Did Pirates Clean Out Amazon Fire TV Stock in the UK?

kodi-amazonAmazon’s Fire TV stick is a great little device. Plugging nicely into an available HDMI port on most TVs, the device ‘smartens up’ the dumbest of devices and makes available the growing world of IPTV services.

The one currently plugged into my TV in the bedroom has mainly been used for the ‘free’ video streaming services bundled with Amazon Prime but the stick is equally at home streaming video from Netflix or any of the many services available from Amazon’s store.

However, Amazon’s little device has a trick up its sleeve. Being Android based, Fire TV Stick can run a much wider array of apps and services than Amazon offers through its regular on-screen interface. Of particular interest is Kodi, which together with a vast array of plugins offers access to all the latest movies, TV shows and live sports most people could ever need.

And news of just how special the Fire TV Stick/Kodi combo can be has been traveling fast in the past few weeks, particularly in the UK.

The first signs that something might be going on came very early December when even for Prime customers Amazon started advising that delivery for Fire TV Sticks was not the usual ‘next day’, but was actually nearer two weeks. For someone looking to buy two units as gifts, that was unacceptable. Other stores weren’t much help either.

currys-fire

After checking stock at nearly two dozen Argos and Currys retailers (both huge operations in the UK), just two units were found at the former 12 miles away. But the bizarre thing was that when I collected the items the lady behind the counter asked smilingly: “Are these for Kodi?”

Of course, I know about Kodi. We all know about Kodi. But for it to be mentioned without any prompting at the point of sale in a retailer was quite a surprise to say the least. And for a worker at a non-specialist retailer to know so much about it hints at the scale of the issue.

In case you missed it, Amazon banned Kodi from its store in the summer over piracy concerns but with the official APK plus adbFire and a loader like FireStarter, the software runs like a dream on Amazon Fire TV Stick.

“Everybody is buying these for Kodi, you can get everything on it. But that’s it now, we’re out of stock,” I was told while handing over the cash. Interesting…..

Intrigued, in the weeks that followed I monitored stock at Argos, Currys/PC World, Amazon themselves and several other big retailers including John Lewis and the nation’s biggest supermarket, Tesco. After an initial delay Amazon appeared to do the best in having stock available but all the rest really struggled.

Now, just days after Christmas, Currys/PC World have zero stock for home delivery and its the same situation at Tesco, John Lewis and Argos. Checking for local stock at the latter in the London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow regions reveals not a single unit available. Only Amazon themselves can offer anything (correct, 28 Dec).

fire-stock

Granted, it’s more than likely that Fire TV Stick has proven popular with consumers due to it working with Netflix and iPlayer, but Chromecast does that too and anyone can buy one of those devices at any of the above retailers anywhere in the next hour.

Admittedly, it’s a possibility that Amazon screwed up and didn’t make enough Fire TV Sticks. But if that’s the case, why is eBay awash with (ahem) ‘fully loaded’ Amazon Fire TV Sticks for immediate delivery?

kodi-ebay

Also, Google Trends can sometimes offer an insight into what people are interested in during a given period. So, we locked into December, did searches for both Kodi and Fire TV, and restricted results to the UK.

As can be seen from the image below, not only is Kodi even more popular than Amazon’s device, but the interest in both the software and the hardware follows similar waves.

fire-trend

There can be little doubt that interest in both Kodi and Fire TV are now at a high, not only in the UK, but also elsewhere. It’s also a further sign that piracy has really migrated out of the bedroom and onto the living room TV, something that Hollywood and other interested parties really wanted to avoid.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.


Source: TorrentFreak

Registrar Shuts Down Pirate Bay Domain Names

hydragoneLast May the Stockholm District Court ordered the Pirate Bay’s .SE domains to be handed over to the Swedish state, a decision which is currently being appealed.

In a response The Pirate Bay decided to quickly redirect its visitors to a ‘Hydra’ of six new domain names in case the .SE domains were lost for good.

The notorious torrent site decided to use more than one domain name, anticipating that not all would survive pressure from copyright holders.

This was no unnecessary precaution as the first domain name was quickly suspended following an intervention from the associated registry, which soon chopped off the first head.

Today, the Hydra lost its remaining heads after TPB’s domain registrar took over all remaining domain names.

This morning ThePirateBay.la, ThePirateBay.gd, ThePirateBay.mn and ThePirateBay.vg were all listed as “clienthold” by the registry and the same is true for several other official TPB domains including those using the .FM, .SH, .MU and .TW extensions. This means they are no longer accessible, once all DNS entries are updates.

All affected domain names are linked to the same service and registered to Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij. According to ICANN the clienthold status is uncommon and “usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion.”

Pirate Bay’s .LA Whois

tpblawhois

As a result of the domain troubles The Pirate Bay is currently not reachable (cached DNS entries aside, but these will expire soon) through the usual ThePirateBay.se domain, which redirects to the domains listed above. However, the .org domain remains operational and the same is true for the .onion address.

At this point there is no official statement on the reason for the seizures/suspensions. The responsible registrar appears to be Idotz.net, which is a U.S. based 1api/Hexonet reseller.

TorrentFreak has asked Idotz for a comment but we were informed that they are unable to respond to third-party queries regarding domain names due to customer privacy reasons.

Not all domain registrars and registries are equally responsive to copyright complaints. Some suspend a domain name after a single complaint, while others require a local court order before taking action.

The Mongolian registry, which is behind TPB’s .MN domain name, previously informed TF that they will process potential complaints through ICANN’s Dispute Resolution Policy, suggesting that they will not take any voluntary action.

Still, that didn’t prevent the registrar from putting the .MN domain name on hold today.

Considering Pirate Bay’s defiant stance it’s likely that a copyright holder complaint triggered the current actions, but that hasn’t been confirmed. The TPB team has yet to make an official statement on the problems.

We will update this article should more information become available.

Update: The existing .se redirects were removed. TPB is operating exclusively from the .se domain for the time being.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.


Source: TorrentFreak

Russia Will Permanently Block Top 15 Torrent Sites in 2016

stopstopSite blocking has been one of the big anti-piracy themes of 2015, with hundreds of sites blocked by ISPs all around the world.

Given its generally poor record for cracking down on piracy, it’s perhaps somewhat of a surprise that Russia is now one of the front-runners when it comes to piracy blocking.

In September it was revealed that in some form or another, Russia had restricted access to around 280 ‘pirate’ sites since the introduction of a new law in 2013.

However, in an effort to move away from the cat and mouse game often played by unauthorized sites, Russian telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor has now thrown its weight behind a scheme to permanently block sites that persistently make available copyrighted content without permission.

RUTracker found itself sucked into that mechanism a couple of months ago, despite offering to take drastic action to avoid it. Now it appears that other leading sites are likely to fall foul of the legislation in the months to come.

According to predictions just made by Roscomnadzor, during 2016 rights holders will succeed in having the top 15 torrent sites permanently blocked. Of course, this kind of talk usually triggers talk of VPNs, proxies and other workarounds, but the watchdog says that the overwhelming majority of users won’t try to access the blocked sites.

“[The blocked sites’] traffic will be significantly reduced, because according to statistics 95% of people do not use tools to bypass locks,” the watchdog said in a statement on Twitter.

While the percentage of block evaders cited by Roscomnadzor is up for debate, the watchdog has just carried out a public survey which aims to provide a clearer picture on why Internet users turn to torrents. After conducting the survey via Twitter, Roscomnadzor published the results.

Marginally ahead with 37% of the votes were users who said they used torrents because “I do not want to pay”.

In second place with 36% were users who say they use torrents for “other reasons”, with many respondents noting that the content they are looking for is unavailable through regular channels.

In third with 17% of the vote were people who use torrents since they don’t know where to buy the content they’re looking for legally. The remaining 10% reported not using torrents.

In a statement issued after the poll closed, Roscomnadzor said that content providers need to find the right mix of pricing and availability. However, even that may not do the trick.

“In the current economic climate it is necessary to find a balance in which the content will be available, and the price will match the quality,” the watchdog said. “However, many simply do not want to pay.”

That’s where site-blocking comes in but only time will tell whether Roscomnadzor’s prediction of 95% efficiency will play out in the long term.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.


Source: TorrentFreak

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 12/28/15

martianThis week we have four newcomers in our chart.

The Martian 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 BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking (last week) Movie IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1 (4) The Martian (Web-DL / Subbed HDRip) 8.2 / trailer
2 (5) The Revenant (DVDscr) ?.? / trailer
3 (10) The Hateful Eight (DVDscr) 9.1 / trailer
4 (9) Creed (DVDscr) 8.2 / trailer
5 (…) Bridge of Spies (DVDscr) 7.9 / trailer
6 (…) Legend (DVDscr) 7.3 / trailer
7 (…) Spectre (DVDscr) 7.1 / trailer
8 (1) The Intern (Web-DL) 7.4 / trailer
9 (2) The Peanuts Movie (DVDscr) 7.7 / trailer
10 (…) In The Heart of The Sea (DVDscr) 7.1 / trailer

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.


Source: TorrentFreak