For two years the United States Department of Justice has released information on the case and last evening came news of more charges and more arrests.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division announced the unsealing of three federal indictments in the Northern District of Georgia charging six members of Appbucket, Applanet and SnappzMarket for their roles in the unauthorized distribution of Android apps.

SnappzMarket

Joshua Ryan Taylor, 24, of Kentwood, Michigan, and Scott Walton, 28, of Cleveland, Ohio, two alleged members of SnappzMarket, were both arrested yesterday. They are due to appear before magistrates in Michigan and Ohio respectively.

An indictment returned on June 17 charges Gary Edwin Sharp II, 26, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, along with Taylor and Walton, with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Sharp is also charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement.

It’s alleged that the three men were members of SnappzMarket between May 2011 through August 2012 along with Kody Jon Peterson, 22, of Clermont, Florida. In April, Peterson pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. As part of his guilty plea he agreed to work undercover for the government.

Appbucket

Another indictment returned June 17 in Georgia charges James Blocker, 36, of Rowlett, Texas, with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

A former member of Appbucket, Blocker is alleged to have conspired with Thomas Allen Dye, 21, of Jacksonville, Florida; Nicholas Anthony Narbone, 26, of Orlando, Florida, and Thomas Pace, 38, of Oregon City, Oregon to distribute Android apps with a value of $700,000.

During March and April 2014, Dye, Narbone and Pace all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

Applanet

A further indictment June 17 in Georgia charges Aaron Blake Buckley, 20, of Moss Point, Mississippi; David Lee, 29, of Chino Hills, California; and Gary Edwin Sharp II (also of Appbucket) with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

Lee is additionally charged with one count of aiding and abetting criminal copyright infringement and Buckley with one count of criminal copyright infringement.

All three identified themselves as former members of Applanet. The USDOJ claims that along with other members they are responsible for the illegal distribution of four million Android apps with a value of $17m. Buckley previously launched a fund-raiser in an effort to fight off the United States government.

“As a result of their criminal efforts to make money by ripping off the hard work and creativity of high-tech innovators, the defendants are charged with illegally distributing copyrighted apps,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell.

“The Criminal Division is determined to protect the labor and ingenuity of copyright owners and to keep pace with criminals in the modern, technological marketplace.”

A statement from the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office indicates that the FBI will pursue more piracy groups in future.

“The FBI will continue to provide significant investigative resources toward such groups engaged in such wholesale pirating or copyright violations as seen here,” Special Agent in Charge J. Britt Johnson said.

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

Carrying out several arrests the authorities heralded the operation as the first of its kind, alongside claims that together the sites had facilitated the piracy of more than two million apps.

Last month the Department of Justice announced that two of the three admins of Appbucket had entered guilty pleas to charges of criminal copyright infringement and would be sentenced in June.

Yesterday the DoJ reported fresh news on the third defendant. Appbucket’s Thomas Pace, 38, of Oregon City, Oregon, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and will be sentenced in July.

As reported in late March, the former operator of Applanet says he intends to fight the U.S. Government. However, the same definitely cannot be said about Kody Jon Peterson of Clermont, Florida.

The 22-year-old, who was involved in the operations of SnappzMarket, pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. He admitted being involved in the illegal copying and distribution of more than a million pirated Android apps with a retail value of $1.7 million. His sentencing date has not been set, but even when that’s over his debt to the government may still not be paid.

As part of his guilty plea, Peterson entered into a plea agreement in which he gave up his right to be tried by a jury and any right to an appeal. He also accepted that he could be jailed for up to five years, be subjected to supervised release of up to three years, be hit with a $250,000 fine, and have to pay restitution to the victims of his crimes.

Peterson also agreed to cooperate with the authorities in the investigation, including producing all relevant records and attending interviews when required. However, in addition to more standard types of cooperation, the 22-year-old also agreed to go much further. A copy of his plea agreement obtained by TF reveals that Peterson has agreed to work undercover for the Government.

“Upon request by the Government, the Defendant agrees to act in an undercover investigative capacity to the best of his ability,” the agreement reads.

“The Defendant agrees that Defendant will make himself available to the law enforcement agents designated by the Government, will fully comply with all reasonable instructions given by such agents, and will allow such agents to monitor and record conversations and other interactions with persons suspected of criminal activity.”

The plea agreement also notes that in order to facilitate this work, Government attorneys and agents are allowed to contact Peterson on no notice and communicate with him without his own attorney being present. The extent of Peterson’s cooperation will eventually be detailed to the sentencing court and if it is deemed to be “substantial” then the Government will file a motion to have his sentence reduced.

But despite the agreements, Peterson has another huge problem to face. According to court documents he is an immigrant to the United States and as such a guilty plea could see him removed from the country. Whether he will be allowed to stay will be the subject of a separate proceeding but given his agreement to work undercover it seems unlikely the Government would immediately choose to eject such a valuable asset.

In the meantime, former associates and contacts of Peterson could potentially be talking online to him right now, with a FBI agent listening in over his shoulder and recording everything being said.

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

The domain seizures were the first ever against “rogue” mobile app marketplaces and followed similar actions against BitTorrent and streaming sites.

Yesterday the Department of Justice announced that two of the three admins of the Appbucket site have plead guilty to criminal copyright infringement. Nicholas Narbone, 26, and Thomas Dye, 21, both signed a plea deal with the Government and are currently scheduled to be sentenced in June.

No information was provided on the third Appbucket defendant, Thomas Pace, who was primarily responsible for finding copies of Android apps and managing the site’s servers.

The authorities estimate that more than a million Apps were traded via Appbucket, with a retail value of approximately $700,000. Over the course of two years the site itself generated little over $80,000 in proceeds from subscriptions.

“These mark the first convictions secured by the Justice Department against those who illegally distribute counterfeit mobile apps,” O’Neil says.

“These men trampled on the intellectual property rights of others when they and other members of the Appbucket group distributed more than one million copies of pirated apps.”

Besides Appbucket, there are also cases pending against the operators of Snappzmarket and Applanet. The founder of Applanet previously launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay for his defense, but only managed to raised $1,029 of the required $50,000.

The FBI, meanwhile, is already on the lookout for their next targets.

“The FBI will continue to work with its various law enforcement partners in identifying, investigating, and presenting for prosecution those individuals and groups engaged in such criminal activities that involve the attempt to profit from the hard work and the developed creative ideas of others,” FBI Special Agent Johnson says.

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

But despite its unrivaled popularity uTorrent didn’t have a mobile client, until today.

Earlier this year TorrentFreak revealed that BitTorrent Inc. was working on an Android app, and today the first version has been released to the public. The Beta release includes all the basic functions a downloader needs, including search and RSS feeds, and is completely free of charge.

“For the past few months our engineers have been hard at work developing a mobile BitTorrent app that is worthy of the name uTorrent,” BitTorrent Inc. announced.

“In order to live up to our high standards, we knew that the app would need to be fast, lightweight, powerful and better than anything else currently on the market,” they add.

Until now uTorrent users could only use their Android devices to remotely control their uTorrent desktop client.

While the remote control App is widely used, a full client opens up a wide range of new options for BitTorrent users.

“We are very excited to add uTorrent for Android to our mobile product arsenal that is already reaching almost 4 million users,” BitTorrent Inc. says.

There is definitely a huge demand for BitTorrent clients among Android users. uTorrent’s current main competitors are tTorrent, aTorrent, FrostWire and aDownloader, which have been installed by millions of users.

For those stuck with an iPhone or iPad, an iOS version of uTorrent won’t be released anytime soon. “Right now we’re focusing on growing our Android clients,” BitTorrent Inc. told TorrentFreak, adding that they do have remote interfaces for iOS devices.

Aside from Android, the uTorrent developers are also working on a native Linux client. The Linux version was announced in 2010, but put on hold as the core uTorrent client had evolved considerably since the original plan.

Those interested in checking out the Android app can find the Beta release in the Google Play store as of today.

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

Despite this staggering statistic, there are still many opportunities for uTorrent to expand its user-base. In recent years mobile operating systems have become increasingly popular, but to date none of the mobile platforms has a native uTorrent client.

But, in the near future this will change.

Behind the scenes uTorrent parent company BitTorrent Inc. has been working on a new version of uTorrent that works on Android devices. Not a remote control interface, but a fully operational BitTorrent client.

“Like any software company, we know a mobile experience is really important to our users,” BitTorrent inc. told us, adding that they don’t have a planned release date for the Android app.

“At this point, we don’t yet have an ETA”

While BitTorrent is reluctant to share further details on the Android version of uTorrent, it is expected to have all the basic functions currently available in Windows and Mac versions.

Aside from the new Android app, the uTorrent developers are also working on a native Linux client. The Linux version was announced in 2010, but put on hold as the core uTorrent client had evolved considerably since the original plan.

While Android users may enjoy uTorrent on their smartphone and tablets in the future, for iOS fans there is little hope that there will ever be a native uTorrent application.

Apple notoriously bans all applications that have anything to do with BitTorrent. The company argues that BitTorrent is often used to infringe copyrights and that such applications are a no-go for the App Store.

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

“We sent a takedown notice to Google in August for this particular app, which is clearly being used for illegal purposes, and Google responded that they were declining to remove it from the Android Market,” an RIAA spokeswoman told PCMag.com.

“We continue to have concerns with Google’s screening and takedown procedures and hope that they will be improved.”

The RIAA and other entertainment industry groups have been pushing hard against Google to take down apps they deem to be infringing.

Although the company is generally very cooperative, the groups are not always pleased with the slow response times.

Last month Google deleted the popular Frostwire app from the Android market, but it’s unknown whether this had anything to do with complaints from groups like the RIAA.

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

The new categories are for Android and iOS software that until now ended up in the ancient sounding “handheld” categories.

* Applications – IOS (iPad/iPhone)
* Applications – Android
* Games – IOS (iPad/iPhone)
* Games – Android

Wonder how long it takes before the various 3D categories will show up.

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

Transdroid offered both a free and a paid version of the app, and judging from the 400,000 downloads people seemed to appreciate it. However, as of this week, Google decided that Transdroid is no longer eligible to be placed in the Android Market.

“I have just received an e-mail from Google that Transdroid, both the free and donate version, have been pulled form the Android Market. This is due to apparent violations in the content policies of publishing in the Android Market,” Transdroid’s developer announced.

Google’s notification wasn’t very clear on what the violations were, but considering the nature of the app it wouldn’t come as a surprise if they relate to copyright infringement.

According to the developer content policy apps should not be infringing copyrights in any way.

“Don’t infringe on the intellectual property rights of others, including patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, and other proprietary rights. We will respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement,” the policy reads.

Although Transdroid itself isn’t infringing any copyrights, the screenshots on the app’s website do feature some copyrighted downloads which Google may see as a violation of the Android developer policy. As we highlighted previously, this is not a particularly wise thing to do.

Unlike Apple, Google is not banning everything BitTorrent related, but if developers showcase infringing uses they may see no other option that to take the app down. Even Cydia, the alternative market place for iPhone apps, is taking a harsh line on file-sharing software that ‘promote’ infringing uses.

For Transdroid, however, things aren’t completely over yet. The developer has asked Google to explain what he should change so the site can be added to the Android Market again. In the meantime the app and the source code are available as a direct download through the Transdroid website.

“Thanks to all Transdroid users for their support and enthusiasm. Let me be clear that I am happy to build a version for the Android Market that does satisfy their policies and can still help thousands of happy BitTorrent users around the world,” Transdroid’s developer says.

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

This week a new application surfaced in the Android Market which aims to make it easier for users to add TV-torrents to their BitTorrent client on the fly.

The free app, named EZTV Droid, displays a list of the latest TV-torrents on EZTV and allows users to add the torrents to uTorrent straight from their Android device.

In addition users can use the app to search for older torrents listed on EZTV. They can also use the app as a remote interface for uTorrent and start, stop, pause or check the status of their current downloads without being near their computer. This only works for users who have the uTorrent WebUI enabled of course.

TorrentFreak got in touch with EZTV Droid’s developer Roy Besiera, who told us that this was his first effort at coding for the Android platform.

“I decided to code the app because I am a huge fan of EZTV. I am actually a web programmer but recently I was able to get a hold of an Android device so I decided to make an app. Actually, EZTV Droid is my first app,” he said.

The current version of EZTV Droid is limited but very effective. In the coming weeks Roy hopes to add several new features, such as the ability to add ‘favorite’ shows and get notifications on new releases based on user preferences. Support for other torrent clients than uTorrent is also high on his list.

“I am planning to add support for other torrent clients as well, first Transmission and the rest,” Roy told TorrentFreak.

The EZTV team is equally excited about the Android app, and encourages developers to come up with more solutions to integrate their site into mobile devices.

“EZTV Droid is a great application showing the versatility of the internet and gadgets available to people in today’s day and age,” EZTV’s NovaKing told us. “With the increase of smart phones and people not being able to watch their shows while they are out they are now able to remotely go in and get the shows they miss.”

“We like apps like this so much that we are starting work on a new API which will allow 3rd party developers to access our data much more easily,” NovaKing added.

The API, which will be released in the near future, will open up a lot of possibilities for developers. It will undoubtedly result in many more dedicated apps and services for the popular TV-torrent site.

Meanwhile, version 1 of EZTV Droid can be downloaded from the Android Market for free. The latest stable version of uTorrent (with the WebUI enabled) is recommended as it’s currently not working correcly on all the latest Beta releases.

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

BarTor uses the web interface of the BitTorrent client running on your computer, and it even supports multiple clients for people who have more than one BitTorrent client they need to send torrents to.

The torrents start downloading right away and when you arrive at home, the music, movie or software will be done downloading and ready to use. It can’t get much easier. BarTor’s functionality is very similar to the Torrent Droid app we reported on before, but BarTor is the first to become available to the public.

The only downside is that the app is not available for free. It’s currently being sold in the Android Market for $2.99. Just like with most iPhone apps, however, it probably wont take long before it appears on BitTorrent sites itself.

Justin, the developer of the application told TorrentFreak that he is well aware of this threat to his business model and understands that his target audience is likely to pirate the application itself.

“I am sure it will happen and although i’d like it not to, there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it. I feel that there are a lot of people out there who will be willing to pay the nominal fee for this app,” he told us.

For people who prefer to buy the product instead, BarTor also works with Google Base’s product search. For every search it will return a list of retailers that sell the product, including the location and the price. Not free, but you might still save a few bucks.

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