Under development at Github, SportsDevil’s aim is to present its tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of users with links to external video sources via a convenient interface, covering everything from live NFL, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey and motorsports, combat sports such as UFC and boxing, plus football and soccer from both sides of the Atlantic.

This week, however, SportsDevil’s reign on Github was brought to an end following action from UK-based anti-piracy group Federation Against Copyright Theft. While FACT is closely affiliated with Hollywood studios, it also represents the rights of major sports broadcasters and rightsholders including The Premier League, British Sky Broadcasting Ltd and BT Sport.

In its takedown notice, FACT explains what SportsDevil does and why it should be taken down.

“The files found at the following locations facilitate linking to sites known to provide access to streams of infringing content. The sites are subsequently scraped for links to various broadcasts including those whose copyrights belong to FACT members,” the group explains.

In addition to the ZIP files for the project, FACT targeted 47 configuration files enabling SportsDevil to pull links to content from sites such as FirstRowSports, Wiziwig.tv and Cricfree, a site that was targeted by PIPCU earlier this year.

TorrentFreak contacted FACT about the takedown and asked if this was the first piece of software to be taken down by the group.

“This is not the first time and with development of technology, we don’t anticipate it will be the last,” FACT told TF.

We also put it to FACT that although it’s pretty clear what SportDevil is designed to do, the tool itself is often far removed from actual infringing content and could be several steps down the linking chain. Does that present issues?

“That’s the point of what we’re doing. The tool is creating alternative ways of accessing content, and we view that as a likely offense,” FACT said.

Also of interest is the formatting of FACT’s takedown notice, which references neither UK law where its members are based nor US law where Github is located.

“Our takedown notices are modeled on DMCA notices. In this particular case, they were adapted to comply with Github DMCA policy,” FACT confirmed.

It’s worth noting that Github recently updated its takedown processes to give projects more time to ‘fix’ any issues following a DMCA complaint but it appears SportsDevil’s creators didn’t take up that opportunity.

TF spoke with an expert on this type of software who told us that while its removal from Github will be a setback, it won’t mean the end of the tool.

“If an addon’s repository is removed from GitHub, the addon author loses the ability to push further updates to the addon, so unless users install the author’s new repository (which they would have to do manually) further automated updates won’t take place,” he explained.

Finally, we asked FACT if it intends to target more software tools in future.

“Where we see a threat to our members’ content, we’ll continue to seek appropriate ways of dealing with it,” FACT conclude.

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

The Take Action initiative, which has been in place since 2006, is funded by UK film distributors via the Film Distributors’ Association (FDA). In addition to funding educational campaigns and school resources on copyright, the project also provides night-vision goggles for catching potential pirates in the act.

In a new bulletin FACT and FDA report that nine members of staff from Cineworld, Odeon and Vue cinemas have become the latest to be commended for disrupting unauthorized movie recording in the UK.

“FDA is delighted to recognize the on-going vigilance of our colleagues in cinema exhibition across the UK,” said FDA Chief Executive Mark Batey.

“They are at the frontline of the fight against film theft, and a vital part of our programme to make the UK as secure a market in which to release movies as possible.”

In addition to general recognition, the individuals pictured above were presented with certificates and unspecified cash rewards. Although not quantified by FACT this time around, in the past rewards have varied, from up to £700 per person in 2012 down to £500 per person in 2013.

FACT reports that the nine individuals were involved in seven ‘incidents’, all of which were attended by the police. In five incidents the alleged cammers accepted police cautions, with one incident leading to an arrest.

The latest statistics are down on figures last reported by FACT, both in terms of overall incidents and people being rewarded. During the reporting period April 2013 to December 2013, a dozen alleged cammers of major movies were spotted in UK cinemas resulting in five arrests but no prosecutions. A total of 15 cinema workers picked up rewards.

It’s noteworthy, however, that apprehending those who record movies and then illegally distribute copies online doesn’t have to start and end in the cinema. FACT’s recent private prosecution of a man who recorded Fast and Furious 6 led to a prison sentence of almost three years, even though he managed to record the movie without being spotted. FACT are quick to recount this cautionary tale.

“As the recent sentencing of Philip Danks to a 33 month custodial sentence demonstrates, the illegal recording of films is a serious crime which carries serious consequences, both for the perpetrators and the industry they violate,” said FACT Director General Kieron Sharp.

The latest camming figures reported by FACT vary enormously from events six years ago. Documents previously obtained by TorrentFreak revealed that in 2008 there were 50 camming incidents in UK cinemas, with police attending on just two occasions. One resulted in a couple receiving official cautions but in the majority of cases people observed camming simply left the building.

It’s unclear whether today’s lower figures indicate a growing reluctance to test out the patience of both FACT and the police. However, even for those who do get away with the initial recording, recent events show that subsequently uploading that content to the Internet has the potential to elicit a big response.

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

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has closed dozens of smaller sites located in the Netherlands and the Federation Against Copyright Theft has been carrying out similar work in the UK.

FACT’s tactics of hunting down, identifying and then threatening torrent site operators have proven very successful in the past. The impact of having FACT’s representatives at the front door has resulted in the closure of many sites, while emailed threats have only added to the tally.

Yesterday came news of another closure, this time of TorrentShack, a long-standing and loved-by-many private tracker. The exact mechanism of FACT’s contacts with the site’s operator haven’t been made public, but it’s clear that the anti-piracy group has placed the site under a lot of pressure.

“It seems once again that FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) have gone after the small site rather than those that make thousands each and every month in profit,” the site’s operator announced over the weekend.

“I have been under investigation by FACT for some time it seems and to avoid being dragged through the courts and having huge legal fee’s I have to adhere to their demands.”

FACT’s usual demands involve closing the site and handing over the site’s domain, and in TorrentShack’s (TSH) case they have kept to their usual format.

“They have said that I need to hand them over the domain to this site and to cease my involvement with running such a site. If I comply then any and all charges against me will be dropped,” TSH’s admin explained.

It’s predicted that the TorrentShack.net domain will be handed over to FACT during the next few days. It’s possible a FACT ‘warning’ page will replace the site but many ‘seized’ domains simply lie dormant.

While the site’s users will no doubt be disappointed by the site’s closure, those concerned about FACT getting their hands on the site’s database can rest easy – the TSH admin has assured users that no such request has been made.

“In simple terms, the Domain is simply the URL you type in to visit the site. It has no connection with your accounts, your security. There is no reason fro anyone to worry,” TSH assures site users.

“It’s been a great run and I have really enjoyed what we have done here over the last few years. I want to thank everyone that has made it possible. I guess I proved that what they said ‘Couldn’t’ be done…. Actually ‘Could’ be done.”

OpenTrackers has further information on the site here.

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.

The man, who had lots of property seized, was arrested, detained and later questioned by police and FACT. Later released on police bail until September 2013 as the investigation continued, the man told TorrentFreak he had been banned from entering any cinema in England and Wales.

With the guy’s bail date just a few weeks away, the story took another twist. Police and FACT again turned up at the man’s home in the West Midlands armed with a new search warrant. This time they said that along with his sister and her ex-boyfriend, the man was suspected of camming the movie “Epic”. All of their homes were raided. With a lot more equipment seized and yet more detainment and questioning, all involved were bailed until this month.

“I went to answer bail at a local police station around a week ago,” the alleged cammer now informs TF.

“When I arrived I was told that the officer in charge of the case wasn’t on duty. However, when he was called at his home he said he had completely forgotten about the bail date and said that F.A.C.T had not sent over any paperwork relating to the case, so he did not know what to do.”

At this point a decision was taken to re-bail the three people involved in the case until March 13, and a few days later the man’s sister received a call from FACT saying that they would soon return the property they seized from her. Wednesday this week the trio went to the local police station to collect it.

“We were greeted by Simon from F.A.C.T, the person who came and searched my property and interviewed me last year,” the man explains.

“When my sister returned to the car she had several evidence bags, three of which were for me which contained my phone, six laptops, a desktop computer, two tablets and around eleven hard drives plus an external hard drive. Her bags included hard drives, two Xbox 360 consoles, a mobile phone and other items. Another bag contained my brother’s property (a mobile phone, laptop and several USB memory sticks) and a further bag contained my friend’s property including a laptop, an old mobile phone and other things.”

However, it appears that that despite spending significant time and resources on the case, police have no further interest in the investigation or anyone’s prosecution.

“Speaking with the officer in charge of the case this week he informed me that when I do go to answer bail all criminal charges will be dropped, or NFA [no further action] as they call it,” the man informs TF.

But with the police backing off, does that mean an end to the matter? Possibly not.

The officer in charge of the case has told the man that FACT don’t appear to be giving up and are attempting to bring a private prosecution. That seems to be backed up by FACT not returning all property – a mobile phone, three servers, plus a router and modem are all still in the anti-piracy group’s possession.

“The fact that there is no evidence for a criminal prosecution begs the question as to whether or not there is sufficient evidence for a private law suit. Surely if there was any evidence at all [the police] would not be dropping the criminal charges,” the man says.

“Also what can they possibly sue me for? I have no job, no savings and no means of paying any compensation regardless of the outcome. Is it simply going to be a waste of everyone’s time?” he concludes.

These questions can only be answered by FACT, although at the time of publication no answers to our questions had been received.

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

Just lately a lot of torrent-related sites have been under DDoS attack so temporary disappearances have been nothing out of the ordinary, but when a site goes down and stays down for a few days or more, things begin to look more serious.

One site currently affected by prolonged downtime is XtremeTV.org but for users of this site there will be no happy ending. Along with related sites MazysMadhouse and ParadiseLane, XtremeTV has fallen victim to the long arm of Hollywood, reaching across the Atlantic via local anti-piracy group FACT.

“The domains listed [in your email] are part of our ongoing activity to disrupt pirate websites and to create an effective deterrent to operators of such sites,” FACT Director of Communications Eddy Leviten told TF.

Direct confirmation from FACT aside, signs that the anti-piracy group have shuttered a site are not too hard to find, if one knows how they operate.

In cases we’ve covered previously, FACT employees have turned up on the doorsteps of admins or staff demanding they close down sites. FACT has plenty of resources so obtaining an address to visit is not usually that difficult, if they set their mind to it.

However, for some unknown reason there are plenty of site operators who make it very easy for FACT. In several recent cases, queries on the affected sites’ WHOIS entries has revealed the site operators’ names and addresses, completely unprotected.

While revealing WHOIS reports can indicate that FACT might have been in town, there is another more obvious sign – FACT’s email addresses embedded into domain entries.

In previous cases as well as the one involving XtremeTV and MazysMadhouse, copyright@fact-org.uk is now listed as the site’s contact email. This is because FACT demands the sign over of the site’s domain as part of the settlement agreement. Once the domain is in FACT’s hands it is shut down, taking the site with it, if that hasn’t gone offline already.

“We continue to direct visitors to domains signed over to FACT to legitimate resources where they can enjoy films and TV programmes in the cinema, online and on disc,” FACT’s Eddy Leviten told us.

Finally, Usenet indexing site NZBRoyalty.com also fell to FACT pressure this month. It appears the closure didn’t require a home visit, just an email to the site’s operators.

“Investigators at FACT have been examining your site and have noted that it is predominantly infringing TV content that is being made available,” FACT Director of Investigations and Intelligence Peter O’Rourke told the site in an email. “FACT requests that you desist from this activity immediately. Failure to do so will result in further investigation which may result in criminal prosecution.”

The perfectly understandable response from the site was put personal lives first.

“We are no longer under the radar. And therefore we also need to dip out. Remember we have lives and families,” the site’s operator said in a statement. “Sorry folks. Hope you all understand that this is out of our hands.”

All of the sites listed in this article are now closed and signs suggest that FACT will continue to close more, as long as site operators can be identified or simply convinced that prosecution and/or imprisonment is a serious possibility.

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

In a letter sent to the domain registrars of several torrent and MP3-related sites, police stated that the domains in question (including ExtraTorrent.com, SumoTorrent.com, emp3world.com, full-albums.net and maxalbums.com) were being run by criminals who were breaking UK law. Therefore the domains should be suspended within 48 hours, the police explained.

One registrar, PDR Ltd, immediately complied with the request, even though the police had not obtained a court order compelling them to do so. Another, EasyDNS, refused to comply on the basis that there needed to be due process. This led to an attempt by the owner of the latter three sites listed above to transfer his domains to EasyDNS as he believed the registrar would stand up for his rights.

However, PDR Ltd refused to transfer the domains over, prompting EasyDNS to embark on a crusade to force PDR Ltd to accept that while seizing domains with a court order might be acceptable, doing so simply because someone asks you to is not, even when that someone is the police.

EasyDNS took the matter to Verisign (who issued a decision of “No Decision”) and eventually all the way to the National Arbitration Forum. Yesterday the ICANN Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy panel handed down its decision and it was good news for EasyDNS, the sites in question, plus any others that may face future domain seizures that are not backed by court orders.

“Although there are compelling reasons why the request from a recognized law enforcement agency such as the City of London Police should be honored, the Transfer Policy is unambiguous in requiring a court order before a Registrar of Record may deny a request to transfer a domain name,” the panel wrote in its decision.

“To permit a registrar of record to withhold the transfer of a domain based on the suspicion of a law enforcement agency, without the intervention of a judicial body, opens the possibility for abuse by agencies far less reputable than the City of London Police.”

Concluding, the panel found that PDR Ltd had violated the policy on domain transfers and ordered the registrar to transfer emp3world.com, full-albums.net and maxalbums.com to EasyDNS.

“This is a big victory for all domain holders because it upholds their right to ‘vote with their feet’ in response to unreasonable takedown of their domain names,” EasyDNS CEO Mark Jeftovic tells TorrentFreak.

“We expect all modern democracies to accord a legal process against parties accused of something, something that has been conspicuous in its absence from the London Police requests, which encouraged registrars to summarily shutdown domain names and then go so far as to hijack their traffic to competing interests.”

The question now is whether the police or the BPI / FACT will choose to step away from domain seizures or try a fresh approach with the backing of the courts.

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

However, while the above relates to copyright liability, there are elements of Hollywood’s anti-piracy teams that believe that ISPs can be on the hook for much, much more.

During the past few days TorrentFreak received documents which show attempts by the UK’s Federation Against Copyright Theft to have streaming video site TheShowDepot.com taken offline. The site was hosted by LeaseWeb in the Netherlands.

“We are requesting the removal of the whole domain from your servers. The website serves no purpose other than to provide access to copyright protected media,” FACT told LeaseWeb in an email, supported by links to 16 episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

LeaseWeb reacted by notifying TheShowDepot of the complaint, warning that a failure “to take appropriate action to prevent future complaints” would result in an IP block of the site’s server.

It’s not clear if TheShowDepot responded “appropriately” or not, but their IP address was eventually blocked by LeaseWeb on November 30. While disabling a whole website based on one complaint might be considered excessive by some, FACT’s veiled threats to LeaseWeb during the course of the exchange will certainly raise the most eyebrows.

“The domain ‘theshowdepot.com’ appears to resolve to IP address 95.211.203.106 which is provided by LeaseWeb B.V,” a FACT ‘Internet Investigator’ told the webhost.

“The fact that LeaseWeb are now aware of this means that should you continue to facilitate the illegal activities of ‘theshowdepot.com’ and accept payment for doing so then ‘LeaseWeb’ may be committing associated money laundering offenses. If the Domain continues to operate whilst being hosted on LeaseWeb servers FACT will consider escalating the action.”

In discussing FACT’s highly unusual claims, LeaseWeb Senior Regulatory Counsel Alex de Joode sent TorrentFreak a clear explanation of where he believes his company’s liability begins and ends.

“LeaseWeb’s general abuse procedure in regard to copyright claims, for content hosted in the Netherlands, follows the agreed upon principles between the content owners, hosting companies (like LeaseWeb), the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Dutch Justice department (NTD Code of Conduct),” de Joode explains.

“Under Dutch law, as long as we follow the before mentioned principles, there is NO criminal liability for hosters in the Netherlands. According to the eCommerce Directive the legislative regime in a third country (in this case the UK) can NOT be stricter than the legislative regime in the host country (in this case the Netherlands). Any claim otherwise is unfounded.”

The LeaseWeb counsel told TorrentFreak that his company strictly adheres to the notice-and-takedown (NTD) Code of Conduct in which there is “no room for third party pressure.”

“Either a claim is valid and content is removed, or a claim is not valid and the content remains available. We see therefore no reason to include claims of money laundering in NTD requests, this will only make [FACT's] other claims look suspicious, thus hindering a speedy processing of NTD requests,” de Joode says.

“As far as i’m aware FACT is the only organization that uses these unsubstantiated claims. I do not understand why they would try to strong arm hosting companies in removing potentially infringing websites. If they have a valid a claim a simple, proper NTD request will suffice in having the content removed.”

In comments to TorrentFreak, Arnoud Engelfriet, a lawyer specializing in Internet law at the ICTRecht law firm, notes that FACT’s claim – that TheShowDepot has “no other purpose” than to infringe copyright – has its roots in The Pirate Bay case.

“The Dutch courts treated thepiratebay.org as a site with ‘no other purpose’ than to enable infringement and thus ordered it shut down,” Engelfriet explains.

“However, the money laundering claim is too far-fetched and sounds like legal blustering to me. The argument would be that because the site is infringing copyright, its income is illegal. Any payment to Leaseweb thus must have been made with those illegal monies, and knowingly accepting illegal monies would then be ‘laundering’. Let me be polite and say that I have yet to see a legal authority confirming that argument,” he concludes.

Several days ago TorrentFreak contacted FACT with a request for comment on their controversial claims but we have received no response. In the meantime TheShowDepot has relocated to a new host in Latvia where it remains up – for now.

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

The approach, in place for a couple of years now, has been pioneered by the Federation Against Copyright Theft. The group, commonly known has FACT, has masterminded aggressive operations in the past, but is currently identifying the admins and owners of file-sharing focused sites and going to their homes in person for a ‘chat’.

Once they have the direct attention of the person involved their transgression is pointed out, usually the act of running a torrent or Usenet site that indexes copyrighted content. After the scare tactics the site owner is given a choice – shut down the site and hand over its domain to FACT or face the possibility of being dragged through the courts.

We’ve documented the process many times but never had the chance to see it first hand. However, a new video released by the BBC shows FACT turning up at the home of Tom, the owner of FindNZBs.info, a site that was shut down earlier this month following a FACT visit.

Early on it shows two FACT operatives, a man and a woman, knocking at Tom’s door. While Tom is in clear view, both FACT operatives have their faces blurred out. They present identity cards and gain access to what looks like Tom’s lounge.

The male FACT officer asks Tom if he is the site operator which he admits right away, denying the suggestion that anyone else is involved. FACT state that the Usenet indexer is facilitating the distribution of infringing content.

“When you say it’s infringing content, it’s just automated indexing. What’s the infringement? Tom asks.

“Your site deals predominantly, well only in NZBs,” the woman states.

“Well NZBs aren’t illegal,” Tom fires back.

The woman then explains that the studios haven’t authorized the distribution of their content via NZBs. “So all NZBs are illegal?” Tom asks. “Yes,” she responds.

Of course, all NZBs are not illegal, only in some circumstances when they point deliberately to infringing content. What follows is a nuts and bolts argument over how indexers and Usenet works. None of it amounts to much within the scope of FACT’s intentions for the visit – the seizure of the site’s domain.

Tom is served with a notice as the male FACT operative explains that Tom will be expected to unlock the FindNZBs.info domain so that it can be transferred to the anti-piracy group.

“What this will do is that it will stop us from taking any further action in relation to this website,” FACT conclude. Tom signs the document and the website is immediately shutdown.

Checking the domain’s WHOIS records reveals that FACT is now its registered owner.

A follow up interview with Tom reveals his thoughts for the site and how it merely indexed material that is already present online.

“It could be a DRM-free ebook, it could be a Linux distro, but potentially it could be a film as well, hence the visit,” he told the BBC while still maintaining that he wasn’t breaking the law.

The video and subsequent interview, which at times gets a little awkward, can be viewed here.

Taking people to court in an effort to close their sites is an expensive process, even if settled fairly quickly. It seems that identifying a site operator – often from an unprotected domain WHOIS entry – and then calling round is a much cheaper way to go. Expect to see more of it in future.

Update: The admin of FindNZBs contacted TorrentFreak and explained how he was woken by FACT and the BBC at 07:45. He’s written up his experiences and a few other thoughts here.

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

The organization, which has close ties to Hollywood, tracks down and prosecutes groups that run torrent sites and streaming portals (such as the now-defunct SurfTheChannel), and works with police to weed out those who record movies in theaters and then put the content online.

Over the past couple of years FACT has become more visibly active than any other organization in this field and has been responsible for closing several sites using a variety of tactics, mostly centered around using intelligence to find culprits and then offering an ultimatum – shut down or face prosecution.

The investigative workload behind these actions requires significant number crunching ability and a few moments ago IBM revealed that it has been working with FACT to achieve that. The computing giant says that FACT has been using IBM Big Data intelligence analytics software in order to better access intelligence data in order to efficiently identify individuals and groups distributing unauthorized content online.

Previously FACT used spreadsheets to manage its data but over the past few years and a via a fresh intelligence-led approach, the IBM systems have allowed the anti-piracy group to establish patterns and relationships by linking places, times, events and individuals within their databases.

IBM cite the case of SurfTheChannel, which ended in the successful prosecution of Anton Vickerman, as an example of where their systems have paid off.

“FACT analysts, using IBM Big Data intelligence analytics software, were able to access publicly available chat logs, forum messages and other generally available data. Using a visual mapping illustration of the data, FACT identified non-obvious links between the various data trails, which in turn assisted with identifying the culprit,” the company explains.

Keith Byrne, Intelligence Manager at FACT, describes the IBM technology as crucial to FACT’s work.

“Our role in successfully detecting and targeting those involved in crimes that impact our members requires the ability to foresee and be aware of the technological changes that occur constantly,” said Byrne. “The IBM technology is vital to our work at FACT and enables us to better protect our members’ valuable creative intellectual property.”

Interestingly, IBM claim that by use of their systems FACT has been able to “virtually eliminate” instances of movie “camming” in UK cinemas, adding that in the last two years there has only been one such recording.

The claim is controversial. As detailed in our report earlier this week, one individual in the UK is currently facing FACT allegations that he filmed at least two movies, both carried out this year in a local cinema.

However, one thing is for certain. FACT are not going away and will only become more powerful as the months unroll. A new City of London Police initiative is likely to add significant new resources to FACT’s repertoire ensuring that the UK remains one of the more difficult environments in which to become involved in online piracy.

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