Enter the multi-million dollar business of P2P-scammers.

For more than a decade all sorts of shady companies have been ripping off novice file-sharers by tricking them into downloading scam products. Their sites appear to offer downloads for software such as uTorrent, Vuze, LimeWire and FrostWire, but the free clients come with a twist.

In some cases people have to pay for the download ‘service’ while others simply install a malware-infested program on users’ computers. There are even scam outfits that do both.

Talking to TorrentFreak, FrostWire‘s Angel Leon explains that because of these scams they get loads of refund requests every day, hurting the company’s reputation. The scammers on the other hand make huge profits.

“The big harm done here is to our trademark,” Leon says.

“They blatantly use our logo and our name, they’ve also managed to game Google big time with a shitload of content farm websites to the point that they’re placed 2nd in Google’s search results, so they must be making a killer.”

The pictures on the right are just a few examples of the thousands of scam sites on the Internet. All of them rip-off novice consumers by letting them download rogue versions of FrostWire.

“The damages we feel are basically our users being victims of these people and threatening us for something we haven’t done,” Leon told us.

“Then there’s all the work we do to promote our brand as the way to use P2P for legal purposes gone to hell, because of the way the scammers encourage copyright infringement,” he adds.

Unfortunately, there is not much file-sharing companies can do about these scams. FrostWire actually went as far as hiring a company that’s specialized in sending takedown requests, but without results. And even if one scam domain is shut down, another will replace it the day after.

Scammers know how to route around censorship.

According to Leon, Google isn’t very helpful either. While the legit version of FrostWire is not allowed to advertise on Google’s Adwords, the scammers are slipping through by the dozens.

“It’s very interesting to notice that somehow they manage to go past the Google AdWords guidelines and they spend a lot of money on advertising everyday on the “frostwire” related keywords,” Leon told TorrentFreak.

“On the other hand, if we try to advertise FrostWire as a file sending application, we get a boot from Google saying that we are P2P software.”

FrostWire and other file-sharing companies hope that enough people ask for a refund from the credit card companies so the scammers have a hard time accepting money. Other than that there’s not much they can do. Or is there?

Reading the above shows that the problems FrostWire and others face are similar to those described in the pro-SOPA talking points of the entertainment industries.

There is one major difference though. Unlike Hollywood, file-sharing companies such as FrostWire fully realize that such a broad censorship law would do more harm than good. Also, P2P scammers actually cause millions of dollars in damages to the public.

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

However, rather than asking for around $3,000 like many in this field, Digital Rights Corp are strictly at the budget end of the market. When they contact you there’s no need to panic since they request a measly $10.00 to settle their complaint. It’s a system that’s been used before by PayArtists.com.

To the die-hard file-sharer, the fact Digital Rights Corp (DRC) have asked for just $10.00 will probably carry some comedy value. By only asking for such a small amount the company sends the message that they aren’t serious about pursuing infringers.

And the reality is, they aren’t.

First off, DRC have no idea who the recipients of their claims are and have absolutely no intention of finding out. Instead of going through the lengthy and expensive process of going to a court to force ISPs to hand over the names and addresses of their customers, DRC short-cut the system.

DRC contacts ISPs with a DMCA takedown notice (which they are obliged to pass on to subscribers) which contains a link to their website. Follow that and the target gets an offer to settle for $10.00, payable by credit card. It is only after people have responded to their email that DRC even know who they are.

But if we look at the current landscape, scarred by the punitive actions of the U.S. Copyright Group and the dozens of porn companies and their aggressive lawsuits demanding several thousands dollars in settlements, perhaps this $10.00 deal doesn’t look so bad, at least in comparison. It’s a couple of beers, a couple of sandwiches. What it clearly is not is a life ruiner.

Nevertheless, DRC have to go and spoil it.

The rhetoric in their emails and on their website consists of the same old anti-piracy scare tactics. Even though the company have absolutely no intention of suing, they give the impression they will, stating that: “The user who receives the notice, is liable for $150000 in damages, but if they click on the link supplied, they can enter a credit card and we will settle the matter.”

Now, bearing in mind that there is already a deal with the major US ISPs and the big music and movie studios to begin sending warnings which may, possibly, after more than half a dozen strikes, lead to the suspension of an Internet account, DRC lay it on thick in this department too.

Their initial email warnings state that the recipient risks having their internet cut off but their FAQ section on their website takes it a whole lot further.

“My Internet service has been shut off, how do I get it restored?” says the page’s first question. The supplied answer is simply ridiculous.

“Once you pay your settlement fee on this website or over the phone, we will notify the ISP that you have settled the matter with the copyright owner and they will restore your service,” is the response.

The notion that an ISP will cut off a subscriber based on the allegations of company like this following a simple, unsubstantiated DMCA notice, is unlikely to say the least. To suggest that the ISP would then switch that service back on after being notified that a $10.00 fine had been paid takes the statement to the absurd.

Another attempt at misdirection comes with the final statement on the page which declares: “Your ISP has verified that at the time your computer was used for copyright infringement, it was using the IP Address stated in the notice.” The implication here is that the ISP has verified that the email recipient has been infringing. They haven’t, they have simply forwarded an email.

The other problem is that these settlement companies, whether they ask for $10.00 or $3,000, is that they always try to give the impression their work is about reducing piracy. According to figures quoted by PaidContent, “…unauthorized sharing of one client’s song decreased from 20,000 to 4,000 in the month after its settlement offers were issued.”

How is that achieved with a system like this? Until now there has been almost zero publicity for this company or its business model. So, how does sending emails quietly to individuals that have already supposedly shared or downloaded the material in question reduce the uptake of new people doing the same? In fact, the entire model relies on new people coming aboard or the revenue simply dries up.

So if there is no reason to pay these people, why are people doing so?

Well, as shown by the type of artist in the DRC client list, it could very well be that the older, more-easily scared generation is being targeted here, rather than the young and tech-savvy. The good news is, however, that most of the artists being ‘protected’ by DRC won’t have been hurt by any infringements.

Because they’re dead.

Jelly Roll Morton – born September 20, 1885 – deceased
Louis Armstrong – born August 4, 1901 – deceased
Bob Willis & His Texas Playboys – born March 6, 1905 – deceased
Stephane Grapelli – born 26 January 1908 – deceased
Howlin’ Wolf – born June 10, 1910 – deceased
Bill Monroe & The Bluegrass Boys – born September 13, 1911 – deceased
Lightnin’ Hopkins – born March 15, 1912 – deceased
Muddy Waters – born April 4, 1915 – deceased
Lena Horne – born June 30, 1917 – deceased
Elmore James – born January 27, 1918 – deceased
Professor Longhair – born December 19, 1918 – deceased
Kitty Wells – born August 30, 1919
Dave Brubeck – born December 6, 1920
Albert King – born April 25, 1923 – deceased
Hank Williams – born September 17, 1923 – deceased
Mel Torme – born September 13, 1925 – deceased
Jimmy Reed – born September 6, 1925 – deceased
Fats Domino – born February 26, 1928
Pete Fountain – born July 3, 1930
Ray Charles – born September 23, 1930 – deceased
George Jones – born September 12, 1931
Ike & Tina Turner – Ike born November 5, 1931 – deceased
Johnny Cash – born February 26, 1932 – deceased
Nina Simone – born February 21, 1933 – deceased
Elvis Presley – born January 8, 1935 – deceased
Jerry Lee Lewis – born September 29, 1935
Allen Toussaint – born 14 January 1938
Mike Bloomfield – born July 28, 1943 – deceased
King Sunny Ade – born September 22, 1946

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

Having met resistance on home soil, the makers of The Hurt Locker are now sending out letters to Canadian Internet users saying they have been caught sharing the Oscar-winning movie. Settle now for a few thousand dollars, the letters say, or face an expensive legal battle in court.

While opponents of these settlement schemes label them as a ‘scam’, they largely operate within the law. After all, they’re being run by lawyers. However, where there’s money to be made there’s always the chance of an illegal scam riding on the same wave, as Canadians are just finding out.

According to an official public fraud warning from West Vancouver Police Department, Canadian seniors have been targeted recently in a fake pay-up-or-else style ‘file-sharing’ settlement scheme.

The letters, which claim to be from Artisan International License, Compliance and Investigations, state that the recipient has been caught downloading porn movies. In common with their ‘legal’ counterparts, the scammers offer to make the whole sorry episode go away for a few thousand dollars. If they don’t settle, further legal action is threatened.

“I opened an interesting letter today from ‘Artisan International’. The letter accused me of downloading several pornographic movies via “Bittorrent / P2P,” says a letter recipient who identifies himself as Sandworm.

“The letter demands 3000$ by September 24th. I won’t go into my professional background, but let’s just say I know the law and am no idiot when it comes to internet technology. In fact I regularly publish articles covering filesharing technology,” he continues.

“They are messing with the wrong person. I took the letter straight to the local police. It turns out they have already received hundreds of complaints about these letters already. That is hundreds of complaints in my neighborhood. Their advice: ‘rip it up’.”

The movies listed in the fake settlement letters include Paris Porno (1976), Retired Porn Stars (2010), Real Big Boobs 2, Volume 2 (2006), White-Hot Nurses (2002), Reality Pron Series 1 (1995), Les Affames sont tombles sure la tete (1994) and Rammin’ the Rear Gate 2001 (2001).

Targeting the elderly with any scam is a despicable act, made even worse by the potentially embarrassing payload employed in this case.

“If you or anyone you know has been a recipient of this letter or has personal knowledge of who may be responsible for sending these letters, please contact the West Vancouver Police at 604-925-7300 quoting file number 11-11341 or if you wish to remain anonymous, please call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 ,” the police conclude.

Scams of this nature aren’t new. Criminals in Germany tried the same thing last year.

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

Once the malware had found .torrent files, it used their filenames to generate a fake ‘copyright infringement’ report warning the user that their ‘offenses’ could result in 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Of course, in the true spirit of all pay-up-or-else schemes, they were also given the option to make the whole thing go away by paying a ‘fine’ of around $400, as can be seen from the screenshot below

The whole scam was run by an outfit calling themselves the ICCP Foundation and now, thanks to a report from security expert Brian Krebs, we can see what kind of money was involved in this scam.

Last year, thousands of documents were leaked from Chronopay, Russia’s largest processor of online payments, and Krebs managed to get his hands on them. They revealed that Chronopay is up to its neck in the operations of “high-risk” industries – ones with the greatest chance of credit-card chargebacks and the companies involved doing high-speed disappearing acts.

Krebs notes that Chronopay “handsomely profited from the market for scareware, programs that infiltrate victim PCs to display fake security alerts in a bid to frighten users into paying for worthless security software,” so it comes as no surprise that ICCP Foundation – or ICCP-Online as they are referred to in Chronopay’s documents – are partners of the payment processor.

As can seen from the cropped screenshot below, hundreds of people fell for the scam, with 451 people using Visa to pay nearly $220,000 and 129 using Mastercard to hand over just under $63,000.

With 580 people paying $283,000, each payment works out to around $483, which sounds roughly right given the sample screenshots given to TorrentFreak when we first reported the scam. Krebs points out that the message in Russian at the top of the email says that the calculation formula may have been producing errors, but this appears to be a reference to the fraud counts as highlighted in yellow on the full screenshot which can be found here.

Its worth mentioning that these figures only show 2 active months for the scam, so the true amounts could actually be higher.

If anything, the above shows how easy it is to extract money from BitTorrent users, whether one is a legitimate lawyer, a scam artist, or one of the copyright trolls that fall in between.

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

Although the threats and accusations are often sent to the wrong people due to the shoddy evidence gathering techniques employed, thousands have paid off the copyright holders fearing they would end up being in more trouble if they ignored the threats. The scheme has proven to be profitable for all parties involved, except those receiving the letters.

Leaked documents have shed light on these practices, revealing that the core motivation of the companies involved is simply to generate as much cash as possible.

It will hardly surprise anyone when we allege that ACS:Law and fellow anti-piracy outfits are clearly abusing copyright for profit. However, it is good to see that our views are being supported by several Lords in the UK.

In recent weeks the law firm sending out these mass copyright infringement notices has been discussed in the UK House of Lords. The video below shows Lord Clement-Jones labeling the operation as a scam.

It is surprising that in the UK, copyright holders – some of which have ‘leased’ copyrights from other companies for the sole purpose of cashing in on allegations of file-sharing – can demand the personal details of thousands of alleged file-sharers without having to provide hard evidence. In most other countries this would be prohibited due to privacy concerns.

Lord Lucas has raised this problematic issue, saying that the Lords must do something to ensure that citizens’ personal details are not given out to companies like ACS:Law “willy-nilly”.

Like many file-sharers, some Lords would like to put an end to this copyright abuse, with Lord Lucas accusing the law firm involved of “harassment, bullying and intrusion”. But the criticism of ACS:Law didn’t stop there.

Noting that it could cost around £10,000 for those accused to protest their innocence, but a payment of ‘only’ £500 to make the accusations go away, Lord Lucas called the scheme “straightforward legal blackmail”.

For the public’s sake we hope they come up with a solution to end this madness. In the meantime, anyone accused by ACS:Law can learn exactly how this scheme operates and how to defend themselves efficiently, by downloading the ‘Speculative Invoicing Handbook‘ from consumer group BeingThreatened.

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

The German-based anti-piracy outfit DigiRights Solutions (DRS) recently published an interesting PowerPoint presentation (in German) which shows how copyright holders can make millions from pirates. The document reveals some rather shocking statistics that show how illicit downloads are more profitable than legal downloads.

The presentation starts with some basic information on the various file-sharing networks, and details how the company’s software can detect illegal downloads and automatically send out requests for damages to alleged pirates. Their setup is similar to those at DigiProtect and Logistep who run comparable operations all over the world.

After finding out the addresses of alleged file-sharers they send out requests for damages directly, usually in the range of a few hundred dollars (or in the UK, around £600) per infringement. Thus far, little has been known about the actual profits generated by these operations, but this is exactly what the last part of the DRS presentation covers.

DRS says it generally sends out emails to alleged file-sharers requesting them to pay €450 (650$) per offense. According to the company they get to keep 80% of the money, leaving 20% for the copyright holders. The anti-piracy outfit claims it uses the money to cover their IT costs, administration costs, attorney fees and other costs.

So, for every illegal download the copyright holder gets €90 (130$), and that is where the presentation turns into a marketing talk where the company explains how piracy can be turned into profit. They start by comparing the profitability of legal and pirated downloads.

A legal online purchase of a song brings about €0.60 into the pockets of the copyright holders compared to the €90 per alleged file-sharer that pays up. So, the copyright holders get 150 times more from pursuing filesharers than from selling actual music, the company claims.

However, not everyone who receives a letter will pay up, but DRS says that an impressive 25% of all recipients do without asking questions. This figure is much higher than most people assumed previously.

But we’re wondering off here, let’s talk business.

DRS states that it’s realistic to track and pursue about 5,000 filesharers per month per title. Considering that 25% of those people pay the €90, then the copyright holders would have to to make about 150,000 online sales. Which is equal to the number of sales that are required for a Gold record award in Germany.

Ca-ching!

Companies like DRS have managed to build business models around piracy where the only purpose is to exploit copyright. Thus far they have been active in the UK (with ACS:Law) and Germany, but it’s just a matter of time before they expand their hunting grounds.

DRS and partners are by no means interested in protecting the rights of artists or how to deter people from sharing copyrighted work, it’s a solid cash machine. Undoubtedly it also raises questions whether these extortion practices should be allowed, or whether local governments should intervene.

Thanks Gulli.

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

After its transformation into a pirate tracking outfit Nexicon launched its Getamnesty program which offers copyright holders a chance to turn piracy into profit. They cleverly circumvent privacy protection laws by using ISPs to forward settlement requests for various copyright holders to alleged infringers. One of their most successful partner programs is the Payartists website which is a misleading name to say the least.

The money collected through Payartists is not going to any artists at all. The only artist they collect ‘settlements’ for on the site is Frank Zappa, and he passed away in 1993. All the settlement money collected now goes to The Zappa Family Trust which is headed by Zappa’s widow.

Most recently a new Nexicon franchise emerged, as the ‘Video Protection Alliance’ (VPA) has teamed up with several porn studios to track down and force settlements from alleged copyright infringers. The methods they use are very similar to Getamnesty and Payartists and are designed to get cash payments from illicit file-sharers without even having to first find out who they are.

The process is simple. Their software monitors BitTorrent swarms and other filesharing networks and records the IP-addresses of those people who share the work of their clients. It then automatically sends an email to the ISP linked to the IP-address with a request to forward it to the associated customer.

Thus far, this is very similar to the warning letters that the movie and music studios have been sending out for years. However, there is one big difference. The emails sent out by Nexicon to alleged infringers contain veiled threats of legal action if they don’t choose to settle within 10 days.

In their email they write that “it may be beneficial to settle this matter without the need of costly and time-consuming litigation.”

If you don’t settle they are “prepared to pursue every available remedy including damages, recovery of attorney’s fees, costs and any and all other claims that may be available to it in a lawsuit filed against you.” To make it even more scary, they point out that ISPs might cut your Internet connection if you don’t comply.

In the FAQ on the VPA website it is noted that consulting a lawyers is an option, but it would be a rather silly thing to do since it will cost more than the settlement itself. “It is likely that the cost incurred to retain a lawyer will exceed the settlement amount offered.”

Indeed, the settlements are rather cheap compared to the fine that was handed out to Jammie Thomas recently. The settlement offer for an adult movie is close to the retail price of a DVD and for a single Frank Zappa track you’ll pay $10. In comparison, Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $80,000 per song.

However, because of these low fees and the use of threatening language we cannot help mentioning the word ‘extortion’ once more. Even if they handle with the best intentions they should adjust their tracking software to be more accurate. We confirmed at least one case where they sent a settlement offer to the wrong person, and we’re pretty sure that this is not the only mistake they’ve made (here‘s another one).

Still, even people wrongfully accused of sharing [insert obscene porn title here] may be inclined to pay a few bucks rather than risk being taken to court. The threats are worrying enough for some people to pay for an offense they didn’t commit. But there might be an even easier way out.

Unsurprisingly, very little happens when the threats are ignored. A Manhattan College employee dealing with DMCA notices wrote recently. “We have not passed the settlement info on to the students linked with the allegedly infringing IP address and have not had any follow up notices from them.”

This aside, we are not aware of any legal action taken by any of Nexicon’s partners to back up their threats. To the best of our knowledge they don’t even have a proper license to act as private investigators which is a felony in several US states and renders the ‘evidence’ they have in their spreadsheets useless.

Our advice, if you get a settlement offer from one of Nexicon’s partners please forward it to your spam folder – after forwarding it to us first of course.

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

One business model in operation for some time now is the selling of otherwise free software to unsuspecting entrants to file-sharing and P2P. Unaware that everything they need can be legitimately acquired for free, they hand over payments for access to public sites such as Mininova or The Pirate Bay. Equally, they end up paying for uTorrent or other P2P clients via credit card or other methods.

Recently there has been an increase in sites offering these type of services, but utilizing premium rate SMS to collect revenue. One such site being complained about right now is Bittorrent-net.info. The site offers downloads of most of the popular P2P clients including uTorrent, Vuze/Azureus, LimeWire, eMule and Ares.

However, the downloads have a sting in the tail. Once downloaded and the installer is run, the software package requires the user to SMS a provided number via cellphone to get codes to ‘activate’ the software. The site has sections for users around the world, but for UK users this sequence of events ends up costing individuals around £9 in call charges. Spot the deliberately obscure gray-on-gray prices in the screenshot below, written in letters instead of numbers so they don’t attract the eye.

On closer inspection of the rarely viewed ‘Legal Terms‘ section of the site which is buried away in the usual legalese, it does indeed say that that the ‘service’ will cost £9. Unfortunately for the site this just isn’t enough to give it legality under regulations just introduced in the UK.

Under new rules from premium-rate phone regulator PhonepayPlus, hiding away charges as BitTorrent-net.info has done is strictly disallowed. In effect now is this rule:

Clearer pricing – No matter where you see a mobile phone-paid service advertised (whether it’s in a magazine or newspaper, on TV, on the internet or somewhere else), the pricing of the service must be given just as much space and attention as the rest of the advert – the cost shouldn’t be hidden in small print. Also, providers must not say a service or download is ‘free’ unless there really are no other costs involved.

The number that people have to SMS to obtain ‘activation codes’ is 78881, which is currently operated by mBlox Ltd. Touting itself as “The world’s largest mobile transaction network” and the company behind delivering the ‘Crazy Frog’ ringtone, mBlox does not provide the content or schemes behind such SMS’s, merely the infrastructure.

In a response to rising complaints as outlined in this article, mBlox provides an online tool to find the companies behind these numbers. Unfortunately our searches using this method drew a blank, but two company names kept cropping up linked to these operations – Netlink Network Corp. and Panama-based Soletto Group SA.

TorrentFreak’s calls for comment from mBlox have so far gone unanswered but we did managed to discuss the situation with SMS regulator PhonepayPlus, who gave us this statement:

Following intervention from PhonepayPlus, as a result of public complaints and its own internal monitoring, this service has been suspended from operation. Readers [in the UK] affected by this service should contact PhonepayPlus on 0800 500 212 (Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm), or at www.phonepayplus.org.uk

We are unable to confirm at this stage if people affected will be able to get a refund, but it certainly looks like the chances of people getting scammed by this method in the future are diminishing.

On other sites using the same business model the software BitComet, BitSpirit, Frostwire and Kceasy feature, but unfortunately this scheme doesn’t stop at P2P clients. Messenger Plus! Live, WinAce, WinZip, 7Zip, DirectX, CDex, and Adobe Acrobat have all appeared with similar installers.

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

In addition, the company ran banner campaigns on several websites that were never paid for – TorrentFreak included. Myka’s Dan Lovy contacted us last year to ask if we were interested in promoting Myka through a banner campaign. After several emails back and forth we agreed on a good rate, and put the banner up in the sidebar. The campaign ran for over a month, but we had no choice but to remove it when Dan went silent.

We never received any money for the banner campaign, and we were not the only site Myka scammed into advertising their ‘product’ for free. From then on all emails remained unanswered, until May 2008 when Dan emailed us to say that they had received a round of funding, and that he would pay up soon. That was the last time we heard from him.

Around the same time, a discussion on DigitalSpy got quite heated when someone seemed keen to promote the device and was confronted by users who were concerned at the lack of a real company name, amateur website, no real-world address and no contact details other than an email address. Indeed, even the Myka.tv domain details are protected. Not exactly confidence inspiring.

Then the whole project seemed to die. Customers who had ordered the device never heard from the company again, and the website was never updated. Only a month ago NewTeeVee reported that they were still promising to ship the pre-orders in the Summer of 2008, while through neglect the Myka forums were taken over by spammers.

Six months later after being informed of the mess on their forums, someone claiming to be Dan Lovy posted on CrunchGear yesterday, saying “I’m Dan Lovy, chief cook and bottle washer at Myka. Just spent a lovely evening cleaning out the forum. YES, the factory is springing to life.”

But what inspired this reappearance by Mr Lovy? In an unforeseen turn of events, Myka has announced it is ready to ship their set-top box in the coming weeks. The news was picked up by Engadget and the previously-mentioned Crunchgear, with Dan Lovy himself encouraging people to order a box, saying “Have you ordered your MYKA today?”

No thanks. When building a business and embracing partners and customers alike, you have to build trust. Our advice; don’t buy on their promises, they break them. Time and again.

Update: Only a few minutes after we published this article Dan Lovy contacted us to say [insert all possible excuses here].

So, he is alive, and we have no doubt that he’s a real person. We did find out that he never got the funding he told us about a while back. Last week he wrote this at the Small Business Ideas Forum: “Most recently I launched www.myka.tv We generated hundreds of news articles and orders (alas, in this economic climate we have been unable to raise the money needed).”

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

A ‘scam’ file-sharing site can operate in numerous ways, but in the end the aims tend to be the same. They either try to offload malware or, more commonly, try to part the site visitor from his cash by getting him to sign up to access the site with his credit card. Usually, users pay a relatively small amount in the first instance, say $5-$10 per month. However, it’s not unusual for additional charges to start appearing on the victim’s card at a later date. Canceling the agreement with the scammers can be a nightmare.

In return for the money paid, the user usually gains access to a basic meta-search site, which simply searches and offers results from completely free sites such as Mininova or The Pirate Bay. Millions of unsuspecting people are signing up for these scam sites (often advertised by ‘legitimate’ BitTorrent sites), and have done for some years now.

One of the most famous scam sites is FullReleases.com, which has been in operation for a few years now and has generated a fortune for its owners and a whole lot of misery for its ‘customers’. Today, those victims have reason to celebrate since the owners of the site have had their identities revealed and, related or not, most of the sites they operated are parked and not longer operational.

M. Dylewski and J. Dylewski are reportedly the sons of Polish immigrants who settled in Surrey, BC, Canada. After their successes running a pair of warez sites, in 2005 they created FullReleases.com and set about making their millions with false claims and misleading operations which targeted naive entrants to the file-sharing phenomenon. The site went on to become one of the world’s most famous scam sites, parting untold people from their cash and prompting thousands of complaints.

However, rumor has that the brothers didn’t stop with one site, and started to build an empire. Dozens more appeared, with some deliberately named to trade on the successes of established genuine sites, with domains such as adultreactor, bitdig, releases.ws and rapidsharereactor.

Right now, many of these sites have been taken down, including FullReleases.com, and although this in itself won’t get refunds for those that have been scammed already, it will certainly give them a boost. It is not 100% sure why all the scam sites are suddenly parked or offline, but it is likely that the brothers are enjoying an early retirement.

So how can people avoid getting sucked in by these scammers and others like them? It’s amazingly simple – NEVER pay to download torrents since they are always available for free, and for God’s sake, Google!

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