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Tuesday, August 25th, 2015
| Time | Event |
| 8:43a | 75,000 Popcorn Time Users in Crosshairs of Anti-Piracy Group
Last month Norwegian anti-piracy group Rettighets Alliansen (Rights Alliance) blamed Popcorn Time for a piracy explosion in the country and warned that it was monitoring pirates. More information is now being made available. Norway has a population of just over 5.1m and it’s estimated that around 750,000 obtain video from illegal sources. However, it’s now being claimed that a third of those – 250,000 – are using Popcorn Time on a weekly basis. Rights Alliance says it has been watching them closely. According to Rights Alliance chief Willy Johansen, his organization is now in possession of database containing information on between 50,000 and 75,000 suspected Popcorn Time pirates. The only question now is what the group will decide to do with the data. “We are sitting today with a record of some users of [Popcorn Time] in Norway. These are records we can lawfully use, and it could be that someone gets a little surprise in the mail in the form of a letter. It’s probable that something will happen in the fall,” Johansen says. If Rights Alliance follows through with its threats it will mark the first time that regular users have been targeted since copyright law was tweaked two years ago. In 2013 a change in legislation enabled copyright holders to apply to the government for permission (granted to the Hollywood in Nov 2013) to scan file-sharing networks for infringements. Other changes mean that harvested IP addresses can now be converted to real-life identities with the help of the courts and ISPs. But according to Bjørgulv Vinje Borgundvåg at the Ministry of Culture, yet more changes could be on the way. “Two years ago, Parliament adopted an amendment providing Rights Alliance and the people who own these intellectual property rights to take action, and to ask the court for compensation for abuse of their intellectual property. We are now considering making further legislative changes to protect intellectual property from being abused online,” Borgundvåg told NRK. In the meantime, however, groups like Rights Alliance, the MPA and their Hollywood affiliates have to deal with the law as it stands today. They have been granted permission to harvest IP address information by the country’s Data Inspectorate but obtaining the identities behind those addresses will require further work. “In relation to the legislation we have in Norway, Rights Alliance is fully entitled to collect IP addresses of Popcorn Time users. This is not problematic as we see it,” explains Inspectorate Director Bjorn Erik Thon “Rights Alliance may collect IP addresses, but to find out the identities of who is behind them requires a trial,” he notes. However, according to law professor Olav Torvund, even getting that far is likely to provide headaches. “This is not straightforward,” Torvund explains. “Rights Alliance must determine which IP addresses have been used. Most Norwegian users have [regularly changing] dynamic IP addresses which do not necessarily identify the user.” And even if users are successfully identified, legal problems persist. “One must have acted intentionally or negligently and known or understood that material is being shared with others [when using Popcorn Time],” Torvund says “It is not necessarily so easy to prove. In other words, it’s a long way to the finish and there are several problems to overcome.” While Rights Alliance are known to go after both site owners and users elsewhere in Scandinavia (there were arrests in Denmark last week), it seems unlikely that they will take a troll-like stance with Popcorn Time users in the way that the makers of Dallas Buyers Club have. Still, the fall isn’t too far away, so time will soon tell. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services. |
| 2:02p | UK Police ‘Hijack’ Ads on 251 Pirate Sites
Under the banner “Operation Creative”, last year they struck a deal with online advertising companies with the goal of replacing ads on suspected pirate sites with police banners. The banners in question inform users that “illegal downloading is a crime” and stress the site they’re browsing has been reported to the authorities.  The campaign has been active for more than a year but PIPCU only selectively releases information about its scope. However, thanks to a recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request we now know how many sites are on the “Infringement Watch List.” PIPCU informs TF that 151 domain names are being targeted by the advertisement replacement effort. These domains have been reported to the police by copyright holder groups, which is also the case for PIPCU’s other anti-piracy initiatives. Last year we sent a similar FOI request and at the time 74 sites were included, meaning that the number being targeted has doubled over the past year. Unfortunately, the police are not willing to share the actual domain names as this may increase the number of visitors to these sites. “This is an ongoing investigation and disclosure to the public domain would raise the profile of those sites unlawfully providing copyright material. This would enable individuals to visit the sites highlighted and unlawfully download copyright material and increase the scale of the loss,” we were told. PIPCU further informed us that 134 advertising agencies are participating in the program, up from 84 last year. All of these companies have a UK presence but many operate internationally. It remains unclear what percentage of the total ads on pirate sites are being replaced. The banners appear rarely in the wild so we assume that the volume is relatively low. A few weeks ago PIPCU released some statistics on the effectiveness of the campaign. Based on a small sample they concluded that the UK’s top ad spending companies decreased their ‘pirate’ advertising by 73%. Whether this made any serious impact on the overall revenue of pirate sites is unknown, but PIPCU’s Detective Chief Inspector Peter Ratcliffe praised the collaboration. “Working closely with rights holders and the advertising industry, PIPCU has been able to lead the way with tackling copyright infringing sites by successfully disrupting advertising revenue,” he said. Next year we’ll see if the program continues to expand, and if so, at what rate. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services. |
| 8:23p | Megaupload Wants U.S. Govt to Buy and Store its Servers
Nearly four years have since passed and after all this time the servers are still gathering dust at a Virginia warehouse. In recent weeks the issue has come to the forefront again. QTS, the company that owns the servers after it acquired Carpathia hosting, asked the court if it can get rid of the data which costs them thousands of dollars per month in storage costs. This motion triggered a reply from former Megaupload user Kyle Goodwin who still hopes to retrieve his files and a few hours ago Megaupload’s legal team also submitted a comment, asking the court to add it as an official response. Megaupload points out that the data on the servers must be preserved. Not only for the users’ sake, but also because they contain crucial evidence. The company plans to use this to its benefit in the criminal proceedings as well as the pending cases against the MPAA and RIAA. The DOJ previously allowed the data hosted in Europe to be destroyed, they argue. If the same happens to the Carpathia servers various examples of Megaupload’s “copyright neutral technology” may disappear. “The database servers can show safe harbor compliance. The web servers can show the copyright neutral nature of the interface design. The content servers in combination with other data can show fair use and substantial non-infringing uses and users,” Megaupload writes. Thus far the U.S. Government has only copied a very small percentage of the total data and Megaupload fears that this may be “cherry-picked” to favor the Department of Justice’s case. “The Government is burdened with a weak case to present in a criminal trial and it wants to prevent a strong defense,” Megaupload’s legal team writes. “The Government cannot criminally and civilly indict all the revenues arising out of all the global users of the Megaupload cloud storage site in the largest copyright case in history while at the same time cherry picking a sliver evidence to retain for trial and throwing away the rest to manifestly prevent the mounting of a fair defense,” they add. Megaupload’s legal team asks the court to instruct the Government to buy the servers and transfer them to a facility where they and other authorized parties can access them. “The Government should bear the cost of such purchase and preservation,” the legal team write. Before ruling on Megaupload’s request, District Court Judge Liam O’Grady first has to decide whether to accept its request to be heard in the matter. The Government is also likely to chime in, as they’re probably not in favor of the proposed solution. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services. |
Less than 18 months since its original launch in 2014 and the controversial Popcorn Time software is still making headlines. The application’s colorful and easy to use interface has proven a hit with users and now anti-piracy groups in the United States and Europe are fighting back.
Over the past two years City of London Police’s 
When Megaupload and Kim Dotcom were raided 
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