BT Sport is the current home for UFC events in the UK. However, a recent surprise decision to charge subscribers additional fees to watch big events saw many turn to piracy this weekend. It's a move that has the potential to not only affect UFC and BT Sport, but all premium broadcasters.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the world’s leading mixed martial arts promotion in the world.

It is based in the United States and as a result, the majority of its events take place there, meaning that fans in Europe face having to stay awake all night if they are to watch live UFC events.

Since 2013, this has been possible for subscribers to BT Sport, who have enjoyed all live shows as part of their regular subscriptions. However, that all changed on Saturday night with UFC 239, which BT Sport recently decided shouldn’t be included in custom...

Read entire story Yesterday at TorrentFreak

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Shazam!' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Alita: Battle Angel'. 'Hellboy' completes the top three.

This week we have one newcomer in our chart.

Shazam! is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week’s most downloaded movies are: Movie Rank Rank last week Movie name IMDb Rating / Trailer Most downloaded movies via torrents 1 (1) Shazam! 7.3 / trailer 2 (4) Alita: Batt...

Read entire story Yesterday at TorrentFreak

The popular torrent site Worldwide Torrents is going through a rough patch. The site is suffering extended downtime, without an official update from the operator. Meanwhile, users and uploaders, including Nemesis43, are looking for alternatives.

Worldwide Torrents was launched roughly three years ago, after the demise of KickassTorrents.

The site certainly isn’t the biggest torrent site out there, but it has a dedicated following and an active community.

Several users and uploaders of  KAT have made the site their new home and they were later joined by people from ExtraTorrent, who had to abandon ship when their favorite site shut down.

Given this history, it’s easy to understand that Worldwide Torrents (WWT) users get an uneasy feeling when the site does down. And when that downtime continues ...

Read entire story Yesterday at TorrentFreak

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) is aiming to combat piracy with a new blocklist of infringing sites. The BRIP database, which is open to approved contributors from WIPO member states, can be used by advertisers around the world to block pirate sites.

In recent years, various copyright holder groups embraced a “follow-the-money” approach in the hope of cutting off funding to so-called pirate sites.

Thus far this has resulted in some notable developments. In the UK, hundreds of advertising agencies began banning pirate sites in 2014 and in Denmark and elsewhere there are similar initiatives.

While many rightsholders and advertisers are positive about these developments, there is little international coordination. This is a gap the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) hopes to bridge with a new project.&nb...

Read entire story 7/7/2019 at TorrentFreak

Traditionally, a major source of high-quality pirate releases has been retail discs, such as Blu-ray or DVD. Today, torrent and streaming sites are regularly fueled by content culled from streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon. Known online as WEB releases, these files are the product of a decryption process using tools mostly not intended for public use. Recently, TF spoke with a person involved in the secretive WEB scene.

In recent weeks, TF was able to speak to a member of The Scene, the shadowy network of individuals and groups sitting right at the apex of the so-called ‘piracy pyramid’.

If the tip of this polyhedron represents the exclusive few, the progressively larger and lower portions constitute the increasing masses, all enjoying the pirated content flooding down, albeit without the consent of those at the very top.

Our introduction dealt with a selection of the basics, from how The Scene is structured to who takes on various roles. Our contact – “Sourc...

Read entire story 7/7/2019 at TorrentFreak

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the global anti-piracy coalition compromised of Hollywood, Amazon, Netflix and dozens of other companies, is taking a close interest in pirate IPTV services. As a result, the MPAA is now in control of the domains of at least three former providers, presumably following agreements with their operators.

Unlicensed IPTV services have been running for many years, offering thousands of otherwise premium channels to consumers for a fraction of their market price.

As recently as three years ago such services received little mainstream attention. However, the rise of piracy-focused Kodi add-ons has encouraged countless thousands of pirates to take a step up to sample the experience of a more reliable and generally higher-quality ‘pirate’ service.

This rising popularity, which is inextricably linked to large volumes of people looking to stream live content, is ...

Read entire story 7/7/2019 at TorrentFreak

The MPAA has a three-pronged approach to combating piracy. It pursues voluntary agreements with third-party intermediaries, engages in civil action against key pirate players, and encourages the feds to criminally prosecute copyright infringers. According to a recent testimony, the MPAA has recently asked U.S. law enforcement to go after several pirate streaming operations.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has been battling online piracy for years, but the problem remains.

Roughly a decade ago torrent sites were the main threat. In recent years that switched, first to cyberlockers, and then to online streaming.

While the MPAA has pursued civil lawsuits against pirate sites and services throughout the world, it believes that more progress can be made through criminal prosecutions.

In a recent testimony before the  U.S. House of Representatives, MPAA’s Senior Counsel Neil Fried explains that these criminal cases ha...

Read entire story 7/6/2019 at TorrentFreak

Police in Germany have issued another warning after scam streaming sites trapped users into paying useless subscriptions of more than 350 euros. The sites, which closely resemble pirate streaming portals but claim to be legitimate, number more than 220 according to police. Some believe that the players involved are linked to an earlier piracy settlement scam.

It is fairly common for anti-piracy outfits to describe pirate sites and devices as “scams” but despite being mostly illegal, they deliver what they promise and rarely attempt to defraud the public.

Over in Germany, a much more sinister operation is being reported, one that involves more than a couple of hundred sites that claim to be legal but are actually a huge money-making scheme for fraudsters.

In the example shown below, AsoFlix looks like a regular pirate streaming platform. However, the site claims to be legitimate, despite the fact that the irreg...

Read entire story 7/6/2019 at TorrentFreak

High-quality pirated copies of Netflix's new "Stranger Things" season appeared online a few hours ago. The 4K releases were followed by other untouched 2160p leaks from Netflix. These leaks are rare and suggest that there may have been some kind of breach. Whether the Widevine DRM has been cracked remains a question for now.

Pirated copies of movies appear online every day in a variety of formats, such as CAM, DVDRip, WEBRip, and Web-DL.

The latter, which usually come from streaming and download services such as Netflix, Amazon, or iTunes, have proven to be a reliable source for pirates over the years.

In general, that doesn’t apply to 4K releases. These are protected by the highest encryption standards. In the case of Netflix, this is Widevine’s highest level DRM. Cracking this is seen as the holy grail by pirates.

While there is no confirmation that the keys have been ...

Read entire story 7/5/2019 at TorrentFreak

The Premier League is seeking to expand its illegal stream blocking program to Ireland. An application filed at the High Court demands that ISPs including Eircom, Sky, Virgin and Vodafone prevent their customers from accessing Premier League content via pirate sites and servers.

Blocking of pirate websites and services is now a global phenomenon. Mostly carried out by movie and music companies, around 4,000 sites are blocked by ISPs in more than 30 countries.

In the UK, the Premier League has pioneered the blocking of illegal live streams. Using various technologies and under the supervision of the courts, the football league is now able to track streams in real-time and have local ISPs such as Sky and Virgin Media block them in an effort to reduce piracy.

The Premier League clearly believes that this mechanism, which has been sanctioned by ...

Read entire story 7/5/2019 at TorrentFreak