A few hours ago the team behind veteran torrent site RARBG announced that after 15 years online, the curtain had come down for the final time. The effect on the public torrent site scene will become apparent in the coming days but for those more interested in historical record keeping, all is not lost. A few hours ago an archive of RARBG magnet links, spanning over 267,000 movie and TV show releases, suddenly appeared online.

The shock closure yesterdau of one of the world’s oldest and most reliable torrent sites ranks as one of the biggest surprises in recent years.

Founded in 2008, RARBG had a reputation for taking the fundamentals seriously. The site offered the usual spread of movies and TV shows, available in various qualities and numerous file sizes. The site didn’t cover every single release but when trawling the archives, it certainly felt like it might.

Consistent, Organized, Predictable

RARBG also became known for consistently offering subtitles for most movie and TV show rele...

Read entire story Today at TorrentFreak

RARBG, one of the world's largest torrent sites, has said "farewell" to millions of users. The site, which was a prominent and stable source of new movie and TV show releases, cited a variety of reasons behind its decision to cease operations. The surprise shutdown marks the end of an era.

Founded in 2008, RARBG evolved to become a key player in the torrent ecosystem.

The site didn’t only attract millions of monthly visitors from all over the globe, it was also a major release hub, bridging the gap between the Scene and the broader pirate public.

Today, the site’s fifteen year run unexpectedly came to an end. In a message posted on the site’s front page, the team says its farewells. This message has been separately confirmed by a source familiar with the matter.

RARBG cites multiple reasons behind the surprise decision, including COVI...

Read entire story Yesterday at TorrentFreak

The New Delhi High Court has handed down a broad blocking order that aims to stop piracy before it happens. Following an application by Sony Pictures, more than 100 pirate sites will be preemptively blocked by Indian ISPs to prevent 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' piracy. The blocking order also applies to domain names that have yet to be registered.

In recent years, website blocking has become one of the most widely-used anti-piracy enforcement mechanisms in the world.

ISPs in several dozen countries prevent subscribers from accessing a variety of ‘pirate’ sites, often in response to a court order.

These orders often started as basic injunctions, requiring providers to block one or more domain names. Today, many courts issue dynamic injunctions too, allowing rightsholders to add new domain names or IP-addresses, without returning to court.

Dynamic blocking orders are also common in India with courts noting tha...

Read entire story Yesterday at TorrentFreak

Five men behind pirate IPTV service 'Flawless' were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison today, after a private prosecution by the Premier League. A FACT test purchase in 2017 led to the involvement of four territorial police forces, three regional Trading Standards units, and the arrest of service kingpin, Mark Gould, in 2018. In less than two years, Flawless served over 50,000 UK households while generating millions in revenue.

Operating from 2016 until 2018, the Flawless IPTV service copied subscription TV broadcasts from official (and unofficial) sources and then restreamed that content to tens of thousands of customers, at a dramatically cut down price.

For many UK football fans, Flawless granted access to the sport they love, at a price they could afford. Others viewed the service quite differently.

From the Premier League’s perspective, Flawless was a fraudulent, criminal enterprise that stole potential revenue from the country’s leading football clubs. Through its illegal participa...

Read entire story 5/30/2023 at TorrentFreak

The U.S. Government's Patent and Trademark Office will host a public roundtable to discuss future anti-piracy and counterfeiting strategies. The agency notes that piracy causes billions of dollars in losses to the U.S. economy each year. No concrete proposals are mentioned but rightsholders will likely suggest pirate site blocking as an option.

For many years, U.S. lawmakers have considered amending legislation so that today’s online copyright issues can be addressed more effectively.

Many proposals have come and gone, without resulting in any significant updates. Calls to change current legislation persist, however.

Before any new laws or policies are introduced, the Government typically seeks input from stakeholders. That’s also the case when planning future anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting strategies.

Roundtable on Future Anti-Piracy Strategies

This coming October, the United States Patent and T...

Read entire story 5/30/2023 at TorrentFreak

After a $16 million damages award early May, Bungie has requested more time to track down foreign defendants behind Destiny 2 cheat operation, Elite Boss Tech. That task is the responsibility of investigator Kathryn Tewson, who rose to fame after tearing down DoNotPay's artificial intelligence product earlier this year. After a suspected cheater told Tewson they live at the Romanian Copyright Office, motivation to disprove that claim won't be in short supply.

Bungie’s pursuit of people behind Destiny 2 cheat operation Elite Boss Tech, is pushing forward and showing no sign of stopping.

The lawsuit began in August 2021 with the aim of shutting down the ‘Wallhax’ cheat. By June 2022, Bungie had a $13.5 million copyright infringement damages award in hand, and suddenly cooperative defendants helping to unveil others involved in the circumvention of Bungie’s technological protection measures.

Bungie Asks Court For More Time

Earlier this month, Bungie was awarded over $16 million against a single defendant, with ...

Read entire story 5/29/2023 at TorrentFreak

Popular stream-ripping site Yout.com has responded to the RIAA's answering brief at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The site points out YouTube's notable absence, despite being at the center of the dispute. Yout's attorneys further try to make a point by partially quoting Carly Simon lyrics: "You’re so vain, I Bet You Think this Software’s About You," they write.

At the end of 2020, the operator of one of the largest YouTube rippers took the unprecedented step of taking the music industry to court.

Yout.com’s Johnathan Nader was fed up with a bombardment of DMCA takedown requests and alleged defamatory claims. In response, he sued the RIAA, asking the federal court in Connecticut to declare his service non-infringing.

The RIAA and other music groups had been actively trying to remove so-called YouTube rippers from Google’s search results. The industry group had also prevailed in legal action against some of the sites but in...

Read entire story 5/29/2023 at TorrentFreak

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'John Wick: Chapter 4' tops the chart, followed by 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie'. ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' completes the top three.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have three newcomers on the list. “John Wick: Chapter 4”, which came out as a high-quality pirate release, is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on May 29 are: Movie Rank Rank last week Movie name IMDb Rating / Trailer Most downloaded mo...

Read entire story 5/29/2023 at TorrentFreak

The music industry is doing all it can to get rid of its YouTube ripping problem. The RIAA and BPI, for example, regularly send DMCA anti-circumvention notices to Google, asking the company to remove sites from search results. Independent label "Because Music" has also joined in the action but some notices sent in their name are quite broad, to say the least.

A few years ago, the RIAA started targeting YouTube ripping sites by sending relatively rare takedown requests to Google.

Instead of the usual DMCA copyright notices, the music group asked the search engine to remove various URLs for alleged violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

The delisting requests are supposed to make it harder for people to find ‘YouTube MP3 download’ sites in search results. However, the targeted sites have no intention of disappearing and actively fighting back, rotating to new URL structures.

While the RIAA kicked...

Read entire story 5/28/2023 at TorrentFreak

While it's nice to share a bottle of fine wine over a tasty meal with a loved one, some things are best unshared. Take torrent client web interfaces, for example. They can be convenient and in some cases look very nice but with no security, every download has a global audience, including new torrent transfers added by passing strangers.

The word ‘open’ in a connected world can be something positive. Open source, for example, or open library. On other occasions the opposite can be true; unnecessary ports left open on a router springs to mind.

For millions of people using devices that appear to configure themselves, whether something is open or closed is irrelevant. If a device immediately works as promised, oftentimes that’s good enough. The problem with some internet-connected devices is that in order to immediately work in the hands of a novice, security gives way to ease of use, and that can end ...

Read entire story 5/27/2023 at TorrentFreak