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Amazon Joins Pirate Bay and FMovies on US Govt's "Notorious" Markets ListErnesto, 30 Apr 05:01 PM Every year the United States Trade Representative

Amazon Joins Pirate Bay and FMovies on US Govt's "Notorious" Markets List Ernesto, 30 Apr 05:01 PM Every year the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes an updated list of its "Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets." Drawing on input from copyright holders, the report includes a non-exclusive overview of sites and services that are believed to be involved in piracy or counterfeiting. The targets traditionally include popular piracy portals such as well known torrent sites, cyberlockers, and streaming portals. However, in recent years we have also seen domain registrars, hosting companies, and advertisers thrown into the mix. That is also the case this year. As expected, the USTR mentions cyberlockers such as 1fichier and Uploaded, streaming portals including FMovies, and the torrent sites RARBG, Rutracker, The Pirate Bay, and 1337x. The latter site is a new addition, of which there are a few. BestBuyIPTV, for example, which sells access to pirate IPTV services, and the streaming site Cimaclub.com, which is very popular in Saudi Arabia. The most surprising new additions are in another league, however. For the first time ever, the USTR has listed an advertising company as a notorious market. The report calls out Propeller Ads for its role in funding piracy websites and spreading malware. "Right holders identify Propeller Ads as providing significant advertising revenue for many popular torrent sites, cyberlockers, and other pirate websites. Propeller Ads has also been linked to serious 'malvertising' operations whereby malware is distributed through online advertisements," USTR writes. The malware angle plays an important role, as it's the USTR's special focus this year. The report cites a broad list of articles that highlight the malware risks on pirate sites. However, it also references a TorrentFreak article that describes some of these claims as overblown. It's a significant step for the USTR to add an advertising company to the report, but this is largely overshadowed by Amazon's surprise appearance. As a US-based company, Amazon.com can't be listed as a notorious market, because this list is exclusively meant for foreign actors. However, the USTR bypassed this restriction by calling out Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, and Amazon.in. The world's largest online retailer is being labeled a notorious market because it reportedly provides a platform for copyright infringers, counterfeiters to be precise. While that is true for many online retailers, Amazon's response to these infringers has apparently been below par. The USTR mentions that copyright holders complain that sellers are not vetted, that the removal process is burdensome, while the counterfeiting problem continues to grow. Amazon should change its policies to address these issues. "[Rightsholders] ask that Amazon take additional actions to address their concerns, including by collecting sufficient information from sellers to prevent repeat infringers from creating multiple storefronts on the platforms, making detailed information about the real seller of a product obvious to consumers and right holders," the USTR writes. Responding to the listing, an Amazon spokesperson characterized the company's inclusion as being part of a personal vendetta of the Trump administration against the company. "This purely political act is another example of the administration using the U.S. government to advance a personal vendetta against Amazon," the company informed Politico. Vendetta or not, Amazon was reported to the Government by the American Apparel & Footwear Association, which specifically asked for a listing of the foreign Amazon domains. Amazon is not the only online retailer that's listed. The US Government also sees the Chinese platform Taobao, India's Snapdeal, and the Indonesian store Tokopedia as notorious platforms. Below we have compiled a full list of all the online sites and services that are mentioned. Although some harsh language is used, the USTR stresses that its overview doesn't "make findings of legal violations" and that these are merely "illustrative." Most importantly, perhaps, the report is used to send a clear warning to the sites and companies involved, suggesting that it might be a good idea to implement some changes. That's not likely to impress sites such as The Pirate Bay, but others may be more susceptible. — A copy of the USTR's 2019 overview of notorious markets (published yesterday) is available here (pdf). The full list of highlighted online sites/service, including those focused on counterfeiting, is as follows: -1337x.to -1Fichier.com -Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, and Amazon.in -Bestbuyiptv.com -Bukalapak.com -Carousell.com -Chomikuj.pl -Cimaclub.com -DHgate.com -Dytt8.net -FlokiNET -Flvto.biz and 2Conv.com -FMovies.is -Hosting Concepts B.V. -MP3juices.cc -Mp3va.com -Mpgh.net -Newalbumreleases.net -Phimmoi.net -Pinduoduo.com -Private Layer Hosted Sites -Propellerads.com -Rapidgator.net -RARBG.to -Rutracker.org -Sci-Hub and LibGen -Seasonvar.ru -Shopee.sg -Snapdeal.com -Taobao.com -Thepiratebay.org -Tokopedia.com -Torrentz2.eu -Turbobit.net -Uploaded.net -Uptobox.com -VK.com -Warmane.com From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review. German Anti-Piracy Outfit GVU Files For Bankruptcy, Despite Many Historic Victories Andy, 30 Apr 09:08 AM While the vast majority of movie and TV show piracy occurs on the Internet today, back in the mid 1980s it was VHS and Betamax tapes causing headaches for copyright holders. Desperate to rein in what then-MPAA head Jack Valenti described as the Bostom Strangler of the movie industry, the video cassette recorder (VCR) found rivals on both sides of the Atlantic. In Germany, that role fell to Gesellschaft zur Verfolgung von Urheberrechtsverletzungen (GVU), the Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringement. Between 1985 and 2010, GVU grew to become a major anti-piracy force in Germany. Boasting around 50 members, including the major Hollywood studios, music industry groups and video games companies, GVU's reputation was certainly on the up. In 2011 it played its biggest role yet as a key player in the Europe-wide raids targeting Kino.to, one of Germany's most infamous piracy portals, and the prosecutions that followed. Since then GVU has been involved in various major actions, including against the alleged operators of Kinox.to, a site that stepped in following the demise of Kino.to. In 2014, GVU upped the ante again with an investigation and subsequent anti-piracy operation targeting pirate linking forum Boerse.bz during which a reported 121 homes were raided. Even beyond then, GVU kept its foot on the gas. In 2019 and following a GVU-led investigation, two men were jailed for a total of 66 months for running a Usenet portal and during the same year, the anti-piracy group was the driving force behind the operation that took down Share-Online.biz, Germany's largest file-hosting site. In the background, however, all was not well at GVU. In 2018, the MPAA (now MPA) withdrew its significant funding from GVU. The move wasn't entirely unexpected as two years earlier the Hollywood group had withdrawn funding for the UK's Federation Against Copyright Theft, instead choosing to pursue its copyright-infringing adversaries via the nascent Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment. Danger signs became more obvious at the end of March 2020 when German news outlet Tarnkappe received news from several sources that GVU was in trouble and might even cease to exist in the near future. Despite repeated attempts, GVU had effectively become unreachable and this week, the anti-piracy group's fate was confirmed. According to a posting on the Berlin Consumer Protection forum, an insolvent GVU filed for bankruptcy at the start of April, appointing a Berlin lawyer as an insolvency administrator. While the loss of the Hollywood studios as major financiers of GVU would've come as an extreme blow to the organization, Tarnkappe speculates that GVU's focus on criminal cases was a key factor in rendering the outfit financially unviable. While the cases pursued by GVU were sometimes dramatic, even historically so, they always took a long time to come to fruition and with no enforcement in the civil realm to bring in settlements and similar types of revenue, the writing was already on the wall when a more powerful and versatile ACE began to make waves all over the Internet. Indeed, on what would've been GVU's exclusive stomping ground, ACE recently shut down several German-based piracy giants including Openload, Steamango and VeryStream, all with civil settlements that fell outside of GVU's remit. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review. ©2020 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company

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The Pirate Bay Has Made it Harder to Find StuffErnesto, 29 Apr 09:01 PM After more than a month of downtime, The Pirate Bay's .org domain started wo

The Pirate Bay Has Made it Harder to Find Stuff Ernesto, 29 Apr 09:01 PM After more than a month of downtime, The Pirate Bay's .org domain started working again recently. This was good news for the site's millions of users, but the comeback has resulted in some frustrations as well. As previously reported, the site's operator – also known as Winston – used the downtime to rewrite some code. While these changes appear to be minimal at first sight, the site's usability hasn't improved. Some even wonder whether something had gone horribly wrong. One of the most frequently reported issues is that torrents appear to be missing. This isn't immediately obvious to a casual visitor, but the more demanding ones can't seem to find everything they're looking for. The Pirate Bay has changed the way search results are pulled from the database. This now goes through an API hosted at Bayapi.org. This API doesn't always return full results. In fact, there seems to be a limit of a hundred results, presented on a single page. This restriction is fine when someone's looking for a very specific torrent, but not for broader searches. The same limits also apply to the site's general navigation across categories. The software, video, and audio sections all show just one page. There is no option to browse through more pages. The good news for Pirate Bay users is that all torrent links are still in the database, as far as we can see. However, they may be required to use more targeted search phrases to find what they're looking for. Although casual browsing through various pages of results is no longer possible, there is a partial workaround though, as pointed out in the Pirate Bay forums. Users can find the next pages in the category results by adding :1, :2 or even :99. That trick doesn't appear to work for regular searches, however. Other stuff remains missing as well if we compare the new homepage with the old one, shown below. A quick glance shows that the official blog has disappeared, for example. The 'doodle' page has gone too, and the same is true for the RSS feeds, the usage policy, the daily dumps, and the famous "How do I download" explainer. And as if that wasn't enough, the Kopimi icon – one of Pirate Bay's hallmarks – is no longer featured either. All the changes, including a domain Whois update where the registrant is now hidden, have fueled conspiracy theories. These originate from a small minority and speculate that The Pirate Bay has changed owners, or that something more nefarious is going on. We have been no proof that this is the case. A more likely scenario, in our opinion, is that the code changes were implemented without proper testing and care. And that they serve a technical need, rather than an increased user experience. That theory is just a theory of course, but it's no secret that the full attention of the operator may not be with the site. After all, user registrations have also been closed for almost a year, a measure that was taken to patch a technical problem. TorrentFreak spoke to a staffer who admits that not everything is functioning as it should. However, they can't do much either and have to wait until "Winston" springs into action. That could take a few days, or weeks, or… From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review. Woman Who Sold Access to Pirated Books on Dropbox Handed Suspended Sentence Andy, 29 Apr 11:50 AM Regular eBooks are among the cheapest items of digital content available to buy today but due to their cost, the underground market for academic textbooks continues to thrive. Pirated textbooks are relatively easy to find on the open web and via dedicated pirate sites. However, some people are creating their own libraries in an effort to make money, offering online access to such material in exchange for a fee. Danish anti-piracy outfit Rights Alliance (Rettighedsalliancen) has been homing on these for-profit pirates for some time and this week reported another success in a local court. According to the group, which acts on behalf of a wide range of copyright holders, publishers included, routine monitoring for pirated content drew its attention to an advert placed on Den Blå Avis (The Blue Newspaper), Denmark's largest buying and selling site. For a fee of 20 kronor (US$2.91) it offered access to 115 digital copies of books usually sold by publishers including Gyldendal, Lindhardt and Ringhof, University of Southern Denmark, and Social Literature. The books were conveniently stored on Dropbox, with customers able to download them with minimum fuss. With assistance from local police, Rights Alliance was able to have the advert quickly removed but also managed to identify the seller, a woman from the Vanløse district of Copenhagen. The group said that the woman admitted to the unlawful distribution of the content, which included books dedicated to physiotherapy. This week her fate was decided by a court in Nykøbing Falster, which reopened for business on Monday after a closure due to the coronavirus pandemic. Following a guilty plea, the court handed down a suspended sentence of 20 days in prison accompanied by a financial confiscation order. The decision is being welcomed by Rights Alliance chief Maria Fredenslund who notes that such offenses carried out by individuals can have serious consequences, including police involvement and a criminal record. "It is crucial that the police move quickly in these cases, as the extent of illegal activities can quickly increase if the rumor about the possibilities for free books spreads among students. Although it may seem innocent to copy a textbook and sell it to other students, it has serious consequences in a systematic way," Fredenslund says. The case and sentencing appear broadly similar to one previously reported by TF during October 2019. In that matter, a 26-year-old student also advertised illegal access to textbooks via the Blue Newspaper and was subsequently tracked down by Rights Alliance with assistance from the police. While he sold access to books for a much higher fee (between US$12.50 and US$88.00) the Court of Fredericksberg handed down an identical 20-day suspended prison sentence plus a confiscation order. The man also entered into a settlement agreement with Rights Alliance. In 2019, another man tracked down by Rights Alliance in a similar case received a 30-day suspended sentence. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review. ©2020 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company

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Piracy Should be Tackled With 'Carrot and Stick' USPTO Paper SuggestsErnesto, 28 Apr 09:56 PM Over the past years, hundreds of academic piracy studi

Piracy Should be Tackled With 'Carrot and Stick' USPTO Paper Suggests Ernesto, 28 Apr 09:56 PM Over the past years, hundreds of academic piracy studies have been published, all focusing on their own unique angle. This resulted in a vast body of research that, with some skilled cherry-picking, can support pretty much any argument. While the individual papers all contribute to the understanding of the piracy ecosystem and how this affects the entertainment industries, the results are often hard to translate into policy. In an effort to obtain a broader perspective, last year the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) put out a proposal for a broad piracy landscape study. This project was awarded to a group of researchers from Chapman University and Carnegie Mellon University, who released their working paper this month. The study doesn't research any new topics, but it does a good job of summarizing the existing findings and draws some strong conclusions, uniting opposing views. In public piracy discussions, you often have two sides. The first, often the rightsholders, stress that stricter enforcement measures are needed. The other side, however, believes that affordable and accessible legal options are the cure to piracy. The USPTO paper addresses both and concludes that no side is entirely wrong or right. "Our analysis of the academic literature on anti-piracy strategies shows that firms can reduce piracy by making legal content more available and more appealing," the researchers write. "Strategies such as making legal content available on convenient digital channels or reducing the release windows between different releases of the same product are both effective at changing consumption of pirated content." Having great legal options alone is not the full answer though. Research has shown that this reduces piracy by 25 percent at most. While this is substantial, there is more that can be done. This is where the enforcement side comes in. According to the researchers, the majority of the academic papers show that piracy results in some losses for rightsholders. Enforcement measures can help to limit these losses. However, the researchers highlight that not all enforcement efforts work well. Blocking a single pirate site, for example, is not believed to be effective. The same is true for stringent anti-piracy laws that are barely enforced. Strict enforcement works even better when there's risk involved. This includes the risk of getting caught, but also the risk of running into malware, which may explain the wave of malware-related warnings we've seen from copyright holders recently. But, even when hundreds of pirate sites are blocked and piracy is seen as very risky, legal options should not be ignored. In fact, the researchers suggest that a combination of attractive legal options (carrot) and good enforcement measures (stick) probably works best. "Making pirated content harder to find is likely to have a larger impact on consumer choice if legal content is readily available in a timely fashion than if the content that consumers want to enjoy is difficult to find on legal channels or is not available until long after it becomes available through piracy," the paper reads. This theory also applies in the other direction. "Similarly, making legal content available on convenient legal services is likely to have a stronger impact on consumer behavior if piracy is perceived as a costly, inconvenient, or risky alternative." The overall conclusion is that the combination of a carrot and stick is the way forward. In other words, pairing the most effective enforcement efforts with the most attractive legal offerings is the optimal anti-piracy strategy. "[T]he most natural conclusion one can draw from the peer-reviewed literature is that the combination of firm strategies to make high-quality legal content readily available and easy to use, and government and private actions to reduce the appeal of pirated content, is the most effective way to reduce piracy's impact on legal markets." While this appears to be a sensible conclusion, this approach is yet to be studied in detail so will be an area for future academic research. The paper also highlights some further shortcomings of the existing literature. For example, many studies were conducted during a time when most people bought media, while most entertainment consumption is subscription-based now. While not mentioned in the paper, increased fragmentation in the legal streaming landscape may not be the best way forward, as it can drive people towards piracy sites. Another area that hasn't been researched in detail is the effect of piracy on live streaming, including sports. These are all opportunities for future research. — A copy of the USPTO working paper titled Piracy Landscape Study: Analysis of Existing and Emerging Research Relevant to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Enforcement of Commercial-Scale Piracy, is available here. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review. Massive & Unprecedented Security Breach Takes Usenet Providers Offline Andy, 28 Apr 10:27 AM While the majority of people seeking movies, TV shows, music and other content obtain access via BitTorrent or streaming sources, huge numbers still use the newsgroups, otherwise known as Usenet. In basic terms, the Usenet system is comprised of thousands of servers around the world where users can post discussions or content, otherwise known as binaries. These banks of servers share this information with other banks, allowing the data to propagate around the world. Having its roots in 1979, it is one of the oldest methods still around to share files on a large scale. While most Usenet use flies under the radar these days, huge volumes of data are shared on a daily basis. To access this content, users can subscribe to Usenet providers which, for a fee, supply Usenet login credentials allowing often metered access to the 'newsgroups'. This weekend, however, signs of trouble became evident. In a post on Obload, a web-based German-language Usenet discussion forum, an administrator alerted users to a serious situation involving the Momentum Usenet client, a software tool used to access Usenet. According to research carried out by a user called 'Tensai', Momentum – a relative new-comer to the Usenet scene – not only facilitates access to Usenet but also swipes Usenet users' login credentials and NZB data and uploads it to a site called Newzbee. The immediate advice was to stop using Momentum and since users have to enter their Usenet providers' username and password into Momentum to have it work, immediately change their passwords at their Usenet provider. If true, and to put things another way, this situation is akin to users using a third-party application to access Netflix then have that application steal their Netflix username and password. TorrentFreak contacted both Momentum and Newzbee on Monday but neither responded to our requests for comment. However, at the same time and quite unusually, another major development was breaking in the Usenet space. On Usenet1, a site dedicated to Usenet matters, a post revealed that several major Usenet providers and tool operators were experiencing "massive problems". They included UseNext, Usenet.nl, Gigaflat, plus HolmeZ.com and Momentum Plus, the latter two sites being directly connected to the Momentum client. Checking UseNext's and Usenet.nl's portals revealed both to be completely offline, which is extremely rare for such high-profile suppliers of Usenet access. With the latter reporting nothing, the former has now issued a major security advisory to its substantial customer base. "Unauthorized persons have accessed our infrastructure via a security hole in a partner company. We are currently analyzing what damage may have occurred. For security reasons, all systems are currently offline," the company said in a statement. At the time of writing there is no clear evidence to link the alleged misconduct of the Momentum client with the downtime at major Usenet providers. However, that two serious events have occurred almost simultaneously has set alarm bells ringing and for UseNext, which listed Momentum as a preferred Usenet client on its site (before it was taken down), the implications appear extremely serious. "There could be a risk that attackers could gain access to your account information. Your name, billing address, payment data such as IBAN and account number and other data that we have processed to carry out your contract are potentially affected. Accessing your bank details puts you at risk of becoming a victim of fraud or identity theft," the company warns. While UseNext is advising its users to change their passwords, the ability to do so on UseNext.de doesn't exist as the site is down. However, there are bigger problems too. If users have duplicated passwords on other sites, they may also be compromised. "Change your account passwords immediately. Most important are the accounts that are needed to restore other accounts or passwords. If you also use these passwords for other sites, you should change them there too," UseNext advises. "Check the settings of your accounts (e.g. automatic forwarding of messages). Any changes indicate unauthorized access. Correct the settings if necessary. If you find that someone is using your identity, please notify the provider of the affected account immediately and have the account blocked. "Also let friends know about possible identity theft. As of now, watch out for suspicious debits on your accounts. Check your inbox for fraudulent phishing emails. Do not click on any links that appear suspicious to you, but report them," UseNext adds. UseNext says it has reported the matter to the authorities but in the meantime, its service will remain down until the company can determine the scale of the breach. Users can contact the company for information via a dedicated hotline. For now, and at least until the makers of the Momentum client issue a statement, the general advice is to stop using the client and consider any Usenet credentials entered into the software as compromised, including the related Usenet provider accounts. And any other services where passwords were duplicated, of course. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review. ©2020 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company