Internet providers all across the country blocked access to major BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and Torrentz.eu after a local court issued a so-called John Doe order.

The order wasn’t targeted at a specific site or ISP but gave the copyright holder carte blanche to demand broad blockades, which they did. In response, Internet providers, government websites and media companies were targeted in DDoS attack reprisals by “Anonymous” groups.

The blockades were eventually lifted with the Madras High Court ruling that Internet providers can no longer be asked to ban entire sites. With that, millions of Indians were able to access their favorite sites again. In future, copyright holders will have to specify the exact URLs where their content is being made available.

This is where the Indian anti-piracy group Copyright Labs comes in again. The group, who previously demanded site-wide blocks, switched to contacting owners of file-sharing sites with the request to remove specific URLs.

However, a certain “Anonymous” group took exception to this new strategy and let this be known in an unusual way.

Earlier this week the owner of BitSnoop, one of the largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, received more than a dozen emails from Copyright Labs. The emails in question (see screenshot at the bottom of this article) did not include the usual links, but a special message from “Anonymous.”

Here’s an excerpt taken from one of the the emails:

… The URLs where our copyrighted material is located include:

Kudos to SFLC for following it up and trying to find out how the HC order was misused by ISPs and CopyrightLabs
We are Anonymous you should have expected us
GTFO
best of luck sorting thousands of mails
Get a life
Nobody watches those fucking movies anyway they are flop
You are hated all over the internet
With enough soap you can blow just about anything

You are requested to remove this infringing material from your website immediately and not copy it and not make it available to other websites or viewers. …

Somehow, the person who gained access to the Copyright Labs web server managed to replace the takedown URLs with their message. Using the Anonymous handle the hacker(s) point out that they disapprove of Copyright Labs’ anti-piracy efforts.

This message was sent in hundreds, if not thousands of emails to various website owners. Needless to say, BitSnoop’s owner wasn’t pleased with the bogus takedown emails, and he sent the following reply to Copyright Labs.

Hello,

Your email is blacklisted, don’t bother sending any more.

We don’t care if you were hacked or whatever – not our job to read this crap.

This left the Indian anti-piracy group with no other option than to apologize.

In their reply the anti-piracy group asks for forgiveness while noting that the BitTorrent site has always been very helpful.

Dear Sir,

Our apologies for the confusion caused. Our system was hacked. BitSnoop has been great support to us always with speedy responses. We request u to kindly accept our apologies and support us as always.

Best Regards

HARISH RAM L H
CEO
Copyright Labs

It’s interesting to see that Copyright Labs is so fond of BitSnoop, because a letter obtained by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) clearly shows that the group demanded the site to be taken down in April, along with 271 other sites.

How much damage Anonymous has done to Copyright Labs’ server is unknown, but its website has been unreachable for days. At the time of publication the Copyright Labs site is still displaying a “down for maintenance” notice.

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

Many of the country’s leading Internet providers had blocked access to a wide range of file-sharing and streaming sites including Torrentz.eu, The Pirate Bay and Vimeo.

It turned out that the ISPs in question were responding to a so-called “John Doe” court order under which they had to prevent users from sharing the movie Dhammu. Responding to this request, many ISPs saw no other option than to block a wide range of sites in their entirety.

The court order wasn’t targeted at a specific site or ISP and gave the copyright holder carte blanche to demand broad blockades. The ISPs were seen as the bad guys by subscribers and “Anonymous” groups, but had no other option than to comply.

Behind the scenes, however, a consortium of Internet providers decided to appeal the broad court order. These ISPs felt they were being “wrongfully vilified on the Internet” and argued that the broad blockades also prevented the public from accessing many legitimate files.

The Madras High Court sided with the ISPs and ruled that the copyright holder can’t demand broad takedowns. The Indian news site Medianama has a copy of the order which specifically states that the copyright holder has to list the infringing URL, instead of demanding the shutoff of an entire website.

“The order of interim injunction dated 25/04/2012 is hereby clarified that the interim injunction is granted only in respect of a particular URL where the infringing movie is kept and not in respect of the entire website. Further, the applicant is directed to inform about the particulars of URL where the interim movie is kept within 48 hours.”

The order came in late last week, and in the days that followed millions of Indians regained access to their favorite file-sharing sites.

While the copyright holders are bound to be disappointed by the new restrictions, the new order prevents needless and broad censorship of legitimate files. To protect the rights of one movie, tens of thousands of independent artists saw their work being blocked, which can’t be good.

The first John Doe order targeted at file-sharing sites was issued last summer, followed by a handful of others. Whether the Madras High Court ruling is the end of the catch-all John Doe orders has yet to be seen, but it’s clear that ISPs are now prepared to put up a fight.

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

Interestingly, torrent sites are not the only target. A similar block is also restricting access to the popular video sharing platform Vimeo, a site mostly used by indie filmmakers to share their work.

While there has been no official announcement, the blockade is currently affecting users of several large internet providers including Reliance Communications and Zylog Wi5.

Instead of gaining access to the sites above, subscribers are redirected to a message claiming that the site is “blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecom.

While the exact reason for the blockade is unclear, the warning banner is the same as one users got when Megaupload, RapidShare and other popular cyberlocker services were censored last year.

This blockade turned out to be an overbroad implementation of a so called “John Doe order” which prohibited Internet providers from allowing subscriber access to unauthorized copies an upcoming Bollywood movie.

Whatever the reason for the current blackout, it’s clear that the Indian entertainment industries have access to tools Hollywood can only dream of. Either directly, of with help from the Government, allegedly infringing websites can be pulled down without a trial. Just last month more than 100 music sites were censored upon request from several music labels.

For the millions of filmmakers on Vimeo this new reality will be a rude awakening, but for the folks at The Pirate Bay it is hardly a surprise.

The notorious torrent site is already blocked in numerous countries, most recently the UK. And with the current pro-blocking climate, we doubt that India will be the last country to hop on the banwagon.

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

It turned out that the ISPs in question were responding to a court order under which they had to block access to the Reliance Entertainment movie Singham. Responding to this request, some ISPs overreacted and blocked entire sites, rather than just the single movie.

Aside from asking ISPs to serve as the copyright police, the makers of Singham also approached many torrent sites directly over the last days. Armed with a “John Doe” order from the Indian High Court, they are going after all sites that could potentially link to pirated versions of their film.

Since the order is not targeted at any site in particular (but at anonymous offenders), Reliance Entertainment can simply send the order to whoever they wish.

One of the torrent sites that was approached by the lawyers of Reliance Entertainment is BitSnoop. In an email they sent the owner of the torrent site a copy of the court order, preventing him from making the movie Singham available.

“Defendants and other unnamed and undisclosed persons, are restrained from communicating or making available or distributing, or duplicating, or displaying, or releasing, or showing, or uploading, or downloading, or exhibiting, or playing, and/or defraying the movie ‘Singham’ in any manner without proper license from the plaintiff or in any other manner which would violate/infringe,” the order of the Indian High Court reads.

The lawyers further request the site’s owner to remove all material related to their movie from the site, should it be uploaded in the future.

“Our clients request you to kindly block access to any copyrighted material of our clients including the movie ‘Singham’, its snip ads [sic], its pictures or songs or any audio or video format from your website immediately and notify your consumers/customers not to download/upload the movie ‘Singham’ by putting it on your websites homepage,” the lawyers add.

In a response to TorrentFreak, BitSnoop’s owner said that he doesn’t intend to adhere to the order and will continue business as usual. He argues that he’s not governed by Indian law and adds that he already provides sufficient options for copyright holders to remove infringing content.

In common with nearly all the other torrent sites that were served the order, BitSnoop does not proactively police its site for torrents that could link to copyright-infringing content. Instead, they allow copyright holders to send proper takedown notices if they want to take a torrent offline.

TorrentFreak has asked Reliance Entertainment’s lawyers what their next step will be when torrent sites ignore the court order, but we have yet to hear back from them.

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

‘Torrentz’ airs on Saturdays and Sundays and will feature some of Hollywood’s hottest TV content. The name was specifically chosen to appeal to the pirating audience and represents an unusual move for a channel that’s owned by one of the largest media conglomerates – News Corp.

“‘Torrentz’ is a unique initiative by the channel to curb piracy and relieve viewers from the inconvenience of downloading from the internet. Downloading from the net apart from being piracy, is a time consuming process and frustrating for the viewers,” STAR world proudly announced in a press release.

“By making available some of its latest shows fresh from Hollywood, STAR World ‘Torrentz’ hopes that its viewers will enjoy the ‘Torrentz’ advantage and not waste their time and energy in the inconvenient process of internet download,” it added.

It is strange to say the least that STAR World adopted the Torrentz brand. Although some may find it more convenient to sit in front of the TV than to download a torrent, the channel has forgotten the main reason why people turn to BitTorrent – namely, availability.

All the shows that are announced to air on Torrentz are already widely available on Google and every other torrent search engine. So if the Indian viewers really like the new shows, some may be inclined to ‘preview’ the next episodes on BitTorrent instead of waiting a full week for the official airing.

STAR World, however, thinks that the unusual name and the great content will discourage pirates, something they’ve learned from viewer feedback.

“With the accelerated growth of the internet and the digital medium, the consumer is inevitably spoilt for choices. It is therefore imperative for us as broadcasters to satiate our viewers’ needs in order to discourage internet piracy. STAR World – ‘Torrentz’ was conceptualized through the process of constant engagement with our viewers and insights about their preferences.”

We hope the channel is right, but we highly doubt it. BitTorrent is booming in India. The number of broadband subscribers has doubled over the last two years and for many BitTorrent sites India has become the main traffic source, even beating the United States. If the TV-channel really wants to discourage piracy it might be a good idea to get the release window down significantly.

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

While the majority of these outfits do their job with a relative low profile, there are a few oddballs that continue to make the news due to their unconventional tactics. In the past we’ve covered the mysterious ways of the Web-Sheriff, and more recently the Indian based company AiPlex Software has been making a name for itself.

Last September Girish Kumar, managing director of AiPlex Software, admitted that his company DDoSed torrent sites that were not complying with their DMCA takedown requests. “We flood the website with requests, which results in database error, causing denial of service as each server has a fixed bandwidth capacity,” he said at the time.

This revelation was not appreciated by everyone, and led to the start of Anonymous’ Operation Payback which took down the AiPlex website for days on end. A costly attack for the Indian multi-purpose firm that also specializes in medical transcription and search engine optimization.

Despite this setback AiPlex is not backing down, on the contrary. Although the DDoS attacks seem to have stopped the outfit has continued to harass torrent site owners, often incorrectly. Now Bitsnoop has alerted us to an interesting email conversation he had with AiPlex’s managing director.

A few days ago Bitsnoop’s owner received a takedown request for the following torrent, which linked to a copy of the Indian blockbuster Tees Maar Khan. The torrent site owner quickly took the linked page offline and thought the case was settled, but he was wrong. Yesterday, AiPlex’s general manager Girish Kumar sent a reminder for the file that was already removed.

For Bitsnoop’s owner these type of incorrect reminders are an annoyance, and he replied to AiPlex that similar unverified requests will be ignored in the future. Girish Kumar obviously failed to see the mistake he made, but quickly replied with an oddly worded, brand new and unprecedented threat.

HI,

In that case we may have pull the cat out of the bag & ban u completely…Anyways, if u don’t confirm to adhere to our Infringement notification requests, we will be forced send ur website details to the Indian Govt. to further ban ur site across pan India. In fact we have done this to several sites & u are given the last chance to comply the request…

Awaiting for ur earnest reply,
Best,

Girish Kumar N
Managing Director
Aiplex Software Pvt. Ltd.

Really?

It is hard to take any of the above response seriously and indeed Bitsnoop’s owner wisely ignored it. Needless to say, through these unusual threats AiPlex is not making themselves popular among site owners. TorrentFreak contacted Girish Kumar to hear more about their close ties and influence within the Indian authorities, but we have yet to receive a reply.

Of course this is just one side of the daily DMCA troubles torrent site owners face, there are also many agents that are more pleasant to work with, and these usually get more done. When the takedown notices are complete and properly formatted most torrent site owners will cooperate and take the infringing links offline quickly.

AiPlex has obviously chosen to go down another route, which makes it harder for them to succeed. But, this doesn’t matter much for them of course, they’ll simply ask the Indian Government to ban Bitsnoop and The Pirate Bay, making piracy a thing of the past.

And putting themselves out of the anti-piracy business in the process.

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

In 2008 we already identified India as the main growth market for BitTorrent, and with only 6% of the population connected to the Internet we’ve only just seen the beginning. The number of broadband subscribers is expected to more than double in the next two years, and many of these newcomers will take a particular interest in BitTorrent.

In fact, BitTorrent is actively used to sell Internet subscriptions in India. One torrent site admin, who prefers to remain anonymous, was contacted by a local ISP who asked for his permission to use the torrent site’s logo in an advertising campaign recently. This would be quite unusual in most other countries.

However, those who think that India is a safe haven for BitTorrent sites are too quick to judge. With a thriving movie industry, there are growing concerns about the negative impact BitTorrent may have on the local copyright industry.

Last week, two Bollywood movies were listed in our top 10 of most downloaded movies worldwide. This upward trend didn’t go unnoticed by the Indian authorities and last weekend the Indian police rolled up a four member ‘BitTorrent gang’ in the city of Hyderabad.

According to the police report, four men were arrested for their involvement in copying, selling and uploading movies and music. In addition to the arrests the police seized two CD duplicators and 1016 CDs / DVDs.

One of the suspects works as a carpenter and sold pirated goods to complement his income. “As income sources through carpentry work are meager, he is distributing pirated CDs to different CD shop centers on commission basis,” the police write.

Another arrestee, a technician, allegedly had a similar motive according to the Hyderabad police. “As the competition picked up his income sources fell down and since then he is indulging in preparation of pirated CDs in his own house,” reads the report.

The suspects are connected to the TorrentRockerz.com tracker but also uploaded music and movies elsewhere, such as on the popular DesiTorrents tracker. According to the police, their goal was to increase the popularity of the TorrentRockerz website and profit from advertisements.

One source told TorrentFreak that the arrests have created a mild panic among BitTorrent tracker administrators in the region, and some have taken their sites down as a precaution. Unconfirmed reports claim that the operation is still ongoing and that more arrests have been made.

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

The Delhi High Court decided to fine the software giant, after it found out that the cases the company had initiated in India’s capital were related to alleged copyright infringements that occurred in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Mumbai.

According to the Court, Microsoft is needlessly abusing its unlimited cash flow as a power tool to financially hurt the defendants, who will have to travel all across the country in order to defend themselves. This abuse of “money power” to “harass” defendants is unacceptable according to the Court.

“When the constitution of India provides equality before law, this equality has to be all pervasive and cannot be allowed to be diluted because of money power or lobbying power,” Judge Dhingra commented on the case.

Aside from the harassment angle, the Court found that Microsoft chose Delhi because the High Court can order compensation up to $40,000 for the alleged crimes.

However, instead of taking on the case directly, the court chose to fine Microsoft $4,000 for each of the four defendants instead. If it turns out that the software piracy claims are unfounded, this money will go directly to the accused. In addition, Microsoft was ordered to pay a local commissioner who will investigate the piracy claims.

Although it was not illegal for Microsoft to file the four cases in the national capital where the company is headquartered, the Court found that something had to be done to prevent shear abuse of power by the software giant.

“On the strength of its money power it [Microsoft] has the added advantage of choosing a court of its own liking which is so far away from the defendant that it becomes problematic and a harassment for the defendant to contest the suit itself,” the Delhi High Court ruling read.

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

Times are changing though. After the mobile phone revolution managed to get more than 250 million Indians connected, the government is now aiming to increase broadband Internet penetration in India. The current target is 20 million broadband subscribers by the end of 2010, and 50 million by 2012, a 1000% increase compared to approximately 5 million now.

The increase in the number of Indian BitTorrent users compared to previous years has not gone unnoticed. Mininova, for example, is reporting a 300% increase in traffic from India compared to last year, and for most BitTorrent sites India recently entered the top 10 of traffic sources. If the target of 20 million broadband subscribers is indeed reached, India will be the number one traffic source for most BitTorrent sites by the end of 2010.

Of course, BitTorrent indexers are not the only sites that are affected by the growing levels of Internet access in India, but they do tend to be traffic magnets. Data from the traffic comparison site Alexa shows that there are three BitTorrent sites among the 100 most visited websites in India. Mininova, Torrentz and The Pirate Bay are listed in 39th, 46th and 100th place respectively, and isoHunt is not far behind.

Two factors that have undoubtedly contributed to the popularity of BitTorrent, are the availability of unlimited data plans and an increase in connection speeds. In India, most ISPs initially offered metered plans, where 1 GB of data cost somewhere around $10. Today however, almost every ISP has an unlimited plan with a decent download speed for $50 (which is a lot in India), as well as lower rate plans with reasonable speed limits.

After China, India has the highest growth rate of all emerging economies in the world, and Internet access is quickly becoming affordable to a larger group of people. So, don’t be surprised when you see hundreds of Indian IPs in your peers list in a few years from now, if the Internet hasn’t collapsed by then.

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