Month: March 2016

RuTracker Could Sue to Get New Domain, But Prefers Negotiation

rutrackerAs copyright holders try to slow the spread of copyrighted content, torrent and streaming sites are being blocked by ISPs across Europe and Russia at an alarming rate.

On the one hand this is an annoyance to site operators, who are having to adapt their operations in order to mitigate the effects of blockades. On the other, music and movie companies feel justified in taking any measures they can to protect their rights.

Somewhere in the middle lies the ordinary users who, in an effort to circumvent blockades, are ending up on copycat, clone and just plain scammy sites that are cynically cashing in on all the confusion. One site attempting to do something about this problem is Russian torrent giant RuTracker.org.

Blocked by local ISPs following escalating disputes with copyright holders, the site says that its users are falling foul to clone sites carrying out phishing and extortion-like attacks. RuTracker believes that if it obtained a recognizable URL ending in .RU, local users would be more reassured that they’re visiting the correct site.

To that end RuTracker.org has been trying to obtain RuTracker.ru, a domain currently owned by a rival torrent site.

“Blocks are not much for us to care about. Much more important for us is that users can accidentally fall on phishing sites that steal passwords,” an RuTracker representative told Izvestia.

Unlike its much larger namesake, RuTracker.ru is not currently blocked by court order and since RuTracker.org really wants an .RU domain, RuTracker.ru is the natural choice. However, the site also has aspirations of keeping the price realistic and that appears to be a stumbling block.

Izvestia managed to track down RuTracker.ru owner Oleg Volkov who told the publication he isn’t happy with the price being offered.

“From 100,000 rubles, you can start a conversation. But I’m not eager to sell it,” he said.

Indeed, less than $1,400 seems like a giveaway price, especially for a site with as many visitors as RuTracker.org. However, another issue has the potential to further complicate matters.

RuTracker.org is owned by a company called DreamTorrent Corp. and in 2012 the outfit applied for two trademarks – RuTracker and RuTrackerorg. A year later the site acquired the rights to the names.

So, in theory at least, DreamTorrent could use its grip on its trademarks to attempt to gain control of RuTracker.ru by force. However, the site has said that it does not wish to go down that route and would prefer to negotiate a fair price instead.

But while the details are being thrashed out it seems that RuTracker.org has been experiencing yet more blocking problems, this time from an unexpected direction.

According to a post by an administrator on the site’s forum, RuTracker recently began receiving reports that the site was no longer accessible to users from outside Russia from countries including Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Israel.

It transpired that RuTracker had engaged the services of an anti-DDoS company based in Russia, who had begun passing foreign traffic destined for the site through the Russian Federation. Since RuTracker is blocked by Russian ISPs, this foreign traffic also became blocked.

The problem was eventually solved but it does show how blockades can overreach and cause unintended consequences, in this case a locally-focused block extending internationally.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

Feds Bust Man For Pirating Movie Audio at Drive-In Theater

sextapeOne of the upsides of drive-in cinemas is that people are free to chat inside their cars and enjoy a movie privately.

Pirates have a big plus as well, as drive-ins make it much easier to record high quality audio. For this reason, camcorded films are often a combination of indoor video and drive-in audio.

Generally speaking it is very hard to spot someone recording an audio stream in his or her car, but a drive-in near Pittsburgh managed to track one down with help from Hollywood.

The man, Brian Ridley, allegedly recorded audio of the movies “Sex Tape,” “Planes: Fire and Rescue,” and “The Purge” during the summer of 2014.

The 38-year-old man was caught after a tip from the MPAA who asked the theater owner to look out for his license plate, and call the local police if he did.

Following a careful investigation Ridley has recently been indicted (pdf), with the Government describing him as part of a larger conspiracy to release pirated movies on the Internet.

From the indictment

movierecord

According to the indictment “the audio and video files would be sent over the Internet to a conspirator who would sync the audio and video files together,” after which, “the completed audio/video copies would be placed on the Internet for others to download.”

The other members of the conspiracy are not known, but it is likely that they are part of an established release group.

While Ridley supposedly recorded audio for multiple movies, he is only charged with unauthorized copying of the Cameron Diaz movie “Sex Tape.”

“Sex Tape” was not yet released at the time the audio was allegedly recorded. However, a pirated copy eventually appeared online at the end of July, after Ridley was caught.

During the arrest the authorities seized three SanDisk “Sansa” MP3 Recorders. These devices are typically connected to the drive-in’s audio feed, and presumably contained portions of the pirated audio.

According to court records Ridley has been released on bail and will be arraigned later this month. If found guilty, he faces a maximum prison sentence of three years for copyright infringement and five years for the conspiracy charge.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

Universal & Warner Defeated in vKontakte Piracy Battles

vkHaving run out of patience with the platform over Internet piracy, in 2014 Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music sued Russian social networking giant VKontakte.

Sony dropped out of the action during last summer after agreeing a confidential settlement with vKontakte but the Universal and Warner cases continued.

“VK’s music service, unlike others in Russia, is an unlicensed file-sharing service that is designed for copyright infringement on a large-scale,” the IFPI said at the time.

Last September both labels enjoyed a significant victory when the Saint Petersburg & Leningradsky Region Arbitration Court found that although vKontakte could not be held liable for infringement, it was obliged to implement “effective” filtering or other technology to prevent infringement of the labels’ rights.

In the Universal Music case the label had asked for 13 music tracks to be removed from vKontakte and compensation of around 15.6 million rubles ($212,900). Warner asked for the removal of 17 tracks and a compensation package worth 20.4 million rubles ($278,400).

This week, however, the celebrations were called off when the region’s Appeal Court issued judgments on March 2nd and 3rd overturning the earlier ruling which ordered vKontakte to implement anti-piracy measures. In a double blow, the Court also upheld the earlier decision that vKontakte is not liable for its users’ piracy.

“These are disappointing judgments which are out of step with rulings both in Russia and around the world, and leave Russia as one of the very few significant music markets in the world that is dominated by a single unlicensed service,” IFPI Chief Executive Frances Moore said in a statement.

Speaking with local media, vKontakte spokesperson Evgeny Krasnikov said that the company had “nailed down” its position as a “bona fide information intermediary.”

IFPI says that the labels will take both decisions to appeal.

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


Source: TorrentFreak