This is different from the U.S. model where people get an alert after the first offense.

The focus on repeat infringers is a logical choice since there are millions of file-sharers in the UK and the copyright holders and ISPs have agreed to cap the warnings at 2.5 million over three years.

Who will be monitoring these copyright infringements?

While ISPs take part in the scheme, they will not monitor subscribers’ file-sharing activities. The tracking will be done by a third party company. The most likely candidate is MarkMonitor (Dtecnet) who are also the technology partner for the U.S. Copyright Alert System.

This tracking company collects IP-addresses from BitTorrent swarms and sends its findings directly to the Internet providers. The lists with infringing IP-addresses are not shared with the record labels, movie studios or other third parties.

Each ISP will keep a database of the alleged infringers and send them appropriate warnings. If the ISPs get approval from the Information Commissioner’s Office, recorded infringements will be stored for a year after which they will be deleted.

Will any Internet accounts be disconnected?

There are no disconnections or mitigation measures for repeat infringers under the Vcap program. Alleged file-sharers will get up to four warnings and all subsequent offenses will be ignored.

The source we spoke with clarified that it’s not the intention of Vcap to stop the most hardcore file-sharers. The program is mostly focused on educating casual infringers about the legal alternatives to piracy.

Can the monitoring be circumvented?

The answer to the previous questions already shows that users have plenty of options to bypass the program. They can simply switch to other means of downloading, but there are more alternatives.

BitTorrent users could hide their IP-addresses through proxy services and VPNs for example. After the U.S. Copyright Alert Program launched last year there was a huge increase in demand for these kind of anonymity services.

So how scary is the Vcap anti-piracy plan?

While we can’t say anything too conclusive, it appears that the main purpose is to inform casual infringers about their inappropriate behavior. The focus lies on education, although the warnings also serve as a deterrent by pointing out that people are not anonymous. For some this may be enough to switch to legal alternatives.

All in all the proposed measures are fairly reasonable, especially compared to other countries where fines and internet connections are on the table. Whether it will be successful is an entirely different question of course, and one which will only be answered when the first results come in.

Finally, it’s worth noting that if Vcap fails it’s not automatically a win for the pirates. A few months ago the Government promised to “bring the Digital Economy Act into force as soon as practicable,” which will result in more stringent anti-piracy measures.

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

It all began with a complaint from the studios in 2008, followed in 2009 by legal action. A year later Newzbin was found guilty of copyright infringement and soon collapsed under its £230,000 ($386,300) debt to the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

Shortly after and without a penny paid to the MPA, the site resurrected in the form of Newzbin2, an act which further infuriated the studios. Eventually Newzbin2 also shut down, partly because receiving money from users had became impossible after the MPA sued Kthxbai Ltd, the site’s payment processor.

And here’s why the case refused to die.

In 2012 it was revealed that Kthxbai’s sole director was David Harris, a barrister who defended Newzbin in the site’s original trial but had stepped down when it was discovered that he was actually the owner of Newzbin.

Not only did the MPA then go after Kthxbai and Harris, they also targeted the NZB Foundation, a Panamanian company that owned Harris’ home, and Motors for Movies Limited, a company that owned Harris’ McLaren car.

The MPA said that the £230,000 they were owed from the original Newzbin case was hidden away in these offshore companies. Harris denied that, adding that the NZB Foundation was a legitimate entity created with copyright reform and Usenet R&D in mind.

Furthermore, the MPA said that Harris and former Newzbin operator Chris Elsworth were behind the transfer of source code and databases from the collapsed Newzbin 1 to new kid on the block, Newzbin 2. Thickening the mix further still, the MPA claimed that Harris was none other than Mr White, the shadowy operator/spokesman of the Newzbin2 site.

But despite the big allegations the MPA’s first major bite against Harris and the offshore companies came to nothing. Last year a judge in the High Court ruled that the the studios were not entitled to the profits Newzbin2 had generated from piracy.

Following this ruling, Harris says that Newzbin 1′s Chris Elsworth settled with the studios (Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner, Paramount, Disney and Columbia), providing them with behind-the-scenes evidence in the process.

“Elsworth was once a co-defendant but cut a deal with the MPA on grounds he provide evidence against me,” Harris told TF.

The MPA were clearly going to run to the bitter end with their case and today they reached their goal. In a judgment handed down a few moments ago, David Harris was found liable for the copyright infringing acts of both Newzbin1 and Newzbin2, as well as conspiring to injure the interests of the Hollywood studios by unlawful means.

As a result, Harris is ordered to pay £1.3m ($2.2m) by May 30, 2014.

“I’m naturally very disappointed with the judgment of the High Court if not entirely surprised. I am examining grounds of appeal and I maintain that I have done nothing wrong,” Harris tells TorrentFreak.

“The verdict was based on secret IRC conversation logs produced by Chris Elsworth, the previous operator of Newzbin1. Elsworth was once a co-defendant but who betrayed me to cut a deal with the MPA. I maintain those logs were tampered with.”

Harris said that when he took over Newzbin1 his intention was to transform it into a service that was no longer “wildly unlawful” but one that would still be attractive to users. He also stands by his actions in processing payments for Newzbin2.

“Notwithstanding the judgment of the court it remains my view that Newzbin2 operated lawfully as did my own payment company which took Newzbin2 subscription payments. I am fully convinced I was legally and morally entitled to act as I did,” Harris explains.

Despite the big ruling against him, Harris says he remains committed to the ideals of Newzbin and still has plans for the site’s former users.

“I intend to rebuild that community and to develop services for them; but given the consistent history of legal defeats we’ve had those services will have to be carefully designed, with good independent legal advice, to ensure that there are no future legal risks to me,” he concludes.

One project Harris previously outlined was a NSA/GCHQ proof email service. Further announcements on that front will be published on Harris’ blog and Twitter.

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

While pressure is maintained against search engines and sites such as YouTube, not all Internet-based companies are as willing (or indeed easily able) to cooperate due to the way they are setup. One such complication arises from the continued availability of illicit content on the worldwide Usenet (newsgroup) system.

Considering the masses of copyright-infringing content uploaded to Usenet, legal action against companies that provide access to the system is relatively rare. Adult publisher Perfect 10 fought battles against Usenet giant Giganews and five years ago the RIAA crushed Usenet.com in the what was probably the most significant victory of its type.

This week in the latest action against a Usenet supplier, German anti-piracy group GEMA reported a new victory against Aviteo Ltd, the Munich-based operator of UseNeXT.

For years the music-focused rights group has been pressuring UseNeXT claiming that tracks from its repertoire are being made available for illegal download via the company’s services. UseNeXT isn’t responsible for putting the tracks online and they weren’t necessarily placed there by a UseNeXT user, but GEMA wants the company to take responsibility.

This week GEMA obtained an injunction against UseNeXT / Aviteo Ltd at the Hamburg Regional Court in respect of a sample 10 tracks from GEMA’s repertoire. The injunction is the latest development in GEMA’s long-running legal battle with UseNeXT.

The dispute dates back to 2006 and has already resulted in a pair court injunctions issued in 2007 and 2010, each ordering the provider to do more to protect GEMA’s rights.

“The adoption of this [latest] injunction is a positive signal for all rightsowners,” said GEMA CEO Dr. Harald Heker.

“It confirms that services whose business model is based on the illegal downloading of protected works and thereby make a profit, have a duty towards rightsholders.”

The precise details have not yet been made public, but according to GEMA the injunction “extends the responsibility of services providers towards rights holders” in the event that copyright works are continually made available.

“In such a case, the service provider has an obligation to eliminate the danger created by him for illegal use of protected content, through the use of an appropriate filtering system, or if necessary, even the closure of the service,” GEMA said.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, UseNeXT have a different interpretation of the decision. The company says that it only provides access to the Usenet system and has no control of the content to be found there. It is common practice, UseNeXT says, for copyright holders to send takedown notices to the actual server operators so that files can be removed from newsgroups.

In a sure sign that this battle is far from over, UseNeXT / Aviteo says it will appeal.

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

Last summer Polish developer and Wikidot CEO Michal Frackowiak launched Streamza, a torrent download service that lets users stream music and movies securely to their PC, TV, iPhone or iPad. Streamza has been growing steadily ever since and welcomes thousands of new users each month.

Earlier this week, however, the developer was presented with some bad news. Without prior warning, PayPal stopped providing payment services to Streamza and limited the associated account. That also means that all funds have been frozen for the time being.

“They emailed to inform me that my PayPal account had been reviewed and that Streamza does not comply with their policies. My account became ‘limited’ until I removed PayPal from checkout and agreed to their policies, which I did immediately,” Michal informs TF.

The PayPal ban is a major setback for Streamza, as it will no longer be able to process new and recurring membership fees from premium subscribers. At the time of writing the PayPal account is still locked, and Michal hasn’t heard from PayPal after the initial email.

As usual, PayPal remains vague about the precise reason for the ban. The payment provider mentioned that Streamza violated their Acceptable Use Policy, which suggests that PayPal is concerned about possible infringing uses of Streamza.

PayPal’s policies don’t allow “infringing” services to accept payments. In addition, the company requires file-sharing services to be pre-approved.

“Service Requiring Pre-Approval: Offering online dating services; providing file sharing services or access to newsgroups; or selling alcoholic beverages,” PayPal’s AUP reads.

This approvals process requires services to agree to a list of strict terms and conditions. As can be seen below, this includes full disclosure of the processes that are in place to deter piracy, and allowing PayPal to actively monitor their service for copyright infringements.

PayPal’s Terms

While Streamza doesn’t promote copyright infringement in any way, it could be used to download or stream pirated files, much like any other streaming or download services including YouTube. Michal believes, however, that the payment provider is more strict with smaller players.

“When looking at these policies I wonder how the hell Mega.co.nz can work with PayPal. Somehow I am not that surprised: rules between two bigger players can be different from between a bigger player and a smaller one,” Michal tells TF.

Technically, PayPal may have the right to cut off Streamza under its policies, but it would have been appropriate to send an early warning. Over the past few days the service could only accept payments via Bitcoin, which is hurting business.

Due to personal circumstances Michal had plans to auction off Streamza, and the PayPal issue is the straw that broke the camel’s back. He is accepting bids on Flippa and hopes someone is willing to take over the service, to keep the 34,000 registered users happy.

“I believe that after half a year of running Streamza I created something cool. A project that some people love. It’s not only a great tech and user interface, but a service that fills a niche,” Michal says.

“Personally I hope someone smart can take it from here. It’s a really good piece of tech and a project that has its fans.”

Update: A few hours after publication Michal heard back from PayPal. He can enter the pre-approval process to accept payments for file sharing. This means that Streamza has to comply with the terms listed above. Until this process is completed Streamza can’t process PayPal payments, but the other account restrictions have been lifted.

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

In its new report published this week, BREIN presents a laundry list of site and service shutdowns, payment processor and advertising disruptions, plus the results of takedown campaigns directed at companies such as Google. Most of BREIN’s annual declarations contain large-scale claims and the report for 2014 continues that tradition.

Strategy

“Briefly, BREIN’s enforcement strategy is aimed at forcing illegal sites or online services into copyright compliance and fulfilling their duty of care. If not, the sites’ hosting providers could identify them or take them offline, or if that offers no solace, providers can block access to them,” BREIN explains.

In addition to identifying individuals behind sites, BREIN says it also targets their payment providers, advertisers and their intermediaries. The group also issues takedown requests, including many thousands sent to Google.

Site takedown results

In common with all previous years, BREIN has some big claims on this front. Cyberlocker linking sites were hardest hit in 2013, with BREIN claiming shutdown of 280 sites in total. The names of the sites remain a mystery, a policy maintained by BREIN throughout many years’ reports.

Moving up to the sources rather than sites that merely link to them, BREIN says it closed down 10 actual file-hosting sites. In the streaming and Usenet realms the group claims the scalps of 66 and 38 sites respectively. Again, no details are provided.

Of course, most readers will be interested in BREIN’s claims of successes against BitTorrent sites and as usual they are pretty lofty. The Hollywood-affiliated group says that it closed 118 torrent sites in 2013. Their names are…..unknown.

The big feather-in-the-cap for BREIN in 2012 was of course the blocking of The Pirate Bay, but there was less to celebrate on that front in 2013. As previously reported, all that came tumbling down in recent weeks when The Court of The Hague decided to lift the ban and restore access for Dutch citizens.

Nevertheless, in this week’s report BREIN is still claiming successes in upholding the ban throughout 2013, with claims that it took down an astonishing 206 proxy sites setup to circumvent the blockade of The Pirate Bay. Whether those sites remain down today is largely moot, as Dutch citizens can now access The Pirate Bay directly pending a Supreme Court ruling.

Advertisers, payment processors and takedown notices

A developing anti-piracy strategy is to try and cut sites off from their income. To this end BREIN says it deals with advertisers on the one hand and payment processors on the other.

The group reports that in 41 cases payment processors divulged “identifying information” and discontinued service to sites. In another 100 cases advertisers reportedly offered a commitment not to advertise on sites offering content without permission.

In common with many other anti-piracy groups, BREIN is now sending plenty of takedown requests to both sites and search engines. A total of 2.3 million URL takedown notices were sent to Google last year, making an average of around 44,000 per week. According to Google’s Transparency Report, most related to file-host search engine FilesTube, followed by now-defunct torrent site isoHunt.

Conclusion

There can be little doubt that in recent years BREIN has proven to be a major thorn in the side of many hundreds of mostly small, Netherlands-based file-sharing sites. However, while it seems unlikely that BREIN would be outwardly untruthful in its annual statements, the anti-piracy outfit provides zero evidence in support of its claims. Pirate Bay aside, not a single site is mentioned by name, even though the claim is that more than 700 (sites and proxies) were taken down in 2013.

Effective? The rightsholders paying them must think so.

_{Photo: Dan Zen}

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