Month: January 2016

No More Pirated Games in Two Years, Cracking Group Warns

denuvoPiracy can never be stopped. Piracy will always be around. Where there’s a will to break copy protection, there’s a way. These are all comments regularly heard in piracy circles and to date, they’ve largely been proven accurate.

But while trying to protect movies and music using technological measures is by now almost a lost cause, the same cannot be said about video games. While copying a title was a trivial process several years ago, in many cases more and more roadblocks are now being put in pirates’ way.

In the past most games would be playable for free before their official debut but increasingly pirates are being made to wait for big titles to have their protection defeated, or ‘cracked’ as it’s more commonly known. In fact, aside from many dozens of dedicated piracy forums, there’s even an entire sub-Reddit community dedicated to providing the status of cracks.

One of the hottest topics involves the Avalanche Studios/Square Enix title Just Cause 3. Released on December 1, 2015 and despite massive demand, the game has still not been cracked. The problem appears to lie with the robustness of the technology protecting the game.

jc3-smallJust Cause 3 uses the latest iteration of Denuvo, an anti-tamper technology developed by Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH. While its secrets are best known to its creators, Denuvo is a secondary encryption system which protects existing and underlying DRM products.

In 2014 the product made the headlines after successfully protecting Dragon Age: Inquisition for almost a month, a very respectable time in cracking circles.

In the end it was Chinese cracking group 3DM that brought down that instance of Denuvo but the Austria-based company continued to tweak and achieved increasing protection periods on recent games in the FIFA series. FIFA 16 is currently Denuvo protected and that game still hasn’t been cracked, despite being released in September.

But Just Cause 3 is the current hot potato and despite having released an endless supply of cracks for other titles (and having had success against Denuvo in the past), the cracks (excuse the pun) are beginning to show at 3DM.

In a posting on her blog, 3DM forum founder ‘Bird Sister’ (also known as Phoenix) has revealed the frustrations being experienced with Just Cause 3.

“Recently, many people have asked about cracks for ‘Just Cause 3′, so here is a centralized answer to this question. The last stage is too difficult and Jun [cracking guy] nearly gave up, but last Wednesday I encouraged him to continue,” Bird Sister explains.

3dm-1

While games pirates everywhere will be willing Jun on to complete what 3DM ultimately believe will be an achievable task, Bird Sister isn’t optimistic about the future. In fact, she paints somewhat of a doomsday scenario.

“I still believe that this game can be compromised. But according to current trends in the development of encryption technology, in two years time I’m afraid there will be no free games to play in the world,” she adds.

While Denuvo is no doubt proving a difficult nut to crack, two years is an awful long time in technology and things are always prone to change. Furthermore, Denuvo is only used on a limited number of gaming titles, reportedly due to its relative expense.

But what is difficult to deny here is the window of opportunity provided by the Denuvo system. Hardcore gamers are notoriously impatient which almost certainly means that one, two or three months of waiting for a crack is coming up for a quarter of a year late to the game. Another three months after that and many gamers will be looking forward to FIFA 17 and Just Cause 4, leaving pirates in their wake.

Nevertheless, the seemingly uncrackable always seem to fall, eventually. During the past few days it was revealed that the PS4 has been compromised to run Linux. While not to the level of playing full-blown pirate games yet, that might lie around the corner. Exactly when, no one seems to know, but most gamers won’t have the patience to wait.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

U.S. Govt Reviews Impact and Efficacy of DMCA Safe Harbor

us-united-america-flagSigned into law by President Bill Clinton in 1998, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) aimed to ready copyright law for the digital age.

The law introduced a safe harbor for Internet services, meaning that they can’t be held liable for their pirating users as long as they properly process takedown notices and deal with repeat infringers.

Today, the DMCA is perhaps more in the news than ever before. Just last month Internet provider Cox Communication was ordered to pay $25 million because it failed to disconnect subscribers whose connections were repeatedly used to pirate content.

In addition, millions of takedown notices are sent out every day while copyright holders and Internet services openly debate the effectiveness of the current DMCA takedown procedures.

To hear the growing concerns from all sides the U.S. Copyright Office has launched a public consultation in order to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions.

“Among other issues, the Office will consider the costs and burdens of the notice-and-takedown process on large- and small-scale copyright owners, online service providers, and the general public. The Office will also review how successfully section 512 addresses online infringement and protects against improper takedown notices,” the Copyright Office writes.

Various stakeholders, including the public, are invited to answer a wide variety of questions. How effective takedown notices are in deterring piracy, for example, how costly the process is, and whether more should be done to assure that links don’t reappear elsewhere.

The latter issue was brought to the forefront recently when Google rejected the idea to ban entire domain names from its search results, or implement a system that would prevent content from reappearing under a new URL.

The consultation also mentions the “repeat infringer” issue which is a major concern for ISPs. At the moment it’s not common for Internet providers to disconnect subscribers who repeatedly pirate content, as there’s no clear definition of what a repeat infringer is.

Demanding a tougher stance, several copyright holders argue that notices without any repercussions are not going to be very effective.

The automated takedown tools which often lead to incorrect removals are raised as well. The same is true for more serious forms of abuse, where takedown notices are used to silence critics or stifle free speech.

“Service providers and advocacy groups have raised concerns about fraudulent and abusive section 512 notices that may restrain fair use, free speech, or otherwise misuse the notice-and-takedown process,” the Copyright Office notes.

“Some of the concerns arise from takedown notices for content that appears to constitute an obvious fair use of a copyright work. Others relate to efforts to remove criticism or commentary—such as negative reviews—under the guise of copyright.”

For their part, copyright holders believe that many Internet services are simply hiding behind their safe harbor protections. A more proactive stance to deal with various forms of piracy is required, they argue.

Considering the parties involved and the stakes at hand, copyright holders, Internet services and ISPs will leave no resource untapped to have their views heard. In any event, the Copyright office will have to plow through a lot of contrasting opinions.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

BitTorrent Inc. Wants to Woo Major Brands to Boost Revenue

bittorrent-crimeAs the brains and machinery behind uTorrent and the Mainline BitTorrent clients, BitTorrent Inc. is the market leader in consumer focused, peer-to-peer file-sharing tools.

Combined, these clients enjoy around 170 million active users per month, a massive userbase that’s unrivaled in the marketplace. In total, BitTorrent Inc. serves a cool 200 million adverts to its users every single day.

But despite these impressive numbers, revenues for BitTorrent Inc. remain modest. As previously reported, the company sells its worldwide traffic for just 7 cents per 1,000 views, one of the lowest tiers in the ad industry.

While the situation is complex, one of BitTorrent Inc’s problems is how some view the company as being closely tied to piracy. For many, when people download a pirate movie or album using BitTorrent, that means that somehow BitTorrent Inc is involved, but that has parallels with holding Mozilla to account when people use Firefox for nefarious purposes.

In response, BitTorrent Inc has tried extremely hard to reposition itself not only as a software vendor but also as an artist development and promotion platform. A successful play here could help to boost those low-cent views to something carrying more value. The company hopes that a new appointment will play a part in that.

In a job listing posted a few hours ago, the San Francisco based company reveals it’s searching for a new Sales Director to drive media demand across Western Europe.

Responsible for the company’s publishing network across desktop, mobile and web-based platforms, the successful candidate will be expected to establish and develop relationships across the advertising spectrum and “grow company presence across all geos.”

But perhaps of most interest is the requirement for the individual to put in place a strategy to “optimize revenues” by getting a better return on available advertising space.

Part of that will be achieved by meeting with agencies and trading desks but the underlying strategy here is to attract reputable companies or, as BitTorrent Inc puts it, “drive demand from major brands.”

And when targeting major brands, BitTorrent Inc. wants to go straight to the top.

“Inclusive activities are meeting with all agencies for major holding companies for relevant brands, industry events, trade shows, ad clubs and social participation,” the company explains.

But while branding is an excellent way to get more for a product, it is very likely that the BitTorrent ‘brand’ will have already appeared on advertisers’ radars, and not in a good way either.

Despite the company’s efforts to distance itself from piracy, the entertainment industries are putting significant resources into ensuring that big companies do not pump money into the piracy ecosystem, whether that’s by placing ads on blatant piracy sites or via platforms that help to enable infringement.

And it’s very clear that groups such as the RIAA view BitTorrent Inc. as an enabler of such infringement. Last summer Brad Buckles, Executive Vice President of Anti-Piracy at the RIAA wrote to the company with a plea for it to get serious over piracy.

“The software client applications developed, marketed and distributed by BitTorrent Inc. facilitated approximately 75% of at least 1.6 million torrent based infringements in the United States upon which a notice was sent in 2014,” Buckles wrote.

“[If not endorsing piracy] is indeed your business philosophy, then we believe it is only right and proper for BitTorrent, Inc to take steps to reduce their facilitation of infringement.”

So the company is left with somewhat of a dilemma. Should major brand advertising be secured, that will soon appear in uTorrent alongside infringing downloads being carried out by tens of millions of users. As a result it won’t take long for the entertainment industries to pile pressure on the brands to withdraw.

On the other hand, if BitTorrent Inc implements some kind of anti-piracy system to inspire confidence with the brands, a large portion of its 170 million userbase will get very serious about moving to other platforms. That will drastically reduce both eyeballs and revenue while ensuring that current advertisers reach fewer people than they do at the moment.

There’s a tipping point in there somewhere but either way, it’s clear that whoever takes on the new role at BitTorrent Inc. will have their work cut out to bring on the brands in today’s climate.

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


Source: TorrentFreak