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Scene Bust Triggered Historic Drop in 'Pirate' ReleasesErnesto Van der Sar, 04 Sep 06:09 PM Every day, millions of people download or stream pirated

Scene Bust Triggered Historic Drop in 'Pirate' Releases Ernesto Van der Sar, 04 Sep 06:09 PM Every day, millions of people download or stream pirated content including movies, TV-shows, games, MP3s, and books. Many of these files originate from a small and tightly organized 'community' commonly known as The Scene, which is made up of dozens of smaller 'release groups.' These groups tend to operate in the shadows with little or no public profile. At least, that's what the unwritten rules dictate. That's for good reason as the people involved risk high prison sentences when caught. The SPARKS Raids It's very rare for Scene group members to get busted but last week the US Government claimed a major victory. With help from international law enforcement partners, several raids and arrests were carried out, with the SPARKS group at the center of it all. The first reports on a possible law enforcement action trickled in last Tuesday and a day later the US Department of Justice confirmed that three people had been indicted. Based on the 'copyright infringement conspiracy' charges, all face long sentences. The main defendants were hit the hardest but the effects of last week's actions are much broader. As mentioned earlier, dozens of topsites are believed to be taken down in the raids and many more halted their operations as a precaution. In piracy circles, people regularly bring up the "hydra," a mythical multi-headed creature that can easily regenerate when a head is chopped off. However, last week's busts are also reminiscent of another Greek mythology: Achilles' heel. Scene Releases Drop As soon as the first rumors about the raids started spreading on Tuesday, the number of Scene releases started to drop. A day later, when confirmation came in, it became even quieter. With data provided by Predb.org we take a closer look at these dropoffs, showing that some categories are affected more than others. Before delving into detailed groups, it's worth pointing out the overall impact, which can be summarized in two numbers. On Wednesday, August 19, there were 1944 new releases. A week later, a day after the first raids, this number was down to 168 releases. The drop in new releases happened across all categories. Below is a line graph showing the most popular "TV-X64" category where the date of the raids is clearly visible. TV-X64 releases before and after raid In the days after the raids, there were just a few dozen new releases at most compared to many hundreds a week earlier. A similar trend can be observed in other categories, such as Anime, X264 (movies), and XXX, shown below. Anime, X264 and XXX releases before and after raid There are clearly fewer releases after the raids, but there are still some. The same can't be said for other categories such as Games and Ebooks, where nothing new came out in the days after the raids. Game and Ebook releases before and after the raids Looking more closely at individual release groups in TV and movie categories shows that some have 'disappeared' completely. For example, the group TRUMP previously released dozens of new shows a week. After the raids, however, nothing new appeared. Time will tell if things will eventually recover or if the effects are lasting. With that in mind, we'll close with the MP3 category, where signs of recovery are visible. After an initial drop, a new two-week record of over 800 releases was set the Sunday after the raid, suggesting that groups were catching up. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. TVZion Piracy App Ordered to Shut Down By Global Anti-Piracy Group ACE Andy Maxwell, 04 Sep 10:04 AM Over the past several years there has been an explosion of piracy apps that run on mobile devices, mostly on the Android platform. Most of the big-name piracy apps such as Popcorn Time have an Android variant and due to the relative ease of development offered by the OS, dozens of similar tools for viewing the latest content are available online. One that has been gaining traction since it appeared a couple of years ago is TVZion. It offers access to movies and TV shows hosted on various external platforms and presents them in a slick Netflix-style interface. However, according to copies of documents shared with TorrentFreak, TVZion may be in for a bumpy ride. Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment Global anti-piracy group ACE is a massive coalition of the world's major entertainment companies, encompassing the main Hollywood studios under the MPA alongside Netflix, Amazon and dozens of other content producers. Since its inception, ACE has been working to shut down apps like TVZion with some success. Now, however, TVZion itself seems to be under the spotlight. A source who requested anonymity shared partial documents with TF on Thursday, which bear all the hallmarks of an ACE 'shut down or else" settlement letter. The first page of the document, which was heavily cropped to obscure personal details, reveals that it was sent by Jan van Voorn, Chief of Global Content Protection at the MPA, on behalf of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment. Cease and Desist / Settlement Agreement It's unclear how many people received the cease-and-desist letter but our source estimates that perhaps four people were targeted. It demands that multiple social network and support accounts for TVZion are shut down, including at least four on Facebook, TVZion's Discord channel, its Telegram group, Twitter channel and sub-Reddit. From the documents reviewed by TF, it appears that MPA/ACE are currently prepared to let TVZion's these individuals go quietly, but with many strings attached. "Within ten (10) days of the Effective Date [REDACTED] shall transfer the domains Zionapp.live, Tvzion.me, Tvzionapk.com, and Tvzion.io, and all trademarks related to the Infringing Service, to the Rightsholders at no cost, and shall execute whatever documents and take whatever actions are necessary to effect the transfer," the settlement offer reads. "Following transfer of the domains, Rightsholders shall have all rights to the domains, including, but not limited to, posting a message of their choosing on the domains." This seems like a reference to the usual ACE seizure banner that's currently posted on several dozen other domains that were previously shut down following legal pressure. Developer Overlooked and the Show Goes On Late Thursday, even the developer of TVZion claimed to be oblivious to what is unfolding. While lower tier mods and support staff were apparently disappearing, deleting YouTube and other support accounts as they went, he told users on Reddit that he was as "clueless" as they are about what is happening. No mention was made of him receiving a similar letter. However, he did acknowledge that he was longer able to contact the people in his own team but during the past few hours, that position seems to have changed. "The moderators finally responded back. They said that they enjoyed maintaining the groups but they recently had a change of heart and for personal reasons they no long want to maintain groups," TVZion's developer wrote on Reddit. "I am as surprised as you are. But it's possibly a burn out issue and this has happened before with the last group. They worked a lot on those groups, attending to everyone, defending when they faced toxic people, it's possible that they are just burnt out and just wanted out." At least from the tone of statements issued thus far, the developer seems intent on carrying on with TVZion. At the time of writing the app appears to be functional albeit with a few hiccups, but users in need of assistance currently find no support staff available. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©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