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Hollywood & Netflix Obtain High Court Orders to Block Dozens of Pirate SitesAndy Maxwell, 04 Mar 10:15 AM In the UK it's possible for copyright hold

Hollywood & Netflix Obtain High Court Orders to Block Dozens of Pirate Sites Andy Maxwell, 04 Mar 10:15 AM In the UK it's possible for copyright holders to obtain High Court injunctions to have pirate sites blocked by major internet service providers including BT, EE, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media. This anti-piracy strategy has been regularly utilized by rightsholders since 2011 when the first blocks against Usenet indexer Newzbin came into force. Since then many hundreds of domains have been blocked and after a somewhat brief hiatus in 2019, both Hollywood and the music industry have been seen returning to court to prevent access to the most popular pirate platforms. This month the trend continues after the major Hollywood studios and Netflix teamed up against dozens more pirate sites under the banner of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Major Torrent Sites Targeted Considering the recent emphasis on streaming sites and services being blocked in the UK, the latest action unusually targets some of the big torrent sites that have thus far evaded blocking measures. The most significant site on the list with around 17 million visits per month is TorrentGalaxy, which appears as one of the top 10 most popular torrent sites 2022. The injunction covers three domains (torrentgalaxy.to, torrentgalaxy.mx and torrentgalaxy.su) but in common with previous orders, will also cover additional domains, should TorrentGalaxy deploy others to circumvent the ban. Other new additions in the torrent category include Zooqle (zooqle.com), a torrent search engine and indexer that according to SimilarWeb stats, pulls in around five million visits per month. MagnetDL (magnetdl.com, magnetdl.org) is another pretty big player with an estimated six million visits per month, around a quarter of which hail from the UK. The inclusion of private torrent tracker TorrentLeech (torrentleech.org) on the new list is somewhat of a rarity. Members-only sites are not key targets for anti-piracy enforcement even though they have been targeted before in the UK, as far back as 2014. With around 1.3 million visits per month, GloTorrents (glodls.to, gtdb.to) is not as large as the other platforms in the latest order but given that around 30% of its traffic is from the UK, it's no surprise that the MPA has sought to limit access. Other sites and Unblocking/Proxy Services So-called DDL sites (direct download) are indexing services that carry no content themselves but link to movies, TV shows, music and other material hosted elsewhere, usually file-hosting platforms. Several such domains are present in the latest injunction including rlsbb.ru, rlsbb.to rlsbb.com, releasebb.net, proxybb.com and tfp.is. Furthermore, in case some of the sites in this latest batch try to rely on unblocking services to facilitate access to their freshly-blocked domains, the injunction throws in some of those platforms too for good measure. Sites that unblock GloTorrents, MagnetDL, TorrentGalaxy are included too, with as glotorrents.unblockit.cam, magnetdl.proxyninja.org, and torrentgalaxy.unblockit.cam as just some of the examples. Finally, the order(s) also cover the main domain and dozens of sub-domains of mxdcontent.net. This site is inaccessible directly but appears to act as a content delivery system for MixDrop, a site that was recently announced by the MPA as the first cyberlocker hosting movies and TV shows to be targeted in the UK with blocking measures. Interestingly, while the MPA targeted two MixDrop domains (mixdrop.me, mixdrop.co), it doesn't appear to have targeted mixdrop.to, which is the same platform as mixdrop.co, evidenced by the domains using the same login credentials. Action in January/February also required ISPs to also block these domains: eztv.unblockit.how, projectfreetv.cam, pw.unblockit.how, yts.unblockit.how, solarmovie.unblockit.how, scnsrc.unblockit.how, losmovies.today, flixtor.mx, 1.123movies2022.org, bflix.ru, 123movies.ms, hurawatch.at, onionplay.re, soap2day.film Other domains to be blocked following a report in December 2021 can be found here. The full list of domains to be blocked in the latest action (per TalkTalk) are as follows: glodls.to, gtdb.to glotorrents.unblockit.cam glotorrents.u4m.sbs glotorrents.unbl4you.cyou glotorrents.123unblock.world glotorrents.unblockproject.top glotorrents.proxybit.sbs glotorrents.mrunblock.bar glotorrents.g3g.fun magnetdl.com, magnetdl.org magnetdl.unblockit.cam magnetdl.proxyninja.org rlsbb.ru, rlsbb.to rlsbb.com, releasebb.net proxybb.com, tfp.is tfpdl.se, tfp.unblockit.cam tfpdl.proxybit.sbs tfpdl.unbl4you.cyou tfpdl.123unblock.world tfpdl.unblockproject.top tfpdl.proxybit.sbs tfpdl.mrunblock.bar tfpdl.g3g.fun torrentgalaxy.to torrentgalaxy.mx torrentgalaxy.su torrentgalaxy.unblockit.cam torrentleech.org zooqle.com zooqle.unblockit.cam zooqle.u4m.sbs zooqle.unbl4you.cyou zooqle.123unblock.world zooqle.unblockproject.top zooqle.proxybit.sbs zooqle.mrunblock.bar zooqle.g3g.fun zooqle.proxyninja.org mxdcontent.net a-delivery26.mxdcontent.net s-delivery21.mxdcontent.net s-delivery16.mxdcontent.net s-delivery19.mxdcontent.net s-delivery17.mxdcontent.net s-delivery23.mxdcontent.net s-delivery22.mxdcontent.net a-delivery21.mxdcontent.net s-delivery25.mxdcontent.net s-delivery26.mxdcontent.net s-delivery27.mxdcontent.net a-delivery30.mxdcontent.net s-delivery28.mxdcontent.net s-delivery29.mxdcontent.net s-delivery30.mxdcontent.net s-delivery31.mxdcontent.net s-delivery32.mxdcontent.net s-delivery33.mxdcontent.net a-delivery18.mxdcontent.net a-delivery19.mxdcontent.net s-delivery34.mxdcontent.net s-delivery35.mxdcontent.net a-delivery22.mxdcontent.net a-delivery23.mxdcontent.net a-delivery27.mxdcontent.net a-delivery28.mxdcontent.net a-delivery29.mxdcontent.net s-delivery36.mxdcontent.net a-delivery31.mxdcontent.net s-delivery37.mxdcontent.net s-delivery38.mxdcontent.net a-delivery32.mxdcontent.net a-delivery33.mxdcontent.net a-delivery10.mxdcontent.net a-delivery9.mxdcontent.net a-delivery11.mxdcontent.net a-delivery12.mxdcontent.net a-delivery14.mxdcontent.net a-delivery15.mxdcontent.net a-delivery24.mxdcontent.net s-delivery18.mxdcontent.net s-delivery13.mxdcontent.net s-delivery9.mxdcontent.net a-delivery1.mxdcontent.net a-delivery2.mxdcontent.net a-delivery3.mxdcontent.net a-delivery4.mxdcontent.net a-delivery5.mxdcontent.net a-delivery6.mxdcontent.net a-delivery7.mxdcontent.net a-delivery8.mxdcontent.net s-delivery10.mxdcontent.net s-delivery11.mxdcontent.net s-delivery12.mxdcontent.net s-delivery14.mxdcontent.net s-delivery1.mxdcontent.net s-delivery2.mxdcontent.net s-delivery3.mxdcontent.net s-delivery4.mxdcontent.net s-delivery5.mxdcontent.net s-delivery6.mxdcontent.net s-delivery7.mxdcontent.net s-delivery8.mxdcontent.net a-delivery16.mxdcontent.net a-delivery17.mxdcontent.net s-delivery15.mxdcontent.net a-delivery13.mxdcontent.net a-delivery25.mxdcontent.net a-delivery25.mxdcontent.net a-delivery20.mxdcontent.net s-delivery24.mxdcontent.net s-delivery20.mxdcontent.net From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. FBI Gains Access to Sci-Hub Founder's Google Account Data Andy Maxwell, 03 Mar 06:47 PM As the world's leading free distributor of millions of oftentimes 'paywalled' research papers, Sci-Hub is often described as "The Pirate Bay of Science". While this status warms the hearts of many researchers, academics and students around the world, especially those with limited resources available to access education, Sci-Hub has also accrued many high-powered enemies. These are not limited to major publishing houses angry at their content being distributed for free. Founder Alexandra Elbakyan is also a person of interest to elements of the US government's intelligence and security services, which appear to be conducting an investigation into the computer security expert. Elbakyan's Apple Account Compromised In May 2021, Elbakyan received an email from Apple (via her Gmail account) advising her that in 2019, Apple had received a request from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) that requested "information" from her Apple account. Quite what information the FBI requested wasn't made clear but Apple did advise the Sci-Hub founder that due to the nature of the request, Apple was only allowed to provide "delayed notice" to Elbakyan. Now, 10 months later, it appears that the FBI also made another request, this time to tech giant Google. Google Now Confirms It Too Handed Over Data to the FBI In January 2021, Twitter suspended the official Sci-Hub account so when site updates are published, they now tend to appear on Elbakyan's personal account. A new tweet this week reveals that Google was also required to hand over her account data. In an email to Elbakyan dated March 2, 2022, Google advises that following a legal process issued by the FBI, Google was required to hand over data associated with Elbakyan's account. Exactly what data was targeted isn't made clear but according to Google, a court order required the company to keep the request a secret. "Google received and responded to legal process issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation compelling the release of information related to your Google account," the email reads. "A court order previously prohibited Google from notifying you of the legal process. We are now permitted to disclose the receipt of the legal process to you." Google notes that since it is "not in a position" to provide Elbakyan with legal advice or to discuss the substance of the legal process, the Sci-Hub founder may wish to contact an attorney. The big question remains – what exactly is the investigation about? Usual Piracy Allegations or Something More? Given the scale of Sci-Hub and its notoriety around the world, it's certainly possibile that a criminal copyright infringement investigation is underway in the United States that could feasibly lead to an indictment for Elbakyan and any cohorts involved in the operation. However, more serious allegations have been made in the past. Back in December 2019, The Washington Post reported that Elbakyan was being investigated by the US Justice Department on suspicion that she "may" be working with Russian intelligence to "steal U.S. military secrets from defense contractors." No solid evidence was published to back up those allegations but the publication did note that Elbakyan may have collected log-in credentials from journal subscribers in order to access academic literature, presumably so that it can be offered on Sci-Hub. For her part, Elbakyan denied the more sinister allegations of being connected to Russia in any official capacity. "I know there are some reasons to suspect me: after all, I have education in computer security and was a hobby hacker in teenage years. But hacking is not my occupation, and I do not have any job within any intelligence, either Russian or some another," Elbakyan said at the time. "I think that whether I can be a Russian spy is being investigated by U.S. government since they learned about Sci-Hub, because that is very logical: a Russian project, that uses university accounts to access some information, of course that is suspicious. But in fact Sci-Hub has always been my personal enterprise." The case number relating to the data release from Google: 18-2; 18gj3650; 18-3532 From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2022 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