Musi is one of the most popular music apps in Apple's App Store. The free iOS music streaming tool has millions of happy users, but is branded a parasitic threat by the music industry. Behind the scenes, music industry group IFPI has been working hard to get it removed from the App Store. Apple hasn't taken action thus far but further escalation involving the major labels, YouTube, and a potential lawsuit, were proposed earlier this year.

App stores are littered with apps that promise free access to music, but only few live up to expectations. Musi is one of them.

The music app made headlines in 2016 when its founders, who were teenagers at the time, presented their brainchild in an episode of the Canadian edition of Dragons’ Den.

In essence, the software itself is relatively simple. Musi can stream music, which it sources from YouTube, and allows users to create and share playlists. It essentially uses YouTube as a music library, without showing the video.

This functionality directly rivals other st...

Read entire story Yesterday at TorrentFreak

The world's largest recording labels are expanding their site-blocking program after obtaining an order from a Paris court. The order also requires search engines to deindex blocked domains from search results, which pushes look-a-like platforms to the top making malicious sites more visible. This disproportionately affects inexperienced users, undermines confidence in search engines, and has only a limited effect on those who regularly pirate.

To a greater or lesser extent and depending on region, rightsholders across all major industries are now regular participants in site-blocking actions.

Most blocking takes place to prevent access to movies and TV shows on static platforms such as torrent sites and streaming indexes, plus streaming platforms typically operated by IPTV providers offering live sports. These video-based sectors now account for the majority of blocking but the major recording labels, publishers, and video game companies are all still involved.

New Action By The Music Industry

In France, where right...

Read entire story Yesterday at TorrentFreak

If a new security report is correct, millions of people hoping to access Z-Library may have been lured to a phishing campaign instead. As we take a closer look at the report, which suggests that the personal details of millions could be at risk, the irony is unavoidable. Information on how to spot this scam is readily available, yet the scam itself relies on a steady stream of people eager to research on Z-Library, having done no research at all on the potential pitfalls.

In terms of general internet security, there are few things worse than reports of yet another potentially massive leak of personal information.

Whether due to incompetence or deception, the bottom line is often the same; exploitation of data at the expense of those to whom it relates, and a further undermining of online safety to the detriment of all.

A report published by Cybernews.com claims that a Z-Library related scam lured 10 million people to a look-a-like site, where their personal information was held for nefarious purposes.

Key Claims

TorrentFreak has not se...

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Following a complaint from a local anti-piracy group, Italian telecoms watchdog AGCOM has given the green light to blocking measures against several popular stream-ripping platforms. The sites received millions of monthly visitors in Italy, where stream-ripping from sites such as YouTube has grown to become the most popular method for obtaining pirated music.

Free music is easy to find nowadays. Just head over to YouTube and there are millions of tracks, including many of the most recent releases.

The music industry earns billions of dollars through associated advertising but doesn’t like the fact that some people download the tracks for offline use.

A blunt solution would be to remove all music from YouTube. That would be easy enough, but only if losing massive revenue wasn’t a problem either. Instead, record labels and industry groups are countering the piracy threat with DMCA notices, lawsuits, and website blocking reque...

Read entire story 7/25/2024 at TorrentFreak

Five men found guilty of operating one of the largest pirate streaming services in the U.S. have filed requests for their convictions to be overturned. Kristopher Dallmann, Douglas Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Jaurequi, and Peter Huber, were convicted last month by a Las Vegas jury. Four of the men face up to 60 months in prison while Dallmann's maximum is 48 years.

After dragging on for years due to the complexity of the case, which was further complicated by a global pandemic, last month a Las Vegas jury convicted five men behind pirate streaming service Jetflicks.

Kristopher Dallmann, Douglas Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Jaurequi, and Peter Huber, generated millions of dollars in revenue through Jetflicks, a subscription platform that reportedly offered more content than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and Amazon Prime.

All five men were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Dallmann was further convicted of two coun...

Read entire story 7/24/2024 at TorrentFreak

Hikari-no-Akari, a long-established pirate site that specialized in Japanese music, has closed its doors voluntarily. The drastic decision comes shortly after Sony Music Entertainment Japan obtained a subpoena, requiring Cloudflare to share the personal details of the operator. Despite the shutdown, the Recording Industry Association of Japan still plans to hold the site's operator accountable.

Founded in 2010, Hikari-no-Akari (HnA) positioned itself as the go-to site for fans of Japanese music.

With anime booming across the globe, HnA’s audience didn’t stop at the border. And with over a million visits per month, rightsholders started to take notice.

HnA Targeted in Subpoena

Hoping to stop the infringing activities, the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) and IFPI repeatedly reached out to HnA’s operator, without result. Similar inquiries, sent to the cyberlocker where the pirated music was stored, didn’t help either.

Fac...

Read entire story 7/24/2024 at TorrentFreak

It recently emerged that yet another pirate movie streaming app managed to evade Apple's stringent vetting process for more than a year. With incidents like this running in parallel with apps that are blatantly infringing, a new discussion paper asks what more can be done to prevent apps and app stores being used for infringing purposes. We also suggest a free tool to limit exposure to app-related risks.

The positions of Apple and Google are very clear when it comes to piracy app availability in their respective stores. Whether created for iOS or Android, they are not allowed. Period.

With the theory neatly wrapped up, reality tends to take over and at that point, the bright lines become a little blurred. Right now there are apps on the App Store and Google Play which offer TV schedule/EPG-type functionality out of the box, exactly as advertised. However, a tap here and an adjustment there reveals new functionality mentioned nowhere in official product descriptions.

Stealth Pirac...

Read entire story 7/23/2024 at TorrentFreak

Anti-piracy group FACT assisted UK police to deliver cease-and-desist notices to 40 alleged pirate 'IPTV operators'. The 'crackdown' further resulted in three arrests in Nottingham, Widnes, and Stockton-on-Tees in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Sky reportedly removed more than 3,000 IPTV advertisements from social media platforms since June.

Offering pirate streaming services is a serious offense in the UK, where several people have received multi-year prison sentences in recent history.

These sentences haven’t deterred others from following in their footsteps. Illegal access to paid sports and TV content remains readily available, with vendors and operators profiting from these unauthorized subscriptions.

There has been no shortage of news reports covering IPTV piracy enforcement actions in the UK. These interventions range from remote warnings to house visits, and arrests are no rarity either.

Today, a...

Read entire story 7/23/2024 at TorrentFreak

Despite the best efforts of YouTube and rightsholders, determined users can usually find a limited number of pirated movies available for viewing. Yet, at the time of writing, something more unusual catches the eye. Channels that have been dormant for 15+ years, or newer channels showing zero signs of previous infringement, are suddenly offering the latest Hollywood movies. Viewing numbers are vast - easily tens of millions - but the true number could be even higher.

It’s Tuesday, April 24, 2007, and other than Beyoncé & Shakira singing Beautiful Liar on the radio, nothing much is happening.

For someone called haroldlky, whose real identity is currently unknown, at least part of that day was spent opening a channel on YouTube, a video site that was yet to celebrate its second birthday.

On that day more than 17 years ago, the fledgling YouTuber uploaded three videos that appear to have an engineering theme. The total running time for the trio, a modest 42 seconds.

Whether ‘haroldlky’ was content with less t...

Read entire story 7/22/2024 at TorrentFreak

A few days after popular pirate streaming site Fmovies seemingly shut down for good, a flurry of 'related' streaming portals have closed shop too. Flixtorz.to, Flixhq.bz, Movies7.to, Swatchseries.mx and Yeahmovies.to are among more than a dozen sites that are no longer online. The sites all redirect to new domains that are, purportedly, managed by another team.

Pirate sites tend to come and go but in recent months it’s been challenging to keep up with all the changes.

Earlier this year, several popular pirate sites including Zorox, Upmovies, Animeflix, and Vegamovies lost their domains due to legal action. These sites relaunched under new domains, but more confusion lay ahead.

In June, Fmovies switched to a new domain name, Fmovies24.to, after trading Fmovies.to for Fmoviesz.to a few months earlier. These mystery changes have never been explained, but domain-related issues related to site blocking and search engine demotion m...

Read entire story 7/22/2024 at TorrentFreak