Cloudflare has suspended the account of the video streaming service RapidVideo, as well as several similar platforms. Some suspect that piracy allegations have something to do with it, but Cloudflare refutes this. The company explains that it can sometimes suspend sites that are found to cache a "disproportionate" amount of non-HTML files.

As one of the leading CDN and DDoS protection services, Cloudflare is used by millions of websites across the globe.

As with any service of its size, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the company’s clientele includes many pirate sites. This includes the likes of The Pirate Bay.

In recent years many copyright holders have complained about Cloudflare’s involvement with these platforms. However, the company maintains its position as a neutral Internet intermediary.

Copyright holders can request Cloudflare to share which hosting company serves the und...

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On Friday, the EU Commission published a piece on Medium that suggested that Google has taken over the minds of millions of citizens, rendering them incapable of thinking for themselves in their opposition of Article 13. The piece was later deleted with a note implying that people simply aren't capable of understanding the subtle nuances of the English language.

Last week the European Parliament and European Council agreed on the final text of the EU Copyright Directive.

Supporters of Article 13 say this will lead to a better deal for the entertainment industries at the expense of Google’s YouTube, since it will have to obtain proper licenses for content uploaded to platform, while taking responsibility for infringing uploads.

Opponents, on the other hand, believe that the Article 13 proposals will be bad news for the Internet as a whole, since they have the potential to stifle free speech and expression, at...

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Film distribution company Dutch FilmWorks is continuing its legal battle to identify BitTorrent pirates. The company is appealing the case against Internet provider Ziggo, where it requested the personal details connected to 377 IP-addresses. Even if the account holders themselves are not pirates they do have a responsibility for what happens on their connections, Dutch Filmworks stresses.

Piracy settlement letters have become a serious threat in several countries.

Until now, Dutch Internet users have been spared from this practice, but if it’s up to local movie distributor Dutch Filmworks, that will soon change.

Little over a year ago the company received permission from the Dutch Data Protection Authority to track the IP-addresses of BitTorrent users who shared pirated movies.

However, that was only the first hurdle, as Dutch Internet provider Ziggo didn’t want to share any customer data with...

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The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Creed II' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald'. 'Ralph Breaks the Internet' completes the top three.

This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

Creed II 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 (…) Creed II 7.5 / trailer 2 (…) ...

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Several torrent sites have banned the account of the popular software uploader CracksNow. The software and cracks were repeatedly flagged as malicious and some came with the GandCrab ransomware. While malicious torrents are nothing new, it's rare for this to happen via a "trusted" uploader.

The entertainment industries regularly warn the public at large that pirate sites are riddled with malware and viruses, posing a threat to unwitting visitors.

While these comments are partly made out of self-interest, they’re not entirely overblown. There are indeed plenty of scammers who upload nasty content that is added to, or disguised as, popular files.

This is nothing new and generally speaking, these files are easy to spot and swiftly removed from well-moderated sites. However, in a recent case, this wasn’t as apparent, since it involved a wel...

Read entire story Yesterday at TorrentFreak

Every few weeks, plans for starting new torrent sites, streaming platforms, and apps, appear on Internet discussion platforms. While most have lofty goals, few consider what might happen when they hit the jackpot. Initial intent is crucial so careless actions early on can easily come back to haunt and then undermine successful projects.

Several weeks ago, former BitTorrent Inc. executive Simon Morris published a series of articles on Medium, discussing his time at the company and thoughts for the future.

By any standard, his articles are absolutely first class and a must-read for anyone interested in the resilience of the BitTorrent protocol, decentralization, and how ‘breaking rules’ can create both winners and losers.

The third piece in the series raises an extremely important issue – that of initial intent when creating disruptive platforms or technologies.

Perhaps mos...

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Pirate site IGG-Games, which sits among the top 1,500 sites in the world, is under fire for meddling with pirate releases. One particular example involves the DRM-free game The Eternal Castle, which has been modified not to run if people remove IGG-Games' advertising code. The site says it needs to do this to prevent other sites "stealing" its releases but pirates are not impressed. In fact, they've developed a tool to remove this 'DRM'.

When piracy groups or sites release games online, consumers (despite paying nothing for the pleasure) expect certain standards.

On a base level the game must work as advertised, any DRM should be removed, and no one should add any unwanted extras – particularly not malware, spyware, or forced advertising.

In the vast majority of cases, pirate releases tend to conform to these standards but a popular pirate site called IGG-Games (Ranked the 1,500th most popular site in the world by SimilarWeb) has been widely accused of not playing by the accepted rules for quit...

Read entire story 2/16/2019 at TorrentFreak

Now that 'cam' piracy is being outlawed in India, the local Film Federation is calling for a special court to handle these cases. In addition, it wants phones to be banned from theaters. While the movie industry requests these tough measures, new data suggest that Indian 'cam' piracy has dropped drastically in recent years, at least for some movies.

With Bollywood, India has a thriving movie industry that’s known all around the world.

On the other hand, the country also has one of the highest piracy rates, which is seen as a major threat by industry insiders.

Following pressure from U.S. movie companies, India’s government recently agreed to update its Cinematograph Act to outlaw ‘cam’ piracy. Anyone recording or transmitting movies in a movie theater without permission now faces a three-year prison sentence.

This change was welcomed by film industry insiders around the w...

Read entire story 2/16/2019 at TorrentFreak

Several major Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix have filed a lawsuit against Omniverse, which offers live streaming TV packages to several IPTV providers. The companies accuse the service and its operator of facilitating copyright infringement. With the lawsuit, they hope to stop the infringing activity and recoup damages for the harm that was done.

Streaming set-top boxes and IPTV services have been selling like hot cakes over the past several years.

While some of these offer access legally, that’s certainly not always the case. The unauthorized services are a thorn in the side of mainstream entertainment industry companies, which are trying hard to address the problem. 

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has been particularly active on this front. The anti-piracy partnership between Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies, has filed lawsuits ...

Read entire story 2/15/2019 at TorrentFreak

Vox Media has targeted a YouTuber over a critical reaction video of The Verge's highly criticized "PC Build" how-to. The company sent a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube, claiming that the video infringed its rights. While Vox may have hoped to bury the video, it move swiftly backfired.

The Verge is typically known as a news operation that’s fairly critical of copyright abuse. 

The site has repeatedly highlighted problems with YouTube’s Content-ID and copyright takedown system. 

Just this week it reported how YouTube is being used for extortion scams, an issue that we covered last month. The site also covered the Article 13 plans in the EU, with a headline stating that it threatens the Internet as we knew it.

Given the above, it’s surprising that a video from The Verge is now at the center of the latest YouTube cop...

Read entire story 2/15/2019 at TorrentFreak