TorrentFreak

This spring nearly all popular BitTorrent sites were blocked by Indian ISPs following a court order. The blockades were eventually lifted, but the many “Anonymous” groups who revolted are not done yet. The latest target is the anti-piracy group Copyright Labs, whose servers were painfully compromised this week. The hackers didn’t take the site down, but altered the message that is sent to website owners by their automated takedown tool.

Millions of Indians can today breathe a sigh of relief. They are once again able to access their favorite file-sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay and Torrentz.eu, after a consortium of ISPs appealed a broad censorship order. The Madras High Court specified an earlier decision and ruled that Internet providers no longer have to block entire websites to prevent a single movie from being shared online.

Continuing a recent trend, The Pirate Bay and other large BitTorrent sites are now being blocked by Internet providers in India. Visitors who try to access the sites are redirected to a banner which informs them that the Department of Telecommunications ordered a blackout. Torrent sites are not the only target, as the blockade also censors the video sharing site Vimeo, one of the largest communities of indie filmmakers.

In an attempt to prevent pirates from downloading their latest movie Singham, Reliance Entertainment came up with a rather unconventional anti-piracy strategy. The company managed to obtain a so-called John Doe order from the Indian High Court, which they are now sending to various torrent sites that could potentially link to a pirated version of the movie.

STAR World, a prominent English language television channel in India owned by News Corp, has just announced a brand new programming segment. Interestingly, it is named after the country’s most popular torrent search engine, Torrentz. With ‘Torrentz’, which will air The Good Guys, The Walking Dead and Detroit 1-8-7, the TV-channel hopes to offer a convenient alternative to ever increasing BitTorrent use in India.

AiPlex Software, the Indian anti-piracy outfit that made a name for itself when it allegedly DDoSed several major BitTorrent sites including The Pirate Bay, has returned to the scene. The outfit is once again sending out many DMCA takedown requests to torrent sites. In addition, they threaten to impose a pan-Indian ban by the local Government on sites that dare to contest their requests, even when they have the right to do so.

BitTorrent usage has been growing exponentially in India over the last years. With this increased use of BitTorrent, the local entertainment industry is feeling threatened, and last weekend India’s first BitTorrent raid was carried out by the Hyderabad police. A ‘gang’ of four members was arrested and more are expected to follow.