Month: February 2016

Pirate Group Suspends New Cracks to Measure Impact on Sales

bird-sisOne of the hottest topics in the game piracy scene in late 2015 surrounded the Avalanche Studios/Square Enix title Just Cause 3.

Released on December 1, 2015, pirates were eager to get their hands on the game for free. However, JC3 is protected by the latest iteration of Denuvo, an anti-tamper technology developed by Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH. Denuvo is not DRM per se, but acts as a secondary encryption system protecting underlying DRM products.

All eyes had been on notorious Chinese game cracking group/forum 3DM to come up with the goods but last month the group delivered a killer blow to its fans.

According to the leader of the group, the very public ‘Bird Sister’ (also known as Phoenix), the game was proving extremely difficult to crack. In fact, Bird Sister said that current anti-piracy technology is becoming so good that in two years there might not be pirated games anymore.

One month on from those words and Just Cause 3 still hasn’t been cracked and today brings even more bad news for those hoping to obtain the best gaming titles for free. Taking to her personal blog once more, Bird Sister has just announced an immediate end to the cracking activities of 3DM.

“We just had an internal meeting. Starting at the Chinese New Year, 3DM will not crack any single-player games,” Bird Sister says.

For those wondering, the Chinese New Year is next Monday, February 8.

“Cracks by overseas warez groups will still get posted on the [3DM] forum, and we will actively deal with these,” the group’s leader adds.

It is not entirely clear what “actively deal with” means, but the suggestion is that these cracks will not be allowed on the 3DM BBS/forum.

Bird Sister

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What is perhaps most interesting, however, is the group’s apparent reasoning for ceasing their cracking activities. Denuvo was previously cited as a headache for the group but this time around that technology isn’t mentioned.

Instead, 3DM essentially indicates they’re taking part in an experiment to see how the lack of cracks affects the legitimate market.

“We’ll take a look at the situation in a year’s time to see if genuine sales have grown,” Bird Sister says.

There can be little doubt that the effective withdrawal of 3DM from the piracy market will be received as a huge blow to the group’s fans internationally who have come to rely on it for their pirate fix. There is a modicum of good news for the Chinese though, since 3DM will still work on translating and localizing games for its internal market.

The announcement comes on the heels of yesterday’s earnings report from Square Enix, the company behind Just Cause 3 and fellow Denuvo-protected (and also yet to be cracked) title Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Square Enix of America and Europe CEO Phil Rogers said both games had enjoyed “solid starts” but stopped short of revealing sales stats.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

Pirate Bay Transforms into The World’s Biggest Streaming Site

pirate bayEarlier this week a new piece of software debuted alongside promises to revolutionize how people use torrents.

Covered in our earlier article, Torrents-Time is a browser plug-in for Windows and Mac that allows people to view torrents embedded in a webpage and without need for an external torrent client.

The Torrents-Time team promised that their technology could transform any website into a simple to use streaming portal. Indeed, the first public application was Popcorntime-Online.io, a browser-based edition of Popcorn Time that for the first time used peer-to-peer transfers rather than resource hungry HTTP.

But just days later and a new and even more powerful partner has emerged.

Last evening The Pirate Bay became the first general torrent index to utilize Torrents-Time technology. The site has now placed Torrents-Time links next to all of its video torrents, meaning that users with the plug-in can watch videos on The Pirate Bay without using a stand-alone torrent client or even leaving the page.

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As illustrated in the image above the Torrents-Time links are labeled ‘Stream It! (BETA)’. Once clicked the user is given the chance (if he hasn’t done so already) to install the software. From there a popup window appears containing a video player. Clicking the ‘play’ button delivers an advert to buy a VPN which warns that IP addresses are exposed.

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At this point users have the option to subscribe to a VPN for a period ranging from a day to a year or, if they prefer, they can click the ‘close’ button in the right hand corner of the advert to skip. At this point the software uses trackers, DHT and PEX in order to find other peers with the required content.

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Once a number of peers have been found and enough content has been buffered, playback can begin. The player is a basic but functional affair, with the addition of subtitling and casting features for those with Chromecast, Airplay and DNLA devices to hand.

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With The Pirate Bay jumping on board, Torrents-Time has received a huge shot in the arm and will probably enjoy some decent revenues too. For its part, TPB has transformed from the world’s second largest torrent site (KAT has that crown for now) into the world’s largest streaming portal.

The question now is when and if other torrent sites will find the Torrents-Time package attractive enough to jump on board.

Update: Torrentproject.se, Videomax.is and Online.porntime.ws will soon feature Torrents-Time functionality. And according to the team, KickassTorrents will also join the club this Sunday or Monday.

“We are certain that in no time we’ll be embedded in all torrent sites who care to move-on with this evolution,” the Torrents-Time team informs TF.

“We will allow everybody to watch any movie they wish from torrent sites who embed us, when they want, without having to store someone’s file on their hard disk. It’s ‘watching together’ or ‘Co-Watch’ technology, made possible by Torrents Time.”

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


Source: TorrentFreak

Movie Industry Demands €1.2 Billion Piracy Damages from Dutch Govt

piratekayCompared to many other countries around the world, pirating movies and TV-shows is hugely popular in the Netherlands.

Up to a third of the population is estimated to download and stream copyrighted content without paying for it.

This high percentage is not surprising as the Netherlands has traditionally been a relative safe haven for pirates. Downloading movies without permission was not punishable by law until the European Court of Justice spoke out against the tolerant stance two years ago.

As a result the Dutch government quickly outlawed unauthorized downloading. However, breaking the habits of a large section of the population will take more than that and local piracy rates still remain high.

This has prompted Dutch filmmakers and distributors to hold the Government responsible and they’re now demanding compensation for the piracy losses they claim to have suffered.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State for Justice, Klaas Dijkhoff, a coalition of film industry companies claim 1.2 billion euros ($1.34 billion) to compensate for damages dating back to 2004.

“The Dutch State has maintained for years that copying from illegal sources was allowed. The result was that an entire generation of consumers believes that downloading without paying for it is simply allowed,” the filmmakers write (via Tweakers).

“Through this letter we hold the Dutch government liable for the damage. We want the Dutch State to take responsibility for its unlawful legislation and the resulting damage,” they add.

The companies base their billion euro claim on research from Considerati, which estimates the losses at 78 million euros per year. Including rent that comes to a total of 1.2 billion euros.

However, according to the movie companies the losses may amount to more.

“The actual damage is expected to be even higher. Recent figures show that the revenue from video-on-demand have dropped off massively in 2014 and 2015, compared to 2013,” the letter adds.

Among other things, the movie companies suggest using the damages for various anti-piracy campaigns. In addition, they suggest stronger enforcement against copyright infringers.

The Dutch government has until later this month to respond or else the movie industry companies will take legal steps.

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


Source: TorrentFreak